For the rest, she was everything a general’s wife should be. On Christmas morning, the very day after her wedding, she breakfasted with him with every appearance of cheerfulness, and saw him off on his tour of inspection with a wave of her hand that told the inquisitive world that they were absolutely happy. There were not many generals of division in England who spent that Christmas Day with the troops, but Curzon was one of them. He managed to visit every one of the twenty units under his command. For nearly all the men it was their first Christmas in the Army; for a great number of them it would also be their last, but no one – certainly not Curzon and not even Emily – stopped to think about that. Curzon had not the time to visit the men in the ranks, but he called in to every officers’ mess, and the surprise and delight of the regimental officers at this condescension on the part of high authority filtered in the end down to the men in the ranks and did its part in tuning up the Ninety-first Division to the pitch of excellence which it eventually displayed.
It did Curzon no harm that everyone knew he was newly married, nor that regimental wits were busy producing obscene jokes about him and his wife. It made him known, gave him a personality for the private soldiers, just as did his acquisition of the nickname of ‘Bertie’ – which reached the troops of the line from the Staff, who had heard Lady Emily address him by that name. Neither Emily nor Curzon saw anything comic or undignified about the name of ‘Bertie’, and to the Army the irony of the name’s suggestion of weak good fellowship as contrasted with his reputation for savage energy and discipline appealed to the wry sense of humour of the sufferers, making a deeper impression still. The catchword ‘Bertie’s the boy’ was current in the Ninety-first Division long before it spread among the troops in France.
Everyone knew that Bertie would tolerate no inefficiency or slackness. The whole Army was aware of the reasons why Lieutenant-Colonel Ringer of the Fusiliers was removed from his command and sent into retirement, and of the energy of Bertie’s representations to the War Office which brought this about. Yet not so many people knew that the leakage of gossip regarding this affair was the cause of the return of Lieutenant Horatio Winter-Willoughby to regimental duty. The information regarding the leakage reached Curzon through Emily. Emily had plunged in duty bound into the business of leading Army society locally – most of the senior officers of the division had brought down their wives to be near them, and installed them at exorbitant prices in hotels and cottages round about. Sooner or later someone told her how much they knew about the Ringer scandal, and what was the source of the information.
Emily told Curzon in all innocence – she had not yet learned what a crime gossip was in Curzon’s eyes. Curzon struck at once. That same day a report went into the War Office saying that Major-General Curzon much regretted being under the necessity of informing the Director-General of Staff Personnel that Lieutenant Horatio Winter-Willoughby had been found unsuitable for work on the Staff, and of requesting that he be ordered to return to his unit. There was a wail of despair from Horatio when the news reached him – a wail expressed in indignant letters to London, which brought down the Duchess of Bude and Lady Constance Winter-Willoughby, simply seething with indignation.
The Duchess was angry largely because this upstart son-in-law of hers was betraying the family which had condescended to admit him into its circle. What was the good of having a general in the family if he did not find places on the staff for the nephews? And the suggestion that a Winter-Willoughby was not up to his work was perfectly preposterous – more preposterous still, because the Duchess could never imagine that it mattered a rap which man did which work as long as she had a finger in the pie. There was the question of the succession of the title too. If Horatio was sent back into the Guards as a result of this ridiculous notion of Curzon’s it was possible that he might be killed – not likely, of course, because Winter-Willoughbys were not killed, but possible – and that would make the continued existence of the title almost precarious.
‘So you see,’ said the Duchess, putting down her teacup, ‘you simply can’t go on with this wicked idea. You must write to the War Office at once – or it would be better to telephone to them perhaps – and tell them that you have made a mistake and you want Horatio to stay here with you.’
Curzon would have found it difficult to have answered politely if he had cast about for words with which to tell his mother-in-law that he was not going to do what she said. But as it was he did not stop to try to be polite. He was not going to have the efficiency of his Division interfered with by anyone not in authority, least of all a woman.
‘I’m not going to do anything of the sort,’ he said briefly.
‘Bertie!’ said the Duchess, scandalized.
‘No,’ said Curzon. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve had to find fault with Horatio. I’m sorry, he’s no good, but I can’t have him on my Staff. I hope he will find regimental duty more – more congenial.’
‘Do you mean,’ said the Duchess, ‘that you’re not going to do what I ask – what the Family ask you to do?’
‘I’m not going to keep him as my A.D.C.,’ said Curzon sturdily.
‘I think,’ said Lady Constance, ‘that is perfectly horrible of you.’
Lady Constance happened to be more moved by anxiety for her son than by Curzon’s blasphemous denial of the family.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Curzon, ‘but I can’t help it. I have the Division to think about.’
‘Division fiddlesticks,’ said the Duchess, which made Curzon exceedingly angry. Lady Constance saw the look in his eye, and did her best to soothe him.
‘Perhaps Horatio was a little indiscreet,’ she said, ‘but he’s only young. I think he will have learned his lesson after this. Don’t you think you might give him another chance?’
Lady Constance made play with all her beauty and all her elegance as she spoke. Curzon would certainly have wavered if it had not been the concern of the Division. He was suddenly able to visualize with appalling clarity Horatio, lazy, casual, and unpunctual, confronted suddenly with a crisis like any one of the fifty which had occurred during the eleven days at Ypres. If the existence of the Division should at any time depend on Horatio, which was perfectly possible, the Division would cease to exist. It was unthinkable that Horatio should continue in a position of potential responsibility.
‘No,’ said Curzon. ‘I can’t have him.’
Lady Constance and the Duchess looked at each other and with one accord they turned to Emily, who had been sitting mute beside the tea things.
‘Emily,’ said Lady Constance. ‘Can’t you persuade him?’
‘Horatio is your first cousin,’ said the Duchess. ‘He’s a future Duke of Bude.’
Emily looked in distress, first at her mother and her aunt, and then at her husband in his khaki and red tabs beside the fire. Anyone – even a woman only three weeks married to him – could see by his stiff attitude that the matter was very near to his heart, that his mind was made up, and that his temper was growing short. In the last two months the family had declined in importance in her eyes; it was her husband who mattered. Yet it was frightening that they should be debating a matter on which Horatio’s very life might depend – it was that thought which distressed her more than the need to oppose her mother.
‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘I can’t interfere with the Division. I don’t think you ought to ask me.’
The Duchess snapped her handbag shut with a vicious click and rose to her feet.
‘It appears to me,’ she said, ‘as if we were unwelcome even in my daughter’s house.’
She rose superbly to her feet, carrying Lady Constance along with her by sheer force of personality.
‘I can see no profit,’ she went on, ‘in continuing this subject. Perhaps, Bertie, you will be good enough to send and have my car brought round?’
Curzon tugged at the bell-rope and gave the order to the parlourmaid; it is just possible that the Duchess had not expected to be taken q
uite so readily at her word. At any rate, Lady Constance made a last appeal.
‘I don’t want to have to part in anger like this,’ she said. ‘Can’t something be arranged, Emily – Bertie?’
‘Something will doubtless be arranged,’ said the Duchess, with a venomous glance at her daughter and son-in-law. ‘Please do not be too distressed, Constance.’
Curzon and Emily walked out to the door with them, but the Duchess so far forgot her good manners as to climb into the car without saying good-bye. Enough had happened that afternoon to make her angry; that a Winter-Willoughby should be denied something apparently desirable, and that a Duchess of Bude should be forced to plead with an upstart little General and then be refused was a state of affairs calculated to make her perfectly furious.
The sequel followed promptly, materializing in the arrival of the Duke the next day, preceded by a telegram. Curzon talked with him alone, at his special request, Emily withdrawing after receiving his fatherly greetings. They sat one each side of the fire and pulled at their cigars in silence for several minutes until the Duke began on the inevitable subject.
‘You’ve made my wife a bit annoyed over this business of young Horatio, Curzon, you know,’ said the Duke. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve never seen her so angry before in my life.’
The tone of the Duke’s voice suggested that he had frequently seen her fairly angry.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Curzon.
‘Trouble is, with women,’ went on the Duke, ‘they never know when to stop. And they don’t draw any distinctions between a man’s private life and his official one – they don’t render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, you know. My wife’s determined to put the screw on you somehow or other – you know what women are like. You can guess what she made me do last night – first shot in the campaign, so to speak?’
‘No,’ said Curzon.
‘She made me sit down there and then, with dinner half an hour late already, and write an order to Coutts’. Dash it all, you can guess what that was about, can’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Curzon.
‘It was to countermand my previous order to pay one-seventy a month into your account. Women never know what’s good form, and what isn’t.’
Curzon said nothing. The prospect of losing the Duke’s two thousand a year was disturbing; it would mean altering the whole scale of his domestic arrangements, but it did absolutely nothing towards making him incline again in the direction of retaining Horatio’s services.
‘I suppose,’ said the Duke nervously, ‘there isn’t any chance of your changing your mind about Horatio?’
‘Not the least,’ snapped Curzon. ‘And I don’t think we had better discuss the subject.’
‘Quite right,’ said the Duke. ‘I was sure you would say that. Dam’ good thing you didn’t kick me out of the house the minute I said what I did. Of course, I wrote another order to Coutts’ this morning, saying that they were to continue paying that one-seventy. But I’d rather you didn’t let the Duchess know all the same.’
‘Thank you,’ said Curzon.
‘Now,’ said the Duke, with enormous relief, ‘is there any way out of this mess? Can you think of any job Horatio could do?’
‘He might make a good regimental officer,’ said Curzon. Most of the regimental officers he had known had not been much more distinguished for capacity than Horatio. The Duke nodded.
‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many brains in us Winters, when all is said and done. Fact is, I don’t think we’d be very important people if the first Winter hadn’t married William of Orange’s lady friend. But it’s not much good telling the Duchess that. I’ve got to do something about it.’
The Duke looked quite pathetic.
‘There are some staff positions,’ said Curzon, ‘where he couldn’t do much harm.’
Curzon was quite incapable of expressing that awkward truth any less awkwardly.
‘M’m,’ said the Duke. ‘And none of them in your gift, I suppose?’
‘No.’
‘It’s awkward,’ said the Duke. ‘But I’ll have to see what I can do up in town. I suppose you know that I’ll be in office again soon?’
‘No,’ said Curzon. Despite the revelations of the last few weeks he was still abysmally ignorant of the behind-the-scenes moves in politics.
‘Yes,’ said the Duke. ‘I don’t think it matters if I tell you. The Radicals won’t be able to keep us out much longer. Then I may be able to do a bit more for Horatio and satisfy the Duchess. There’s a good many points I want your advice about, too. What’s this man Mackenzie like? Any good?’
‘First rate,’ said Curzon without hesitation. Had not Mackenzie been instrumental in promoting him to Major-General, in giving him the Ninety-first Division, and in supplying that Division with material far beyond its quota? Quite apart from that, it would have needed a very serious deficiency indeed to induce Curzon not to give the simple loyalty which he in turn expected from his subordinates.
‘You really mean that?’ asked the Duke anxiously.
‘Of course,’ said Curzon. ‘He’s one of the best soldiers we’ve got. Works like a nigger and plenty of brains.’
‘M’m,’ said the Duke meditatively, pulling at his long fleshy chin. ‘You see – well, it doesn’t matter. If you think he’s satisfactory, and you ought to know, I don’t think I ought – anyway, that’s all right.’
Having made this cryptic speech the Duke fell silent again, transferring his attentions from his chin to his cigar, while Curzon smoked opposite to him, silent also, for the adequate enough reason that he had nothing more to say. Finally, the Duke got to his feet.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s going to be a hot reception awaiting me when I get back to London again, but it’s no use putting it off. I’ll start back now, I think. No, thank you very much, I won’t stay to dinner. It won’t be very late by the time I’m home. Good-bye, Curzon. Don’t be too gloomy.’
Captain Horatio Winter-Willoughby did not serve his country at the risk of his life despite Curzon’s adverse report upon him. It only needed the War Office’s attention to be seriously drawn to the reference to him in the Peerage for him to be found a safe position on the staff of the military attaché to a neutral government – the War Office was quite well aware of the importance of safeguarding the ultimate heir to a dukedom, just as when the threat of air-raids became more than a threat they sent the masterpieces of the National Gallery into safe storage in Wales.
Yet in one respect the Duke’s conversation bore fruit. The inevitable spy who tries to serve both sides was able to report a discussion which had been held among the prospective Ins, and his report had come to the knowledge of General Mackenzie. The spy had had a respectable education, and he was able to compare that discussion with the famous debate among the Triumvirate in Julius Caesar, when they prick off the prospective victims.
‘No,’ the Duke had said. ‘I can’t say I agree with you about this fellow Mackenzie. My son-in-law, who’s in command of a division – I’ve told you about him before, haven’t I? – well, he says that Mackenzie’s all right. Swears by him, in fact. And my son-in-law’s got his head screwed on the right way. He wouldn’t say a thing like that if he didn’t think it was true, either. I don’t think Mackenzie ought to go. Hang it, someone’s got to do the brainwork.’
That was why – and Mackenzie knew it – that when the Liberal Government at last yielded to the overwhelming pressure and admitted some of the Opposition to the sweets of office, while men in high position fell right and left, General Mackenzie remained Director-General of Tactical Services. Others greater than he – among them the greatest Minister of War that England ever had – were flung out of office, but Mackenzie remained despite his very unsound attitude in the Ulster crisis. Perhaps that is the most important contribution Curzon ever made to the history of England.
In addition, as a born intriguer, Mackenzie could not possibly credit Curzon with
ordinary honesty, but considered him as just a fellow intriguer, an ally worth having and especially a potential enemy worth placating.
Chapter Fourteen
The training of the Ninety-first Division proceeded apace, even though every day added to the total amount to be learned. A good many wounded and convalescent officers rejoined its ranks, and regarded with quiet amusement the parade movements and formal battle tactics which the Division was slowly learning to perform. Their recent experience of Flanders mud, and barbed wire, and German machine-guns had deprived them of their faith in rigid attacking movements.
Besides these informal ambassadors, the War Office began to send instructors with more explicit credentials – trench warfare experts, barbed wire maniacs, bombing officers, machine-gun enthusiasts, and – after the Second Battle of Ypres – gas-warfare specialists. These men were attached to Curzon’s staff with orders to teach the Ninety-first Division all they knew, and every one of them was quite convinced that his particular speciality was the vital necessity in the new kind of warfare which was being waged, and clamoured for wider and wider powers to be given them.
Curzon had to listen to them patiently and arbitrate among them; sometimes, under the urging of express orders from the War Office, he had to acquiesce in the teaching of doctrines which to him were only a shade less than heretical. He had no sooner made arrangements for an intensive instruction in bayonet fighting than he had to coerce his colonels into submitting to an enlargement of the battalion machine-gun establishments which would diminish very seriously the number of bayonets that could be put in line. He had to see to it that the artillery brigades received instruction regarding the new but already highly technical business of spotting from the air. He had to let the sappers have their way and try to make every infantryman an expert in matters which before the war had been strictly left to the engineers.