The Soldier's Art - Anthony Powell [75]
“What’s your name?”
“Jenkins, sir.”
“Ah, we’ve spoken sometimes together on the telephone.”
Uniform – that of a London Territorial unit of Yeomanry cavalry – hardly changed Farebrother at all, unless to make him seem more appropriately clad. Cap, tunic, trousers, all battered and threadbare as his former civilian suits, had obviously served him well in the previous war. Frayed and shiny with age, they were far from making him look down-at-heel in any inadmissible way, their antiquity according a patina of impoverished nobility – nobility of the spirit rather than class – a gallant disregard for material things. His Sam Browne belt was limp with immemorial polishing. I recalled Peter Templer remarking that Farebrother’s D.S.O. had been “rather a good one”; of the O.B.E. next door to it, Farebrother himself had commented : “told them I should have to wear it on my backside, as the only medal I’ve ever won sitting in a chair.” Whether or not he had in fact said any such thing, except in retrospect, he was well able to look after himself and his business in that unwarlike position, however assured he might also be in combat. It was not surprising Widmerpool hated him. Leaning forward a little, puckering his face, as if even at this moment he found a sedentary attitude unsympathetic, he gazed at me suddenly as if he were dreadfully sorry about something.
“I’ve got some rather bad news for Kenneth, I’m afraid,” he said, “but I expect I’d better keep it till he returns. I’d better tell him personally. He might be hurt otherwise.”
He spoke in a tone almost of misery. I thought the point had arrived when it should be announced that we had met before. Farebrother listened, with raised eyebrows and a beaming smile, while I briefly outlined the circumstances.
“That must have been seventeen or eighteen years ago.”
“Just after I’d left school.”
“Peter Templer,” he said. “That’s a curious coincidence.”
“You’ve heard about him lately?”
“I have, as a matter of fact. Of course I often used to run across him in the City before the war.”
“He’s attached to some ministry now in an advisory capacity, isn’t he?”
“Economic Warfare,” said Farebrother.
He fixed his very honest blue eyes on me. There was something a bit odd about the look.
“He told me he wasn’t very happy where he was,” he said, “and hearing I was making a change myself, thought I might be able to help.”
I did not see quite how Farebrother could help, but assumed that might be through civilian contacts, rather than from his own military status. Farebrother seemed to decide that he wanted to change the subject from Templer’s immediate career, giving almost the impression that he felt he might himself have been indiscreet. He spoke quickly again.
“The old man died years ago, of course,” he said. “He was an old devil, if ever there was one. Devil incarnate.”
I was a little surprised to hear Farebrother describe Peter Templer’s father in such uncomplimentary terms, because, when we had met before, he had emphasised what a “fine old man” he had thought Mr. Templer; been positively sentimental about his good qualities, not to mention having contributed a laudatory footnote of personal memoir to the official obituary in The Times. I was more interested to talk of Peter than his father, but Farebrother would allow no further details.
“Said more than I should already. You surprised it out of me by mentioning the name so unexpectedly.”
“So you’re leaving Command yourself, sir?”
“As I’ve begun being indiscreet, I’ll continue on that line. I’m going to one of the cloak-and-dagger shows.”
From time to time one heard whispers of these mysterious sideshows radiating from out of the more normal activities of the Services. In a remote backwater like the Divisional Headquarters where I found myself, they were named with bated breath. Farebrother’s apparent indifference to the prospect of becoming part of something so esoteric seemed immensely detached and nonchalant.
Nevertheless, the manner in which he made this statement, in itself not in the least indiscreet, was at the same time perhaps a shade self-satisfied.