The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [75]
‘Don’t you remember the moment when you took over the Company from Rowland – how upset he was at getting the push.’
Kedward’s face lighted up at that.
‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘You were with us then, weren’t you, sir? I’m beginning to remember now. Didn’t you come from London? … Was it Lyn Craddock took over the platoon from you? … or Phillpots?’
‘Are they still with you?’
‘Lyn got it at Caen commanding B Company.’
‘Killed?’
‘Yes, Lyn caught it. Phillpots? What happened to Phillpots? I believe he went to one of the Regular battalions and was wounded in Crete.’
‘What became of Rowland Gwatkin?’
‘Fancy you knowing Rowland.’
‘But I tell you, we were all in the same Company.’
‘So we were, but what a long time ago all that was. Rowland living in my home town makes it seem funny you know him.’
‘Is he out here?’
‘Rowland?’
Kedward laughed aloud at such an idea. It was apparently unthinkable.
‘When I last saw him it looked as if he were due for the Infantry Training Centre.’
‘Rowland’s been out of the army for years,’
‘Out of the army?’
‘You never heard?’
Having once established the fact that I knew Gwatkin at all, in itself extraordinary enough, Kedward obviously found it equally extraordinary that I had not kept myself up-to-date about Gwatkin’s life history.
‘Rowland got invalided,’ he said. ‘That can’t have been long after Castlemallock. I know it was all about the time I married.’
‘You got married all right?’
‘Father of two kids.’
‘What sex?’
‘Girls – that’s what I wanted. Wouldn’t mind a boy next.’
‘So Rowland never reached the ITC?’
‘I believe he got there, now you mention it, sir, then he went sick.’
‘Do, for God’s sake, stop calling me “sir”, Idwal.’
‘Sorry – anyway Rowland was ill about that time. Kidneys, was it? Or something to do with his back? Flat feet, it might have been. Whatever it was, they downgraded his medical category, and then he didn’t get any better, and got boarded, and had to leave the army altogether.’
‘Rowland must have taken that pretty hard.’
‘Oh, he did,’ said Kedward cheerfully.
‘So what’s he doing?’
‘Back at the Bank. They’re terribly shorthanded. Glad to have him there, you may be sure. I believe somebody here said they had a letter that mentioned Rowland was acting manager at one of the smaller branches. That’s quite something for Rowland, who wasn’t a great banking brain, I can tell you. Just what a lot of trouble he’ll be making for everybody, you bet.’
‘And his mother-in-law? Is she still living with them? He told me that was going to happen when we said goodbye to each other. Then, on top of his mother-in-law coming to live with them, having to leave the army himself. Rowland’s had the hell of a pasting.’
The thought of Gwatkin and his mother-in-law had sometimes haunted me; the memory of his combined horror and resignation in face of this threatened affliction. To have his dreams of military glory totally shattered as well seemed, as so often in what happens to human beings, out of all proportion to what he had deserved, even if these dreams had, in truth, been impracticable for one of his capacity.
‘My God, bloody marvellous what you know about Rowland and his troubles,’ said Kedward. ‘Mother-in-law and all. Have you come to live in the neighbourhood? I thought you worked in London. Did you hear that Elystan- Edwards