The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [73]
‘We’ll soon be in Brussels,’ said Marinko. ‘I hope to get some eau-de-cologne. In London it is unobtainable. Not a drop to be had.’
When we drove into the city’s main boulevards, their sedate nineteenth-century self-satisfaction, British troops everywhere, made our cortège somewhat resemble Ensor’s Entry of Christ into Brussels, with soldiers, bands and workers’ delegation. One looked about for the Colman’s ‘Mustart’ advertisement spelt wrong, but it was nowhere to be seen. Our billet was a VIP one, a requisitioned hotel presided over by a brisk little cock-sparrow of a captain, who evidently knew his job.
‘We had the hell of a party here the other night,’ he said. ‘A crowd of senior officers as drunk as monkeys, brigadiers rooting the palms out of the pots.’
His words conjured up the scene in Antony and Cleopatra, when arm-in-arm the generals dance on Pompey’s galley, a sequence of the play that makes it scarcely possible to disbelieve that Shakespeare himself served for at least a period of his life in the army.
‘With thy grapes our hairs be crowned?’
‘Took some cleaning up after, I can tell you.’
‘Talking of cleanliness, would a cake of soap be any use to yourself?’
‘Most acceptable.’
‘In return, perhaps you could recommend the best place to buy a bottle of brandy?’
‘Leave it to me – a couple, if you feel like spending that amount. I understand your people go to Army Group Main HQ tomorrow.’
‘That’s it – and we’ve been promised a visit to the Field-Marshal himself the following day.’
At Army Group Main the atmosphere was taut, the swagger – there was a good deal of swagger – a trifle forced; the court, as it were, of a military Trimalchio. Trimalchio, after all, had been an unusually successful business man; for all that is known, might have proved an unusually successful general. A force of junior staff officers with the demeanour of aggressive schoolboys had to be penetrated.
‘You can’t park those cars there,’ one of them shouted at Finn. ‘Get ’em out of the way at once and look sharp about it.’
Finn did as he was told. Indoors, the place was even more like a school, one dominated by specialized, possibly rather cranky theories; efficient, all the same, and encouraging the boys to be independently minded, even self-applauding. Perhaps the last epithet was unfair. This, after all, was a staff that had delivered the goods pretty well so far. They had a right to be pleased with themselves. There was an odd incident while the Chief of Staff, a major-general, addressed the assembled military attachés. In the background a telephone rang. It was answered by a curly haired captain, who looked about fifteen. He began to carry on a long conversation at the top of his voice, accompanied by a lot of laughter. It was on the subject of some more or less official matter, though apparently nothing very weighty. I wondered how long this would be allowed to continue. The Chief of Staff looked up once or twice, but stood it for several minutes.
‘Shut down that telephone.’
The captain’s chatter was brought to an end. The general had spoken curtly, but most senior officers would have shown far less forbearance, especially in the presence of a relatively distinguished visiting party of Allied officers. Clearly things were run in their own particular way at Army Group Headquarters. I looked forward to seeing whether the same atmosphere would prevail at the Field-Marshal’s Tactical HQ.
By this time, the Allied advance into Germany had penetrated about a couple of miles across the frontier at its farthest point. Accordingly, we left Belgium and entered that narrow strip of the Netherlands that runs between the two other countries, travelling towards the town of Roermond, still held by the enemy, against which our artillery was now in action. The long straight roads, leading through minefields, advertised at intervals as ‘swept to verges’, were lined on either