The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [86]
“That’s good news. My last one wasn’t always too reliable.”
Sergeant Ablett was waiting for us. As Bithel had asserted in his drunken delirium, the Sergeant added to his qualities as an unusually efficient N.C.O. those required for performing as leading comedian at the Divisional Concert, where he would sing forgotten songs, crack antediluvian jokes and dance unrestrainedly about the stage wearing only his underclothes. Ablett’s was always the most popular turn. Now, however, this talent for vaudeville had been outwardly subdued, in its place assumed the sober, positively severe bearing of an old soldier, whose clean-shaven upper lip, faintest possible proliferation of side-whisker, perhaps consciously characterised a veteran of Wellington’s campaigns. Contact was made between Cheesman and Ablett. It struck me that now would be a good opportunity to try and speak with Stringham.
“There’s a man in your outfit I want a word with. May I do that while the Sergeant is showing you round?”
“By all means,” said Cheesman. “Some personal matter?”
“He’s a chap I know in civilian life.”
Cheesman was the sort of person to be trusted with that information. Anyway, the unit was moving. Sergeant Ablett summoned a corporal. I went off with him to find Stringham, leaving Cheesman to get his bearings.
“Last saw Stringy on his bed in the barrack room,” said the corporal, a genial bottle-nosed figure, who evidently did not take military formalities too seriously.
He went off through a door. I waited in a kind of yard, where the Mobile Laundry’s outlandish vehicles were parked. In a minute or two the corporal appeared again. He was followed by Stringham, who looked as if the unexpected summons had made him uneasy. He was not wearing a cap. When he saw me, his face cleared. He came to attention.
“Thank you, Corporal.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
The bottle-nosed corporal disappeared.
“You gave me quite a turn, Nick,” Stringham said. “I was lying on my bed musing about Tuffy and what a strange old girl she is. I was reading Browning, which always makes me think of her. Browning’s her favourite poet. Did I tell you that? Of course I did, I’m getting hopelessly forgetful. He always makes me feel rather jumpy. That was why I got in a flap when Corporal Treadwell said I was wanted by an officer.”
“I’ve just brought your new bloke round who’s taken Bithel’s place.”
“Poor Bith. That was an extraordinary evening last night. What’s happened to him?”
“Widmerpool’s shot him out.”
“Dear me. Just as well, perhaps, for the army’s sake, but I shall miss him. What’s this one like?”
“He’s called Cheesman. Should be easy to handle if you stay with him.”
“Why shouldn’t I stay with him? I’m wedded to the Laundry by this time. I’ve really begun to know the meaning of esprit de corps, something lamentably lacking in me up to now.”
“I want to talk about all that.”
“Esprit de corps?”
“Can’t we take a stroll for a couple of minutes while Cheesman deals with your Sergeant?”
“Ablett’s a great favourite of mine too,” said Stringham. “I’m trying to memorise some of his jokes for use at dinner parties after the war, if I’m ever asked to any again – indeed, if any are given après la guerre. Ablett’s jokes have an absolutely authentic late nineteenth-century ring that fills one with self-confidence. Wait a moment, I’ll get a cap.”
When he returned, wearing a side-cap, he carried in his hand a small tattered volume. We walked slowly up an endless empty street of small redbrick houses. The weather, for once, was warm and sunny. Stringham held up the book.
“Before we part, Nick,” he said, “I must read you something I found here. I can’t make out just what all of it means, but some has obvious bearing on army life.”
“Charles, you’ve got to do some quick thinking. The Mobile Laundry is due to move,”
“So we heard.”
“There’ve been rumours?”
“One always knows these things first in the ranks. That’s one of the advantages. Where’s it to be?”
“Of course that’s being kept secret, but Widmerpool thinks – for what it’s worth – the destination is probably