‘Only a tanner a day more in pay,’ he said, recovering his good humour, ‘but it’s the real jump in rank.’
It was no doubt specifically to inform me of this imminent promotion that he must have come out of the way across the Horse Guards Parade, I thought. By now we had nearly reached the arch leading into Whitehall. He suddenly lost his high spirits, sinking all at once to the depths of gloom, as I had known him do before, one of those changes of mood that would overcome him without warning.
‘You never know about promotion till it’s in the bag,’ he said. ‘There are occupational risks where I work. There are anywhere where you may find yourself in the CIGS’s entourage.’
‘Why him specially?’
‘He’s quite ruthless, if he doesn’t like the look of you. The other day he said, “I don’t want to see that officer again. I don’t like his face”. Perfectly good man, but they had to get rid of him.’
Widmerpool spoke with infinite dejection. I saw what he meant. Given the CIGS was easily irritated by the faces of staff-officers, Widmerpool’s, where survival was in question, was a bad bet, rather than a good one.
‘No use worrying,’ he said. ‘After all, I was not affected by all the trouble Liddament made.’
‘His Corps seem to have done well in the desert.’
‘No doubt Liddament has his points as a commander in the field. Unfortunately, I was blind to them when serving on the staff of his Division. Tell me — talking of those days made me think of Farebrother — had you left the Poles at the time of the Szymanski scandal?’
‘Yes.’
‘You heard Farebrother was largely responsible?’
‘That was being said.’
‘He’s been unstuck in consequence. Not without some action on my part.’
‘I didn’t know you were involved.’
‘I made it my business to be involved. Strictly between ourselves, the whole disgraceful affair was not unconnected with Prince Theodoric whom we saw at that musical performance the other night.’
‘Where does Theodoric come in?’
‘That is naturally secret, but I don’t mind telling you that the Prince is bringing a lot of pressure to bear one way and another.’
‘You mean from the Resistance point of view.’
‘I hold my own views on that subject,’ said Widmerpool. ‘I hear that young woman in red, whose name I asked, is said to be Theodoric’s mistress.’
‘That’s the gossip.’
‘I have little or no time for social life, but one keeps an eye on these things.’
A full colonel, wearing the red tabs with which Widmerpool himself hoped soon to be equipped, came out of a door under the arch and turned into Whitehall. Widmerpool pointed after him and laughed.
‘Did you see who that was?’ he asked. ‘I really strolled with you across here, out of my way, in case we might catch sight of him.’
‘Was it Hogbourne-Johnson?’
‘Relegated to the Training branch, where, if he’s not kicked out from there too, he will remain until the end of the war. The man who thought he was going to get a Division. Do you remember when he was so abominably rude to me?’
‘That balls-up about traffic circuits?’
‘It won’t be long now before I’m his equal in rank. I may find an opportunity to tell him some home truths, should our paths cross, though that’s unlikely enough. It’s only on the rarest occasions like today that I’m out of my office — and, after all, Hogbourne-Johnson’s a very unimportant cog in the machine.’
He nodded and began to move off. I saluted — the uniform, as one was always told, rather than the man — and took the Belgian documents back to our room.
THREE
One day, several weeks after the Allied Forces had landed in Normandy, I was returning over Westminster Bridge on foot from transacting some minor item of Czechoslovak army business with a ministry housed on the south bank of the river in the former Donners-Brebner Building. It was lovely weather. Even the most pessimistic had begun to concede that the war, on the whole, had taken a turn for the better. Some supposed this might mean the end of raids. Others believed the Germans had a trick or two up their sleeve. Although it was London Bridge to which the poem referred, rather than Westminster, the place from which I had just come, the dark waters of the Thames below, the beauty of the day, brought to mind the lines about Stetson and the ships at Mylae, how death had undone so many. Donners-Brebner — where Howard Craggs, recently knighted, now reigned over one of the branches — had been badly knocked about in the early days of the blitz. The full extent of the damage was not visible, because the main entrance, where Barnby’s frescoes had once been, was heaped with sandbags, access by a side door. Barnby was no longer available to repaint his frescoes. Death had undone him. It looked as if death might have undone Stringham too. At Donners-Brebner he had put me off for dinner because he was going to Peggy Stepney’s parents. Peggy’s second husband was another who had been undone. She was married to Jimmy Klein now, said to have always loved her. These musings were interrupted by a tall officer falling into step with me. It was Sunny Farebrother.
‘Hullo, Nicholas. I hope my dear old Finn is not still cross with me about Szymanski?’
‘There may still be some disgruntlement, sir.’ ‘Disgruntlement’, one was told, was a word that could be used of all ranks without loss of discipline. As I heard myself utter it, I became immediately aware of the manner in which Farebrother, by some effort of the will, made those with whom he dealt as devious as himself. It was not the first time I had noticed that characteristic in him. The ply, the term, was in truth hopelessly inadequate to express Finn’s rage about the whole Szymanski affair.
‘Finn’s a hard man,’ said Farebrother. ‘Nobody I admire more. There is not an officer in the entire British army I admire more than Lieutenant-Colonel Lysander Finn, VC.’
‘Lysander?’
‘Certainly.’
‘We never knew.’
‘He keeps it quiet.’
Farebrother smiled, not displeased at finding this piece of information so unexpected.
‘Who shall blame him?’ he said. ‘It’s modesty, not shame. He thinks the name might sound pretentious in the winner of a VC. Finn’s as brave as a lion, as straight as a die, but as hard as nails — especially where he thinks his own honour is concerned.’
Farebrother said the last words in what Pennistone called his religious voice.
‘You weren’t yourself affected by the Szymanski matter, Nicholas?’
‘I’d left the Poles by then.’
‘You’re no longer in Finn’s Section?’
Farebrother made no attempt to conceal his own interest in any change that might take place in employment or status of those known to him, in case these might in some manner, even if unforeseen, react advantageously to himself.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The Belgians and Czechs. I should like to have a talk with you one of these days about those two Allies, but not now. You don’t know how sorry I am that poor old Finn was inconvenienced in that way. I hate it when friends think you’ve let them down. I remember Frenchman in the last war whom I’d promised to put in for a British decoration that never came through. No use regretting these things, I suppose, but I’m made that way. We all have to do our duty as we see it, Nicholas. Each one of us has to learn that and it’s sometimes a hard lesson. In the case of Szymanski, I was made to suffer for being too keen. Disciplined, demoted in rank, shunted off to a bloody awful job. Tell Finn that. Perhaps he will forgive me when he hears I was made to pay for my actions. You know who went out of his way to bring this trouble about — our old friend Kenneth Widmerpool.’