Anthony Powell: Soldier's Art

The last jerky, strangled notes of the Warning, as it died away, always recalled some musical instrument inadequately mastered; General Conyers, for example, rendering Gounod or Saint-Saëns on his ’cello, or that favourite of Moreland’s (also inclined to play Saint-Saëns), the pirate-like man with an old-fashioned wooden leg and patch over one eye, who used to scrape away at a fiddle in one of the backstreets off Piccadilly Circus. Still sleepy, I began to dress in the dark, since switching on the light in the curtain-less bedroom would entail the trouble of rearranging the window’s blackout boards. Musical variations of different forms of Air-raid Warning might repay study. Where Isobel was living in the country, the vicar, as chief warden, issued the local Warning in person by telephone. Either to instil the seriousness of the notification, or because intoning came as second nature to one of his calling, he always enunciated the words imitatively, ululating his voice from high to low in paraphrase of a siren:

“… Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning … Air-raid Warning …”

Such reveries floated out of the shadows of the room, together with the hope that the Luftwaffe, bearing in mind the duration of their return journey, would not protract with too much Teutonic conscientiousness the night’s activities. To-morrow, a Command three-day exercise opened, when, so far as the Defence Platoon was concerned, sleep might be equally hard to come by. Outside in the street the air was sharp, although by now meagre signs of the spring were appearing in the surrounding countryside, the hedgeless fields partitioned one from another by tumbledown stone walls. The moonlight had to compete with a rapidly increasing range of artificial illumination that made blackout nugatory. Section posts were to be inspected in turn. The guns were already setting up a good deal of noise. Once a minute fragment of shrapnel pattered with a tinny rattle, like attack from a pea-shooter, against the metal of my helmet. The bren section at the corner of the sports field, last to be visited, had their weapon mounted for aircraft action already and revealed, rather apologetically, they had just discharged a burst.

“Got tired of hanging about watching them drop those things,” said Corporal Mantle, “so we shot down a flare, for goodness’ sake.”

His spectacles gave him a learned, scholarly air, out of keeping with such impatience and violent action. He was a young, energetic N.C.O., whose name was to go in as candidate for a commission, unless the process were thwarted by Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, recently showing signs of obstruction in that quarter.

“We’ll have to account for the rounds.”

“I’ll remember that, sir. Had a few in hand, as a matter of fact. Always just as well, in case there’s one of those snap inspections of ammo.”

A shapeless, dumpy figure in a mackintosh came towards us out of the night, the garment so long it reached almost to his heels. This turned out to be Bithel. It was impossible to guess why he should be wandering about at this hour of the night in the middle of a raid. As officer in charge of the Mobile Laundry, his duties could scarcely be required at this moment. He came close to us.

“You can’t sleep with this noise going on,” he said.

He spoke peevishly, as if remedy, easily applicable, had been for some reason disregarded by the authority responsible.

“I’ve run out of those pills of mine,” he went on. “Not even sure I’ll be able to get them any longer. Gone off the market, like so many other useful commodities these days. Thought it wiser to put on a helmet. Regulation about that anyway, I expect. I didn’t know you or any of the rest of Div. H.Q. were on duty on these occasions. Don’t Command organise the pom-poms? That’s what they’re called, I believe. Then there’s a Bofors gun. That’s ack-ack too, isn’t it? Swedish. I ought to know much more about the Royal Artillery and their functions. Don’t come your way as an infantryman, though I’ve picked up a bit since being at Div.”

He smiled uncomfortably, looking, as always, as if he expected a rebuff. Some months before, he had shaved off the untidy moustache worn when — from some forlorn hope of the Territorial Army Reserve — he had first joined our former Battalion. The physical change, more in keeping with his other natural characteristics, additionally emphasised, in a large moonlike face, the unbelievably inexpert adjustment of his false teeth. That Bithel had lasted so comparatively long in charge of the Mobile Laundry was little short of a miracle. Survival was chiefly due to the fact that this unit was attached only for purposes of administrative convenience, never officially part of the Divisional establishment, therefore liable to be removed at short notice. Accordingly, it never received quite the same disciplinary attention; and, in any case, he was lucky in having Sergeant Ablett as subordinate, who probably did most of the administration. Another reason, too, may have played a part in delaying Bithel’s dislodgement, ultimately inevitable. He was accustomed to speak enthusiastically of his own affiliations with the theatrical world, boasts reduced on closer examination to having worked as “front of House,” for a few months, at the theatre of the provincial capital where for a time he had existed precariously. The job had come to an end when that playhouse had been transformed into a cinema, but some shreds of Thespian prestige still clung to Bithel, anyway in his own eyes, so that when the officer in charge of the Mobile Bath Unit — traditional impresario of the Divisional Concert party — went sick in the middle of rehearsal, the enterprise was handed over to Bithel, who, as producer and director, mounted a very tolerable show.

All the same, ejection sooner or later could not be in doubt. Widmerpool, as D.A.A.G. conveniently placed for furthering this measure, was anxious to oust Bithel at the first opportunity; undoubtedly would have done so long before had the Laundry been of our own establishment. Widmerpool’s disapproval was not only on understandable general grounds; but, in addition, because he had — rather uncharacteristically, since usually well informed on such matters — swallowed Bithel’s intermittently propagated myth about being brother of an officer of the same name and regiment who had won a V.C. in the ’14-’18 war. There seemed no reason why even a V.C.’s younger brother should not fall short in commanding a Mobile Laundry, but for some reason, at an earlier stage, Widmerpool’s imagination had been temporarily captured by the legend, so that he felt bitterly about it when the story was shown to be patently untrue. Now, Bithel stood gazing at the bren with close attention, as if he had never before seen such a weapon.

“So far as Div. H.Q. are concerned, only the Defence Platoon stands-to when there’s a raid — one of the General’s ideas to keep everyone on their toes,” I said.

Bithel nodded gravely at this explanation of why we were on guard over the sports field. As it happened, he and I had hardly spoken since the night when, in his own phrase, he had “taken a glass too much” after traversing the gas-chamber at the Castlemallock School of Chemical Warfare. The peregrinations of the Laundry, by definition, kept its officer, a subaltern, in a state of almost permanent circuit throughout the formation’s area, while my own duties, however trivial, were too numerous and dispersed to offer much time for hobnobbing with other branches of H.Q. We had therefore done no more up to that moment than exchange an odd word together, usually as neighbours at periodical assemblies of all Headquarters officers to attend a lecture or listen to harangues delivered from time to time by the General. This was the first occasion we had met without a crowd of other people round about.