“But the General could sack him to-morrow.”
“For some reason it doesn’t suit him to do that. Hogbourne-Johnson is also given to putting on a lot of swank about being a Light Infantryman. To tell the truth, I’m surprised any decent Line regiment could put up with him. They might at least have taught him not to announce himself to another officer on the telephone as ‘Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson.’ I know Cocksidge says, ‘This is Captain Cocksidge speaking,’ if he’s talking to a subaltern. You expect that from Cocksidge. Hogbourne-Johnson is supposed to know better. The C.R.A. doesn’t say, ‘This is Brigadier Hawkins,’ he says ‘Hawkins here.’ However, I suppose I shouldn’t grumble. I can manage the man. That’s the chief thing. If he hasn’t learnt how to behave by now, he never will.”
All this turned out to be a pretty just description of Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson and his demeanour, from which in due course I saw no reason to dissent. The army is a place where simple characterisation flourishes. An officer or man is able, keen, well turned out; or awkward, idle, dirty. He is popular or detested. In principle, at any rate, few intermediate shades of colour are allowed to the military spectrum. To some extent individuals, by the very force of such traditional methods of classification, fall into these hard and fast categories. Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson was one of the accepted army types, disappointed, sour, on the look-out for trouble; except by his chief clerk, Diplock, not much loved. On the other hand, although he may have had his foolish moments as well as his disagreeable ones, Hogbourne-Johnson was not a fool. Where Widmerpool, as it turned out, made a mistake, was in supposing he had Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson eating out of his hand. The Colonel’s failings, such as they were, did not include total lack of grasp of what Widmerpool himself was like in his dealings. Indeed, Hogbourne-Johnson showed comparatively deep understanding of Widmerpool eventually, when the titanic row took place about Diplock, merging — so far as Widmerpool and Hogbourne-Johnson were concerned — into the question of who was to command the Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment.
The Reconnaissance Unit, then in process of generation, was one in which Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson took a special interest from the start, though not an entirely friendly interest.
“These Recce fellows are doing no more than we Light Bobs used to bring off on our flat feet,” he would remark. “Nowadays they want a fleet of armoured vehicles for their blasted operations and no expense spared. There’s a lot of damned nonsense talked about this so-called Recce Battalion.”
The Reconnaissance Corps — as in due course it emerged — was indeed, on first coming into being, a bone of considerable contention among the higher authorities. Some pundits thought like Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson; others, just the opposite. One aspect of the question turned on whether the Recce Corps — to some extent deriving in origin from the Anti-tank Companies of an earlier phase of the war — should be used as a convenient limbo for officers, competent, but judged, for one reason or another, less than acceptable in their parent unit; or, on the other hand, whether the Corps should be moulded into one of the Elites of the army, having its pick of the best officers and men available. Yanto Breeze, for example, of my former Battalion, had transferred to an Anti-tank Company after the never-explained death — suicide or murder — of Sergeant Pendry. Breeze had been implicated only to the extent of being Orderly Officer that night, sufficient contact — bringing the unpleasantness of a Court of Inquiry — to make him want to leave the Battalion. A good, though not particularly ornamental officer, he was felt to be entirely suitable for the Anti-tank Company. Adherents of a more stylish Recce Corps might, rightly or wrongly, have required rather more outward distinction from their officer in-take than Breeze could show. That was much how things stood. The whole question also appealed greatly to Widmerpool, both as an amateur soldier in relation to tactical possibilities, and, as a professional trafficker in intrigue, a vehicle offering all sorts of opportunity for personal interference.
“Hogbourne-Johnson is playing a double game about the Recce Corps,” he said. “I happen to know that. The Divisional Commander is very keen on this new unit. The Generals at Corps and Command, on the other hand, are neither of them enthusiastic on the subject, not helpful about speeding things up. Hogbourne-Johnson thinks — in my opinion rightly — that General Liddament plans to get rid of him. Accordingly, he is doing his best to suck up to the other two Generals by backing their policy. He’ll then expect help if relieved of his appointment”
“Like the Unjust Steward.”
“Who was he?”
“In the Bible.”
“I thought you meant an officer of that name.”
“The one who said write ten, when it ought to have been fifty.”
“There’s nothing unjust about it,” said Widmerpool, always literal-minded. “Naturally Hogbourne-Johnson has to obey his own Divisional Commander’s orders. I do not for a moment suggest he is overstepping the bounds of discipline. After all, Recce developments are a matter of opinion. A regular officer of his standing has a perfect right to hold views. However, what our General would not be specially pleased to hear is that Hogbourne-Johnson is also moving heaven and earth to get a friend from his own regiment appointed to this new unit’s command.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I too have my candidate.”
“To command the Recce Corps?”
“Going into the matter, I discovered Hogbourne-Johnson’s tracks. However, I can circumvent him.”
Widmerpool smiled and nodded in a manner to indicate extreme slyness.
“Who?”
“No one you would have met. An excellent officer of my acquaintance called Victor Upjohn. Knew him as a Territorial. First-rate man.”
“Won’t they appoint a cavalryman, in spite of Hogbourne-Johnson and yourself?”
“They’ll appoint my infantryman — and be glad of him.”
“If the General is likely to be annoyed about Hogbourne-Johnson messing about behind his back as to appointments to command in his Division, he’ll be even less pleased to find you at the same game.”
“He won’t find out. Neither will Hogbourne-Johnson. Upjohn will simply be gazetted. In the meantime, so far as it goes, I am prepared to play ball with Hogbourne-Johnson up to a point. After all, if I know the right man to command the Recce Corps, it’s surely my duty to get him there.”
There was something to be said for this view. If you want your own way in the army, or elsewhere, it is no good following the rules too meticulously, a canon all great military careers — and most civil ones — abundantly illustrate. What Widmerpool had not allowed for, as things turned out, was a sudden deterioration of his own relations with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson. No doubt one reason for his assurance about that, in spite of the Colonel’s uncertain temper, was that most of Widmerpool’s dealings were with his own immediate superior, Colonel Pedlar, so less likelihood of friction existed in the other more explosive quarter. Naturally he was in touch with Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson from time to time, but there was no day-to-day routine, during which Hogbourne-Johnson was likely, sooner or later, to make himself disagreeable as a matter of principle.
Colonel Pedlar, as “A. & Q.”, set no problem at all. Also a regular full colonel with an M.C., he had little desire to be unaccommodating for its own sake. A certain stiffness of manner in official transactions was possibly due to apprehension that more might be required of him than he had to offer, rather than an innate instinct, like Hogbourne-Johnson’s, to be unreasonable in all his dealings. Colonel Pedlar seemed almost surprised to have reached the rank he had attained; appeared to possess little or no ambition to rise above it, or at least small hope that he would in due course be promoted to a brigade. The slowness of his processes of thought sometimes irked his subordinate, Widmerpool, even though these processes were on the whole reliable. If Colonel Hogbourne-Johnson looked like an owl, Colonel Pedlar resembled a retriever, a faithful hound, sound in wind and limb, prepared to tackle a dog twice his size, or swim through a river in spate to collect his master’s game, but at the same time not in the top class for picking up a difficult scent.