Free The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell Page B

distance apart, and the other thing
will need some little time to extract. There may be lack of co-operation.
C.R.A.S.C. has been difficult ever since the business of those trucks, which I
was, in fact, putting to a perfectly legitimate use.”
    At one time or
another, Widmerpool had quarrelled with most of the officers at Divisional
Headquarters. The row with C.R.A.S.C. – Commanding Royal Army Service Corps at
H.Q., a lieutenant-colonel – had been about employment of government transport
on some occasion when interpretation of regulations was in doubt. It had been a
drawn battle, like that with Sunny Farebrother. Widmerpool’s taste for conflict
seemed to put him less at a disadvantage than might be supposed. His undoubted
reputation for efficiency had indeed been to some extent built up on being
regarded as a difficult man to deal with; rather than on much more deserved
respect for the plodding away at unspectacular work to which he used to devote
himself every night in his own office. Personal popularity is an asset easy to
exaggerate in the transaction of practical affairs. Possibly it can even be a
handicap. The fact that Widmerpool was brusque with everyone he met, even
actively disobliging to most, never seemed in the last resort to weaken his
position. However the Diplock affair was rather a different matter.
    Enquiries at
the quarters of the Supply Column indicated that, as Widmerpool supposed, all
was not well. His feud with C.R.A.S.C. had certainly penetrated there, if
unwillingness to spare time to impart information was anything to judge by. I
left the place with a clearer understanding of my father’s strictures, in the
distant past, regarding Uncle Giles’s transference to the Army Service Corps.
However, certain essential details were now to some extent available. There
could be no doubt that, at best, existing arrangements, so far as the Sergeants’
Mess was concerned, were in disorder; at worst, something more serious was
taking place in which Diplock might be involved. I brought back the material
required by Widmerpool that evening.
    “Just as I
thought,” he said, “I’ll go and have a word with A. & Q. right away.”
    Widmerpool
stayed a long time with Colonel Pedlar. He had told me to
wait until his return, in case further information collected
during the day might be needed. When he came back to the room his expression
immediately showed that he regarded the interview to have been unsatisfactory.
    “Things will have to be looked into further,” he said. “Pedlar’s still
unwilling to believe anything criminal is taking place. I don’t agree with him. Just run through what they told you again.”
    It was nearly
dinner time when I arrived back that night at F Mess. I went to the bedroom to
change into service dress. When I came down the stairs, the rest of them were
going into the room where we ate*
    “Buck up,
Jenkins,” said Biggs, “or you’ll miss all the lovely bits of gristle Sopey’s
been collecting from the swill tubs all the afternoon for us to gnaw. Wonder he
has the cheek to put the stuff he does in front of a man.”
    He was in one
of his noisy moods that night. When Biggs felt cheerful – which was not often –
he liked to shout and indulge in horseplay. This usually took the form of
ragging Soper, the Divisional Catering Officer. Soper, also a captain with
’14-’18 ribbons, was short and bandy-legged, which, with heavy eyebrows and
deep-set shifty eyes, gave him a simian appearance that for some reason
suggested a professional comedian. In civil life one of the managers, on the
supply side, of a chain of provincial restaurants, he was immersed in his work
as D.C.O., never in fact making a remark that in the least fitted in with his
promisingly slapstick appearance, or even one to be classed as a joke. Off-duty
he talked of scarcely any subject but army allowances. Biggs and Soper to some
extent reproduced, at their lower level, the relationship of