“And Diplock?”
“Oh, yes, Diplock,” said Widmerpool, cheering up a little. “I’d forgotten about Diplock. Well, it was just as I said, though I’d never have guessed he’d go as far as to desert. Perhaps he wouldn’t have deserted, if there hadn’t been a frontier so conveniently near. This is all very worrying. Still, we must get on with some work. What have you got there?”
“The question of Mantle’s name being entered for a commission has come up again.”
Widmerpool thought for a moment.
“All right,” he said, “we’ll by-pass Hogbourne-Johnson and send it in.”
He took the paper from me.
“And Stringham?”
“What about him?”
“If the Mobile Laundry are to be pushed off to the Far East, as you think—”
“Oh, bugger Stringham,” said Widmerpool, his mood suddenly changing. “Why are you always fussing about Stringham? If he wants to get out of going overseas, he can probably do so at his age. That’s his affair. Which reminds me, the officer replacing Bithel in charge of the Mobile Laundry should be reporting in an hour or so. I shall want you to take him round there and give him a preliminary briefing. I’ll go into things myself in more detail later. He’s called Cheesman.”
Nothing much else happened that afternoon. Widmerpool uttered one or two sighs to himself, but did not discuss his own predicament further. As he had said, there was nothing to be done. He could only wait and see how matters shaped. No one knew better than Widmerpool that, in the army, all things are possible. He might ride the storm. On the other hand, he could easily find himself packed off to a static appointment in West Africa, or another distant post unlikely to lead to the sort of promotion he had at present in mind. When Cheesman appeared later on, it was immediately clear that the Laundry, when proceeding overseas, was to have a very different commander from Bithel.
“I’m afraid I’m not quite so punctual as I intended, sir,” he said, “but I’m anxious to get to work as soon as possible.”
Cheesman told me later he was thirty-nine. He looked quite ageless. Greying hair and wire spectacles suited his precise, rather argumentative manner of speech, in which he had not allowed the smallest trace of an army tone to alloy indefectibly civilian accents. Indeed, he spoke as if he had just arrived from a neighbouring firm to transact business with our own. He treated Widmerpool respectfully, as if a mere representative was meeting a managing director, but nothing in the least military supervened. Widmerpool might sometimes behave like this, but he also prided himself on the crispness of his own demeanour as a staff officer, and obviously did not greatly take to Cheesman. However, from whatever reports he had received about Cheesman’s ability, he had evidently satisfied himself the job would be done in an efficient manner. After exchanging a few sentences regarding the taking-over of the Laundry, he told me to act as guide, after Cheesman’s baggage had been delivered to G Mess. No doubt, in the prevailing circumstances, Widmerpool was glad to be left alone for a time to think things over.
“I’ll have a word with you to-morrow, Cheesman,” he said, “when you’ve a better idea of the Laundry’s personnel and equipment, in relation to a move.”
“I shall be glad to have a look round, sir,” said Cheesman.
He and I set off together for the outer confines of the billeting area, where the Mobile Laundry had its being during spells at H.Q. Cheesman told me he was an accountant in civilian life. He had done a good deal of work on laundry accounts at one time or another, accordingly, after getting a commission, had put in for a Mobile Laundry command.
“They seemed surprised I wanted to go to one,” he said. “It struck me as only logical. The O.C. of my O.C.T.U. roared with laughter. He used to do that anyway when I spoke with him. He agreed I was too old for an infantry second-lieutenant and wanted me to go to the Army Pay Corps, or to train as a cipher officer, but in the end I got a Laundry. I hoped to command men. I was transferred to this one because my work seems to have been thought well of. I felt flattered,”
“You’ve got a first-rate sergeant in Ablett.”
“That’s good news. My last one wasn’t always too reliable.”
Sergeant Ablett was waiting for us. As Bithel had asserted in his drunken delirium, the Sergeant added to his qualities as an unusually efficient N.C.O. those required for performing as leading comedian at the Divisional Concert, where he would sing forgotten songs, crack antediluvian jokes and dance unrestrainedly about the stage wearing only his underclothes. Ablett’s was always the most popular turn. Now, however, this talent for vaudeville had been outwardly subdued, in its place assumed the sober, positively severe bearing of an old soldier, whose clean-shaven upper lip, faintest possible proliferation of side-whisker, perhaps consciously characterised a veteran of Wellington’s campaigns. Contact was made between Cheesman and Ablett. It struck me that now would be a good opportunity to try and speak with Stringham.
“There’s a man in your outfit I want a word with. May I do that while the Sergeant is showing you round?”
“By all means,” said Cheesman. “Some personal matter?”
“He’s a chap I know in civilian life.”
Cheesman was the sort of person to be trusted with that information. Anyway, the unit was moving. Sergeant Ablett summoned a corporal. I went off with him to find Stringham, leaving Cheesman to get his bearings.
“Last saw Stringy on his bed in the barrack room,” said the corporal, a genial bottle-nosed figure, who evidently did not take military formalities too seriously.
He went off through a door. I waited in a kind of yard, where the Mobile Laundry’s outlandish vehicles were parked. In a minute or two the corporal appeared again. He was followed by Stringham, who looked as if the unexpected summons had made him uneasy. He was not wearing a cap. When he saw me, his face cleared. He came to attention.
“Thank you, Corporal.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
The bottle-nosed corporal disappeared.
“You gave me quite a turn, Nick,” Stringham said. “I was lying on my bed musing about Tuffy and what a strange old girl she is. I was reading Browning, which always makes me think of her. Browning’s her favourite poet. Did I tell you that? Of course I did, I’m getting hopelessly forgetful. He always makes me feel rather jumpy. That was why I got in a flap when Corporal Treadwell said I was wanted by an officer.”
“I’ve just brought your new bloke round who’s taken Bithel’s place.”
“Poor Bith. That was an extraordinary evening last night. What’s happened to him?”
“Widmerpool’s shot him out.”
“Dear me. Just as well, perhaps, for the army’s sake, but I shall miss him. What’s this one like?”
“He’s called Cheesman. Should be easy to handle if you stay with him.”
“Why shouldn’t I stay with him? I’m wedded to the Laundry by this time. I’ve really begun to know the meaning of esprit de corps, something lamentably lacking in me up to now.”
“I want to talk about all that.”
“Esprit de corps?”
“Can’t we take a stroll for a couple of minutes while Cheesman deals with your Sergeant?”
“Ablett’s a great favourite of mine too,” said Stringham. “I’m trying to memorise some of his jokes for use at dinner parties after the war, if I’m ever asked to any again — indeed, if any are given après la guerre. Ablett’s jokes have an absolutely authentic late nineteenth-century ring that fills one with self-confidence. Wait a moment, I’ll get a cap.”
When he returned, wearing a side-cap, he carried in his hand a small tattered volume. We walked slowly up an endless empty street of small redbrick houses. The weather, for once, was warm and sunny. Stringham held up the book.