The Soldier's Art (10 page)

“So you think
something else should be found for Stringham?” he asked that afternoon.

“I do.”

“I’ll give my
mind to it,” he said, speaking more soberly than on the earlier occasion. “In
the meantime, we are none of us called upon to do more than fulfil the duties
of our respective ranks and appointments, vegetables or no vegetables. Now go
and find out from the D.A.P.M. whether he has proceeded with the enquiries to
be made in connection with Diplock and his dealings. Get cracking. We can’t
talk about Stringham all day.”

So far as
Stringham’s employment in F Mess was concerned, nothing of note happened during
the next day or two. On the whole he did what was required of him with competence
– certainly better than Robbins – though he would sometimes unsmilingly raise
his eyebrows when waiting on me personally. For one reason or another,
circumstances always prevented speech between us. I began to think we might not
be able to find an opportunity to talk together before I went on leave. Then
one evening, I saw Stringham coming towards me in the twilight. He saluted,
looking straight ahead of him, was going to pass on, when I put out a hand.

“Charles.”

“Hullo, Nick.”

“This is
extraordinary.”

“What is?”

“Your turning
up here.”

“What makes
you think so?”

“Let’s get off
the main road.”

“If you like.”

We went down
into a kind of alley-way, leading to a block of office buildings or factory
works, now closed for the night.

“What’s been
happening to you, Charles?”

“As you see, I’ve
become a waiter in F Mess. I always used to wonder what it felt like to be a
waiter. Now I know with immense precision.”

“But how did
it all come about?”

“How does
anything come about in the army?”

“When did you
join, for instance?”

“Too long ago
to remember – right at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. After enlisting
in my first gallant and glorious corps, and serving at their depot, I managed
to exchange into the infantry, and got posted to this melancholy spot. You know
how – to use a picturesque army phrase – one gets arsed around. I don’t expect
that happens any less as an officer. When the Royal Army Ordnance Corps took me
to its stalwart bosom, I was not medically graded A.1. – which explains why in
the past one’s so often woken up feeling like the wrath of God – so I got
drafted to Div. H.Q., a typical example of the odds and sods who fetch up at a
place like that. Hearing there was a job going as waiter in F Mess, I applied
in triplicate. My candidature was graciously confirmed by Captain Soper. That’s
the whole story.”

“But isn’t – can’t
we find something better for you?”

“What sort of
thing?”

That had been
Widmerpool’s question too. Stringham asked it without showing the smallest wish
for change, only curiosity at what might be put forward.

“I don’t know.
I thought there might be something.”

“Don’t you
feel I’m quite up to the mark as waiter?” he said. “Nick, you fill me with
apprehension. Surely you are not on the side of Captain Biggs, who, I realise,
does not care for my personality. I thought I was doing so well. I admit
failure about the salt. I absolutely acknowledge the machine broke down at that
point. All the same, such slips befall the most practised. I remember when the
Duke of Conn
aught lunched with my former in-laws, the Bridgnorths, the butler, a
retainer of many years’ standing, no mere neophyte like myself, offered him
macaroni cheese without having previously provided His Royal Highness with a
plate to eat it off. I shall never forget my ex-father-in-law’s face, richly
tinted at the best of times – my late brother-in-law, Harrison Wisebite, used
to say Lord Bridgnorth’s complexion recalled Our Artist’s Impression of the Hudson in the
Fall. On that occasion it was more like the Dutch bulb fields in
bloom. No, forget about the salt, Nick. We
all make mistakes. I shall
improve with habit”

“I don’t mean
—”

“Between you
and me, Nick, I think I have it in me to make a first-class Mess waiter. The
talent is there. It’s just a question of developing latent ability. I never
dreamed I possessed such potentialities. It’s been marvellous to release them.”

“I know, but
—”

“You don’t
like my style? You feel I lack polish?”

“I wasn’t —”

“After all,
you must agree it’s preferable to hand Captain Biggs his food, and retire to
the kitchen with Lance-Corporal Gwither, rather than sit with the Captain
throughout the meal, to have to watch him masticate, day in day out. Gwither,
on the other hand, is a delightful companion. He was a plasterer’s mate before
he joined the army, and, whatever Captain Biggs may say to the contrary, is
rapidly learning to cook as an alternative. In addition to that, Nick, I
understand you yourself work for our old schoolmate, Widmerpool. You’re not
going to try and swop jobs, are you? If so, it isn’t on. How did your
Widmerpool connection come about, anyway?”

I explained my
transference from battalion to Div. H.Q. had been the result of Widmerpool
applying for me by name as his assistant. Stringham listened, laughing from
time to time.

“Look, Charles,
let’s fix up dinner one night. A Saturday, preferably, when most of the stuff
at the D.A.A.G.’s office has been cleared up after the week’s exercise. We’ve a
mass of things to talk about.”

“My dear boy,
are you forgetting our difference in rank?”

“No one
bothers about that off duty. How could they? London restaurants are packed with
officers and Other Ranks at the same table. Life would be impossible otherwise.
My own brothers-in-law, for example, range from George, a major, to Hugo, a
lance-bombardier. We needn’t dine at the big hotel, such as it is, if you
prefer a quieter place.”

“I didn’t
really mean that, Nick. I know perfectly well, in practice, we could dine
together – even though you would probably have to pay, as I’m not particularly
flush at the moment. It isn’t that. I just don’t feel like it. Dining with you
would spoil the rhythm so far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t go so far as to say
I’m actively enjoying what I’m doing at the moment – but then how little of one’s
life has ever been actively enjoyable. At the same time, what I’m doing is what
I’ve chosen to do. Even what I want to do, if it comes to that. Up to a point
it suits me. I’ve become awfully odd these days. Perhaps I always was odd.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. How I drone on about myself. Talking of your
relations, though, I heard your brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, was killed.”

“Poor Robert.
In the fighting round the Channel ports.”

“Awfully chic
to be killed.”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, yes, of
course. You can’t beat it. Smart as hell. Fell in action. I’m always struck by
that phrase. Seems absolutely no
chance of action here, unless Captain
Biggs draws a gun on me for
handing him the brussels sprouts the wrong side, or spilling gravy on diat bald
head of his. You know Robert Tolland was running round with my sister, Flavia,
before he went to France and his doom. You never met Flavia, did
you?”

“Saw her and
Robert together when I was on leave last year.

“Flavia never
has any luck with husbands and lovers. Think of being married to Cosmo Flitton
and Harrison Wisebite in quick succession. Why, I’d make a better husband
myself. No doubt you heard at the same time that my mother’s parted company
with Buster Foxe. She’s having money troubles at the moment. One of the reasons
why Buster packed up. I’m feeling the draught myself. Decided shortage of ready
cash. My father left what halfpence he had to that French wife of his,
supposing, quite mistakenly, Mama would always be in a position
to shell out.”

“Your mother’s
at Glimber?”

“Good God, no.
Glimber has some ministry evacuated there, so that’s one problem off her hands.
She’s living in a labourer’s cottage near a camp in Essex to be near Norman – you
remember, her little dancer. At one moment she was getting up at half-past five
every morning to cook his breakfast. There’s devotion for you. Norman’s going
to an O.CT.U. Won’t he look wonderful in a Sam Browne belt – that waist. Of
course by the nature of things he can only be a son to her – a better son than
her own, I fear – and in any case living with Norman in a cottage must be
infinitely preferable to Buster in a castle, even allowing for the early
rising. How sententious one gets. Just the sort of conclusion Tennyson was
always coming to. You know, talking of the Victorians, I’ve taken to reading Browning.”

“Our General
reads Trollope – the Victorians are obviously the fashion in this Division.”

“It was Tuffy
who started me off on him. Rather a surprising taste for her in a way. You
remember Tuffy? Nick, you make me talk of old times.”

“Miss Weedon –
of course.”

‘Tuffy cured
me of the booze. Then, having done that, she got bored with me. I see the
point, there was nothing more to do. I mean I was going to prove absolutely
impossible to set up as a serious member of civilised society. Stopping
drinking alone was sufficient to ensure that. Even I myself grasped I’d become
the most desperate of bores by being permanently sober. Then the war came along
and I began to develop all sorts of martial ambitions. Tuffy didn’t really
approve of them, although the fact they were even within the bounds of
possibility so far as I was concerned was a considerable tribute to herself.
She saw, all the same, one way or another, I was going to escape her clutches.
The long and the short of it was, I entered the army, while Tuffy married an
octogenarian – perhaps by now even nonagenarian – general. Just the age when
you get into your stride as a soldier. They’ll probably appoint him C.I.G.S.”

“You’re out of
touch. Generals are frightfully young nowadays. Widmerpool will be one at any
moment. Anyway, they might do worse than employ General Conyers. I’ve known him
for years.”

“My dear Nick,
you know everybody. Not a social item escapes you. I myself can no longer keep
up with births, marriages and deaths – well, deaths now and then perhaps, but
not births and marriages. That’s why being in the ranks suits me. No strain in
that particular respect. Nobody asks you if you read in this morning’s
Times
that so-and-so’s engaged or somebody
else is getting a divorce. All that had begun to get me down for some reason.
Make me tired. Anyway, to hark back to the long and wearisome story of my own
life, the point was that Tuffy, like everyone else, had had enough of me. She
wanted another sphere
in which to exercise her tireless remedial activities. That was why
I
took the shilling:

I ’listed at
home for a lancer,
Oh who would not sleep with the brave?

I am not, as
your familiarity with military insignia will already have proclaimed, strictly
speaking a lancer – just as well, for these days I couldn’t possibly take part
in those musical rides lancers are always performing at the Military Tournament
and places like that … haven’t sat on a horse for years …”

Stringham
paused a moment, beginning now to hum a bar or two of a jerky tune, the sort to
which riders at a Horse Show might canter round the paddock.

“So-let-each-cavalier-who-loves-honour-and-me
Come-follow-the-bonnets-of-Bonny-Dundee …”

He curled his
wrists slightly, lifting them in the air as if holding reins. He seemed far
away, to have forgotten completely that we were talking. I wondered how sane he
remained. Then he came suddenly back to himself.

“… What was I
saying? Oh, yes, A. E. Housman, of course … not my favourite poet, as a matter
of fact, but that was just what happened … though I hasten to add I sleep with
the brave only in the sense of dormitory accommodation. To tell the truth,
Nick, I had the greatest difficulty in extracting the metaphorical shilling
from an equally metaphorical Recruiting Sergeant. No magnificent figure with a
bunch of ribbons in his cap, but several rather seedy characters in a stuffy
office drinking cups of tea. Even so, they wouldn’t look at me when I first
breezed in. Then the war took a turn for the worse, in Norway and elsewhere, and
they saw they’d need Stringham after all. One of the reasons I left the
R.A.O.C. is that they have a peculiarly trying warrant rank called Conductor – just
as if you were on a bus – so I made the exchange I spoke of. What a fascinating
place the army is. Before I joined, I thought all you had to do when you fired
a rifle was to get your eye and the sights and the target all in one line and
then blaze away. The army has produced a whole book about it, a fat little
volume. But my egotism is insufferable, Nick. Tell me about yourself. What have
you been doing? How are you reacting to it all? You look a trifle harassed, if
I may say so. Not surprising, working with Widmerpool.”

Stringham
himself looked ill, though not in the least harassed.

“On top of
everything else,” he said, “one’s getting frightfully old. Do you think I shall
qualify as a Chelsea pensioner after the war? I’d like one of those red
frockcoats, though I’ve never cared for Chelsea as a neighbourhood. No leanings
whatever towards bohemian life. However, one may come to both before one’s
finished – residence in Chelsea and a bohemian to boot. You know I’ve been
thinking a lot about myself lately, when scrubbing the floors and that sort of
thing – an activity for some reason I often find myself quite enjoying – and I’ve
come to the conclusion I’m narcissistic, mad about myself. That’s why my
marriage went wrong. I really was awfully glad when it was over.”

“Do you do
anything about girls now?”

“Seem to have
lost all interest. Isn’t that strange? You know how it is. My great amusement
now is trying to get things straight in my own mind. That takes me all my time,
as you can imagine. The more I think, the less I know. Funny, isn’t it? Talking
of girls, what happened to our old pal, Peter Templer? Do you remember how he
used to go on about girls?”