‘Yes, sir,’ said the Major-General. He was reluctant to continue, because it was not safe to pester his chief with a request for further instructions once a decision had been reached, but in this case the Service regulations left him no option. ‘He’s junior to Webb as brigadier, of course.’
‘Then you’ll have to promote him major-general. Get the orders out to-day.’
A wave of the Field-Marshal’s massive hand told the General and the Major-General that their presence was no longer required, and they left the Field-Marshal to plunge once more into the mass of work piled before him – into the business of constructing a modern army out of the few antiquated remains left over after the departure of the Expeditionary Force.
That was how Curzon obtained his appointment to the command of the Ninety-first Division and his promotion to the temporary rank of Major-General. There were not wanting unkind people who hinted that he owed his new rank to his prospective father-in-law, but the Duke had not raised a finger in the matter. There had been no scheming or bargaining, not even by the little scheming group which centred round the Duke and Lady Constance. He had been selected out of a hundred possible officers who could have filled the vacancy because, while their capacities were all equally unexplored, an adventitious circumstance had singled him out for particular notice. Without that the Major-General would never have had the opportunity of putting in the single sentence which ultimately turned the scale. And it must be specially noticed that the Major-General had not the slightest hint that he might receive favours in return; neither Curzon nor his new relations had been parties to anything underhand of that sort.
Chapter Ten
Curzon was at Bude House when the butler came in to announce – the tone of his voice indicating that he realized the importance of this official business – that the War Office was asking on the telephone if they could speak to General Curzon.
Curzon left his lady’s side and went out to the telephone.
‘Hullo?’ he said.
‘Is that General Curzon?’ asked a sharp-tongued female voice.
‘Speaking.’
‘Hold on a minute, please. General Mackenzie would like to speak to you.’
There was a click and a gurgle and then Mackenzie’s voice.
‘Hullo, Curzon. I thought I’d find you at Bude House when you weren’t at your hotel. Hope I’m not disturbing you?’
‘Not very much.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s worth being disturbed for. You’ve been given the Ninety-first Division.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ve been given the Ninety-first Division – the one you were going to have a brigade in. And you’re promoted to Major-General with seniority from to-day.’
‘That’s very good news.’
‘I said you’d think so, didn’t I? When can you take up your command?’
‘Whenever you like.’
‘To-morrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Call here in the morning. I want to hear your ideas about a staff. It’ll be a pretty makeshift one, anyway, I’m afraid, but that can’t be helped.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘But there’s a good house as headquarters, with stabling just as it should be. Trust old Coppinger-Brown for that. You’ll have a use for the house, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘That reminds me. I haven’t congratulated you on your engagement yet. My very best wishes.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘I was wondering when you were going to offer me thanks. You haven’t sounded very grateful up to now.’
‘Oh, thank you very much.’
‘That’s better. You remember this, Curzon; the closer you and I stay by each other, the better it will be for both of us. That’s a word to the wise.’
‘Er – yes.’
‘But that can wait a bit. I’ll be seeing you to-morrow morning. Nine o’clock?’
‘Very well.’
‘All right, then. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
Back in Emily’s sitting-room he told the glad news, his eyes bright with pleasure and excitement, and, because of that, Emily’s eyes shone too. Until a week or two ago Emily had hardly known that such things as brigades and divisions existed, and she had been decidedly vague about the difference between them, but already she was beginning to grasp the essentials of this Army business. The Duke’s valet was sent out hurriedly to buy stars at a military tailor’s, and then, with a note to the hotel management admitting him to Curzon’s room, he was sent on to sew those stars above the crossed swords and batons on the shoulder-straps of Curzon’s tunics all ready for the morning, while Curzon and Emily carried on a muddled conversation in which Army promotion and houses and horses and future domesticity were all intermingled.
But next day had its awkward moments. A War Office motor car took Curzon and his kit down into Hampshire, where the division was scattered in billets or under canvas over a five-mile radius, and stopped at the end of the long gravelled drive outside Narling Priory, the headquarters of the Ninety-first Division. A young red-tabbed subaltern led Curzon round the side of the house through french windows into a spacious room wherein stood a group of khaki-clad figures with a tall, thin officer, bent and feeble, the sword of ceremony hanging from his belt, standing in advance of them.
‘Good morning,’ he said, standing very stiff and still.
Curzon nodded.
‘General Coppinger-Brown?’ he asked in return.
‘Yes.’
It was then that Curzon realized what an embarrassing business it was to relieve a man of his command, because Coppinger-Brown made no effort to put him at ease, but merely stood and waited.
‘I have been sent down by the War Office,’ began Curzon hesitantly; he waited for help, received none, and had to continue without it. ‘I am to take command of the division.’
‘So I understood from orders I received this morning,’ said Coppinger-Brown. There was the faintest of accents upon the last two words. Curzon realized that it was dashed hard luck on the old chap to be flung out of his command like this at an hour’s notice. He wanted for a moment to say ‘I’m sorry,’ but one man can hardly say that to another, especially in the presence of inferiors. He could only stand and feel awkward while Coppinger-Brown left him to drink the cup of his embarrassment to the full. By the time Coppinger-Brown relented Curzon was decidedly uncomfortable.
‘I must introduce,’ said Coppinger-Brown at last, ‘the officers of my staff – of your staff, I mean; I beg your pardon, General.’
He waved his hand at the group behind him, and each officer in turn came up to attention as his name was spoken.
‘General Webb, commanding the Three-hundredth Brigade. General Webb is the only brigadier in the division at present. I made so bold as to give General Watson immediate leave of absence, as I wished to spare him the humiliation of having to leave under orders.’
There was something very acid in Coppinger-Brown’s tone as he made this speech, but Curzon did not notice it, as he was too busy sizing-up his second-in-command, a beefy, red-faced infantryman, of whom Mackenzie at the War Office that morning had said that he was being given one more chance.
‘Colonel Miller, my G.S.O.1. Captain Frobisher, G.S.O.3. Colonel Hill, C.R.A. Colonel Septimus, A.D.M.S. –’
For a space it simply rained initials in a manner which would have left a civilian gasping, but Curzon was more accustomed to hearing these initials used than to the words they stood for. He nodded formally to each in turn, to the officers of the General Staff, to the Officer commanding Royal Artillery, to Assistant Director of Medical Services, and the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General, and the Assistant Provost-Marshal, and the Officer commanding Royal Engineers, and the rag-tag and bobtail of aides-de-camp.
Mackenzie at the War Office had given him thumbnail character portraits of each of these officers; Curzon himself had no knowledge of most of th
em, and only a hearsay acquaintance with the rest. Hill the Gunner had won a D.S.O. in the Tirah. Webb had commanded a battalion before Curzon had been given a squadron. Runcorn the Sapper had left the Army before the war on account of some scandal about drink and women, which was a very remarkable thing to have occurred to a Sapper, so that Runcorn had better be watched with all the attention a freak merited. Miller of the General Staff had been described by Mackenzie as ‘a bloke with twice the brains of you and me put together,’ and had left it to Curzon to form his own opinion after this somewhat ominous beginning.
‘What’s been the matter down there,’ Mackenzie had said, ‘as far as I can make out from what Somerset says – he’s just been inspecting them – it’s just sheer dam’ laziness on someone’s part or other. They’ve had their troubles, of course. We’ve let ’em down badly from here once or twice, but you couldn’t have run the old Army, let alone a new one ten times the size, on the staff I’ve got left to me here. But old Coppinger-Brown’s the real cause of the trouble. He’s too old. You can’t expect an old boy of seventy-two with bronchial tubes or something to go out in all weathers in the sort of winter we’re having, and go charging about on a horse keeping an eye on twelve raw battalions an’ two dozen other units. It’s not in human nature. Coppinger-Brown swore he was all right when he came here after a job – he produced all sorts of chits from doctors to that effect. And he looked all right too. But you know how it is, Curzon. You’ve got to work like a blasted nigger to get anything done with new formations. Otherwise everything’s held up while everyone’s waiting for something else to get done which they think they can’t do without. Or else somebody’s getting in everybody else’s way, and’ll go on doing it until you come down on ’em. Doesn’t matter how good a staff you’ve got when you’re in that kind of muddle. It’s only the boss who can put it straight. Nobody gives a hoot for what a staff officer says when they know the general won’t take action. But you’ll put ginger into them, Curzon, I know.’
That had been all very well at the War Office, but it was rather different by the time General Coppinger-Brown had finished the introductions and had shuffled out of the room with his aides-de-camp beside him. Curzon stood and faced his staff – nearly all of them ten or twenty years his senior, and most of them until a few weeks back immeasurably his senior in military rank. He felt as awkward and embarrassed as at the time of General Coppinger-Brown’s first greeting of him. It was not in him to be conciliatory. His whole instinct in a time of difficulty was to be unbending and expressionless. It was a natural reaction that there should creep into his voice the tone he employed on parade – he felt as if he were on parade for the first time with some new recalcitrant unit.
‘Gentlemen,’ he rasped, and paused. He had not anticipated having to make a speech. He tugged at his moustache until he saw the light; he had felt at a loss at remembering that there was no regimental esprit de corps to which to appeal. But he could, at any rate, appeal to the spirit of the Division. ‘Gentlemen, it is my responsibility now to prepare the Ninety-first Division in readiness to go to France. We can never have it said that our Division, one of the earliest to be raised, was the last to be sent overseas. That would be too bad. We must make up our minds that we are not going to be left behind by the other divisions. We must work hard to catch up on them and pass them. I am quite sure we can.’
His expression hardened as he remembered the precariousness of his own temporary rank. It flashed through his mind that the Duchess’s elegant friends would sneer delightedly if he were to be unstuck like poor old Coppinger-Brown.
‘I am going to see that we do,’ he added grimly, looking round the group from one to another. Each pair of eyes dropped as they met his, such was the savage force of his glance as he thought of Emily and the urgency of the need to justify himself to her. And the mention of the corporate existence of the Ninety-first Division had served its purpose in starting him off in what he had to say. He was able to wind up his little speech on the note he wanted.
‘This is war-time,’ he said. ‘A time of great emergency. There will be no mercy at all in this Division for officers who are not up to their work.’
It was a speech which served its purpose as well as any other might have done, and better than some. Some generals might have appealed to their subordinates’ loyalty, or might have put new vigour into them by force of personality, but Curzon, if such suggestions had been put forward to him, would have dismissed them as ‘claptrap’ or ‘idealism’. As it was, a subdued and impressed staff crept quietly out of the room, all quite decided to work a great deal harder for the new major-general with the scowl on his face and the barely concealed threat in his speech.
The pink-cheeked aide-de-camp came back into the room. General Coppinger-Brown would be very much obliged if General Curzon could spare him a few minutes for the discussion of private business. Curzon followed the aide-de-camp out of the headquarters office and across the tiled hall to the wing of the house which still remained furnished as a private residence. There was an old, old lady sitting in an arm-chair in the drawing-room with Coppinger-Brown standing beside her.
‘Lucy,’ said Coppinger-Brown. ‘This is my successor, General Curzon. Curzon, may I introduce my wife?’
Curzon bowed, and the old lady nodded icily to him across the room, while the aide-de-camp retired with the tact expected of aides-de-camp.
‘The first thing we wanted to say,’ said Coppinger-Brown, ‘was whether we might expect the pleasure of your company at lunch? It is one o’clock now, and lunch can be served at any time to suit you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Curzon, ‘but I have just arranged to lunch in the staff officers’ mess.’
He forebore from adding that he was itching to start work with his chief of staff, and make up for the time lost by Coppinger-Brown, and intended to start as soon as lunch began.
‘What a pity,’ replied Coppinger-Brown. ‘I hope you can spare us a few minutes, all the same, so that we can settle our private arrangements.’
‘I am at your service now,’ said Curzon.
‘That’s very good of you,’ said Coppinger-Brown. ‘Because we are anxious to hear from you how soon we must vacate this house.’
Coppinger-Brown and his wife stared at Curzon with an unvoiced appeal in their eyes. The house was one taken over furnished by the War Office; half of it had been adapted as Staff Offices, and the other half was retained as a residence for the Major-General commanding the division. The last two months had been a wonderful time for the old couple. It had been an end of retirement; they had turned their backs on the Cheltenham boarding-house; there had been a future once more ahead of them; they were back again in the Army in which he had served for forty-five years. Now they were being condemned once more to exile, with all the added bitterness of disappointment and consciousness of failure. Until this morning they had felt secure in the pomp and power of their official position. It was a shock for old people to be flung out like this without warning. They were loth to leave the substantial comfort of the Priory; they shrank from the last open acknowledgement of failure implied by their leaving, as they might shrink from an icy bath. With the tenacity of very old people for the good things of life they wanted to spin out their stay here, even for only a few days.
Curzon, unsympathetic though he was, had a glimpse of these emotions, and stopped for a moment to think. The Coppinger-Browns might be considered harmless old folk, and to allow them to remain for a week or two longer at the Priory might be a kindness which would do no one any harm. But he knew he must not; he felt it in his bones. Coppinger-Brown would never be able to resist the temptation to put his nose into the new organization of the division. Young officers could hardly be expected to order off a Major-General under whom they had only recently been serving, even though he was again retired. There would be hitches, perhaps nasty scenes. And for all he knew Mrs Coppinger-Brown might make trouble among the women – Curzon had all an unmarried man’s suspic
ions of Army women’s capacity for making trouble. There must be no chance, not the faintest possibility, of trouble in his division. Moreover, it might weaken his authority a little if people assumed that Coppinger-Brown was staying on to see him firmly in the saddle. He was not going to run the least risk of any of these unpleasant contingencies when a little firmness at the start would obviate them.
‘I am afraid,’ he said slowly, ‘that I need the house myself. It would be convenient if you could see your way to leaving at the earliest possible moment. Perhaps if I put the divisional motor car at your disposal to-morrow morning you would have your kit and luggage ready?’
They looked at each other, all three of them.
‘Very well, since you insist,’ said Coppinger-Brown – Curzon had made no show of insisting. ‘We had better not keep you any longer from your lunch. We shall be ready to leave at ten o’clock to-morrow. Is that all right, Lucy?’
Mrs Coppinger-Brown nodded; from beginning to end of the interview she had said no word, but even a wooden-headed man like Curzon was conscious of the hatred she felt towards him as the supplanter of her husband, the man who was driving her out once more into the lonely, pitiable exile of the Cheltenham boarding-house. Curzon withdrew as quickly as he could, and he comforted himself as he walked back across the hall by telling himself that after all a soldier’s wife should be reconciled by now to having to make sudden migrations, while Coppinger-Brown was a doddering old fool who should never have been entrusted with a division. Which was all perfectly true.
Chapter Eleven
The Ninety-first Division was composed of troops of a sort Curzon had never even thought of. They were the first flower of England; of a standard of education, enthusiasm and physique far superior to anything the recruits of the old regiments of the line could show. In the old days, for every man who joined the Army because he actively wanted to there were ten who did so because they could find nothing better to do; but in the new units of 1914 every single man had joined because he felt it to be his duty. To Curzon and his like (who in the old days had thoroughly appreciated the value of the occasional ‘born soldier’ in the ranks) the merit of the new material should have been obvious. These were no unemployable riff-raff, no uneducable boys, but men who had made some part of their way already in the world, men of some experience and education, quicker witted, more accustomed to think for themselves, and filled with the desire to avenge Belgium and to give of their best for England – the same stuff as Cromwell (who in an early speech had pointed out its virtues) had employed when he had made of the Ironsides the finest troops in Europe.