Free Circles of Time by Phillip Rock

glinting off brass buttons and shiny rifles, but he could not think of them as soldiers. They were actors in a pageant, relics of some dimly remembered play. He could not reconcile their scarlet ranks with his own vision of soldiers—dun-colored creatures in steel helmets, muddy and stained, seen through the smoke and haze of a daybreak in Flanders.
    He parked the car near the War Office and checked his image in the window glass. He was wearing mufti and the sight made him smile. With his dark suit, bowler, and furled umbrella, he could have been taken for a director of the Fenworth Building Society—if he weren’t so obviously an officer in the Guards.
    â€œGood morning, sir! ” The khaki-clad old sergeant in the foyer snapped to attention.
    â€œMorning, Sergeant. I have a nine o’clock appointment with General Wood-Lacy.” He glanced casually at his wristwatch. “A bit on the early side.”
    â€œQuite all right, sir. The general’s in his office. Do you know the way up?”
    â€œI do indeed.”
    He walked up two flights of stairs and along a dark, narrow corridor, its walls lined with engravings depicting forgotten campaigns. The building was a warren of corridors, but he followed the proper ones, which led him, like the passages in a maze, to the oak-paneled antechamber of the general’s office. An elderly, white-haired lieutenant colonel rose from his desk with a smile.
    â€œFenton, dear chap. So good to see you again.”
    â€œHow are you, Blythe?”
    â€œAs well as can be expected, I suppose. It’s rather a sad day for me. I shall miss the old boy.”
    â€œAs I’m sure he’ll miss you. Always imagined the two of you retiring together.”
    â€œThat had been my hope, but General Strathling talked me into staying on for another year or two and joining his staff in Delhi.” He came out from behind the desk and placed a hand on the brass knob of the door he had guarded, in a sense, for a good many years. “I’m still trying to persuade your uncle to come east. Purchase a house in Simla. He always enjoyed the Kashmir. You might put that bee in his bonnet if you have the chance.”
    General Sir Julian Wood-Lacy, V.C., C.V.O., was standing by a window when Fenton entered the room. The large office was barren except for the desk and a couple of wood chairs. The bookcases and files had been emptied, and pictures and maps taken from the walls.
    â€œLooks like you’ve closed shop.”
    â€œHalf a bloody century is enough for any man.” The general took a puff on his cigar and looked away from his view of St. James’s Park. “You’re on time for a change.” The old general, whose face had once graced a recruiting poster because of its bulldog pugnacity, eyed his nephew from head to toe and back again. “You look prosperous, like one of those stocks-and-bloody-bonds wallahs.”
    Fenton smiled and brushed his sleeve across his bowler before placing it on a hat rack near the door. His umbrella went into a stand fashioned from the leg of an elephant.
    â€œNow that you’re almost in civvy street, General, I’ll recommend a tailor. Purdy and Beame, Burlington Street.”
    The old man scowled and scattered cigar ash on the carpet. “Don’t be so damn cheeky. Care for a brandy?”
    â€œAt nine in the morning? I have more respect for my liver.”
    â€œI stopped respecting mine years ago.” He glanced about the room helplessly. “If I can only find the bloody bottle.”
    Fenton sat down in a chair facing the desk and pointed toward a row of shelves on the far wall. “Forlorn bottle and two lonely glasses in yon bit of shelf. And I change my mind. One drink to your glorious career.”
    The general snorted as he stumped across the room. “What’s so bloody glorious about it, I’d like to know? Just one more crock who put in his