The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell [15]
‘Ah, yes …’
He began to sort out papers, putting some away in a drawer. He gave an immediate impression, not only of knowing what he was about himself, but also of possessing the right sort of determination to use any information available from other sources. Inefficiency was rare in the building, but there was inevitably the occasional boor or temperamental obscurantist.
‘Polish evacuation – here we are – these troops held by our Russian Allies since their invasion of our Polish Allies in 1939. They’ve retained their own units and formations?’
‘We understand some in Central Asia have, or at least certain units have already been brigaded after release from prison camps. General Anders is organizing this.’
‘The lot are in Central Asia?’
‘At least eight or nine thousand Polish officers remain untraced.’
‘Rather a large deficiency.’
‘That’s a minimum, sir. It’s been put as high as fifteen thousand.’
‘Any idea where they are?’
‘Franz Josef Land’s been suggested, air.’
‘Within the Arctic Circle?’
‘Yes.’
He looked straight in front of him.
‘Unlikely they’ll be included in this evacuation, whatever its extent?’
‘Seems most unlikely, sir.’
‘Just the figures I have here?*
He pushed them over.
‘So far as we know at present. On the other hand, anything might happen.’
‘Let’s have a look at the map again … Yangi-yul … Alma Ata … There’s been constant pressure for the release of these troops?’
‘All the time – also to discover the whereabouts of the missing officers.’
He wrote some notes.
‘Lease-Lend …’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘You see the consignment papers?’
‘From time to time some minor item is earmarked for the Polish forces in Russia and the papers pass through our hands.’
Once, when one of these interminable lists of weapons and vehicles, matérial of war for the Eastern Front, had come to us, Pennistone had compared the diplomatic representations of the moment, directed to obtaining the release of the immobilized Polish army, with a very small powder in a very large spoon of Lease-Lend jam. Now, the Germans penetrating into the country on an extended front, these solicitations seemed at last to have attracted official Soviet attention. This must have been four or five months before the siege of Stalingrad. Q (Ops.) Colonel ran through facts and figures, asked a few additional questions, then shook the papers together and clipped them back into their file.
‘Right?’
‘Right, sir.’
He took up the green telephone again.
‘If the London Poles have anything to add to what I have here already, let me know.’
‘We will, sir.’
He ‘went over’ on the scrambler with whomever he was talking to, and, as I withdrew, could have been dealing with Icelandic matters. Like Orpheus or Herakles returning from the silent shades of Tartarus, I set off upstairs again, the objective now Finn’s room on the second floor.
Outside the Army Council Room, side by side on the passage wall, hung, so far as I knew, the only pictures in the building, a huge pair of subfusc massively framed oil-paintings, subject and technique of which I could rarely pass without re-examination. The murkily stiff treatment of these two unwontedly elongated canvases, although not in fact executed by Horace Isbister RA, recalled his brush- work and treatment, a style that already germinated a kind of low-grade nostalgia on account of its naïve approach and total disregard for any ‘modern’ development in the painter’s art. The merging harmonies – dark brown, dark red, dark blue – depicted incidents in the wartime life of King George V: Where Belgium greeted Britain, showing the bearded monarch welcoming Albert, King of the Belgians, on arrival in this country as an exile from his own: Merville, December 1st, 1914, in which King George was portrayed chatting with President Poincare, this time both with beards, the President wearing a hat somewhat resembling the head-dress of an avocat in the French lawcourts. Perhaps it was fur, on account of the cold. This time too busy to make a fresh assessment, aesthetic or sartorial, I passed the picture by. Finn’s door was locked. He might still be with the General, more probably was himself making a round of branches concerned with the evacuation. There was nothing for it but Blackhead, and restrictions on straw for hospital palliasses.