• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2367 0

lack of grasp of some quite obvious matter. Even in civilian life, a frontal attack would have been ill-judged in approaching a relationship in a business firm such as Hogbourne-Johnson’s with Diplock. It was not going to alter the stranglehold Diplock enjoyed on Hogbourne-Johnson. At the same time, the fact that Widmerpool felt it possible to offer that remark about Diplock at all, absolved him from any suggestion of later deliberately assailing the Colonel through insidious attack by way of his own chief clerk. Widmerpool had already decided Diplock was unsatisfactory. When the time came, of course, he was not blind to pleasure derived from that method, but he did not contrive it of sheer malice. Once the ball was rolling, as D.A.A.G., he had no alternative but to follow up suspicions aroused.

That even the lightest of such suspicions should have come into being on the subject of Mr. Diplock behaving in an irregular manner might seem out of the question; far less, that there should be indications he was embezzling government funds. However, that was how things began to look. Possibly so much rectitude in observing the letter of the law in matters of daily routine required, psychologically speaking, release in another direction. General Conyers had been fond of expatiating on something of the sort. Anyway, the affair opened by Widmerpool saying one day, soon after the three-day exercise, that he was not satisfied with the financial administration of the H.Q. Sergeants’ Mess.

“Something funny is going on there,” he said. “Diplock is at the bottom of it, I’m sure. I’ve told those Mess treasurers time and again to take the bottle from the cellar account and charge it to the bar account. They never seem to understand. In Diplock’s case, it looks to me as if he won’t understand.”

These doubts were not set at rest as the weeks passed. Not long after Widmerpool made this comment, several small sums of money disappeared from places where they had been deposited.

“I’ve recommended that cash-boxes be screwed to the floor,” said Widmerpool. “At least you know then where they’ve been left. Diplock put all sorts of difficulties in the way, but I insisted.”

“Have you mentioned these losses higher up?”

“I had a word with Pedlar, who didn’t at all agree with what I am beginning to wonder – I try to have as few direct dealings as possible now with Hogbourne-Johnson. I am well aware I should not receive a sympathetic hearing there. It will be a smack in the eye for him if my suspicions turn out to be correct.”

Then it appeared, in addition to the Sergeants’ Mess, something unsatisfactory was afoot in connection with the Commuted Ration Allowance.

“Mark my words,” said Widmerpool. “This is all going to link up. What I require is evidence. As a start, you will go out to the Supply Column tomorrow and make a few enquiries. I must have facts and figures. As you are to be travelling in that direction, it will be a good opportunity to explain those instructions I have here just issued to RA.S.C. sub-units. You can go on to the Ammunition Company and the Petrol Company, after you’ve gathered the other information. Take haversack rations, as they’re some distance apart, and the other thing will need some little time to extract. There may be lack of co-operation. C.R.A.S.C. has been difficult ever since the business of those trucks, which I was, in fact, putting to a perfectly legitimate use.”

At one time or another, Widmerpool had quarrelled with most of the officers at Divisional Headquarters. The row with C.R.A.S.C. – Commanding Royal Army Service Corps at H.Q., a lieutenant-colonel – had been about employment of government transport on some occasion when interpretation of regulations was in doubt. It had been a drawn battle, like that with Sunny Farebrother. Widmerpool’s taste for conflict seemed to put him less at a disadvantage than might be supposed. His undoubted reputation for efficiency had indeed been to some extent built up on being regarded as a difficult man to deal with; rather than on much more deserved respect for the plodding