The military philosophers (22 page)

On the way to Brussels we passed a small cart pulled by a muscular-looking dog.

‘Once you would have seen that in my country,’ said Hlava. ‘Now our standards have risen. Dogs no longer work.’

‘That one seems positively to like it’

This particular dog was making a great parade of how well he was accomplishing his task.

‘Dogs are so ambitious,’ agreed Hlava.

‘The Field-Marshal’s dogs seemed so. Do you suppose they were pressing for promotion?’

‘A great man, I think,’ said Hlava.

I tried to reduce to viable terms impressions of this slight, very exterior contact. On the one hand, there had been hardly a trace of the almost overpowering physical impact of the CIGS, that curious electric awareness felt down to the tips of one’s fingers of a given presence imparting a sense of stimulation, also the consoling thought that someone of the sort was at the top. On the other hand, the Field-Marshal’s outward personality offered what was perhaps even less usual, will-power, not so much natural, as developed to altogether exceptional lengths. No doubt there had been a generous basic endowment, but of not the essentially magnetic quality. In short, the will here might even be more effective from being less dramatic. It was an immense, wiry, calculated, insistent hardness, rather than a force like champagne bursting from the bottle. Observed in tranquillity, the former combination of qualities was not, within the terms of reference, particularly uplifting or agreeable, except again in the manner their synthesis seemed to offer dependability in utter self-reliance and resilience. One felt that a great deal of time and trouble, even intellectual effort of its own sort, had gone into producing this final result.

The eyes were deepset and icy cold. You thought at once of an animal, though a creature not at all in the stylized manner of the two colonels at my Divisional Headquarters, reminiscent respectively of the dog-faced and bird-faced Egyptian deities. No such artificial formality shaped these features, and to say, for example, they resembled those of a fox or ferret would be to imply a disparagement not at all sought. Did the features, in fact, suggest some mythical beast, say one of those encountered in
Alice in Wonderland
, full of awkward questions and downright statements? This sense, that here was perhaps a personage from an imaginary world, was oddly sustained by the voice. It was essentially an army voice, but precise, controlled, almost mincing, when not uttering some awful warning, as to Gauthier de Graef. There was a faint and faraway reminder of the clergy, too; parsonic, yet not in the least numinous, the tone of the incumbent ruthlessly dedicated to his parish, rather than the hierophant celebrating divine mysteries. At the same time, one guessed this parish priest regarded himself as in a high class of hierophancy too, whatever others might think.

From the very beginnings of his fame, the Field-Marshal had never ignored Chips Lovell’s often repeated reminder that it was a tailor’s war. The new spruceness that had now taken the place of the conscious informality of ready-to- hand garments appropriate to desert warfare – to the confusion of those military attachés obliged hurriedly to tuck up their pullovers – was clearly conceived at the same time to avoid any resemblance to the buttoned-up army officer of caricature. It lacked too, probably also deliberately, the lounging smartness of which, for example, Dicky Umfraville, or even in his own fashion, Sunny Farebrother, knew the secret. The Field-Marshal’s turn-out had to be admitted to fall short of any such elegance. Correct: neat: practical: unpompous: all that to perfection. Elegant, he was not. Why should he be? It was wholly unnecessary, probably a positive handicap in terms of personal propaganda. Besides, will-power exercised unrelentingly over a lifetime – as opposed to its display in brilliant flashes – is apt on the whole to be the enemy of elegance. One only had to think of the Dictators to see that. Few of the Great Captains of history, with the possible exception of Wellington, had shown themselves particularly elegant in victory; though there, of course, one moved into the world of moral elegance, and, in any case, victory was not yet finally attained.

The cock-sparrow captain, major-domo to VTPs, handed over the brandy bottles in a neat parcel when we arrived back at billets.

‘A chap from Civil Affairs was asking for you. I told him when your party was expected back. He said he’d look in again.’

‘What name?’

‘Duport – a captain. He talked about getting you out for a drink.’

I was off duty that night. Although I had never much liked Duport, an evening together, if he were free, would be better than one spent alone. If he were in Civil Affairs, it was possible that his branch had received an official notification of our being in Brussels and he wanted to discuss some Belgian matter. It could hardly be mere friendliness, as we scarcely knew each other. I asked where was a good place to go.

‘The big brasserie on the corner’s not too bad. You’ll find all ranks there, but not many senior officers. If you’re like me, and see a lot of them, that’s a bit of a holiday. What’s the food like in England now? Custard on everything when I was last on leave.’

Duport turned up later. I had not seen him since the Bellevue. His reddish hair receded from the forehead, getting grey by the ears. He looked tired, perceptibly older. Like Pennistone, he carried a General Service lion-and- unicorn in his cap, and had changed into service-dress. Uniform did not suit him. Instead of building him up, it diminished the aggressive energy his civilian appearance had always indicated. This lessening of aggression was also signified by a more subdued manner. The war had undoubtedly quieted Duport down.

‘I saw your name as Belgian Liaison Officer in London on some document passed to us,’ he said. ‘Then found you were personally conducting this flight of swans. We run here parallel in a curious way with Army Group, and there are one or two things that could be straightened out if we had a talk. The usual stuff, Leopold’s marriage, the Resistance lads. When do you go back?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Then if we had a talk tonight we could straighten out some points about policy. We’re very full of work at the moment, as I expect you are too.’

This was a rather different tone from the Duport of former days. We went to the recommended brasserie, as he had no better suggestion. He seemed to have lost some of his old interest in material things. For a time we talked Belgian affairs. Dupont knew all about Kucherman, but had not met him.

‘He’s one of the ablest blokes they’ve got,’ he said. ‘However let’s give the subject a rest now. You were cremating your uncle when we last met.’

‘How did you come to join the army? At the Bellevue you were talking of sweating it out in South America, if war came.’

‘South America wasn’t on. As you know I was on my uppers at that moment. Then I got a chance of going to Egypt for a firm that wanted to wind up one of their branches there. Donners had an interest and managed to get me out. Getting back was another matter. The chance of a commission turned up. I took it. Wanted to get into one of the secret shows, but didn’t bring it off. I was in the Censorship for a time. Not much to be recommended. Then I had a bad go of Gyppy tummy – with complications. That was what ultimately brought me back to Europe and the mob I now belong to.’

‘You haven’t seen anything of Peter Templer, have you? Donners was helping to fix him up too – something in the cloak-and-dagger line – but I haven’t heard what came of it.’

Duport finished his glass.

‘Peter’s had it,’ he said.

‘Do you mean he’s been killed?’

‘Gone for a Burton.’

‘On a secret operation?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose nobody knows more than that?’

Duport hesitated.

‘It never struck me you wouldn’t have heard about Peter,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of talk about it all in Cairo – not the best security imaginable, but then Cairo is not a place for the best security. There was certainly a lot of talk.’

‘What happened?’

‘I daresay Peter’s still officially described as missing, but everyone in the know is aware he’s dead, even though the details vary. One story was he was murdered by his wireless operator for the money he had on him, but I happen to know that isn’t true. We’ll go to another place for the next round.’

We left the brasserie and found a café. It was less crowded.

‘Does Prince Theodoric mean anything to you?’ asked Duport.

‘He’s done business with our Section once or twice, but not recently – and of course not on the secret operations level.’

‘You knew Peter was involved in that quarter?’

‘More or less.’

‘I always have a fellow feeling for the Prince, though we’ve never met,’ said Duport. ‘He and I always seem to be screwing the same ladies. Bijou Ardglas, for example, now, poor girl, in the arms of Jesus. Have you heard of a young woman called Pamela Flitton?’

‘Volumes.’

‘You know she was the main cause of Peter’s trouble?’

‘I was told that – but people don’t go and get killed because a piece like that won’t sleep with them.’

‘Well, not exactly, I agree,’ said Duport. ‘It was more Peter felt he was slowing up, as I see it. The point is that it all builds up round Theodoric. As you know the good Prince’s realm is internally divided as to how best repel the invader. One lot wants one thing, the other, another. Peter went in with the Prince’s gang.’

‘Was someone called Odo Stevens mixed up in all this?’

‘I thought you said you didn’t deal with the cloak-and-dagger boys?’

‘Something Stevens said off the record.’

‘You know him? Young Stevens was a bit too fond of making statements off the record.’

‘I was on a course with him earlier in the war. Then he was mixed up with a girl I knew, now deceased.’

‘Odo the Stoat we used to call him. These boys make me feel my age. That’s what got Peter down.’

‘Is Stevens missing too?’

‘Not he. I met him in Cairo after they’d got him out.’

‘Why didn’t they get Peter out too?’

Duport gave one of his hard unfriendly laughs.

‘There are those in Cairo who allege proper arrangements were never made to get Peter out. At least they were planned, but never put into operation. That’s what’s said. These things happen sometimes, you know. Little interdepartmental differences. Change of policy at the top. There was a man with an unpronouncable name mixed up with it all too. I don’t know which side he was on.’

‘Szymanski?’

‘Why do you ask about things when you know the whole story already? Are you from MI5? An agent provocateur, just trying to see what you can get out of me, then shop me for bad security? That’s what it sounds like.’

‘Was Szymanski with Templer or Stevens?’

‘So far as I know, on his own. Not sure it was even ourselves who sent him in. Might have been his own people, whoever they were. He went there in the first instance to knock off someone – the head of the Gestapo or a local traitor. I don’t know. It was all lined up, then a signal came down from the top – from the Old Man himself, they say – that war wasn’t waged in that manner in his opinion. All that trouble for nothing – but I understand they got Szymanski out. A chap in the Cairo racket told me all this. He was fed up with the way that particular party was run. It came out I’d been Peter’s brother-in-law in days gone by, so I suppose he thought, as a former relation, I’d a right to know why he’d kicked the bucket.’

‘And you really think Pamela Flitton caused this?’

‘I only stuffed her once,’ said Duport. ‘Against a shed in the back parts of Cairo airport, but even then I could see she might drive you round the bend, if she really decided to. I’ll tell you something amusing. You remember that bugger Widmerpool, who’d got me into such a jam about chromite when we last met?’

‘He’s a full colonel now.’

‘He was in Cairo at one moment and took Miss Pamela to a nightclub.’

‘Rumours of that even reached England.’

‘That girl gets a hold on people,’ said Duport. ‘Sad about Peter, but there it is. The great thing is he didn’t fall into the hands of the Gestapo, as another friend of mine did. Pity you’re going back tomorrow. We might have gone to the Opera together.’

‘Didn’t know music was one of your things.’

‘Always liked it. One of the reasons my former wife and I never really hit it off was because Jean only knew
God Save the King
because everyone stood up. I was always sneaking off to concerts. They put on
La Muette de Portici
here to celebrate the liberation. Not very polite to the Dutch, as when it was first performed, the Belgians were so excited by it, they kicked the Hollanders out. I’m not all that keen on Auber myself, as it happens, but I’ve met a lot of dumb girls, so I’ve been to hear it several times to remind myself of them.’

This revelation of Duport’s musical leanings showed how, as ever, people can always produce something unexpected about themselves. In the opposite direction, Kernével was equally unforeseen, on my return, in the lack of interest he showed in Cabourg and its associations with Proust. He knew the name of the novelist, but it aroused no curiosity whatever.

‘Doesn’t he always write about society people?’ was Kernével’s chilly comment.

I told Pennistone about Prasad, Asbjornsen and the bath.

‘Prasad merely turned the taps on at the hour of prayer. It was perfectly right that he should have the bathroom. Finn should have arranged that through you in the first instance.’

‘I see.’

‘Thank God Finn’s back, and I shall no longer have to deal directly with that spotty Brigadier who always wants to alter what is brought to him to sign. I have had to point out on three occasions that his emendations contradict himself in a higher unity.’

A day or two after our return, Kucherman telephoned early. It was a Friday.

‘Can you come round here at once?’

‘Of course. I thought you were still in Brussels.’

‘I flew in last night.’

When I reached Eaton Square, Kucherman, unusual for him, was looking a little worried.