The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [37]
These rather sombre speculations were interrupted by a door opening nearby. A Free French officer in a képi appeared. Middle-aged, with spectacles, rather red in the face, he was followed from the room by a youngish, capless captain, wearing Intelligence Corps badges.
“Et maintenant, une dernière chose, mon Capitaine,” said the Frenchman, “maintenant que nous avons terminé avec I’affaire Szymanski. Le Colonel s’est arrangé avec certains membres du Commandement pour que quelques jeunes officiers soient placés dans le Génie. Il espère que vous n’y verrez pas d’inconvenient.”
“Vous n’avez pas utilisé la procédure habituelle, Lieutenant?”
“Mon Capitaine, le Colonel Michelet a pensé que pour une pareille broutille on pouvait se dispenser des voies hierachiques.”
“Nous aurons des ennuis.”
“Le Colonel Michelet est convaincu qu’ils seront négligeables.”
“Ca m’étonnerait.”
“Vous croyez vraiment?”
“J’en suis sûr. II nous jaut immédiatement une liste de ces noms.”
“Très bien, mon Capitaine, vous les aurez.”
The English officer shook his head to express horror at what had been contemplated. They both laughed a lot.
“Au revoir, Lieutenant.”
“Au revoir, mon Capitaine.”
The Frenchman retired. The captain turned to me.
“Jenkins?”
“Yes.”
“Finn told me about you. Come in here, will you.”
I followed into his room, and sat opposite while he turned the pages of a file.
“What have you been doing since you joined the army?”
Reduced to narrative form, my military career up to date did not sound particularly impressive. However, the captain seemed satisfied. He nodded from time to time. His manner was friendly, more like the good-humoured approach of my old Battalion than the unforthcoming demeanour of most of the officers at Div. H.Q. The story came to an end.
“I see – how old are you?”
I revealed my age. He looked surprised that anyone could be so old.
“And what do you do in civilian life?”
I indicated literary activities.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I believe I read one.”
However, he showed none of General Liddament’s keen merest in the art of the novel, made no effort to explore further this aspect of my life.
“What about French?”
It seemed simplest to furnish the same descriptive phrases offered to the General.
“I can read a book as a rule, but get held up with slang or something like the technical descriptions of Balzac.”
The captain laughed.
“Well,” he said, “suppose we come back to that later. Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“One.”
“Prepared to go abroad?”
“Of course.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
He seemed almost surprised at this rather minimal acceptance of military obligation.
“We’re looking for liaison officers with the Free French,” he said. “At battalion level. They’re not entirely easy to find. Speaking another language tolerably well seems so often to go with unsatisfactory habits.”
The captain smiled sadly, a little archly, across the desk at me.
“Whilst our Allies expect nothing less than one hundred per cent service,” he said, “and quite right too.”
He fixed me with his eye.
“Care to take the job on?”
“Yes – but, as I explained, I’m no great master of the language.”
He did not reply. Instead, he opened a drawer of the desk from which he took a document. He handed this to me. Then he rose and went to a door on the other side of the room. It gave on to a smaller room, almost a cupboard surrounded by dark green metal safes. In one corner was a little table on which stood a typewriter in its rubber cover. A chair was beside it.
“Make a French translation of these instructions,” he said. “Subsistence Allowance is frais d’alimentation. Here is paper – and a typewriter, should you use one. Alternatively, here too is la plume de ma tante.”
Smiling not unkindly, he shut me in. I settled down to examine the printed sheet handed to me. It turned out to be an Army Form, one specifying current regulations governing issue, or non-issue, of rations to troops in the field. At first sight the prose did not seem to make much sense in English; I saw at once there was little hope of my own French improving it. Balzac on provincial typesetting was going to be nothing to this. However, I sat down and worked away, because I wanted the job badly.