Short of Glory (2 page)

The question seemed to be serious. Patrick smiled. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. I’ve never had a car and I know only one or two husbands. I haven’t yet felt the need for a
disability.’

The Army man nodded. ‘Worth bearing in mind, though. Better still if you have a stick.’

They walked back through the lunchtime crowds. Patrick tried to imagine the Army man as a diplomat. Perhaps he had what it took, whatever that was. ‘D’you think you’d enjoy
being in the Foreign Office?’

‘Don’t know. Might be fun. Get around a bit. Doesn’t strike me as a ball of fire, though. Still, I’m surprised I got this far, really. Perhaps I should’ve applied
to the Min of Ag and Fish or something.’ He laughed with disconcerting abruptness, then frowned. ‘Mind you, I reckon they’re having us on with all this guff about needing
high-quality candidates for the Foreign Office and the Treasury. I mean, what are the two great areas of British failure since the war? The economy and foreign policy. The rest of the country works
all right. I reckon they must send all the wets and no-hopers to the Treasury and the FCO and all the good guys to the Inland Revenue and the bloody Customs and Excise. They work well
enough.’

Patrick was not put off. He wanted a career. The Foreign Office sounded fine. It turned out that only he and the woman from Sussex were selected to go forward to the final board, a long and
testing interview at the end of which he was asked by a lady novelist – one of a panel of co-opted outsiders – whether his late father, a vicar, had ever preached a sermon in Wigan on
the need to sin boldly. He did not know but thought it sounded likely. His father had had many parishes. The lady had once heard such a sermon and had incorporated it into one of her books. It had
been a remarkable message, preached with fervour, and much needed in Wigan.

Patrick was surprised and very pleased when he heard he was successful. His delight survived even the first few days of his contact with the Training Department but it began to fade on contact
with Personnel. There he was received by a big flabby man with an unhealthy complexion and an irritable manner. The man shuffled papers slowly on his desk as if looking without hope for one in
particular.

‘It is the Secretary of State’s pleasure,’ he said dolefully, ‘that you should serve in’ – his podgy hands continued shuffling the papers and he did not look
up – ‘The Republic of Lower Africa. You will be third secretary in chancery. Are there any questions?’ He gave up with the papers and clasped his hands limply, staring at the wall
behind Patrick. His eyes were grey and watery, as if the colour were running out. ‘Normally you’d serve on a desk here for a time but they need someone as soon as possible. LAD –
Lower African Department – are very keen to get you out there.’

Patrick would have liked time to go away and think about questions. When he joined he had wanted to go abroad but now that he was faced with the prospect he did not know whether he really wanted
to or not. It was also strange to think of someone being ‘very keen’ to have him. He wondered for what. ‘Don’t I need to learn Lower African?’

‘They all speak English as well, you know. Of course, LAD may think otherwise but it’s not for me to say. I would only point out that it is essential in our work to maintain a
certain detachment from the country one is in, otherwise one’s reporting suffers. People sometimes worry too much about languages.’

‘How long is the posting?’ asked Patrick.

‘Normally four. Two two-year tours with leave in between. To start with you’ll be doing some consular work as well as your chancery work because of that man Whelk going off like that
or disappearing or whatever he’s done. You know all about that, do you? No? Well, LAD will tell you. Whelk was or is the consul – deals with passports, rights of British subjects,
visas, that sort of thing. He has an assistant there so it won’t be too onerous for you.’ A gentler, more reflective look came into the man’s watery eyes. ‘Comfortable
posting, Lower Africa. Good allowances, too, twenty years ago. Don’t know what they’re like now, of course.’ His podgy hands resumed their slow shuffling of papers and he replied
to Patrick’s farewell without looking up.

The more Patrick thought about it the more he liked the idea. Lower Africa was an exciting, controversial country, a place where things happened, a place of sun and storm. Four years was a long
time, though, and the knowledge that he was leaving them for so long lent the grand shabby corridors of the Foreign Office building a surprising charm.

LAD was said to be two floors, three corners and two wings distant from Personnel. The lifts were out of order and he was soon lost. He passed numbers of busy geographical department offices
where through the huge half-open doors people could be glimpsed drafting, dictating, discussing and – presumably – deciding. He had never seen so much paper nor so much earnest
busyness. The Foreign Office began to recover some of its appeal.

He asked for guidance in the Heads of Mission Department, an office whose purpose was to administer ambassadors and high commissioners. Following their directions led him to the Secretary of
State’s Private Office where he almost collided with a young male clerk who wore a gold ring in one ear. The clerk directed him towards what had been the old India Office.

The post-war history of the Foreign Office – indeed, its twentieth-century history – was one of remorseless bureaucratic expansion. It had grown in inverse proportion to the decline
in Britain’s overseas responsibilities. The India Office, the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office were swallowed up as soon as they became dispensable. This expansion of
function could be read in the building: obsolete signs remained in inaccessible places; statues brooded in scruffy corners; imposing staircases were neglected and led nowhere, holes had been
knocked through the walls of conquered departments. He went through one. It was a small hole, reached by steps, and it was necessary to stoop. Through the dirty windows of the final corridor he saw
a neglected glass-roofed courtyard, its walls bearing in faded lettering the names of forgotten viceroys, victories and campaigns.

Next came a library of old documents and beyond it a corridor reached through a pair of heavy doors. The end of the corridor was obscured by billowing clouds of dust, from which came the sound
of a pneumatic drill, shockingly loud. The first door on the right bore the letters LAD, beneath which were written the names of those who worked within. He guessed that this would be what in
nearly all departments was called the Third Room, housing the three desk officers. The next two doors would house the head of the department and his secretary. They were more obscured by dust but
on one he could make out the name of Mr E.J.W.P. Formerly, Head of LAD. When the pneumatic drill stopped the sound of sledgehammers hitting brickwork came from within.

While Patrick hesitated the door was thrown open by a bespectacled middle-aged woman who rushed out and slammed it behind her. She struggled with an armful of files covered in brickdust and drew
back with a hostile glance as he stepped forward to help. He introduced himself.

‘You’ve come at the worst possible time,’ she snapped. ‘The Home Office has broken through the wall and the Third Room has been dispersed. Mr Formerly had to abandon
office the moment he arrived. If you want him you’ll have to go back the way you’ve come, up the second stairs, through the hole in the wall on the next floor and then keep turning
right until you can’t any more. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must get on. We’ve got to save the files.’

Mr Formerly’s retreat was in the roof. A small square window set deep in the wall looked down into yet another neglected courtyard. The room was furnished with an old wooden desk and two
plastic chairs. Near the middle of the floor was a telephone which was prevented by its flex from reaching the desk. On the desk was an open copy of
The Times.

Mr Formerly looked up reluctantly from his reading. He had a pale cadaverous face and large dark eyes. His expression was sensitive and listless. They shook hands gently.

‘Mozambique?’

‘Lower Africa.’

‘Of course, yes.’ He indicated that Patrick should sit and slowly folded the paper, lingering for a moment over the Test match report. ‘Dreadful business.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen a paper this morning.’

‘What?’

Patrick leant forward in the uncomfortable chair. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure whether you meant Lower Africa or what’s in the paper.’

It seemed for a few moments that the question had robbed Mr Formerly of power of speech. ‘I mean the Home Office coming through on us like that. They started yesterday afternoon before
anyone knew what they were up to. Lot of banging and drilling and whatever but nothing untoward. I got in this morning and I’d just got my coffee when a drill came through the wall behind me.
Then another came through from the back of a filing cabinet. Made an awful mess of the Angolan aid policy files. Next thing was chaps started knocking the wall down. I lodged an immediate protest
but they didn’t even pause. Then another chap came along and said it was all a mistake. Wrong wall. Load-bearing or something.’

Mr Formerly stopped speaking. It was not clear what response was required. ‘Must’ve been pretty alarming,’ Patrick said eventually.

Mr Formerly continued as if he had neither expected nor heard the response. ‘Of course, we knew there were alterations in progress but not that we were to lose anything. In fact, I thought
we were to take over some of them. I’m sure we should be. It’s always been an anomaly having bits of the Home Office in that wing. Not that we had relations, but there you are, it never
works.’ He paused again and looked at the backs of his hands. ‘So the Third Room are God-knows-where – having an early lunch if they’ve any sense – and all the safes
and cabinets and furniture and files have got to be carted up here. No idea where we’ll put them. Not even room for my secretary.’ He looked moodily at the telephone. ‘And that
thing won’t reach the desk.’

They both looked at the telephone. ‘I suppose you could move the desk,’ said Patrick.

Mr Formerly shook his head slowly. ‘No, I like it here. I can see out. Anyway, the phone has no number. It’ll be days before they get one.’ He spoke in a quiet monotone,
without bitterness, and gazed placidly out of the window. Both the sill and the brickwork of the outer wall still bore the pock-marks of wartime shrapnel.

‘When do I leave?’ asked Patrick.

Mr Formerly’s gaze tacked slowly back. ‘Personnel seem to want you there right away. All to do with Whelk, I suppose. They explained all that, did they?’

‘They said you would.’

‘Ah.’ There was another pause. ‘Well, there’s nothing much to say, really. He just didn’t turn up for work one day. After a few days people began to think it was a
bit odd and so at the end of the week someone telephoned his house. His maid said she hadn’t seen him all week and thought p’raps he’d gone on holiday. He does that sort of thing
now and then. Odd chap. There was nothing missing except his car and no sign of a struggle but the police keep saying he might have been kidnapped. They don’t think it was accidental, anyway,
probably because they don’t like to admit that diplomats can simply go missing in their country without good reason, as it were. But there’s been no ransom demand. Not that any would be
paid, of course. It’s not policy. In fact, it’s the ambassador who’s the keenest on the kidnap theory. The police aren’t doing much but the ambassador wants to move heaven
and earth.’ Mr Formerly looked at the backs of his hands again. ‘The ambassador suspects you-know-who.’

Patrick had to ask.

‘LASS,’ said Mr Formerly quietly.

‘LASS?’ asked Patrick, also quietly.

Before Mr Formerly could reply, four men, apparently foreign, struggled through the door with a large metal filing cupboard. They manoeuvred it into the middle of the room, knocking the
telephone on to its side, and departed in a multilingual clamour.

Afterwards Mr Formerly raised his dark eyes to Patrick’s. ‘Lower African Security Service. The ambassador is convinced that they kidnapped Whelk.’

‘Why would they want to kidnap him?’

‘To learn our secrets.’

‘Our secrets?’

Mr Formerly looked again towards the window, nodding very slightly. ‘I know it does seem rather bizarre but I suppose LASS have secrets of their own and that leads them to think that
everyone else must have them too. The ambassador thinks this explains why the police don’t seem to be doing very much about Whelk. He’s rather got the bit between his teeth, I’m
afraid, and so it’s at his insistence that we’re calling in L and F. They’re a sort of insurance outfit that advises people on how to negotiate with kidnappers. Lots of chaps
travelling round the world advising grieving relatives and anxious companies on how to get the ransom down a bit. Call themselves Lost and Found. Rather quaint, isn’t it? Most irregular for
HMG to get involved with such business, of course. Unfortunately the junior minister got a whiff of it at an early stage and became frightfully keen. He supports the ambassador. It’s all
terribly hush-hush. We mustn’t let the Lower Africans know we’re doing it.’

The pause allowed Patrick time to think. ‘Why not? If it is them we won’t have lost anything because we won’t be able to find him anyway, and if it’s not they might be
able to help.’

Mr Formerly shook his head as though he had been asked whether it were true that someone long dead had recently returned to life. ‘Possible embarrassment.’

‘Embarrassment’, Patrick soon learned, was what the Foreign Office feared most. Questions as to who would be embarrassed in whose eyes and how much, or whether they should be or
whether it mattered if they were, were rarely asked. Save on those occasions when ministerial or prime ministerial will was directly imposed, like the personal interventions of Yahweh in the Old
Testament, it was better that Britain should do badly in negotiations than that she should be seen to be obdurate and judged responsible for their breakdown. The worst case of all was to be
‘out on a limb’, ‘out of step’ or ‘odd man out’. It was better to lose the argument than risk being thought ill-mannered by persisting.