The military philosophers (7 page)

If Farebrother hoped to prolong this interlude with Prince Theodoric by bringing me in, he underrated Finn’s capacity for action. The delaying tactic failed entirely. Finn somehow managed to get behind Farebrother, and, with surprising adroitness, propelled him forward into the room, the door of which was immediately closed.

‘Then I shall hear from you, Colonel Farebrother?’ Theodoric called.

He had shown every sign of being inquisitive about whatever Farebrother had to offer, but now it was clearly too late to go into matters further. He turned and smiled at me a little uncomprehendingly. We set off together in the direction of the front staircase.

‘Your car’s at the main entrance, sir?’

‘Car? Not a bit of it. I walk.’

It seemed wiser not to refer to the party given by Mrs Andriadis more than a dozen years before, where I had in fact first set eyes on Theodoric, but I mentioned my presentation to him when he had been staying with Sir Magnus Donners at Stourwater, and the Walpole-Wilsons had taken me over to luncheon there. According to Pennistone, Mrs Andriadis herself was living in one room in Bloomsbury, drinking and drugging heavily. Later, one heard, she occupied herself with making propaganda for the so-called ‘Second Front’.

‘By Jove, those were the days,’ said Theodoric. ‘We didn’t know how lucky we were. Will you believe me, Captain Jenkins, I had at that time only been shot at twice in my life, on each occasion by certified lunatics? And then, of course, marriage makes one more serious. We have become middle-aged, my dear Captain, we have become middle-aged.’

He sighed.

‘I saw Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson the other day,’ he went on. ‘Of course he is getting on now, older even than ourselves. We discussed a lot of matters – as you remember, he was formerly your country’s minister plenipotentiary to my own. Now he stands well to the left politically. I have certain leanings that way myself, but not as far as Sir Gavin. One must not remain embedded in the past, but Sir Gavin does not always understand our difficulties and the ruthless methods of a certain Ally. There are plenty of good young men in my country who want to get rid of the Germans. There are also men not equally good there who play another part – not all of them our own countrymen.’

Theodoric spoke with great earnestness. It was clear he considered not only people like Finn and Farebrother, but even those of my own rank worth sweeping in as supporters of whatever policy he represented.

‘In knowing Sir Magnus Donners,’ he said, ‘I am particularly fortunate. He is personally conversant with our industrial problems, also – perhaps I should not say this –  has the ear of a Very Important Person. If something is to be done, Sir Magnus is the man to do it. I need not tell you that I have had more than one long and interesting talk with him. He says we must wait.’

Theodoric stopped on the way down the marble stairs, where the flights divided, left and right, under the elaborately gilded wall-clock and bronze bust of Kitchener. His tone suggested my views on the matter were scarcely less important than those of Sir Magnus. In terms of propaganda, that was an effective technique. The persuasiveness of the Prince was something to be reckoned with. This characteristic could have direct bearing on the fate of his country.

‘I shall continue to put our case,’ he said.

By now he had reached the great hall. Vavassor, the porter, an attendant spirit of some importance in the Section’s background, was standing by the door. It was commonly Vavassor’s duty to give warning to Finn of the arrival of callers belonging to the higher echelons, some of whom were capable of turning up without previous appointment, and demanding an interview on the spot. Vavassor could hold them in check; in extreme cases, turn them away. He was also, in this office of guarding the door, a key figure in the lives of Pennistone and myself, on account of frequent association with Allied comings and goings, raising no difficulties about our using the main entrance –  superstitiously, though uncategorically, apprehended as prerogative of officers of the rank of brigadier and above –  when we arrived for duty in the morning. This not only saved several yards of pavement, but, more important, meant avoidance of the teeming mob at the staff entrance. It was a good opening to the day’s work. Vavassor saluted Theodoric.

‘No fire?’ said the Prince.

‘Don’t let us have any coal when the weather’s short of freezing,’ said Vavassor. ‘That grate takes the best part of a hundredweight a day, it’s the truth. Wasn’t made for rationing.’

He pointed to the huge fireplace. One supposed that at a certain level of rank – say, lieutenant-general – he called officers ‘sir’, though I had never heard him do so. In any case it was a formality he always considered inappropriate for foreigners, royal or otherwise.

‘When I wait to be summoned by Colonel Finn and warm myself beside the fire,’ said Theodoric, ‘I always feel like St Peter.’

‘I hope you won’t cut off any ears, sir, when delay has been intolerably long.’

‘How reassuring, Captain Jenkins, that your General Staff are brought up on the Scriptures. They are the foundation of knowledge. Now I must say goodbye. Tell Colonel Finn I will check the figures I gave him – persuade him, something I think he is rather nervous about, that I will not involve him in any matter of which he might disapprove.’

Theodoric laughed. He had evidently summed up Finn correctly. I remembered Sillery (who had recently written a long letter to
The Times
in praise of Stalin’s declared war aims) speaking of the shrewdness Theodoric inherited from ‘that touch of Coburg blood’, adding with characteristic malice, ‘though I suppose one should not hint at that.’ I saw the Prince down the steps. He waved his hand, and set off at a sharp pace in the direction of Trafalgar Square. I returned under the high portal.

‘Prince, is he?’ asked Vavassor. ‘That’s what he calls himself when he arrives.’

‘That’s what he is.’

‘Allied or Neutral?’

‘So far as he himself is concerned, Allied.’

‘See ’em all down here if you wait long enough.’

‘I bet you do.’

‘I suppose some of ’em help to win the war.*

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘Not too good in the Far East at the moment of speaking.’

‘Ever serve there?’

‘Eight years to a day.’

‘Things may pick up.’

‘I worry too much,’ said Vavassor. ‘Shakespeare’s dying words.’

His attention, my own too, was at that moment unequivocally demanded by the hurricane-like imminence of a thickset general, obviously of high rank, wearing enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. He had just burst from a flagged staff-car almost before it had drawn up by the kerb.

Now he tore up the steps of the building at the charge, exploding through the inner door into the hall. An extraordinary current of physical energy, almost of electricity, suddenly pervaded the place. I could feel it stabbing through me. This was the CIGS. His quite remarkable and palpable extension of personality, in its effect on others, I had noticed not long before, out in the open. Coming down Sackville Street, I had all at once been made aware of something that required attention on the far pavement and saw him pounding along. I saluted at admittedly longish range. The salute was returned. Turning my head to watch his progress, I then had proof of being not alone in acting as a kind of receiving-station for such rays – which had, morally speaking, been observable, on his appointment to the top post, down as low as platoon commander. On this Sackville Street occasion, an officer a hundred yards or more ahead, had his nose glued to the window of a bookshop. As the CIGS passed (whom he might well have missed in his concentration on the contents of the window), this officer suddenly swivelled a complete about-turn, saluting too. No doubt he had seen the reflection in the plate glass. All the same, in its own particular genre, the incident gave the outward appearance of exceptional magnetic impact. That some such impact existed, was confirmed by this closer conjunction in the great hall. Vavassor, momentarily overawed – there could be no doubt of it –  came to attention and saluted with much more empressement than usual. Having no cap, I merely came to attention. The CIGS glanced for a split second, as if summarizing all the facts of one’s life.

‘Good morning.’

It was a terrific volume of sound, an absolute bellow, at the same time quite effortless. A moment later, he was on the landing halfway up the stairs, where Theodoric had paused. Then he disappeared from sight. Vavassor grinned and nodded. He was without comment for once. I left him to his reflections about the Far East, hurrying myself now, again in the hope of catching Finn, quickly passing Kitchener’s cold and angry eyes, haunting and haunted, surveying with the deepest disapproval all who came that way. Finn was free. He made no reference to Farebrother.

‘You’ll have to be quick, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘Asbjornsen’s due at any moment, but he’s sometimes a second or two late. Now what about Q (Ops.)?’

He had quite set aside his deafness. I ran over the points at speed. Finn made some notes, collating the information with whatever material had emerged from his session with our own General. He was now quite recovered from the phase, reported by Pennistone, of feeling the only hope of getting the thing properly done would be to fly to Persia and himself arrange it singlehanded.

‘The civilian elements are now definitely coming out, sir?’

‘Anders insisted – no doubt rightly – but the women and children will not make the operation any easier.’

There had been controversy about these camp-followers who had managed to exist in the wake of the army, largely on its shared rations. At first it had seemed they might have to stay behind.

‘Some of the boys are old enough to be trained as cadets. The CIGS himself noted that point on the paper with approval.’

Finn’s telephone bell rang.

‘Ask him to come up,’ he said. ‘It’s Asbjornsen. We’ll return to the evacuation later, Nicholas. I shall have to keep Asbjornsen from talking too much, as Colonel Chu is due in less than twenty minutes. Did I tell you Chu’s latest after his six months’ course at Sandhurst?’

The Chinese military attaché, well known for the demanding nature of his requests, had just completed an attachment as cadet to the Royal Military College.

‘Chu enjoyed the RMC so much he wants to go to Eton.’

‘He could see Windsor Castle at the same time, though the state apartments are probably not open.’

‘Good God,’ said Finn. ‘He doesn’t just want to visit the place – he hopes to attend the school as a pupil.’

‘He’s a shade old, sir.’

‘I told him thirty-eight is regarded as too mature in this country to be still at school. It was no good. All he said was “I can make myself young.”

Finn sighed.

‘I wish I could,’ he said.

Sometimes the military attachés dispirited him. Chu’s unreasonableness seemed to have achieved that. General Asbjornsen arrived in the room. Tall, like General Lebedev, not much given to laughter, he always reminded me of Monsieur Ørn, the long craggy Norwegian, who had been at La Grenadière when, as a boy, I had stayed with the Leroys in Touraine. He shook hands with Finn and myself gravely. I withdrew to our room. Corporal Curtis had again increased the pile of stuff on the desk. I was still going through this when Pennistone returned from the Titian.

‘What on earth were you about, David, minuting Blackhead
please amplify
?’

‘Has it upset him?’

‘Beyond description.’

‘Good.’

‘What were your reasons?’

‘Renan says complication is anterior to simplicity. I thought Blackhead would make an interesting experiment for trying out that theory.’

‘We can only pray Renan was right.’

‘Renan would find prayer charming, but ineffectual. Did you see Q (Ops.)?’

Pennistone went through the points I had cleared with Finn.

‘Look,
Nick,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be able to collect the Klnisaszewski Report tomorrow afternoon, as there’s another meeting about the evacuation. Will you get it? Nothing whatever required, except to receive it from the Polish officer on duty.’

The Klnisaszewski Report was one of those items of Intelligence that fell, as such items sometimes do, in a no-man’s-land between normal official channels and those secret services so cautiously handled by Finn. Even Finn saw no harm in our trafficking in this particular exchange of information, which the Operational and ‘Country’ sections liked to see. For some internal reason, the Polish branch concerned preferred to hand over the report direct, rather than present it, in the normal manner, through the Second Bureau of their GHQ. Pennistone, as it happened, always collected the Klnisaszewski Report, though merely, in the division of our duties, because he had fallen into the habit of doing so.

‘Here’s the address,’ he said. ‘It’s the north side of the Park. We might discuss some of these evacuation points further at lunch.’

The following day I arranged to collect the report in the afternoon. When I went down to the staff entrance and shouted for our driver, the white-faced girl commended by Borrit again appeared from behind the screen. She was as sulky as ever. The Section’s car was just large enough to hold four persons in great discomfort. If you were the only passenger, you could travel at the back or beside the driver, according to whim. I told her the street number and sat in front.

‘Can you find your way there?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know London pretty well?’

She hardly answered. After a few minutes beside her, it was clear this AT possessed in a high degree that power which all women – some men – command to a greater or lesser extent when in the mood, of projecting round them a sense of vast resentment. The girl driving, I noticed, was able to do this with quite superlative effect. Her rankling animosity against the world in general was discharged with adamantine force, comparable with Audrey Maclintick’s ill humours when her husband was alive, or Anne Stepney’s intimations of rebellion before she had shaken off the trammels of family life. However, those two, although not without their admirers, were hardly in the same class as this girl when it came to looks. Borrit had been right in marking her down. She was very striking. All the same, after another remark received with little or no response, I gave up further talk. Perhaps she had a grievance or the curse. These drivers usually only did duty for a week or two and at the moment inducement was lacking to coax her out of that mood. It occurred to me – one never feels older than in the middle thirties – that she was bored with all but young men or had taken an instantaneous dislike to me. Conversation lapsed. Then, while driving through Hyde Park, she suddenly spoke of her own accord, though even then in a way to suggest that speech was a painful effort to her, every word so far as possible to be conserved.