The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [12]
‘Good morning, Curtis.’
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘How are things?’
Curtis, a studious-looking young man, whose military career had been handicapped by weak eyesight, was a henchman of notable efficiency and wide interests. He had once confessed to Pennistone that he had read through the whole of Grote’s History of Greece.
‘A rather disturbing letter from the Adjutant-General’s branch, sir.’
‘Oh, Lord.’
‘But not so bad as my first premonition on reading it. In fact, sir, I all but perpetrated a schoolboy howler in that connexion.’
‘Impossible.’
‘On the subject of redundant Polish officers taking commissions in West African units of our own forces – Accra, sir – the AG. 10 clerk spoke indistinctly, as well as using what I understand to be an incorrect pronunciation, so that, to cut a long story short, sir, the place was first transcribed by me as Agra. The error did not take long to be righted, but it was a disturbing misconstruction.’
By the time I had run through the new lot of papers Pennistone had returned. He reported that Finn – after a word with the more sagacious of the two brigadiers – had been told to consult the Major-General in charge of our Directorate. I reported that Michalski and Horaczko had telephoned.
‘Ring Horaczko back, otherwise Bobrowski will make him persecute us all day. Tell him we’ll let him know the very moment anything comes through that his general should have. Don’t worry about Michalski. I’ll be seeing him. I’m off to the Titian at once to get Kielkicwicz’s reactions.’
‘What were the Colonel’s?’
‘He’s in one of his flaps.’
Sudden pressures of this kind always upset Finn, whose temperament unpredictably fused agitation with calm; violent inner antagonism of these warring characteristics having presumably motivated whatever he had done – killed goodness knows how many enemy machine-gunners with a bayonet? – to be awarded his VC. No doubt the comparative lack of precedent for the situation now arisen in Persia, its eccentric deficiency of warning at the diplomatic level, general departure from normal routine – even from official good manners so far as the Soviet was concerned – discomposed Finn, a man both systematic and courteous. Although not a professional soldier, he had, one way and another, seen a good deal of military service, having, like Dempster, stayed on for a while in the army after the Armistice in 1918; then been re-employed in the rank of major as early as 1938. In short, he had enjoyed plenty of opportunity to observe military problems, which on the whole he seemed to prefer to semi-political ones, like the evacuation of the Poles.
‘He’ll be all right when he’s used to the idea,’ said Pennistone. ‘At first he could consider nothing short of flying out there at once and arranging it all himself.’
He reached for his cap again, unhooking it from the wall with the crook of a walking stick. Then he returned the watch to the breast pocket of his tunic.
‘Have a talk with Q (Ops.) Colonel,’ he said.
Borrit, who looked after the Netherlands, passed on his way towards the door.
‘Borrit…’
‘Yes, Pennistone?’
‘You’re not making for the car?’
Borrit’s small fair moustache was set in a serious melancholy face, deeply tanned, as if he had spent much of his