Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

“His Nibs says you know about this,” he said.

Greening, although he blushed easily, was otherwise totally unselfconscious. He was inclined to express himself in a curious, outdated schoolboy slang that sounded as if it had been picked up from some favourite book in childhood. Probably this habit appealed to General Liddament’s taste for a touch of the exotic in his entourage. He may even have encouraged Greening in vagaries of speech, an extension of his own Old English. The piece of paper was inscribed with the typewritten words “Major L. Finn, V.C.,” followed by the name of a Territorial regiment and a telephone number. I saw I had underrated General Liddament’s capacity for detail.

“Not much he forgets about,” said Greening, with artless curiosity. “What is it?”

A.D.C.s are a category of officer usually disparaged in Popular scrutiny of military matters. On the whole, they are no worse than most, better than many; while the job they do is the best possible training, if they are likely to rise in the world. Greening was, of course, not the sort likely to rise very far. “Just a message to be delivered in London.” Widmerpool looked up from the file in which he was writing away busily. “What is that?”

“Something for the General.”

“What are you to do?”

“Telephone this officer.”

“What officer?”

“A Major Finn.”

“And say what?”

“Give him the General’s compliments.”

“Nothing else?”

“See what he says.”

“Sounds odd.”

“That’s what the General said.”

“Let me see.”

I handed him the paper.

“Finn?” he said. “It’s a Whitehall number.”

“So I see.”

“A V.C.’

“Yes.”

“I seem to know the name — Finn. Sure I know it. When did the General tell you to do this?”

“On the last Command exercise.”

“At what moment?”

“After dinner on the last night.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He talked about Trollope — and Balzac.”

“The authors?”

I was tempted to reply, “No — the generals,” but discretion prevailed.

“You seem to be on very intimate terms with our Divisional Commander,” said Widmerpool sourly. “Well, let me tell you that you will return from leave to find a pile of work. Are you waiting for something, Greening?”

“The General bade me discourse fair words to you, sir, anent traffic circuits.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Greening. ‘That’s exactly how the General put it.”

Widmerpool did not answer. Greening went away. He was one of the most agreeable officers at those Headquarters. I never saw him much except on exercises. Towards the end of the war, I heard, in a roundabout way, that, after return to his regiment, he had been badly wounded at Anzio as a company commander and — so my informant thought — might have died in hospital.

Sullen reverberations of one kind or another — blitz in England, withdrawal in Greece — had been providing the most recent noises-off in rehearsals that never seemed to end, breeding a wish that the billed performance would at last ring up its curtain, whatever form that took. However, the date of the opening night rested in hands other than our own; meanwhile nobody could doubt that more rehearsing, plenty more rehearsing, was going to be needed for a long time to come. Although these might be dispiriting thoughts, an overwhelming sense of content descended as the train reached the outskirts of London. Spring seas had been rough the night before, the railway carriage as usual overcrowded, while we threaded a sluggish passage through blackness towards the south; from time to time entering — pausing in — then vacating — areas where air-raid warnings prevailed. Viewed from the windows of the train, the deserted highways and gutted buildings of outlying districts created to the eye the semblance of an abandoned city. Nevertheless, I felt full of hope.

London contacts had to be sorted out. A letter from Chips Lovell, received only the day before, complicated an arrangement to dine with Moreland that evening. Lovell had heard I was coming on leave, and wanted to talk about “family affairs.” That was a motive reasonable enough in principle; in practice, a disturbing phrase, when considered in relation to rumoured “trouble” with Priscilla. Lovell was a Marine. He had been commissioned into the Corps at the time of its big expansion at the beginning of ^e war, soon after this being posted to a station on the East Coast. Evidently he had moved from there, because he gave a London telephone exchange (with extension) to find him, though no indication of what his new employment might be.

First, I called up the number Greening had consigned from General Liddament. The voice of Major Finn on the line was quiet and deep, persuasive yet firm. I began to tell my story. He cut me short at once, seeming already aware what was coming, another tribute to the General’s powers of transmuting thought to action. Instructions were to report later in the day to an address in Westminster. This offered breathing space. A hundred matters of one sort or another had to be negotiated before going down to the country. After speaking with Major Finn, I rang Lovell.

“Look, Nick, I never thought you’d get in touch so soon,” he said, before there was even time to suggest anything. “Owing to a new development, I’m booked for dinner to-night — first date for months — but that makes it even more important I see you. I’m caught up in work at lunch-time — only knocking off for about twenty minutes — but we can have a drink later. Can’t we meet near wherever you’re dining, as I shan’t get away till seven at the earliest.”

“The Cafe Royal — with Hugh Moreland.”

“I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

“Hugh said he’d turn up about eight.”

It seemed required to emphasise that, if Lovell stayed too long over our drink, he would encounter Moreland. This notification was in Moreland’s interest, rather than Lovell’s. Lovell had never been worried by the former closeness of Priscilla and Moreland. Priscilla might or might not have told her husband the whole affair with Moreland had been fruitless enough, had never taken physical shape; if she had, Lovell might or might not have believed her. It was doubtful whether he greatly minded either way. I myself accepted they had never been to bed, because Moreland had told me that in one of his few rather emotional outbursts. It was because Moreland was sensitive, perhaps even touchy about such matters, that he might not want to meet Lovell. Besides, if Priscilla were now behaving in a manner to cause Lovell concern, he too might well prefer to remain unreminded of a former beau of his wife’s; a man with whom he had in any case not much in common, apart from Priscilla. This turned out to be a wrong guess on my own part. Lovell showed no sign whatever of wanting to avoid Moreland. On the contrary, he was disappointed the three of us were not all dining together that evening.

“What a relief to meet someone like Hugh Moreland again,” he said. “Pity I can’t join the party. I can assure you it would be more fun than what faces me. Anyway, I’ll go into that when we meet.”

Lovell was an odd mixture of realism and romanticism; more specifically, he was, like quite a lot of people, romantic about being a realist. If, for example, the suspicion ever crossed his mind that Priscilla had married him “on the rebound,” any possible pang would have been allayed, in his philosophy, by the thought that he had in the end himself “got the girl.” He might also have argued, of course, that the operation of the rebound is unpredictable, some people thwarted in love, shifting, bodily and totally, on to another person the whole weight of a former strong emotion. Lovell was romantic, especially, in the sense of taking things at their face value — one of the qualities that made him a good journalist. It never struck him anyone could think or do anything but the perfectly obvious. This took the practical form of disinclination to believe in the reality of any matter not of a kind to be ventilated in the press. At the same time, although incapable of seeing life from an unobvious angle, Lovell was prepared, when necessary, to vary the viewpoint — provided obviousness remained unimpeded, one kind of obviousness simply taking the place of another. This relative flexibility was owed partly to his own species of realism — when his realism, so to speak, “worked” — partly forced on him by another of his firm moral convictions: that every change which took place in life — personal — political — social — was both momentous and for ever; a system of opinion also stimulating to the practice of his profession.