Anthony Powell - Soldier's Art

“He’s leaving it.”

“He is?”

In spite of a conviction that Widmerpool’s gifts were not being given sufficient scope, Farebrother did not sound altogether pleased to hear this matter was going to be put right. He asked the question with more open curiosity than he had showed until then.

“I don’t think it’s a secret.”

“Even if it is, it will go no further with me. What’s ahead of him?”

“The Cabinet Offices, he told me, though I believe it’s not official yet.”

Farebrother whistled, one of those crude expressions of feeling he would allow himself from time to time, which seemed hardly to accord with the dignity of the rest of his demeanour. I remembered him making a similar popping sound with his lips, at the same time snapping his fingers, when some beautiful woman’s name had come into the conversation staying at the Templers’.

“ The Cabinet Offices , by God,” he said. “Has he been promoted?”

“I gather he goes there in his present rank, but thinks there’s a good chance of going up pretty soon.”

“I see.”

Farebrother showed a little relief at Widmerpool’s promotion being delayed, if only briefly. He had plainly been disturbed by what he had heard.

“The Cabinet Offices,” he repeated with emphasis. “Well, that’s very exalted. I only hope what I’ve come to tell him won’t make any difference. However, as I said before, better not refer to that until I’ve seen him.”

He shook his head. Widmerpool came back to the room at that moment. He was fidgeting with the collar of his battle-dress, always a sign he was put out. It looked as if the interview with A. & Q. had not gone too well. Seeing Farebrother sitting there was not welcome to him either.

“Oh, hallo, Sunny,” he said, without much warmth.

“I came along to bid you farewell, Kenneth, and now I hear from Nicholas you’re on the move like myself.”

Widmerpool showed a touch of surprise at Farebrother using my first name, then remembered we had formerly known each other.

“I forgot you’d both met,” he said. “Yes, I’m going. Did Nicholas tell you where?”

“Scarcely revealed anything,” said Farebrother.

Not for the first time, I noted his caution, and was grateful for it, though Widmerpool seemed to want his destination known.

“The Cabinet Offices.”

Widmerpool could not conceal his own satisfaction.

“I say, old boy.”

The comparative enthusiasm Farebrother managed to infuse into this comment was something of a masterpiece in the exercise of dissimulation.

“It will mean work, morning, noon and night,” said Widmerpool. “But there’ll undoubtedly be interesting contacts.”

“There will, old boy, I bet there will — and promotion.”

“Possibly.”

“Quite soon.”

“Oh, you never know in the bloody army,” said Widmerpool, thought of his new job inducing a better humour, marked as usual by the assumption of his hearty military manner, “but what’s happening to you, Sunny, if you say you’re going too?”

“One of these secret shows.”

“Baker Street?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Promotion too?”

Farebrother nodded modestly.

“That’s the only reason I’m taking it. Need the pay. Much rather do something straightforward, if I had the choice.”

Widmerpool could not have been pleased to hear that Farebrother was about to become a lieutenant-colonel, while he himself, however briefly, remained a major. Indeed, it probably irritated him that Farebrother should be promoted at all. At the same time, a display of self-control rare with him, he contrived to show no concern, his manner being even reasonably congratulatory. This was no doubt partly on account of the satisfactory nature of his own promised change of employment, but, as he revealed on a later occasion, also because of the low esteem in which he held the organisation which Farebrother was about to join.

“A lot of scallywags, in my opinion,” he said later.

Farebrother was certainly acute enough to survey their respective future situations from much the same point of view, that is to say appreciating the fact that, although he might himself be now ahead, Widmerpool’s potentialities for satisfying ambition must be agreed to enjoy a wider scope. Indeed, in a word or two, he openly expressed some such conclusion. Farebrother could afford this generosity, because, as it turned out, he had another trick up his sleeve. He brought this trump card out only after they had talked for a minute or two about their new jobs. Farebrother opened his attack by abruptly swinging the subject away from their own personal affairs.

“You’ve been notified Ivo Deanery’s going to get the Recce Unit?” he asked suddenly.

Widmerpool was taken aback by this question. He began to look angry again.

“Never heard of him,” he said.

The answer sounded as if it were intended chiefly to gain time.

“Recently adjutant to my Yeomen,” said Farebrother. “As lively a customer as you would meet in a day’s march. Got an M.C. in Palestine just before the war.”

Widmerpool was silent. He did not show any interest at all in Ivo Deanery’s juvenile feats of daring, whatever they might have been. I supposed he did not want to admit to Farebrother that he himself had been running a candidate for the Recce Unit’s Commanding Officer; and that candidate, from what had been said, must have been unsuccessful.

“Knew you were interested in the Recce Regiment command,” said Farebrother, speaking very casually.

“Naturally.”

“I mean specially interested.”

“There was nothing special about it,” said Widmerpool.

“Oh, I understand there was,” said Farebrother, assuming at once a puzzled expression, as if greatly worried at Widmerpool’s denial of special interest. “In fact that was the chief reason I came round to see you.”

“Look here,” said Widmerpool, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Sunny. How could you be D.A.A.G. of a formation and not take a keen interest in who’s appointed to command its units?”

He was gradually losing his temper.

“The M.G.A. thinks you were a bit too interested,” said Farebrother, speaking now with exaggerated sadness. “Old boy, there’s going to be the hell of a row. You’ve put your foot in it.”

“What do you mean?”

Widmerpool was thoroughly disturbed now, frightened enough to control his anger. Farebrother looked interrogatively at me, then his eyes travelled back to Widmerpool. He raised his eyebrows. Widmerpool shook his head vigorously.

“Say anything you like in front of him,” he said. “He knows I had a name in mind for the Recce Unit command. Nothing wrong with that. Naturally I regret my chap hasn’t got it. That’s all there is to it. What’s the M.G.A. beefing about?”

Farebrother too shook his head, but slowly and more lugubriously than ever.

“I understand from the M.G.A. that you were in touch with him personally not long ago about certain matters with which I myself was concerned.”

Widmerpool went very red.

“I think I know what you mean,” he said, “but they were just as much my concern as yours.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better form, old boy, to have mentioned to me you were going to see him?”

“I saw no cause to do so,”

Widmerpool was not at all at ease.

“Anyway,” said Farebrother mildly, “the M.G.A., rightly or wrongly, feels you misled him about various scraps of unofficial information you tendered, especially as he had no idea at the time that you were pressing in other quarters for a certain officer to be appointed to a command then still vacant.”

“How did he find that out?”