The military philosophers (2 page)

‘The Poles themselves have a joke about their generals being either social or socialist,’ said Finn. ‘Only wish it was as easy as that. I expect you’ve got the necessary stuff, Nicholas. If you feel you want to strengthen it, apply to the Country Section or our ambassador to them. This is one of Widmerpool’s committees. Have you heard of Widmerpool?’

‘Yes, sir, I —’

‘Had dealings with him?’

‘Quite often, I —’

‘Some people find him …’

Finn paused and looked grave. He must have decided to remain imprecise, because he did not finish the sentence.

‘Very active is Widmerpool,’ he went on. ‘Not everyone likes him – I mean where he is. If you’ve come across him already, you’ll know how to handle things. Have all the information at your finger tips. Plenty of notes to fall back on. We want to deliver the goods. Possibly Farebrother will be there. He has certain dealings with the Poles in these secret games that take place. Farebrother’s got great charm, I know, but you must resist it, Nicholas. Don’t let him entangle us in any of his people’s goings-on.’

‘No, sir. Of course not. Is it Colonel Widmerpool?’

‘He’s a half-colonel – Good God, I’ve been keeping Hlava waiting all this time. He must come up at once. You’d better ring David in Scotland and tell him you’re standing in for him at this Cabinet Office meeting. He may have something to add. Make a good impression, Nicholas. Show them we know our business.’

The fact was Finn was rather overawed by the thought of the Cabinet Offices. I was a little overawed myself. The warning about Farebrother, whose name I had already heard mentioned several times as a lieutenant-colonel in one of the secret organizations, expressed a principle of Finn’s, almost an obsession, that his own Section should have as distant relations as possible with any of the undercover centres of warfare. He considered, no doubt with reason, that officers concerned in normal liaison duties, if they swam, even had an occasional dip, in waters tainted by the varied and dubious currents liable to be released, sometimes rather recklessly, from such dark and mysterious sources, risked undermining confidence in themselves
vis-à-vis
the Allies with whom they daily worked. Secret machinations of the most outlandish kind might be demanded by total war; they were all the same to be avoided – from the security point of view and every other – by those doing a different sort of job. That was Finn’s view. You could take it or leave it as a theory. For his own staff, it had to be observed. All contact with clandestine bodies could not, of course, be prevented, because, where any given Ally was concerned, common areas of administration were bound to exist between routine duties and exceptional ones; for example, transfer of individual or group in circumstances when the change had to be known to the Liaison Officer. Even so, Finn’s Section saw on the whole remarkably little of those tenebrous side-turnings off the main road of military operations, and he himself would always give a glance of the deepest disapproval if he ran across any of their representatives, male or female, in uniform or
en civile,
frequenting our room, which did occasionally happen.

The meeting was to take place in one of the large buildings at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall. I had set off there the previous morning, aware of certain trepidations. After the usual security guards at the entrance, Royal Marines were on duty, either because the Ministry of Defence had been largely shaped in early days by a marine officer, because their bifarious nature was thought appropriate to inter-service affairs, or simply because a corps organized in small detachments was convenient for London. The blue uniforms and red capbands made me think of Chips Lovell.

‘I know it’s a tailor’s war,’ he had said, ‘but I can’t afford that blue get-up. They’ll have to accept me for what I am in khaki.’

I asked for Colonel Widmerpool.

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

This old-fashioned naval affirmative, recalling so many adventure stories read as a boy, increased a sensation of going between decks in a ship. I followed the marine down flight after flight of stairs. It was like the lower depths of our own building, though more spacious, less shabby. The marine, who had a streaming cold in his head, showed me into a room in the bowels of the earth, the fittings and decoration of which were also less down-at-heel than the general run of headquarters and government offices. A grave grey-haired civilian, evidently a chief clerk, was arranging papers down each side of a long table. I explained my business.

‘Colonel Widmerpool will be here shortly,’ he said. ‘He is with the Minister.’

He spoke with severity, as if some regulation had already been transgressed by too early arrival, which had made it necessary to reveal Widmerpool’s impressive engagement. I hung about. The chief clerk, like a verger distributing service papers in a cathedral before a wedding, set out a further selection of documents, adjusting them in some very exact relation to those already in the table. A naval captain and RAF wing-commander came in together, talking hard.

Ignoring the chief clerk and myself, they sat down at the far end of the long table, produced more papers from briefcases and continued their conversation. They were followed in a minute by a youngish lieutenant-colonel, with the air of a don in uniform, who this time muttered a faint ‘good morning’ in my direction, then joined the sailor and airman in whatever they were discussing. It was impossible to remain unaware of an atmosphere of exceedingly high pressure in this place, something much more concentrated, more intense, than that with which one was normally surrounded. This was not because work was unplentiful or disregarded in our own building; nor – some of it – lacking in immediacy or drama. However much those characteristics might there obtain, this ethos was something rather different. In this brightly lit dungeon lurked a sense that no one could spare a word, not a syllable, far less gesture, not of direct value in implementing the matter in hand. The power principle could almost be felt here, humming and vibrating like the drummings of the teleprinter. The sensation that resulted was oppressive, even a shade alarming. I was still kicking my heels, trying to rationalize the sense of tension, when the same marine who had escorted myself, blowing his nose hard, ushered in Sunny Farebrother.

Farebrother came through the door looking as quietly distinguished as ever. He was wearing on his threadbare tunic the badge of a parachutist. The qualification was held desirable for those who, in the course of their administrative duties, had to arrange the ‘dropping’ of others, usually into destinations of excessive danger. Its acquisition was not to be sneezed at for a man in his fifties. It bore out the rumour that Farebrother’s DSO in the previous war had been a ‘good one’. I was glad to see someone I knew already, but Farebrother’s arrival did not in other respects make the atmosphere of the room substantially more cordial; if anything, the reverse. In fact none of the people at the table even looked up. Farebrother himself was obviously on his best behaviour. He addressed himself to the other half-colonel.

‘Hullo, Reggie.’

After this ranging shot, he greeted the rest in a manner precisely to indicate appreciation that the sailor was a rung above him, the airman at the same level, both employed in other arms of the Services, therefore unlikely to have immediate bearing on his own interests and promotion. Farebrother’s capacity for conveying such subtleties of official relationship was unrivalled. On this occasion, his civilities were scarcely returned. He seemed to expect no more, accepting his status as small fry in the eyes of people such as these. The others continued their discussion. He came across to me.

‘So you’ve had a move up too, Nicholas.’

‘Not long after your own, sir.’

‘Have you taken David Pennistone’s place? I expected him to be your Section’s representative here.’

Pennistone regarded himself as rather an authority on Sunny Farebrother, often laughing about that ‘charm’ against which Finn had warned me.

‘Farebrother himself refers to it,’ Pennistone said. ‘The other day he remarked that some general had “ordered me to use my famous charm”. The extraordinary thing is that he has got a way of getting round people, in spite of boasting about it himself. He does put himself over. A remarkable fellow in his way. Ambitious as hell, stops at nothing. I always enjoy his accounts of his own small economies. “Found a place off Baker Street where you can get a three-course luncheon for three-and-six – second helpings, if you ask – a man of my build needs proper nourishment. It’s becoming hard to get nowadays, especially at a reasonable price.”‘

This taste for saving money, usually to be thought of as a trait threatening to diminish an air of distinction, never seemed to detract from Farebrother’s. His blue eyes always smiled out bravely on the world. Parsimony, like the dilapidation of his uniform, the one product of the other, positively enhanced his personality – his ‘charm’ perhaps – even when you knew he was well off. Indeed, Pennistone, like others before him, took the view that Farebrother was decidedly rich.

‘And then when he puts on his holy face and tone of voice,’ said Pennistone. ‘A sacred subject is mentioned – the Prime Minister, religion, some high decoration – Sunny sucks in his cheeks and drops his eyes.’

Farebrother pointed to the strip lighting with which the underground room was equipped.

‘Wish I could afford to install something like that in my peacetime office,’ he said. ‘What you need, if you’re going to get any work done. Can’t tell whether it’s three o’clock in the morning, or three o’clock in the afternoon. No disturbance from time. I expect you know we’re going to meet an old friend here this morning?’

‘Kenneth Widmerpool?’

Farebrother laughed. Concealing as a rule his likes and dislikes about most people, he scarcely attempted to hide his hatred of Widmerpool, whom it must have been galling to find once more his equal in rank, after temporarily outstripping him; not to mention the fact that Widmerpool’s appointment was of such undeniably superior standing to Farebrother’s.

‘Oh, Kenneth, of course,’ he said. ‘No, I didn’t mean him. This is certainly Kenneth’s bower, a very cosy one, don’t you think? No – Peter Templer. I was talking to him yesterday about some matter in which his Ministry was concerned, and he told me the usual man’s sick and he himself would be representing Economic Warfare here this morning.’

Templer came into the room at that moment, followed by another civilian. Sir Magnus Donners – who continued to hold his place in the Cabinet, in spite of a concerted attack for several months from certain sections of the Press – had probably had some hand in finding this job for him in MEW. Catching sight of me, Templer nodded and gave a slight smile, but did not come over and speak. Instead, he sat down with the party at the table, where he too began to produce papers. He seemed to know them all.

‘I must have a word with Peter,’ said Farebrother.

He went across to Templer and said something. At Stourwater, where I had last seen him, I had been struck by a hardness, even brutality of expression that had changed someone I had once known well. That look had seemed new to Templer, perhaps to be attributed to lack of concord with his second wife, Betty, then showing herself an unassimilable member of Sir Magnus’s houseparty; indeed, so near the borderline of sanity that it seemed unwise ever to have brought her into those formidable surroundings. Templer had not lost this rather grim appearance. If anything, it had increased. He was thinner, more resembling himself in his younger days in that respect. To go through his papers he had put on spectacles, which I had never before seen him wear. While I was wondering whether I too ought to go and sit at the table, Widmerpool himself entered the room.

‘My apologies, gentlemen.’

Holding up a sheaf of documents in both hands, at the same time making peculiar movements with his head and arms in the direction of the small crowd awaiting him, he looked very pleased with himself; like a dog delighted to show ability in carrying a newspaper in his mouth.

‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I was kept by the Minister. He absolutely refused to let me go.’

Grinning at them all through his thick lenses, his tone suggested the Minister’s insistence had bordered on sexual importunity.

‘Let us be seated.’

Everyone except Farebrother and myself was already sitting down. Widmerpool turned towards me, somewhat abating the geniality of his manner.

‘I was not informed by Finn that you were coming here in Pennistone’s place, Nicholas. He should have done so.’

‘I have the necessary stuff here.’

‘I hope you have. Finn is rather slack about such notifications. There are security considerations here of which he may not appreciate the complexity. However, let us begin. This Polish business should not take too long. We must be brisk, as a great many more important matters have to be got through this morning.’

The other civilian, who had entered the room with Templer, turned out to be the Foreign Office representative on this particular committee, a big fat man with a small mouth and petulant manner. He had brought a paper with him which he now read aloud in the tone of one offering up an introductory prayer. There was some general talk, when he had finished, of Pilsudski’s
coup d’état
of 1926, from which so many subsequent Polish complications of political relationship had arisen. I consulted my notes.

‘The broad outline is that those senior officers who stem from the Carpathian Brigade of Legions tend to be nationalist and relatively right-wing, in contrast with those of the First Brigade – under Pilsudski himself and Sosnokowski –  on the whole leftish in outlook.’

‘The First Brigade always regarded itself as the
élite,’
said Widmerpool.

He had evidently read the subject up, at least familiarized himself with its salient points. Probably the knowledge was fairly thorough, as his capacity for work was enormous.

‘General Sikorski himself was entirely eclipsed after the coup. Henceforth he lived largely abroad. Since taking over, he has shown himself very reasonable, even well disposed, towards most of his former political opponents.’