The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [50]
‘That’s not a damned bit of use,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t give protection to a cat.’
‘We’ve just reached a surface of rock, sir,’ said Stevens, ‘but I think I can say we’ve demonstrated the dignity of labour.’
The instructor sniggered and moved on, without examining the soil. Not everyone liked this self-confident manner of Stevens. Among those who disapproved was Brent.
‘That young fellow will get sent back to his unit,’ Brent said. ‘Mark my words. He’s too big for his boots.’
When the whole course was divided into syndicates of three for the purposes of a ‘tactical exercise without troops’, Brent and I managed to be included in the same trio. To act with an acquaintance on such occasions is an advantage, but it was at the price of having Macfaddean as the third partner. However, although Macfaddean, a schoolmaster in civilian life, was feverishly anxious to make a good impression on the Directing Staff, this also meant that he was prepared to do most of the work. In his middle to late thirties, Macfaddean would always volunteer for a ‘demonstration’, no matter how uncomfortable the prospect of crawling for miles through mud, for instance, or exemplifying the difficulty of penetrating dannert wire. When the task was written work, Macfaddean would pile up mountains of paper, or laboriously summarize, whichever method he judged best set him apart from the other students. He was so tireless in his energies that towards the end of the day, when we had all agreed on the situation report to be presented and there was some time to spare, Macfaddean could not bear these minutes to be wasted.
‘Look here, laddies,’ he said, ‘why don’t we go back into the woods and produce an alternative version? I’m not happy, for instance, about concentration areas. It would look good if we handed in two plans for the commander to choose from, both first-rate.’
There could be no doubt that the anonymity of the syndicate system irked Macfaddean. He felt that if another report were made, the second one might be fairly attributed to his own unaided efforts, a matter that could be made clear when the time came. That was plain enough to both Brent and myself. We told Macfaddean that, for our part, we were going to adhere to the plan already agreed upon; if he wished to make another one, that was up to him.
‘Off you go, Mac, if you want to,’ said Brent. ‘We’ll wait for you here. I’ve done enough for today.’
When Macfaddean was gone, we found a place to lie under some withered trees, blasted, no doubt, to their crumbling state by frequent military experiment. We were operating over the dismal tundra of Laffan’s Plain, battlefield of a million mock engagements. The sky above was filled with low-flying aircraft, of outlandish colour and design, camouflaged perhaps by Barnby in a playful mood. Lumbering army reconnaissance planes buzzed placidly backwards and forwards through grey puffs of cloud, ancient machines garnered in from goodness knows what forgotten repository of written-off Governmental stores now sent aloft again to meet a desperate situation. The heavens looked like one of those pictures of an imagined Future to be found in old-fashioned magazines for boys Brent rolled over on his back and watched this rococo aerial pageant.
‘You know Bob Duport is not a chap like you and me,’ he said suddenly.
He spoke as if he had given much thought to Duport’s character; as