Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

He accepted a chair. His manner was kindly but cold. He did not recognise me. There was little reason why he should after nearly twenty years, when we had travelled together to London after staying with the Templers. I remembered the taxi piled high with miscellaneous luggage and sporting equipment, as our ways had parted at the station. There had been a gun-case, a cricket bat and a fishing rod; possibly two squash racquets.

“You must come and lunch with me one of these days,” he had said, giving one of his very open smiles.

He was surprisingly unchanged from that moment. A suggestion of grey threaded, here and there, neat light-coloured hair. This faint powdering of silver increased the air of distinction, even of moral superiority, which his outward appearance always conveyed. The response he offered — that he was a person of self-denying, upright life — had nearly been allowed to become tinged with a touch of self-righteousness. Any such outgrowth was kept within bounds by the soldierly spruceness of his bearing. I judged him now to be in his early fifties. Middle-age caused him to look more than ever like one’s conception of Colonel Newcome, though a more sophisticated, enterprising prototype of Thackeray’s old warrior. Sunny Farebrother could never entirely conceal his own shrewdness, however much he tried. He was a Colonel Newcome who, instead of collapsing into bankruptcy, had become, on retirement from the army, a brisk business executive; offered a seat on the East India Company’s Board, rather than mooning round the precincts of the Charterhouse. At the same time, Farebrother would certainly know the right phrase to express appreciation of any such historic buildings or sentimental memories with which he might himself have been associated. One could be sure of that. He was not a player to overlook a useful card. Above all, he bestowed around him a sense of smoothness, ineffable, unstemmable smoothness, like oil flowing ever so gently from the spout of a vessel perfectly regulated by its pourer, soft lubricating fluid, gradually, but irresistibly, spreading; and spreading, let it be said, over an unexpectedly wide, even a vast area.

“What’s your name?”

“Jenkins, sir.”

“Ah, we’ve spoken sometimes together on the telephone.”

Uniform — that of a London Territorial unit of Yeomanry cavalry — hardly changed Farebrother at all, unless to make him seem more appropriately clad. Cap, tunic, trousers, all battered and threadbare as his former civilian suits, had obviously served him well in the previous war. Frayed and shiny with age, they were far from making him look down-at-heel in any inadmissible way, their antiquity according a patina of impoverished nobility — nobility of the spirit rather than class — a gallant disregard for material things. His Sam Browne belt was limp with immemorial polishing. I recalled Peter Templer remarking that Farebrother’s D.S.O. had been “rather a good one”; of the O.B.E. next door to it, Farebrother himself had commented: “told them I should have to wear it on my backside, as the only medal I’ve ever won sitting in a chair.” Whether or not he had in fact said any such thing, except in retrospect, he was well able to look after himself and his business in that unwarlike position, however assured he might also be in combat. It was not surprising Widmerpool hated him. Leaning forward a little, puckering his face, as if even at this moment he found a sedentary attitude unsympathetic, he gazed at me suddenly as if he were dreadfully sorry about something.

“I’ve got some rather bad news for Kenneth, I’m afraid,” he said, “but I expect I’d better keep it till he returns. I’d better tell him personally. He might be hurt otherwise.”

He spoke in a tone almost of misery. I thought the point had arrived when it should be announced that we had met before. Farebrother listened, with raised eyebrows and a beaming smile, while I briefly outlined the circumstances.

“That must have been seventeen or eighteen years ago.”

“Just after I’d left school.”

“Peter Templer,” he said. “That’s a curious coincidence.”

“You’ve heard about him lately?”

“I have, as a matter of fact. Of course I often used to run across him in the City before the war.”

“He’s attached to some ministry now in an advisory capacity, isn’t he?”

“Economic Warfare,” said Farebrother.

He fixed his very honest blue eyes on me. There was something a bit odd about the look.

“He told me he wasn’t very happy where he was,” he said, “and hearing I was making a change myself, thought I might be able to help.”

I did not see quite how Farebrother could help, but assumed that might be through civilian contacts, rather than from his own military status. Farebrother seemed to decide that he wanted to change the subject from Templer’s immediate career, giving almost the impression that he felt he might himself have been indiscreet. He spoke quickly again.

“The old man died years ago, of course,” he said. “He was an old devil, if ever there was one. Devil incarnate.”

I was a little surprised to hear Farebrother describe Peter Templer’s father in such uncomplimentary terms, because, when we had met before, he had emphasised what a “fine old man” he had thought Mr. Templer; been positively sentimental about his good qualities, not to mention having contributed a laudatory footnote of personal memoir to the official obituary in The Times . I was more interested to talk of Peter than his father, but Farebrother would allow no further details.

“Said more than I should already. You surprised it out of me by mentioning the name so unexpectedly.”

“So you’re leaving Command yourself, sir?”

“As I’ve begun being indiscreet, I’ll continue on that line. I’m going to one of the cloak-and-dagger shows.”

From time to time one heard whispers of these mysterious sideshows radiating from out of the more normal activities of the Services. In a remote backwater like the Divisional Headquarters where I found myself, they were named with bated breath. Farebrother’s apparent indifference to the prospect of becoming part of something so esoteric seemed immensely detached and nonchalant.

Nevertheless, the manner in which he made this statement, in itself not in the least indiscreet, was at the same time perhaps a shade self-satisfied.

“Getting a step too,” he said. “About time at my age.”

It was all at once clear as day that one of his reasons for coming round to Div. H.Q. was to inform Widmerpool of this promotion to lieutenant-colonel. The discovery that we had known each other in the past had removed all coolness from Farebrother’s manner. Now, he seemed, for some reason, even anxious to acquire me as an ally.

“How do you get on with our friend Kenneth?” he asked. “A bit difficult at times? Don’t you find that?”

I made no effort to deny the imputation. Widmerpool was grading low in my estimation at that moment. I saw no reason to conceal hard feelings about him. Farebrother was pleased at getting this affirmative reaction.

“I’ve no objection to a fellow liking to do things his own way,” he said, “but I don’t want a scrimmage about every new Army Council Instruction as soon as it appears. Don’t you agree? In that sort of respect Kenneth doesn’t know where to stop. Not only that, I found he’s behaved rather badly behind my back with your Corps’ M.G.A.”

It was news that Widmerpool’s activities behind the scenes had taken him as far up in that hierarchy as so relatively august a personage as the Major-General in charge of Administration at Corps H.Q.

“I mention that in confidence, of course,” said Farebrother, “and for your own guidance. Kenneth can be a little thoughtless at times about his own subordinates. I daresay you’ve found that. Not that I would say a word against Kenneth as a man or a staff officer. In many ways he’s wasted in this particular job.”