“Yes. Sir Joseph explained that to me. They only want very young officers in the Guards. But he says that there are a number of other excellent regiments that offer a far better career. General Gordon was a Sapper, and I believe quite a number of the generals in this war were originally only Gunners. I don’t want you just lounging about London in uniform like your friend Peter Pastmaster. He seems to spend his whole time with girls. That goose Emma Granchester is seriously thinking of him for Molly. So is Etty Flintshire and so is poor Mrs. Van Atrobus for their daughters. I don’t know what they’re thinking of. I knew his poor father. Margot led him a terrible dance. That was long before she married Metroland of course before he was called Metroland, in fact. No,” said Lady Seal, abruptly checking herself in the flow of reminiscence. “I want to see you doing something important. Now Sir Joseph has got me one of the forms you fill in to become an officer. It is called the Supplementary Reserve. Before you go to bed I want you to sign it. Then we’ll see about getting it sent to the proper quarter. I’m sure that everything will be much easier now that that disgraceful Mr. Belisha has been outed.”
“But you know, Mother, I don’t really fancy myself much as a subaltern.”
“No, dear,” said Lady Seal decisively, “and if you had gone into the Army when you left Oxford you would be a major by now. Promotion is very quick in wartime because so many people get killed. I’m sure once you’re in, they’ll find great use for you. But you must begin somewhere. I remember Lord Kitchener told me that even he was once a subaltern.”
Thus it was that Basil found himself again in danger of being started on a career. “Don’t worry,” said Peter. “No one ever gets taken off the Supplementary Reserve.” But Basil did worry. He had a rooted distrust of official forms. He felt that at any moment a telegram might summon him to present himself at some remote barracks, where he would spend the war, like Alastair’s Mr. Smallwood, teaching fieldcraft to thirty militiamen. It was not thus that he had welcomed the war as the ne’er-do-well’s opportunity. He fretted about it for three days and then decided to pay a visit to the War Office.
He went there without any particular object in view, impelled by the belief that somewhere in that large organization was a goose who would lay eggs for him. In the first days of the war, when he was seeking to interest the authorities in the annexation of Liberia, he had more than once sought an entrance. Perhaps, he felt now, he had pitched a little too high. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff was a busy man. This time he would advance humbly.
The maelstrom which in early September had eddied round the vestibule of the building seemed to have subsided very little. There was a similar perhaps, he reflected sadly, an identical crowd of officers of all ranks attempting to gain admission. Among them he saw a single civilian figure, whom he recognized from his visit to the Ministry of Information.
“Hullo,” he said. “Still hawking bombs?”
The little lunatic with the suitcase greeted him with great friendliness. “They won’t pay any attention. It’s a most unsatisfactory office,” he said. “They won’t let me in. I was sent on here from the Admiralty.”
“Have you tried the Air Ministry?”
“Why, bless you, it was them sent me to the Ministry of Information. I’ve tried them all. I will say for the Ministry of Information they were uncommon civil. Not at all like they are here. At the M. of I. they were never too busy to see one. The only thing was, I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere.”
“Come along,” said Basil. “We’ll get in.”
Veterans of the Ashanti and the Zulu campaigns guarded the entrance. Basil watched them stop a full general. “If you’ll fill in a form, sir, please, one of the boys will take you up to the Department.” They were a match for anyone in uniform but Basil and the bagman were a more uncertain quantity; a full general was just a full general, but a civilian might be anyone.
“Your passes, gentlemen, please.”
“That’s all right, Sergeant,” said Basil. “I’ll vouch for this man.”
“Yes sir, but who are you, sir?”
“You ought to know by this time. M.I.9. We don’t carry passes or give our names in my department.”
“Very good, sir; beg pardon, sir. D’you know the way or shall I send a boy up with you?”
“Of course I know my way,” said Basil sharply, “and you might take a look at this man. He won’t give his name or show a pass, but I expect you’ll see him here often.”
“Very good, sir.”
The two civilians passed through the seething military into the calm of the corridors beyond.
“I’m sure I’m very obliged,” said the man with the suitcase; “where shall I go now?”
“The whole place lies open to you,” said Basil. “Take your time. Go where you like. I think if I were you I should start with the Chaplain General.”
“Where’s he?”
“Up there,” said Basil vaguely. “Up there and straight on.
The little man thanked him gravely, trotted off down the corridor with the irregular, ill-co-ordinated steps of the insane, and was lost to view up the bend in the staircase. Not wishing to compromise himself further by his act of charity, Basil took the opposing turning. A fine vista lay before him of twenty or more closed doors, any one of which might open upon prosperity and adventure. He strolled down the passage in a leisurely but purposeful manner; thus, he thought, an important agent might go to keep an appointment; thus, in fact, Soapy Sponge might have walked in the gallery of Jawleyford Court.
It was a vista full of potentiality; but lacking, at the moment, in ornament a vista of linoleum and sombre dado; the light came solely from the far end, so that a figure approaching appeared in silhouette, and in somewhat indistinct silhouette; a figure now approached and it was not until she was within a few yards of Basil that he realized that here was the enrichment which the austere architectural scheme demanded: a girl dressed in uniform with a lance-corporal’s stripe on her arm with a face of transparent, ethereal silliness which struck deep into Basil’s heart. The classical image might have been sober fact, so swift and silent and piercing was the dart of pleasure. He turned in his tracks and followed the lance-corporal down the lane of linoleum, which seemed, momentarily, as buoyant as the carpet of a cinema or theatre.
The lance-corporal led him a long way; she stopped from time to time to exchange greetings with passers-by, showing to all ranks from full general to second-class scout the same cheerful affection; she was clearly a popular girl in these parts. At length she turned into a door marked ADDIS; Basil followed her in. There was another lance-corporal male in the room.
The lance-corporal sat behind a typewriter; he had a white, pimply face, large spectacles, and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He did not look up. The female lance-corporal smiled and said, “So now you know where I live. Drop in any time you’re passing.”
“What is ADDIS?” asked Basil.
“It’s Colonel Plum.”
“What’s Colonel Plum?”
“He’s a perfect lamb. Go and take a peek at him if you like. He’s in there.” She nodded towards a glass door marked KEEP OUT.
“Assistant Deputy Director Internal Security,” said the male lance-corporal without looking up from his typing.
“I think I’d like to come and work in this office,” said Basil.
“Yes, everyone says that. It was the same when I was in Pensions.”
“I might take his job.”
“You’re welcome,” said the male lance-corporal sourly. “Suspects, suspects, suspects, all day long all with foreign names, none of them ever shot.”
A loud voice from beyond the glass door broke into the conversation. “Susie, you slut, come here.”
“That’s him, the angel. Just take a peek while the door’s open. He’s got the sweetest little moustache.”