“I must confess that I was a bit gravelled for conversational matter with De Mandeville. ‘I’ll take you to meet H.E. at eleven,’ I said huskily, ‘if you would like time for a rest and a wash. You will be staying a night or two in the Residence until your flat is ready.’
“‘Anything you say, darling boy,’ he responded, obviously determined to be as agreeable as he knew how. In my mind’s eye I could see Angela weeping hot salt tears into her pillow after her first meeting with De Mandeville. It was just another of Personnel’s stately little miscalculations. However, I held my peace and duly presented him all round. His interview with Polk-Mowbray lasted about fifteen seconds. Then my telephone rang: Polk-Mowbray sounded incoherent. It is clear that he had received a Mortal Blow. ‘This ghastly fellow,’ he spluttered. I tried to soothe him. ‘And above all,’ said Polk-Mowbray, ‘impress on him that no Ambassador can tolerate being addressed as “darling boy” by his Third Secretary.’ I told De Mandeville this with a good deal of force. He curled his lip sadly and picked his nose. ‘Now you’ve hurt little Aubrey,’ he said reproachfully. ‘However,’ and he drew himself together adding: ‘Little Aubrey mustn’t pout.’ You can imagine, old boy, how I felt.
“De Mandeville’s job as Third Secretary was largely social, looking after appointments and visitors and arranging placements. I could not help trembling for Polk-Mowbray. The new Third Secretary would sit there at his desk taking snuff out of a gold-chased snuff-box and reading despatches through a huge magnifying glass. He was a numéro all right.
“His first act was to paint his flat peacock blue and light it with Chinese lanterns. He and the chauffeur used to sit about in Russian shirts under a sun-lamp playing nap or manicuring their nails. Angela went steadily into a decline. Once when he was an hour late for dinner at the Embassy he excused himself by saying that he had gone upstairs to change his rings and had been simply unable to decide which to wear. He used to have his hair waved and set every month, and made the mistake of going to a Serbian hairdresser to have it done. You know how game the Serbs are, old man? Terribly willing. Will always do their best. They waved De Mandeville’s hair into the crispest bunch of curls you are ever likely to see outside Cruft’s. It was ghastly. Polk-Mowbray was almost beside himself. He wrote a long offensive letter to Personnel accusing them of sending out a steady stream of female impersonators to foreign posts and smirching the British name, etc.
“De Mandeville himself seemed impervious to criticism. He just pouted. So long as he confined his social activities to his own sphere he was not dangerous. But as time went on he found the diplomatic round rather boring and decided to take the Embassy in hand. His placements became more vivid. He also began a series of ill-judged experiments with the Residency Menus. Some of the more nauseating local edibles found their way on to the Embassy sideboards under stupefying French names. I remember a dinner at which those disgusting Dalmatian sea slugs were served, labelled ‘Slugs Japonaises au Gratin’. The naval attaché went down after this meal with a prolonged nervous gastritis. A Stop Had To Be Put to De Mandeville; of course by now Polk-Mowbray was working night and day to have him replaced — but these things take time.
“Meanwhile the Third Secretary swam in the diplomatic pool in a hair net, took a couple of Siamese kittens for walks with him on a lead, and smoked cigarettes in a holder so long that it was always catching in things.
“His final feat of placement—he was dealing with central European Politburo members of equal rank — was to have the Embassy dining-table cut in half and a half-moon scooped out of each end. When it was fitted together again there was a hole in the middle for H.E. to sit in while his guests sat round the outer circle. Polk-Mowbray was furious. He suffers terribly from claustrophobia and to be hemmed in by this unbroken circle of ape-like faces was almost more than flesh and blood could stand.
“On another occasion De Mandeville dressed all the waiters in Roman togas with laurel wreaths: this was to honour the twenty-first birthday of the Italian Ambassador’s daughter. On the stroke of midnight he arranged for a flock of white doves to be released — he had hidden them behind screens. Well, this would have been all right except for one Unforeseen Contingency. The doves flew up as arranged and we were all admiration at the spectacle. But the poor creatures took fright at the lights and the clapping and their stomachs went out of order. They flew dispiritedly round and round the room involuntarily bestowing the Order of the Drain Second Class on us all. You can imagine the scene. It took ages to shoo them through the french windows into the garden. The Roman waiters had to come on with bowls and sponges and remove the rather unorthodox decorations we all appeared to be wearing.
“But the absolute comble was when, without warning anyone, he announced that there would be a short cabaret to amuse the Corps at a reception in honour of Sir Claud Huft, the then Minister of State. The cabaret consisted of De Mandeville and his chauffeur dressed as Snow Maidens. They performed a curious and in some ways rather spirited dance ending in an abandoned can-can. It was met with wild applause: but not from Polk-Mowbray as you can imagine. He found the whole episode Distasteful and Unacceptable. De Mandeville left us complete with pigskin suitcases, flute-case, and chauffeur in the Great Rolls. We were all quite dry-eyed at the leave-taking. But it seemed to me then that there was a Moral to be drawn from it all. Never trust Personnel Branch, old man.
“As for poor Angela she was in sad case. Polk-Mowbray sent her to Rome for the Horse Show and — guess what? She up and married a groom. It was a sort of involuntary rebound in a way. Everyone was spellbound with shame. But she had the good sense to go off to Australia with him, where I gather that one needs little Protective Colouring, and there they are to this day. The whole thing, old man, only goes to show that You Can’t Be Too Careful.”
9. Call of the Sea
“I have never really respected Service Attachés,” said Antrobus. “Some I have known have bordered on the Unspeakable — like that ghastly Trevor Pope-Pope. I don’t know how he got into the Blues, nor why he was ever posted to us. He used to lock himself into the cipher-room and play roulette all day with the clerks. Skinned them all, right and left. He had no mercy on anyone. He also used to sell bonded champagne by the case to disagreeable Latin-American Colleagues for pesos. And to cap it all the fellow wore embroidered bedsocks.
“But as for ‘Butch’ Benbow, he was one of the least objectionable service postings. He was naval attaché, you remember.”
“Yes.”
“The fact that he was so decent makes the whole episode inexplicable. I really cannot decide in my own mind whether he did sever that tow-rope or not. And yet I saw him with my own eyes. So did Spalding. Yet the whole thing seems out of keeping with Benbow. But who knows what obscure promptings may stir the heart of a naval attaché condemned to isolation in Belgrade, hundreds of dusty miles from the sound of the sea? And then, imagine being designated to a country with almost no recognizable fleet. There was nothing for him to do once he had counted the two ex-Japanese condemned destroyers and the three tugs which made up Yugoslavia’s quota of naval strength. Nor can the horse-drawn barges on the two dirty rivers, the Sava and the Danube, have had much appeal. They filled him no doubt with a deep corroding nostalgia for the open sea and The Men Who Go Down To It In Ships. This might explain the sudden brainstorm which overpowered him when he saw the entire Diplomatic Corps afloat on the Sava. Human motives are dark and obscure. I find it hard in my heart to judge Benbow.”