The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [61]
I told him about staying at La Grenadière, how the Leroys had a son instructing at Saumur in those days, but General Philidor did not remember him. It would have been a long shot had he done so. All the same, contacts had been satisfactory, so that by the time he turned up for his interview with the important officer already mentioned, there was no sense of undue formality.
Philidor started in Finn’s room, from where I conducted him to a general of highish status – to be regarded, for example, as distinctly pre-eminent to the one in charge of our own Directorate – who was to act as it were as mediator between Philidor and the all but supreme figure. This mediating general was a brusque officer, quickly mounting the rungs of a successful military career and rather given to snapping at his subordinates. After he and Philidor had exchanged conventional army courtesies, all three of us set off down the passage to the great man’s room. In the antechamber, the Personal Assistant indicated that his master was momentarily engaged. The British general, lacking small talk, drummed his heels awaiting the summons. I myself should remain in the ante-chamber during the interview. There was a few seconds delay. Then a most unfortunate thing happened. The general acting as midwife to the birth of the parley, misinterpreting a too welcoming gesture or change of facial expression on the part of the PA, guardian of the door, who had up to now been holding us in check, motioned General Philidor to follow him, and advanced boldly into the sanctuary. This reckless incursion produced a really alarming result. Somebody – if it were, indeed, a human being – let out a frightful roar. Whoever it was seemed to have lost all control of himself.
‘I thought I told you to wait outside – get out…’
From where our little group stood, it was not possible to peep within, but the volume of sound almost made one doubt human agency. Even the CIGS saying good-morning was nothing to it. This was the howl of an angry animal, consumed with rage or pain, probably a mixture of both. Considered merely as a rebuke, it would have struck an exceptionally peremptory note addressed to a lance-corporal.
‘Sorry, sir …’
Diminished greatness is always a painful spectacle. The humility expressed in those muttered words, uttered by so relatively exalted an officer, was disturbing to me. General Philidor, on the other hand, seemed to feel more detachment. Appreciative, like most Frenchmen, of situations to be associated with light comedy – not to say farce – he fixed me with his sharp little eyes, allowing them to glint slightly, though neither of us prejudiced the frontiers of discipline and rank by the smallest modification of expression. Nevertheless, entirely to avoid all danger of doing any such thing, I was forced to look away.
This incident provoked reflections later on the whole question of senior officers, their relations with each other and with those of subordinate rank. There could be no doubt, so I was finally forced to decide, that the longer one dealt with them, the more one developed the habit of treating generals like members of the opposite sex; specifically, like ladies no longer young, who therefore deserve extra courtesy and attention; indeed, whose every whim must be given thought. This was particularly applicable if one were out in the open with a general.
‘Come on, sir, you have the last sandwich,’ one would say, or ‘Sit on my mackintosh, sir, the grass is quite wet.’
Perhaps the cumulative effect of such treatment helped to account for the highly strung temperament so many generals developed. They needed constant looking after. I remembered despising Cocksidge, a horrible little captain at the Division Headquarters on which I had served, for behaving so obsequiously to his superiors in rank. In the end, it had to be admitted one was almost equally deferential, though one hoped less slavish.
‘They’re like a lot of ballerinas,’ agreed Pennistone. ‘Ballerinas in Borneo, because their behaviour, even as ballerinas, is quite