The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [24]
The Chinese military attaché, well known for the demanding nature of his requests, had just completed an attachment as cadet to the Royal Military College.
‘Chu enjoyed the RMC so much he wants to go to Eton.’
‘He could see Windsor Castle at the same time, though the state apartments are probably not open.’
‘Good God,’ said Finn. ‘He doesn’t just want to visit the place – he hopes to attend the school as a pupil.’
‘He’s a shade old, sir.’
‘I told him thirty-eight is regarded as too mature in this country to be still at school. It was no good. All he said was “I can make myself young.”
Finn sighed.
‘I wish I could,’ he said.
Sometimes the military attachés dispirited him. Chu’s unreasonableness seemed to have achieved that. General Asbjornsen arrived in the room. Tall, like General Lebedev, not much given to laughter, he always reminded me of Monsieur Ørn, the long craggy Norwegian, who had been at La Grenadière when, as a boy, I had stayed with the Leroys in Touraine. He shook hands with Finn and myself gravely. I withdrew to our room. Corporal Curtis had again increased the pile of stuff on the desk. I was still going through this when Pennistone returned from the Titian.
‘What on earth were you about, David, minuting Blackhead please amplify?’
‘Has it upset him?’
‘Beyond description.’
‘Good.’
‘What were your reasons?’
‘Renan says complication is anterior to simplicity. I thought Blackhead would make an interesting experiment for trying out that theory.’
‘We can only pray Renan was right.’
‘Renan would find prayer charming, but ineffectual. Did you see Q (Ops.)?’
Pennistone went through the points I had cleared with Finn.
‘Look, Nick,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be able to collect the Klnisaszewski Report tomorrow afternoon, as there’s another meeting about the evacuation. Will you get it? Nothing whatever required, except to receive it from the Polish officer on duty.’
The Klnisaszewski Report was one of those items of Intelligence that fell, as such items sometimes do, in a no-man’s-land between normal official channels and those secret services so cautiously handled by Finn. Even Finn saw no harm in our trafficking in this particular exchange of information, which the Operational and ‘Country’ sections liked to see. For some internal reason, the Polish branch concerned preferred to hand over the report direct, rather than present it, in the normal manner, through the Second Bureau of their GHQ. Pennistone, as it happened, always collected the Klnisaszewski Report, though merely, in the division of our duties, because he had fallen into the habit of doing so.
‘Here’s the address,’ he said. ‘It’s the north side of the Park. We might discuss some of these evacuation points further at lunch.’
The following day I arranged to collect the report in the afternoon. When I went down to the staff entrance and shouted for our driver, the white-faced girl commended by Borrit again appeared from behind the screen. She was as sulky as ever. The Section’s car was just large enough to hold four persons in great discomfort. If you were the only passenger, you could travel at the back or beside the driver, according to whim. I told her the street number and sat in front.
‘Can you find your way there?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know London pretty well?’
She hardly answered. After a few minutes beside her, it was clear this AT possessed in a high degree that power which all women – some men – command to a greater or lesser extent when in the mood, of projecting round them a sense of vast resentment. The girl driving, I noticed, was able to do this with quite superlative effect. Her rankling animosity against the world in general was discharged with adamantine force, comparable with Audrey Maclintick’s ill humours when her husband was alive, or Anne Stepney’s intimations of