The Soldier's Art (25 page)

“I’ll come with you to the door, Sunny,” he said. “I can explain all
that business about going to the M.G.A. It wasn’t really aimed at you at all,
though now I see it must look like that.”

Farebrother turned towards me. He gave a nod.

“Good-bye, Nicholas.”

“Good-bye, sir.”

They left the room together. The situation facing Widmerpool might be
disagreeable, almost certainly was going to be. One thing at least was certain:
whomsoever he had been trying to jockey into the position of commanding the
Recce Unit would have done the job as well, if not better, than anyone else
likely to be appointed. Widmerpool’s candidate – if only for Widmerpool’s own
purposes – would, from no aspect, turn out unsuitable. If his claims were
pressed by Widmerpool, he would be a first-class officer, not a personal friend
whose competence was no more than adequate. That had to be said in fairness to
Widmerpool methods, though I had no cause to like them. So far as that went,
Farebrother’s man, Ivo Deanery, as it turned out, made a good job of the
command too. He led the Divisional Recce Corps, with a great deal of dash,
until within a few days of the German surrender; then was blown up when his
jeep drove over a landmine. However, that is equally by the way. The immediate
point was that Widmerpool, even if his machinations had not actually
transgressed beyond what were to be regarded as the frontiers of discipline,
could, at the same time, well have allowed himself liberties with the
established scope permissible to an officer of his modest rank, which, if
brought to light, would seriously affront higher authority. Probably his
original contact with the Major-General at Corps had been on the subject of a
petty contention with Farebrother; something better not arranged – certainly
better not arranged behind Farebrother’s back; at the same time trivial enough.
Widmerpool had no scruples about conduct of that sort.

“No good being too gentlemanly,” he had once said.

The next stage might be guessed. Having gained access to the M.G.A. on
this pretext, opportunity had been found to link the subject in hand with
matters relating to the Recce Unit. Possibly the M.G.A. was even glad to be provided with one
or other of those useful items of miscellaneous private information which
Widmerpool was so pre-eminent in storing up his sleeve for use at just that
sort of interview. Then, so it seemed, something had gone wrong. The M.G.A. had
allowed Farebrother to find out, or at least make a good guess, that Widmerpool
had been brewing up trouble for him. Like so many individuals who believe in
being “ungentlemanly”, Widmerpool did not allow sufficiently for the
eventuality of other people practising the same doctrine. Indeed, he used to
complain bitterly if they did. Farebrother was an example of a man equally
unprejudiced by scruple. No doubt he had pointed out to the M.G.A. that
Widmerpool’s suggested line included contrivances that, when examined in the
light of day, revealed – perhaps only to an over-fastidious sense of how things
should be done – shreds of what might be regarded as the impertinent intrigue
of a junior officer. That, at least, seemed to have been just how the M.G.A.
had seen the matter. He had become angry. Now, as Farebrother said, there was
going to be the hell of a row; this at a most awkward juncture in Widmerpool’s
career. He was evidently having a longish talk with Farebrother on the
doorstep. Before he returned Greening looked in.

“D.A.A.G. about?”

“Just gone down the stairs to have a final word with his opposite
number from Command. He’ll be back in a second.”

“His Nibs wants Major Widmerpool at once.”

“Shall I tell him?”

“I’ll wait. His Nibs is far from pleased. Absolutely cheesed off, in
fact. I don’t dare go back without my man – like the North-West Mounted Police.”

“What’s happened?”

“No idea.”

It looked as if the trouble in question was about to begin. Greening
and I had a game of noughts and crosses. Widmerpool returned. Greening
delivered his summons. Widmerpool, who was looking worried already, gave a
slight twitch, but made no comment. He and Greening went off together in the
direction of the General’s room. In the army, long tracts of time when nothing
whatever seems to happen are punctuated by sudden unexpected periods of
upheaval and change. That is traditional. We had been all at once sucked into
one of those whirlpools. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was the next person to enter
the room. This was a rare occurrence, of which the most likely implication was
that some sudden uncontrollable rage was too great to allow him to remain
inactive while Widmerpool was summoned by telephone to his own presence. He
must have come charging up the passage to prevent it boiling over without
release, thereby perhaps doing him some internal injury. However, that turned
out to be a wrong guess. The Colonel was, on the contrary, in an unusually good
humour.

“Where’s the D.A.A.G.?”

“With the Divisional Commander, sir.”

Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson took the chair on which Farebrother had been
sitting a moment before. To remain was as unexpected as arrival here. There
could be no doubt he was specially pleased about something. It might well be he
already knew Widmerpool was in hot water. He pulled at his short, bristly,
dun-coloured moustache.

“Aren’t you some sort of a literary bloke in civilian life?” he asked.

I agreed that was the case.

“The General said something of the kind the other day.”

Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson emitted that curious sound, a kind of hissing
gulp issuing from the corner of his mouth, after this comment, apparently, on this occasion, to
express the ease he himself felt in the presence of the arts.

“I once wrote rather a good parody myself,” he said.

“You did, sir?”

“On Omar Khayyám.”

I indicated respectful interest.

“Quite amusing, it was,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, without
apology.

I was about to entreat him to recite, if not all, at least a few
quatrains of what promised to be an essay in pastiche well worth hearing, when
Widmerpool’s return prevented further exploration of the Colonel’s Muse.

“Ah, Kenneth,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, assuming his most
unctuous manner, “I was hoping you would spare me a moment of your valuable
time,”

Widmerpool looked even less pleased to see Hogbourne-Johnson than at
Farebrother’s visit. He was by now showing a good deal of wear and tear from
the blows raining down on him.

“Yes, sir?” he answered tonelessly.

“Mr. Diplock …” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. “No, you need not go,
Nicholas.”

He sat on the chair banging his knees with his clenched fists, taking
his time about what he wanted to say. It looked as if he desired a witness to
be present at what was to be his humiliation of Widmerpool over the Diplock
affair. Use of my own christian name indicated an exceptionally good humour.

“Yes, sir?” repeated Widmerpool.

“I’m afraid you’re going to be proved to have made a big mistake, my
son,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

He snapped the words out like an order on the parade ground. Widmerpool
did not speak.

“Barking up the wrong tree,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.

Widmerpool pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. Even in the
despondent state to which he had been reduced, he was still capable of anger.

“You brought a series of accusations against an old and tried soldier,”
said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, “by doing so causing a great deal of
unpleasantness, administrative dislocation and unnecessary work.”

Widmerpool began to speak, but the Colonel cut him short.

“I had a long talk with Diplock yesterday,” he said, “and I am now
satisfied he can clear himself completely. With that end in view, I sanctioned
a day’s leave for him to collect certain evidences. Now, I understand you may
be leaving us?”

“I …”

Widmerpool hesitated. Then he pulled himself together.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m certainly leaving the Division.”

“Before you go,” said Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, “I consider it will be
necessary for you to make an apology.”

“I don’t yet know, sir,” said Widmerpool, “the new facts which have
come to light that should so much alter what appeared to be incontrovertible
charges. I have been with A. & Q. earlier this afternoon, who told me you
had made the arrangement you mention. He had informed the D.A.P.M., thinking
Diplock should be kept under some general supervision.”

Even though he said that in a fairly aggressive tone, Widmerpool’s
manner still gave the impression that his mind was on other things. No doubt – his
own fate in the balance – he found difficulty in concentrating on the Diplock
case. It looked as if Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, like a cat with a mouse,
wanted to play with Widmerpool for a while before releasing information,
because, instead of communicating anything he might know that had fresh bearing
on Diplock and his goings-on, he changed the subject.

“Then there’s another matter,” he said. “Certain moves made with regard
to the Reconnaissance Battalion.”

“The General has just been speaking on that subject too,” said
Widmerpool.

Hogbourne-Johnson was plainly surprised at this admission. His
expression showed he had no knowledge of the disturbance proceeding, at a
higher level than his own, on the subject of Widmerpool’s Recce Unit intrigues.

“To you?”

“Yes,” said Widmerpool bluntly. “The General told me a Major – now, of
course, Lieutenant-Colonel – Deanery has been appointed to that command.”

If he had hoped to score off Widmerpool in the Recce Unit sphere, it
seemed Hogbourne-Johnson had overreached himself. He reddened. No doubt he knew
Widmerpool had been fishing in troubled waters, but was not up to date as to
the outcome. If Widmerpool’s candidate had been turned down, so too, it now
appeared, had his own. This fact was most unacceptable to the Colonel. His
manner changed from a peculiar assertive, sneering self-assurance, to mere
everyday bad temper.

“Ivo Deanery?”                                           \

“A cavalryman.”

“That’s the one.”

“He’s got the command.”

“I see.”

For the moment, Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson had nothing to say. He was
absolutely furious, but could not very well admit he had just heard news that
showed his own secret plans, whatever they were, had miscarried. That
Widmerpool, whom he had come to harass, should be the vehicle of this
particular item of information must have been additionally galling. However,
something much worse from Hogbourne-Johnson’s point of view, also much more
dramatic, happened a second later. The door opened and Keef, the D.A.P.M., came
into the room. He was excited about something. Clearly looking for Widmerpool,
not at all expecting to find Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson there, Keef appeared
taken aback. A gnarled, foxy little man – like most D.A.P.M.s, not a particularly agreeable figure – he was generally agreed to
handle soundly his section of Military Police, always difficult personnel of
whom to be in charge. Now, he hesitated for a moment, trying to decide, so it
seemed, whether, there and then, to make some disclosure he had on his mind, or
preferably concoct an excuse, and retire until such time as he could find
Widmerpool alone. Keef must have come to the conclusion that immediate
announcement of unwelcome tidings would be best, because, straightening himself
almost to the position of attention, he addressed Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, as
if it were Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson himself he had been looking for all the
time. The reason for his momentary reluctance was revealed only too soon.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes?”

“A serious matter has come through on the telephone, sir.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Diplock’s deserted, sir.”

This message was so unexpected that Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, already
sufficiently provoked by the appointment of Ivo Deanery to the command of the
Recce Unit, could find no words at first to register the fact that he fully
comprehended what Keef had to report. The awfulness of the silence that
followed must have told on Keef’s nerves. Still standing almost to attention,
it was he who spoke first.

“Just come through, sir,” he repeated. “A. & Q. issued an order to
keep an eye on him, but it was too late. The man’s known to have made his way
across the Border. He’s in neutral territory by this time.”

To have trusted Diplock, to have stood by him when accused of
peculation, was, so far as I knew from my own experience of Colonel
Hogbourne-Johnson, the only occasion when he had ever shown a generous impulse.
Of course that was speaking from scarcely any knowledge of him at all. In
private life he may have displayed qualities concealed during this brief
observation of his professional behaviour. Even if that were not so, and he were
as un-engaging to his friends and family as to his comrades in arms, even if,
with regard to Diplock, his conduct had been dictated by egoism, prejudice,
pig-headedness, the fact remained that he had believed in Diplock, had trusted
him. He had, for example, called Widmerpool to order for describing the chief
clerk as an old woman, simply because he respected the fact that Diplock, years
before, had been awarded the Military Medal. Now he had been thoroughly let
down. The climax had not been altogether deserved. Widmerpool had been wrong
too. Diplock might be an old woman when he fiddled about with Army Forms; not
when it came to evading his desserts. Still, that was another matter. It was
Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson who had been betrayed. Possibly he felt that himself.
He rose to his feet, in doing so managing to sweep to the floor some of the
papers from the pile of documents on Widmerpool’s table. Giving a jerk of his
head to indicate Keef was to follow him, he left the room. Their steps could be
heard thudding down uncarpeted passages. Widmerpool shut the door after them.
Then he stopped and laboriously recovered several Summaries of Evidence from
the floor. Anxiety about his own future was evidently too grave to allow any
satisfaction at Hogbourne-Johnson’s discomfiture. In fact, I had not seen Widmerpool so upset, so reduced to utter despair, since the
day, long past, when he had admitted to paying for Gypsy Jones’s “operation.”