The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [81]
‘I thought you said you didn’t deal with the cloak-and-dagger boys?’
‘Something Stevens said off the record.’
‘You know him? Young Stevens was a bit too fond of making statements off the record.’
‘I was on a course with him earlier in the war. Then he was mixed up with a girl I knew, now deceased.’
‘Odo the Stoat we used to call him. These boys make me feel my age. That’s what got Peter down.’
‘Is Stevens missing too?’
‘Not he. I met him in Cairo after they’d got him out.’
‘Why didn’t they get Peter out too?’
Duport gave one of his hard unfriendly laughs.
‘There are those in Cairo who allege proper arrangements were never made to get Peter out. At least they were planned, but never put into operation. That’s what’s said. These things happen sometimes, you know. Little interdepartmental differences. Change of policy at the top. There was a man with an unpronouncable name mixed up with it all too. I don’t know which side he was on.’
‘Szymanski?’
‘Why do you ask about things when you know the whole story already? Are you from MI5? An agent provocateur, just trying to see what you can get out of me, then shop me for bad security? That’s what it sounds like.’
‘Was Szymanski with Templer or Stevens?’
‘So far as I know, on his own. Not sure it was even ourselves who sent him in. Might have been his own people, whoever they were. He went there in the first instance to knock off someone – the head of the Gestapo or a local traitor. I don’t know. It was all lined up, then a signal came down from the top – from the Old Man himself, they say – that war wasn’t waged in that manner in his opinion. All that trouble for nothing – but I understand they got Szymanski out. A chap in the Cairo racket told me all this. He was fed up with the way that particular party was run. It came out I’d been Peter’s brother-in-law in days gone by, so I suppose he thought, as a former relation, I’d a right to know why he’d kicked the bucket.’
‘And you really think Pamela Flitton caused this?’
‘I only stuffed her once,’ said Duport. ‘Against a shed in the back parts of Cairo airport, but even then I could see she might drive you round the bend, if she really decided to. I’ll tell you something amusing. You remember that bugger Widmerpool, who’d got me into such a jam about chromite when we last met?’
‘He’s a full colonel now.’
‘He was in Cairo at one moment and took Miss Pamela to a nightclub.’
‘Rumours of that even reached England.’
‘That girl gets a hold on people,’ said Duport. ‘Sad about Peter, but there it is. The great thing is he didn’t fall into the hands of the Gestapo, as another friend of mine did. Pity you’re going back tomorrow. We might have gone to the Opera together.’
‘Didn’t know music was one of your things.’
‘Always liked it. One of the reasons my former wife and I never really hit it off was because Jean only knew God Save the King because everyone stood up. I was always sneaking off to concerts. They put on La Muette de Portici here to celebrate the liberation. Not very polite to the Dutch, as when it was first performed, the Belgians were so excited by it, they kicked the Hollanders out. I’m not all that keen on Auber myself, as it happens, but I’ve met a lot of dumb girls, so I’ve been to hear it several times to remind myself of them.’
This revelation of Duport’s musical leanings showed how, as ever, people can always produce something unexpected about themselves. In the opposite direction, Kernével was equally unforeseen, on my return, in the lack of interest he showed in Cabourg and its associations with Proust. He knew the name of the novelist, but it aroused no curiosity whatever.
‘Doesn’t he always write about society people?’ was Kernével’s chilly comment.
I told Pennistone about Prasad, Asbjornsen and the bath.
‘Prasad merely turned the taps on at the hour of prayer. It was perfectly right that he should have the bathroom. Finn should have arranged that through you in the first instance.’
‘I see.’
‘Thank God Finn’s back, and I shall no longer have to deal directly with that spotty