The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [74]
Mature for a battlefield, over which armies had immemorially campaigned. The identification flash of my old Division had appeared more than once on the shoulder of infantrymen passed on the route. When we stopped to inspect the organization of a bridgehead, I asked the local Conducting Officer from Lines of Communication if he knew whether any of my former Regiment were to be found in the neighbourhood.
‘Which brigade?’
I told him.
‘We should be in the middle of them here. Of course we may not be near your particular battalion. Like to see if we can find some of them? Your funny-wunnies will be happy for a few minutes, won’t they?’
The military attachés would be occupied for half an hour or more with what they were inspecting. In any case, Finn as usual well ahead with time schedule, it would be undesirable to arrive unduly early for the Field-Marshal.
‘I’d like to see if any of them are about.’
‘Come along then.’
The L. of C. captain led the way down a road lined with small houses. Before we had gone far, sure enough, three or four soldiers wearing the Regimental flash were found engaged on some fatigue, piling stuff on to a truck. They were all very young.
‘These look like your chaps – right regiment anyway, if not your actual battalion. You’d better have a word with them.’
I made some enquiries. Opportunity to knock off work was, as usual, welcome. They turned out to be my own Battalion, rather than the other one of the same Regiment within the brigade.
‘Is an officer named Kedward still with you?’
‘Captain Kedward, sir?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Oh yes, the Company Commander, sir?’
‘He actually commands your Company?’
‘Why, yes, he does, sir. That’s him.’
‘You’re all in Captain Kedward’s Company?’
‘We are, sir.’
It seemed astonishing to them that I did not know that already. I could not understand this surprise at first, then remembered that I too was wearing the regimental crest and flash, so that they certainly thought that I belonged to the same brigade as themselves, possibly even newly posted to their own unit. Soldiers often do not know all the officers of their battalion by sight. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the Adjutant to be thought of as the Commanding Officer, because he is the one most often heard giving orders.
‘Is Captain Kedward likely to be about?’
‘He’s in the Company Office just now, sir.’
‘Near here?’
‘Over there, sir, where the swill tubs are.’
‘You stay here, sir,’ said one of them. ‘I’ll get Captain Kedward for you.’
Work was now more or less at a standstill. Cigarettes were handed out. It seemed they had arrived fairly recently in this sector. Earlier, the Battalion had been in action in the Caen area, where casualties had been fairly heavy. I asked about some of the individuals I had known, but they were too young to remember any of them. The L. of C. captain became understandably bored listening to all this.
‘Now you’re back with your long lost unit, I’ll leave you to have a natter,’ he said. ‘Want to check up on some of my own business round the corner. Be with you again in five minutes.’
He went off. At the same moment Kedward, with the young soldier who had offered to fetch him, appeared from the door of a small farmhouse. It was more than four years since I had set eyes on him. He looked a shade older, though not much; that is to say he had lost that earlier appearance of being merely a schoolboy who had dressed up in uniform for fun, burnt-corking his upper lip to simulate a moustache. The moustache now had a perfectly genuine existence. He saluted, seeming to be rather flustered.
‘Idwal.’
‘Sir?’
He had not recognized me.
‘Don’t you remember? I’m Nick Jenkins. We were together in Rowland Gwatkin’s Company.’
Even that information did not appear to make any immediate impression on Kedward.
‘We last saw each other at Castlemallock.’
‘The Casdemallock school of Chemical Warfare, sir?’
On the whole, where duty