Put Out More Flags

  “Who sent you to the Near East?”

  “Chap called Smith, Digby-Smith. Very interested in my bombs he was.”

  “Have you been to Pauling, yet?”

  “Pauling? Yes, I was with him yesterday. Very interested he was in my bombs. I tell you everyone is. It was him said I ought to show them to Digby-Smith.”

  Mr. Bentley talked at length about the difficulties and impossibilities of bureaucratic life. “If it was not for the journalists and the civil servants,” he said, “everything would be perfectly easy. They seem to think the whole Ministry exists for their convenience. Strictly, of course, I shouldn’t have anything to do with the journalists—I deal with books here—but they always seem to shove them on to me when they get impatient. Not only journalists; there was a man here this morning with a suitcase full of bombs.”

  “Geoffrey,” said Ambrose at length. “Tell me, would you say I was pretty well known as a left wing writer?”

  “Of course, my dear fellow, very well known.”

  “As a left wing writer.”

  “Of course very left wing.”

  “Well known, I mean, outside the left wing itself?”

  “Yes, certainly. Why?”

  “I was only wondering.”

  They were now interrupted for some minutes by an American war correspondent who wanted Mr. Bentley to verify the story of a Polish submarine which was said to have arrived at Scapa; to give him a pass to go there and see for himself; to provide him with a Polish interpreter; to explain why in hell that little runt Pappenhacker of the Hearst press had been told of this submarine and not himself.

  “Oh dear,” said Mr. Bentley. “Why have they sent you to me?”

  “It seems I’m registered with you and not with the press bureau.”

  This proved to be true. As the author of Nazi Destiny, a work of popular history that had sold prodigiously on both sides of the Atlantic, this man had been entered as a “man of letters” instead of as a journalist.

  “You mustn’t mind,” said Mr. Bentley. “In this country we think much more of men-of-letters than we do of journalists.”

  “Does being a man-of-letters get me to Scapa?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Does it get me a Polish interpreter?”

  “No.”

  “To Hell with being a man-of-letters.”

  “I’ll get you transferred,” said Mr. Bentley. “The press bureau is the place for you.”

  “There’s a snooty young man at that bureau looks at me as if I was something the cat brought in,” complained the author of Nazi Destiny.

  “He won’t once you’re registered with him. I wonder, since you’re here, if you’d like to write a book for us.”

  “No.”

  “No? Well I hope you get to Scapa all right… He won’t, you know,” added Mr. Bentley as the door closed. “You may be absolutely confident that he’ll never get there. Did you ever read his book? It was exceedingly silly. He said Hitler was secretly married to a Jewess. I don’t know what he’d say if we let him go to Scapa.”

  “What do you think he’ll say if you don’t?”

  “Something very offensive I’ve no doubt. But we shan’t be responsible. At least, I wonder, shall we?”

  “Geoffrey, when you say well known as a left wing writer, do you suppose that if the fascists got into power here, I should be on their black list?”

  “Yes, certainly, my dear fellow.”

  “They did frightful things to Left Wing Intellectuals in Spain.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in Poland, now.”

  “So the press department tell me.”

  “I see.”

  The Archimandrite dropped in for a few moments. He expressed great willingness to write a book about Axis intrigues in Sofia.

  “You think you can help bring Bulgaria in on our side?” asked Mr. Bentley.

  “I am spitting in the face of the Bulgar peoples,” said His Beatitude.

  “I believe he’d write a very good autobiography,” said Mr. Bentley, when the prelate left them. “In the days of peace I should have signed him up for one.”

  “Geoffrey, you were serious when you said that I should be on the black list of Left Wing Intellectuals?”

  “Quite serious. You’re right at the top. You and Parsnip and Pimpernell.”

  Ambrose winced at the mention of these two familiar names. “They’re all right,” he said. “They’re in the United States.”

  Basil and Ambrose met as they left the Ministry. Together they loitered for a minute to watch a brisk little scene between the author of Nazi Destiny and the policeman on the gate; it appeared that in a fit of nervous irritation the American had torn up the slip of paper which had admitted him to the building; now they would not let him leave.

  “I’m sorry for him in a way,” said Ambrose. “It’s not a place I’d care to spend the rest of the war in.”

  “They wanted me to take a job there,” said Basil, lying.

  “They wanted me to,” said Ambrose.

  They walked together through the somber streets of Bloomsbury. “How’s Poppet?” said Basil at length.

  “She’s cheered up wonderfully since you left. Painting away like a mowing machine.”

  “I must look her up again sometime. I’ve been busy lately. Angela’s back. Where are we going to?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve nowhere to go.”

  “I’ve nowhere to go.”

  An evening chill was beginning to breathe down the street.

  “I nearly joined the Bombadier Guards a week or two ago,” said Basil.

  “I once had a great friend who was a corporal in the Bombadiers.”

  “We’d better go and see Sonia and Alastair.”

  “I haven’t been near them for years.”

  “Come on.” Basil wanted someone to pay for the cab.

  But when they reached the little house in Chester Street they found Sonia alone and packing. “Alastair’s gone off,” she said. “He’s joined the army—in the ranks. They said he was too old for a commission.”

  “My dear, how very 1914.”

  “I’m just off to join him. He’s near Brookwood.”

  “You’ll be beautifully near the Necropolis,” said Ambrose. “It’s the most enjoyable place. Three public houses, my dear, inside the cemetery, right among the graves. I asked the barmaid if the funeral parties got very tipsy and she said, ‘No. It’s when they come back to visit the graves. They seem to need something then.’ And did you know the Corps of Commissionaires have a special burial place? Perhaps if Alastair is a very good soldier they might make him an honorary member…” Ambrose chattered on. Sonia packed. Basil looked about for bottles. “Nothing to drink.”

  “All packed, darling. I’m sorry. We might go out somewhere.”

  They went out, later, when the packing was done, into the blackout to a bar. Other friends came to join them.

  “No one seems interested in my scheme to annex Liberia.”

  “Beasts.”

  “No imagination. They won’t take suggestions from outsiders. You know, Sonia, this war is developing into a kind of club enclosure on a racecourse. If you aren’t wearing the right badge they won’t let you in.”

  “I think that’s rather what Alastair felt.”

  “It’s going to be a long war. There’s plenty of time. I shall wait until there’s something amusing to do.”

  “I don’t believe it’s going to be that kind of war.”

  This is all that anyone talks about, thought Ambrose; jobs and the kind of war it is going to be. War in the air, war of attrition, tank war, war of nerves, war of propaganda, war of defense in depth, war of movement, people’s war, total war, indivisible war, war infinite, war incomprehensible, war of essence without accidents or attributes, metaphysical war, war in time-space, war eternal… all war is nonsense, thought Ambrose. I don’t care about their war. It’s got nothing on me. But if, thought Ambrose, I was one
of these people, if I were not a cosmopolitan, Jewish pansy, if I were not all that the Nazis mean when they talk about “degenerates,” if I were not a single, sane individual, if I were part of a herd, one of these people, normal and responsible for the welfare of my herd, Gawd strike me pink, thought Ambrose, I wouldn’t sit around discussing what kind of war it was going to be. I’d make it my kind of war. I’d set about killing and stampeding the other herd as fast and as hard as I could. Lord love a duck, thought Ambrose, there wouldn’t be any animals nosing about for suitable jobs in my herd.

  “Bertie’s hoping to help control petrol in the Shetland Isles.”

  “Algernon’s off to Syria on the most secret kind of mission.”

  “Poor John hasn’t got anything yet.”

  Cor chase my Aunt Fanny round a mulberry bush, thought Ambrose, what a herd.

  So the leaves fell and the blackout grew earlier and earlier, and autumn became winter.

  Two

  Winter

  Winter set in hard. Poland was defeated; east and west the prisoners rolled away to slavery. English infantry cut trees and dug trenches along the Belgian frontier. Parties of distinguished visitors went to the Maginot Line and returned, as though from a shrine, with souvenir-medals. Belisha was turned out; the radical papers began a clamor for his return and then suddenly shut up. Russia invaded Finland and the papers were full of tales of white robed armies scouting through the forests. English soldiers on leave brought back reports of the skill and daring of Nazi patrols and of how much better the blackout was managed in Paris. A number of people were saying quietly and firmly that Chamberlain must go. The French said the English were not taking the war seriously, and the Ministry of Information said the French were taking it very seriously indeed. Sergeant instructors complained of the shortage of training stores. How could one teach the three rules of aiming without aiming discs?

  The leaves fell in the avenue at Malfrey, and this year, where once there had been a dozen men to sweep them, there were now four and two boys. Freddy was engaged in what he called “drawing in his horns a bit.” The Grinling Gibbons saloon and the drawing-rooms and galleries round it were shut up and shut off, carpets rolled, furniture sheeted, chandeliers bagged, windows shuttered and barred, hall and staircase stood empty and dark. Barbara lived in the little octagonal parlor which opened on the parterre; she moved the nursery over to the bedrooms next to hers; what had once been known as “the bachelors’ wing” in the Victorian days when bachelors were hardy fellows who could put up with collegiate and barrack simplicity, was given over to the evacuees. Freddy came over for the four good shoots which the estate provided; he made his guests stay out this year, one at the farm, three at the bailiff’s house, two at the Sothill Arms. Now, at the end of the season, he had some of the regiment over to shoot off the cocks; bags were small and consisted mostly of hens.

  When Freddy came on leave the central heating was lit; at other times an intense cold settled into the house; it was a system which had to be all or nothing; it would not warm Barbara’s corner alone but had to circulate, ticking and guggling, through furlongs of piping, consuming cartloads of coke daily. “Lucky we’ve got plenty of wood,” said Freddy; damp green logs were brought in from the park to smoke tepidly on the hearths. Barbara used to creep into the orangery to warm herself. “Must keep the heat up there,” said Freddy. “Got some very rare stuff in it. Man from Kew said some of the best in the country.” So Barbara had her writing table put there, and sat, absurdly, among tropical vegetation while outside, beyond the colonnade, the ground froze hard and the trees stood out white against the leaden sky.

  Then, two days before Christmas, Freddy’s regiment was moved to another part of the country. He had friends with a commodious house in the immediate neighborhood, where he spent his week-ends, so the pipes were never heated and the chill in the house, instead of being a mere negation of warmth, became something positive and overwhelming. Soon after Christmas there was a great fall of snow and with the snow came Basil.

  He came, as usual, unannounced. Barbara, embowered in palm and fern, looked up from her letter-writing to see him standing in the glass door. She ran to kiss him with a cry of delight. “Darling, how very nice. Have you come to stay?”

  “Yes, Mother said you were alone.”

  “I don’t know where we’ll put you. Things are very odd here. You haven’t brought anyone else, have you?” It was one of Freddy’s chief complaints that Basil usually came not only uninvited but attended by undesirable friends.

  “No, no one. There isn’t anyone nowadays. I’ve come to write a book.”

  “Oh, Basil. I am sorry. Is it as bad as that?” There was much that needed no saying between brother and sister. For years now, whenever things were very bad with Basil, he had begun writing a book. It was as near surrender as he ever came and the fact that these books—two novels, a book of travel, a biography, a work of contemporary history—never got beyond the first ten thousand words was testimony to the resilience of his character.

  “A book on strategy,” said Basil. “I’m sick of trying to get ideas into the heads of the people in power. The only thing is to appeal over their heads to the thinking public. Chiefly, it is the case for the annexation of Liberia, but I shall touch on several other vital places as well. The difficulty will be to get it out in time to have any influence.”

  “Mother said you were joining the Bombadier Guards.”

  “Yes. Nothing came of it. They say they want younger men. It’s a typical army paradox. They say we are too old now and that they will call us up in two years’ time. I shall bring that out in my book. The only logical policy is to kill off the old first, while there’s still some kick in them. I shan’t deal only with strategy. I shall outline a general policy for the nation.”

  “Well, it’s very nice to see you, anyway. I’ve been lonely.”

  “I’ve been lonely.”

  “What’s happened to everyone?”

  “You mean Angela. She’s gone home.”

  “Home?”

  “That house we used to call Cedric’s folly. It’s hers really, of course. Cedric’s gone back to the army. It’s scarcely credible but apparently he was a dashing young subaltern once. So there was the house and the Lyne hooligan and the Government moving in to make it a hospital, so Angela had to go back and see to things. It’s full of beds and nurses and doctors waiting for air-raid victims and a woman in the village got appendicitis and she had to be taken forty miles to be operated on because she wasn’t an air-raid victim and she died on the way. So Angela is carrying on a campaign about it and I should be surprised if she doesn’t get something done. She seems to have made up her mind I ought to be killed. Mother’s the same. It’s funny. In the old days when from time to time there really were people gunning for me, no one cared a hoot. Now that I’m living in enforced safety and idleness, they seem to think it rather disgraceful.”

  “No new girls?”

  “There was one called Poppet Green. You wouldn’t have liked her. I’ve been having a very dull time. Alastair is a private at Brookwood. I went down to see them. He and Sonia have got a horrible villa on a golf course where he goes whenever he’s off duty. He says the worst thing about his training is the entertainments. They get detailed to go twice a week and the sergeant always picks on Alastair. He makes the same joke each time. ‘We’ll send the play-boy.’ Otherwise it’s all very matey and soft, Alastair says. Peter has joined a very secret corps to go and fight in the Arctic. They had a long holiday doing winter sports in the Alps. I don’t suppose you’d remember Ambrose Silk. He’s starting a new magazine to keep culture alive.”

  “Poor Basil. Well, I hope you don’t have to write the book for long.” There was so much between brother and sister that did not need saying.

  That evening Basil began his book; that is to say he lay on the rug before the column of smoke which rose from the grate of the octagonal parlor, and typed out a list of possible titles:
/>
  A Word to the Unwise.

  Prolegomenon to Destruction.

  Berlin or Cheltenham; the Choice for the General Staff.

  Policy or Generalship; some questions put by a Civilian to vex the Professional Soldiers.

  Policy or Professionalism.

  The Gentle Art of Victory.

  The Lost Art of Victory.

  How to Win the War in Six Months; a simple lesson book for ambitious soldiers.

  They all looked pretty good to him and looking at the list Basil was struck anew, as he had been constantly struck during the preceding four months, with surprise that anyone of his ability should be unemployed at a time like the present. It makes one despair of winning, he thought.

  Barbara sat beside him reading. She heard him sigh and put out a sisterly hand to touch his hair. “It’s terribly cold,” she said. “I wonder if it would be any good trying to blackout the orangery. Then we could sit there in the evenings.”

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door and there entered a muffled, middle-aged woman; she wore fur gloves and carried an electric torch, dutifully dimmed with tissue paper; her nose was very red, her eyes were watering and she stamped snow off high rubber boots. It was Mrs. Fremlin of the Hollies. Nothing but bad news would have brought her out on a night like this. “I came straight in,” she said superfluously. “Didn’t want to stand waiting outside. Got some bad news. The Connollies are back.”

  It was indeed bad news. In the few hours that he had been at Malfrey, Basil had heard a great deal about the Connollies.

  “Oh God,” said Barbara. “Where are they?”

  “Here, outside in the lobby.”

  Evacuation to Malfrey had followed much the same course as it had in other parts of the country and had not only kept Barbara, as billeting officer, constantly busy, but had transformed her, in four months, from one of the most popular women in the countryside into a figure of terror. When her car was seen approaching people fled through covered lines of retreat, through side doors and stable yards, into the snow, anywhere to avoid her persuasive, “But surely you could manage one more. He’s a boy this time and a very well-behaved little fellow,” for the urban authorities maintained a steady flow of refugees well in excess of the stream of returning malcontents. Few survived of the original party who had sat glumly on the village green on the first morning of war. Some had gone back immediately; others more reluctantly in response to ugly rumors of their husbands’ goings on; one had turned out to be a fraud, who, herself childless, had kidnapped a baby from a waiting perambulator in order to secure her passage to safety, so impressed had she been by the propaganda of the local officials. It was mostly children now who assembled, less glumly, on the village green, and showed the agricultural community how another part of the world lived. They were tolerated now as one of the troubles of the time. Some had even endeared themselves to their hosts. But everyone, when evacuees were spoken of, implicitly excluded from all generalities the family of Connolly.