The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [40]
I explained the reason for my presence in the building,
“So you may be joining the Free Frogs.”
“And you?”
“I look after the Poles.”
“Do they have a place like this too?”
“Oh, no. The Poles are dealt with as a Power. They have an ambassador, a military attaché, all that. The point about France is that we still recognise the Vichy Government. The other Allied Governments are those in exile over here in London. That is why the Free French have their own special mission.”
“You’ve just come to see them?”
“To discuss some odds and ends of Polish affairs that overlap with Free French matters.”
We talked for a while. The other captain returned.
“Finn wants to see you,” he said.
I followed him along the passage into a room where an officer was sitting behind a desk covered with papers. The I. Corps captain announced my name and withdrew, I had left my cap in the other office, so, on entering, could not salute, but, with the formality that prevailed in the area where I was serving, came to attention. The major behind the desk seemed surprised at this. He rose very slowly from his desk, and, keeping his eye on me all the time, came round to the front and shook hands. He was small, cleanshaved, almost square in shape, with immensely broad shoulders, large head, ivory-coloured face, huge nose. His grey eyes were set deep back in their sockets. He looked like an enormous bird, an ornithological specimen very different from Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson, kindly but at the same time immensely more powerful. I judged him in his middle fifties. He wore an old leather-buttoned service-dress tunic, with a V.C., Légion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre avec palmes, and a couple of other foreign decorations I could not identify.
“Sit down, Jenkins,” he said.
He spoke quietly, almost whispered. I sat down. He began to fumble among his papers.
“I had a note from your Divisional Commander,” he said. “Where is it? Draw that chair a bit nearer. I’m rather deaf in this ear. How is General Liddament?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Knocking the Division into shape?”
“That’s it, sir.”
“Territorial Division, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’ll get a Corps soon.”
“You think so, sir?”
Major Finn nodded He seemed a little embarrassed about something. Although he gave out an extraordinary sense of his own physical strength and endurance, there was also something mild, gentle, almost undecided, about his manner.
“You know why you’ve been sent here?” he asked.
“It was explained, sir.”
He lowered his eyes to what I now saw was my translation. He began to read it to himself, his lips moving faintly. After a line or two of doing this, it became clear to We what the answer was going to be. The only question that remained was how long the agony would be drawn out. Major Finn read the whole of my version through to himself: then, rather nobly, read it through again. This was either to give dramatic effect, or to rouse himself t0 the required state of tension for making an unwelcome announcement. Those, at least, were the reasons that occurred to me at the time, because he must almost certainly have gone through the piece when the captain had first brought it to him. I appreciated the gesture, which indicated he was doing the best he could for me, including not sparing himself. When he came to the end for the second time, he looked across the desk, and, shaking his head, sighed and smiled.
“Well…” he said.
I was silent.
“Won’t do, I’m afraid.”
“No, sir?”
“Not as your written French stands.”
He took up a pencil and tapped it on the desk.
“We’d have liked to have you…”
“Yes, sir.”
“Masham agrees.”
“Masham” I took to be the I. Corps captain.
“But this translation …”
He spoke for a second as if I might have intended a deliberate insult to himself and his uniform by the botch I had made of it, but that he was prepared magnanimously to overlook that. Then, as if regretting what might have appeared momentary unkindness, in spite of my behaviour, he rose and shook hands again, gazing