The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell Page A

contrary, inability to
delegate authority, insistence that he must do everything himself, important or
unimportant, was one of Gwatkin’s chief handicaps in achieving his high aim.
For example, he instituted a ‘Company Officer of the Day’, one of whose duties
was to make sure all was well at the men’s dinners. This job, on the whole
redundant, since the Orderly Officer of necessity visited all Mess Rooms to
investigate ‘any complaints’, was made additionally superfluous by Gwatkin
himself appearing as often as not at dinners, in order to make sure the Company
Officer of the Day was not shirking his rounds. In fact, he scarcely allowed
himself any time off at all. He seemed half aware that this intense keenness
was not, in final result, what was required; at least not without more
understanding on his own part. Besides, Gwatkin had none of that faculty, so
necessary in the army, of accepting rebuke – even unjust rebuke – and carrying
on as if nothing had happened. Criticism from above left him dreadfully
depressed.
    ‘It’s no good letting the army get you
down,’ the Adjutant, Maelgwyn-Jones, used to say. ‘Just remember, when you’re
worrying about the Brigadier’s inspection, that day will pass, as other days in
the army pass.’
    Maelgwyn-Jones himself did not always
act upon this teaching. He was an efficient, short-tempered Regular, whose
slight impediment of speech became a positive stutter when he grew enraged. He
wanted to get back to the battalion he came from, where there was more hope of
immediate action and consequent promotion. Thoroughly reliable as an officer,
hard working as an adjutant, Maelgwyn-Jones did not share – indeed was totally
unapprehending of – Gwatkin’s resplendent vision of army life. When he pulled
up Gwatkin for some such lapse as unpunctual disposal of the Company’s swill,
Gwatkin would behave as if his personal honour had been called into question;
then concentrate feverishly on more energetic training, smarter turn-out. In a
sense, of course, that was correct enough, but the original cause of complaint
was not always put right in the most expeditious manner. The fact was Gwatkin lacked in his
own nature that grasp of ‘system’ for which he possessed
such admiration. This deficiency was perhaps
connected in some way with a kind of poetry within him, a poetry
which had somehow become a handicap in its
efforts to find an outlet. Romantic ideas about the way
life is
lived are often to be found in persons themselves fairly
coarse-grained. This was to some extent true of Gwatkin. His
coarseness of texture took the form of having to find a
scapegoat after he himself had been in trouble. The scapegoat was usually
Breeze, though any of the rest of the Company
might suffer. Bithel, usually in hot water of some
kind,
would have offered an ever available target for these punitive visitations of
Gwatkin’s, but Bithel was in another company. All the same, although no concern
of his in the direct
sense, Bithel’s appearance and demeanour greatly irked Gwatkin
in a general way. He spoke of this one afternoon,
when Bithel, wearing one of his gaiters improperly adjusted, crossed our path
on the way back from afternoon training.
    ‘Did you ever see such an unsoldierly
type?’ Gwatkin said. ‘And his brother a VC too.’
    ‘Is it certain they’re brothers, not
just fairly distant relations?’
    I was not sure whether Bithel’s words
to me on that earlier occasion had been spoken in confidence. The tone he had
adopted suggested something of the sort. Besides, Bithel might suddenly decide
to return to the earlier cycle of legends he had apparently disseminated about
himself to facilitate his Reserve call-up; or at least he might not wish to
have them specifically denied on his own authority. However, Gwatkin showed no
wish to verify the truth, or otherwise, of Bithel’s alleged kinships.
    ‘Even if they are not brothers, Bithel
is a disgrace for a man with a VC in the