The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [66]
‘Been having a night out, Colonel?’ he asked.
Ramos, in spectacles with a woollen scarf round his neck, looked a mild academic figure in spite of his military cap. He was obviously not at all well. The sudden impact of London wartime food – as well it might – had radically disordered his stomach. He had explained his case to me as soon as he arrived that morning, indicating this by gesture rather than words, his English being limited. I promised the aid of such medicaments as I carried, when we could get to them.
‘I believe you’ve been having a party with the girls, Colonel Ramos,’ said Van der Voort. ‘Staying up too late. Isn’t that true, old man?’
Ramos having, as already stated, no great command of the language, understood only that some enquiry, more or less kind, had been made about his health. He delighted Van der Voort by nodding his head vigorously in affirmation.
‘You’re new to London, but, my God, you haven’t taken long to make your way about,’ Van der Voort went on. ‘How do you find it? Do you like the place?’
‘Very good, very good,’ said Colonel Ramos.
‘Where have you been so far? Burlington Gardens? Have you seen the ladies there? Smeets and I always take a look on the way back from lunch. You ought to recce Burlington Gardens, Colonel.’
‘Yes, yes.’
Colonel Ramos nodded and smiled, laughing almost as much as Van der Voort himself. By this time we were all sitting on the floor of the plane, which was without any sort of interior furnishing. Finn and I had placed ourselves a little way from the rest, because he wanted to run through the programme again. Colonel Chu, who greatly enjoyed all forms of teasing, edged himself across to Ramos and Van der Voort, evidently wanting to join in. He was not in general very popular with his colleagues.
‘Like all his race, he’s dreadfully conceited,’ Kucherman had said. ‘Vaniteux – you never saw anything like them. I have been there more than once and insist they are the vainest people on earth.’
Chu was certainly pleased with himself. He began to finger the scarf Ramos was wearing. The Brazilian, for a man who looked as if he might vomit at any moment, took the broad witticisms of the other two in very good part. He probably understood very little of what was said. Watching the three of them, one saw what Chu had meant by saying he could ‘make himself young’. Probably he would have fitted in very tolerably as a boy at Eton, had he been able to persuade the school authorities to accept him for a while. He left his London appointment before the end of the War and returned to China, where he was promoted major-general. About three years later, so I was told, he was killed commanding one of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Divisions at Mukden. Chu must have been in his early forties then, no doubt still prepared to pass as a schoolboy. We floated out over a brilliant shining sea.
‘They’re not to be shown Pluto,’ said Finn. ‘I bet one and all of them make a bee-line for it. They’re as artful as a cartload of monkeys when it comes to breaking the rules.’
Pluto – Pipe Line Under The Ocean, appropriately recalling the Lord of the Underworld – was the system, an ingenious one, by which troops in a state of mobility were supplied