The Valley of Bones (30 page)

‘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, ‘don’t feel rank makes a gulf between us.’

‘How did you know it was me when I
came into the room?’

Widmerpool indicated a small circular
shaving-mirror, which stood on his table, almost hidden by piles of documents.
He may have thought this question already presumed too far on our difference in
rank, because he stopped smiling at once, and began to tap his knee. His
battle-dress, like his civilian clothes, seemed a little too small for him. At
the same time, he was undeniably a somewhat formidable figure in his present
role.

‘I’ll put you in the picture right
away,’ he said. ‘In the first place, I do not mean to stay on this staff long.
That is between ourselves, of course. The Division is spoken of as potentially
operational. So far as I am concerned, it is a backwater. Besides, I have to do
most of the work here. Ack-and-Quack, a Regular, is a good fellow, but terribly
slow. He is not too bad on supply, but possesses little or no grasp of
personnel.’

‘What about the General?’

Widmerpool took off his spectacles. He
leant towards me. His face was severe under his blinking. He spoke in a low
voice.

‘I despair of the General,’ he said.

‘I thought everyone admired him.’

‘Quite a wrong judgment.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘Worse.’

‘He has a reputation for efficiency.’

‘Mistakenly.’

‘They like him in the units.’

‘People love buffoonery,’ said
Widmerpool, ‘soldiers like everyone else. Incidentally, I don’t think General
Liddament cares for me either. However, that is by the way. I make sure he can
find nothing to complain of in my work. As a result, he contents himself with
adopting a mock-heroic style of talk whenever I approach him. Very undignified
in a relatively senior officer. I repeat, I do not propose to stay with this
formation long.’

‘What job do you want?’

‘That’s my affair,’ said Widmerpool, ‘but
in the meantime, so long as I remain, the work will be properly done. Now it
happens lately there has been a spate of courts-martial, none of special
interest, but all requiring, for one reason or another, a great deal of work
from the DAAG. With his other duties, it has been more than one man can cope
with. It was too much for my predecessor. That was to be expected. Now I thrive
on work, but I saw at once that even I must have assistance. Accordingly, I
have obtained War Office authority for the temporary employment of a junior
officer to aid me in such matters as taking Summaries of Evidence. Various
names were put forward within the Division, yours among them. I noticed this. I
had no reason to suppose you would be the most efficient, but, since none of
the others had any more legal training than yourself, I allowed the ties of old
acquaintance to prevail. I chose you – subject to your giving satisfaction, of
course.’

Widmerpool laughed.

‘Thanks very much.’

‘I take it you did not find yourself
specially cut out to be a regimental officer.’

‘Not specially.’

‘Otherwise, I doubt if your name would
have been submitted to me. Let’s hope you will be better adapted to staff
duties.’

‘We can but hope.’

‘I remember when we last met, you came
to see me with a view to getting help in actually entering the army. How did
you get in?’

‘In the end I was called up. As I told
you at the time, my name was already on the Emergency Reserve. I merely
consulted you as to the best means of speeding up that process.’

I saw no reason to give Widmerpool
further details about that particular subject. It had been no thanks to him
that the calling-up process had been accelerated. By now he had succeeded in
dispelling, with extraordinary promptness, my earlier apprehension that army
contacts were necessarily preferable with people one knew in civilian life. I
began to wonder whether I was not already regretting Gwatkin and Kedward.

‘Like so many units and formations at
this moment,’ said Widmerpool, ‘the Division is under-establishment. You will
be expected to help while you are here in other capacities than purely “A”
duties. When in the field – on exercises, I mean – you will be something of a
dogsbody, to use a favourite army phrase, with which you are no doubt familiar.
You understand?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Good. You will be in F Mess. F is
low, but not the final dregs of the Divisional Headquarters staff, if they can
be so called. The Mobile Bath Officer, and his like, are in E Mess.

By the way, a body from your unit, one
Bithel, is coming up to command the Mobile Laundry.’

‘So I heard.’

‘Brother of a VC, I understand, and
was himself a notable sportsman when younger. Pity they could not find him
better employment, for he should be a good type. But we must get on with the
job, not spend our time coffee-housing here. Your kit is downstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will give orders for it to be taken
round to your billet – you had better go with it to see the place. Come
straight back here. I will run through your duties, then take you back to the
Mess to meet some of the staff.’

Widmerpool picked up the telephone. He
spoke for some minutes about my affairs. Then he said to the operator: ‘Get me
Major Farebrother at Command.’

He hung up the receiver and waited.

‘My opposite number at Command is one,
Sunny Farebrother, a City acquaintance of mine – rather a slippery customer to
deal with. He was my Territorial unit’s Brigade-Major at the beginning of the
war.’

‘I met him years ago.’

The telephone bell rang.

‘Well, get cracking,’ said Widmerpool,
without commenting on this last observation. ‘The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll
be back. There’s a good deal to run through.’

He had already begun to speak on the
telephone when I left the room. I saw that I was now in Widmerpool’s power.
This, for some reason, gave me a disagreeable, sinking feeling within. On the
news that night, motorized elements of the German army were reported as
occupying the outskirts of Paris.