In one of these secluded pastoral tracts, a Corot landscape of tall poplars and water meadows executed in light greys, greens and blues, an overturned staff-car, wheels in the air, lay sunk in long grass. The camouflaged bodywork was already eaten away by rust, giving an impression of abandonment by that brook decades before. High up in the branches of one of the poplars, positioned like a cunningly contrived scarecrow, the tatters of a field-grey tunic, black-and-white collar patches just discernible, fluttered in the faint breeze and hard cold sunlight. The isolation of the two entities, car and uniform, was complete. There seemed no explanation of why either had come to rest where it was.
At that moment, an old and bearded Frenchman appeared plodding along the road. He was wearing a beret, and, like many of the local population, cloaked in the olive green rubber of a British army anti-gas cape. As our convoy passed, he stopped and waved a greeting. He looked absolutely delighted, like a peasant in a fairy story who has found the treasure. For some reason it was all too much. A gigantic release seemed to have taken place. The surroundings had suddenly become overwhelming. I was briefly in tears. The others were sunk in unguessable reflections of their own; Prasad perhaps among Himalayan peaks; Al Sharqui, the sands of the desert; Gauthier, in Clanwaert’s magic realm, the Porte de Louise. We sped on down the empty roads.
‘This car is like travelling in a coffee-grinding machine,’ said Gauthier.
‘Or a cement-mixer.’
The convoy halted at last to allow the military attachés to relieve themselves. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the worst had happened. We had blundered on a kind of junction of Plutonic equipment. Finn must have instantaneously seen that too. He rushed towards the installation, as if unable to contain himself – perhaps no simulation – taking up his stand in such a place that it would have been doubtful manners to pass in front of him. On the way back to the cars he caught me up.
‘I don’t think they noticed Pluto,’ he whispered.
It was late that night when, after inspecting a mass of things, we reached billets. A clock struck twelve as the cars entered the seaside town where these had been arranged. By the time we arrived I had forgotten the name of the place, evidently a resort in peacetime, because we drew up before the doors of a largish hotel. It was moonlight. We got out. Finn conferred with the Conducting Officer from Army Group, who was still with us. Then he turned to me.
‘They can’t get us all into the Grand.’
‘No room at the inn, sir?’
‘Not enough mattresses or something, though it looks big enough. So, Nicholas, you’ll attend General Asbjornsen, General Bobrowski, General Philidor and Major Prasad to La Petite Auberge. Everything’s been laid on there for the five of you.’
I never knew, then or later, why that particular quartet was chosen to represent the overflow from the Grand. One would have expected four generals – Lebedev, for example, or Cobb, recently promoted brigadier-general – alternatively, four more junior in rank, Gauthier de Graef, Al Sharqui, a couple of lieutenant-colonels. However, that was how it was. One of the cars took the five of us to La Petite Auberge, which turned out to be a little black-and- white half-timbered building, hotel or pension, in Tudor, or, I suppose, Francois Premier or Henri Quatre style. Only one of the rooms had a bathroom attached, which was captured by General Asbjornsen, possibly by being the most senior in rank, more probably because he climbed the stairs first. Obviously I was not in competition for the bath myself, so I did not greatly care who took it, nor by what methods. Prasad, like Asbjornsen, went straight up to his room, but the other two generals and I had a drink in the bar, presided over by the patronne, who seemed prepared to serve Allies all night. Bobrowski and Philidor were talking about shooting wild duck. Then Asbjornsen came down and had a drink too. He started an argument with Bobrowski about the best sort of skiing boots. Philidor and I left them to it. I had already begun to undress, when there was a knock on the door. It was Prasad.
‘Major Jenkins ..
‘Major Prasad?’
He seemed a little embarrassed about something. I hoped it was nothing like damp sheets, a problem that might spread to the rest of us. Prasad was still wearing breeches and boots and his Sam Browne.
‘There’s a room with a bath,’ he said.
‘Yes – General Asbjornsen’s.’
Prasad seemed unhappy. There was a long pause.
‘I want it,’ he said at last.
That blunt statement surprised me.
‘I’m afraid General Asbjornsen got there first.’
I thought it unnecessary to add that baths were not for mere majors like ourselves, especially when there was only one. Majors were lucky enough to be allowed a basin. I saw how easy it might become to describe the hardness of conditions when one had first joined the army. The declaration was also quite unlike Prasad’s apparent appreciation of such things.
‘But I need it.’
‘I agree it would be nice to have one, but he is a general – a lieutenant-general, at that.’
Prasad was again silent for a few seconds. He was certainly embarrassed, though by no means prepared to give up the struggle.
‘Can you ask General Asbjornsen to let me have it, Major Jenkins?’
He spoke rather firmly. This was totally unlike Prasad, so quiet, easy going, outwardly impregnated with British army ‘good form’. I was staggered. Apart from anything else, the request was not a reasonable one. For a major to eject a general from his room in the small hours of the morning was a grotesque conception. It looked as if it might be necessary to embark on an a priori disquisition regarding the Rules and Disciplines of War, which certainly laid down that generals had first option where baths were concerned. It was probably Rule One. I indicated that a major – even a military attaché, in a sense representing his own country – could not have a bathroom to himself, if three generals, themselves equally representative, were all of them at least theoretically, in the running. I now saw how lucky I was that neither Bobrowski nor Philidor had shown any sign of considering himself slighted by being allotted a bathless room. In fact Prasad’s claim did not merit serious discussion. I tried to put that as tactfully as possible. Prasad listened respectfully. He was not satisfied. I could not understand what had come over him. I changed the ground of argument, abandoning seniority of rank as reason, pointing out that General Asbjornsen had won the bath by right of conquest. He had led the way up the stairs, the first man – indeed, the first general – to capture the position. Prasad would not be convinced. There was another long pause. I wondered whether we should stay up all night. Prasad gave the impression of having a secret weapon, battery he preferred not to unmask unless absolutely necessary. However, it had to come into action at last.
‘It’s my religion,’ he said.
He spoke now apologetically. This was an entirely unexpected aspect.
‘Oh, I see.’
I tried to play for time, while I thought up some answer.
‘So I must have it,’ Prasad said.
He spoke with absolute finality.
‘Of course, I appreciate, Major Prasad, that what you have said makes a difference.’
He did not reply. He saw his projectile had landed clean on the target. I was defeated. The case was unanswerable, especially in the light of my instructions. Prasad looked sorry at having been forced to bring matters to this point. He looked more than sorry; terribly upset.
‘So can I have the bathroom?’
I buttoned up my battledress blouse again.
‘I’ll make certain enquiries.’
‘I’m sorry to be so much trouble.’
‘Wait a moment, Major Prasad.’
By a great piece of good fortune, General Asbjornsen was still in the bar. He and Bobrowski had not stopped arguing, though the subject had shifted from skiing boots to tactics. Asbjornsen was perhaps getting the worst of it, because his expression recalled more than ever the craggy features of Monsieur 0rn, the Norwegian at La
Grenadière, who had such a row with Monsieur Lundquist, the Swede, for sending ‘sneaks’ over the net at tennis. I hoped no similar display of short temper was in the offing.
‘Sir?’
General Asbj0rnsen gave his attention.
‘Major Prasad has asked me if you would possibly consider surrendering to him the room with the bath?’
General Asbjornsen looked absolutely dumbfounded. He did not show the smallest degree of annoyance, merely stark disbelief that he had rightly grasped the meaning of the question.
‘But – I have the bath.’
‘I know, sir. That was why I was asking.’
‘I am there.’
‘That’s just it, sir. Major Prasad wants it.’
‘He wants it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The bathroom?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But – the bathroom – it is for me.’
‘It’s a very special request, sir.’
General Asbjornsen’s face by now showed at least that he accepted the request as a special one. It was only too easy to understand his surprise, the fact that the idea took some time to penetrate. This was not at all on account of any language difficulty. General Asbjornsen spoke English with the greatest fluency. As the conception began to take shape in his mind that Prasad’s designs on the bath were perfectly serious, the earlier look of wonder had changed to one of displeasure. His face hardened. Bobrowski, who loved action, especially if it offered conflict, grasping that a superbly comic tussle was promised, now joined in.
‘You are trying to take General Asbjornsen’s bath away from him, Major Jenkins?’
‘It’s for Major Prasad, sir, he —’
‘I don’t believe it, Major Jenkins, I believe you want it for yourself.’
Bobrowski had begun to laugh a lot.
‘It is the particular wish of Major Prasad, sir —’
‘Look here,’ said Asbjornsen, ‘I have the bath. I keep it.’
That was the crux of the matter. There was no arguing. I had hoped, without much conviction, to achieve General Asbjornsen’s dislodgment without playing Prasad’s trump card. Now this would have to be thrown on the table. It had become clear that much more discussion of this sort, to the accompaniment of Bobrowski’s determination to treat the matter as a huge joke, would make Asbjornsen more intractable than ever.
‘It’s a question of religion, sir.*
‘What?’
‘Major Prasad requires the room for religious reasons.’
That silenced them both. The statement, at least for the moment, made even more impression than I had hoped.
‘Religion?’ repeated Bobrowski.
I wished he would keep out of it. The bathroom was no business of his. By now I was entirely on Prasad’s side, dedicated to obtaining the bathroom for whatever purpose he needed it.
‘But this is a new idea,’ said Bobrowski. ‘I had not thought that was how baths are allotted on this tour. I am Catholic, what chance have I?’
‘Sir —’
‘Now I see why General Philidor went off to bed without even asking for the bathroom. Like many Frenchmen, he is perhaps free-thinker. He would have no chance for the bath. You would not let him, Major Jenkins. No religion – no bath. That is what you say. It is not fair.’
Bobrowski thought it all the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life. He laughed and laughed. Perhaps, in the long run, the conclusion of the matter owed something to this laughter of Bobrowski’s, because General Asbjornsen may have suspected that, if much more argument were carried on in this frivolous atmosphere, there was danger of his being made to look silly himself. Grasp of that fact after so comparatively short an interlude of Bobrowski’s intervention did Asbjornsen credit.
‘You can really assure me then, Major Jenkins, that this is, as you have reported, a question of religion.’
‘I can assure you of that, sir.’
‘You are in no doubt?’
‘Absolutely none, sir.’
‘In that case, I agree to the proposal.’
General Asbjornsen almost came to attention.
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much indeed. Major Prasad will be most grateful. I will inform Colonel Finn when I see him.’
‘Come upstairs and help me with my valise.’
The gruffness of General Asbj0rnsen’s tone was fully justified. I followed him to the disputed room, and was relieved to see the valise on the floor still unpacked. The bathroom door was open. It seemed an apartment designed for the ablutions of a very thin dwarf, one of Mime’s kind. However, spatial content was neither here nor there. The point was, Prasad must have it. I took one end of the valise, Asbj0rnsen the other. Prasad was peeping through the crack of his door. When informed of the way the battle had gone, he came out into the passage. Asbjornsen was not ungracious about his renunciation. Prasad expressed a lot of thanks, but was unaware, I think, that the victory, like Waterloo, had been ‘a damned close run thing’. General Asbjornsen and I carried his valise into Prasad’s former room. I helped Prasad with his valise too, on his taking over of the bathroom. As soon as Prasad and I were out in the passage, General Asbjornsen shut his bedroom door rather loudly. He could not be blamed. My own relations with him, even when we returned to England, never fully recovered from that night. For the rest of the tour I speculated on what arcane rites Prasad conducted in that minute bathroom.
Next morning I rose early to check transport for the day’s journey. The cars were to assemble at the entrance of the Grand Hotel, then pick up baggage of the party at La Petite Auberge on the route out of town. The Grand’s main entrance was on the far side from the sea-front. It faced a fairly large, more or less oval open space, ornamented with plots of grass and flower beds long untended. From here the ground sloped away towards a little redbrick seaside town, flanked by green downs along which villas were spreading. The cars, on parade early, were all ‘correct’. Finn was not due to appear for some minutes. Wondering what the place was like in peacetime at the height of the season, I strolled to the side of the hotel facing the ‘front’. On this façade, a section of the building – evidently the hotel’s dining-room, with half-a-dozen or more high arched windows – had been constructed so that it jutted out on to the esplanade. This promenade, running some feet above the beach, was no doubt closed to wheeled traffic in normal times. Now, it was completely deserted. The hotel, in café-au-lait stucco, with turrets and balconies, was about fifty or sixty years old, built at a time when the seaside was coming seriously into fashion. This small resort had a pleasantly out-of-date air. One pictured the visitors as well-to-do, though not at all smart, only insistent on good food and bourgeois comforts; the whole effect rather smug, though at the same time possessing for some reason or other an indefinable, even haunting attraction. Perhaps that was just because one was abroad again; and, for once, away from people. In the early morning light, the paint on the side walls of the hotel had taken on a pinkish tone, very subtle and delicate, blending gently with that marine aporousness of atmosphere so enthusiastically endorsed by the Impressionists when they painted this luminous northern shore. It was time to find Finn. I returned to the steps of the main entrance. The large hall within was in semi-darkness, because all the windows had been boarded up. Some of the military attachés were already about, polishing their boots in a kind of cloakroom, where the greatcoats had been left the night before. They seemed to be doing no harm, so I went back to the hall. Finn, carrying his valise on his shoulder, was descending the stairs.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Good morning, Nicholas. Couldn’t use the lift over there. No lift boys in wartime. Didn’t sleep too well. Kept awake by the noise of the sea. Not used to it’
I reported the matter of the bath. Finn looked grave. ‘Awkward situation, damned awkward. I’ve always tried to keep out of religious controversy. You handled it well, Nicholas. I’ll have a word with Asbjornsen and thank him. Any of them down y
et?’
‘Some are cleaning their boots in the lobby through there.’
‘Cleaning their boots? My God, I believe they must have found my polish. Which way? I must stop this at once. It will be all used up.’
He rushed off. The fleet of cars got under way soon after this. That day I found myself with Cobb, Lebedev and Marinko, the Jugoslav. The seating was altered as a matter of principle from time to time. I was beside the driver. Lebedev – the name always reminded one of the character in The Idiot who was good at explaining the Apocalypse, though otherwise unreliable – rarely spoke; nor did he usually attend more than very briefly – so our Mission working with the Russians reported – the occasional parties given by their Soviet opposite numbers, where drinking bouts attained classical proportions, it was alleged. He was, indeed, commonly held to derive his appointment from civil, rather than military, eminence at home, his bearing and methods – despite the top boots and spurs – lacking, the last resort, the essential stigmata of the officier de carrière.
‘I tried to talk to Lebedev the other day about Dostoievski’s Grand Inquisitor,’ Pennistone said. ‘He changed the subject at once to Nekrassov, of whom I’ve never read a line.’