The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell [97]
Major-General H. de C. Liddament, DSO, MC.
Divisional Commander
The clerk left me at a door on which the name of the former DAAG – ‘Old Square-arse’, as Maelgwyn-Jones designated him – was still inscribed. From within came the drone of a voice apparently reciting some endless chant, which rose and fell, but never ceased. I knocked. No one answered. After a time, I knocked again. Again there was no answer. Then I walked in, and saluted. An officer, wearing major’s crowns on his shoulder, was sitting with his back to the door dictating, while a clerk with pencil and pad was taking down letters in shorthand. The DAAG’s back was fat and humped, a roll of flesh at the neck.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said, waving his hand in the air, but not turning.
He continued his dictation while I stood there.
‘… It is accordingly felt … that the case of the officer in question – give his name and personal number – would be more appropriately dealt with – no – more appropriately regulated – under the terms of the Army Council Instruction quoted above – give reference – of which para II, sections (d) and (f), and para XI, sections (b) and (h), as amended by War Office Letter AG 27/9852/73 of 3 January, 1940, which, it would appear, contemplate exceptional cases of this kind … It is at the same time emphasised that this formation is in no way responsible for the breakdown in administration – no, no, better not say that – for certain irregularities of routine that appear to have taken place during the course of conducting the investigation of the case, vide page 23, para 17 of the findings of the Court of Inquiry, and para VII of the above quoted ACI, section (e) – irregularities which it is hoped will be adjusted in due course by the authorities concerned . .
The voice, like so many other dictating or admonitory voices of even that early period of the war, had assumed the timbre and inflexions of the Churchill broadcast, slurred consonants, rhythmical stresses and prolations. These accents, in certain circumstances, were to be found imitated as low as battalion level. Latterly, for example, Gwatkin’s addresses to the Company could be detected, by an attentive ear, to have veered away a little from the style of the chapel elder, towards the Prime Minister’s individualities of delivery. In this, Gwatkin’s harangues lost not a little of their otherwise traditional charm. If we won the war, there could be no doubt that these rich, distinctive tones would be echoed for a generation at least. I was still thinking of this curious imposition of a mode of speech on those for whom its manner was totally incongruous, when the clerk folded his pad and rose.
‘Will you sign these, sir?’ he asked.
‘ “For Major General”,’ said the DAAG, ‘I’ll sign them “for Major-General”.’
He turned in his chair.
‘How are you?’ he said.
It was Widmerpool. He brought his large spectacles to bear on me like searchlights, and held out his hand. I took it. I felt enormously glad to see him. One’s associations with people are regulated as much by what they stand for, as by what they are, individual characteristics becoming from time to time submerged in more general implications. At that moment, although I had never possessed anything approaching a warm relationship with Widmerpool, his presence brought back with a rush all kinds of things, more or less desirable, from which I had been cut off for an eternity. I wondered how I could ever have considered him in the disobliging light that seemed so innate since we had been at school together.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
I looked about. The shorthand clerk had been sitting on a tin box. I chose the edge of a table.
‘Anyway, between these four walls,’ said Widmerpool,