A Companion to Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour

Chapter Eight

State Sword

1

Section 1 was originally the epilogue to OG. US began at Section 2.

445 State Sword
The sword referred to is the Sword of Stalingrad, a jewelled sword made at the command of the King, George VI. He intended it to represent his and the nation’s admiration for the people of Stalingrad and the Red Army, who had withstood a siege lasting seven months and been finally victorious in defeating the German Sixth Army and forcing it to surrender. It bore the inscription To the steelhearted citizens of Stalingrad, a gift from King George VI as a token of the homage of the British people. Winston Churchill presented it to the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Teheran Conference in late November 1943. Today it is displayed proudly in the Battle of Stalingrad Museum in Volgograd (which is what Stalingrad is now called). The King actually called it a Sword of Honour, a fact which influenced EW’s choice of title for the whole trilogy.

445 the House
i.e. the House of Commons

445 The other thing is made of dried eggs.
This is presumably a mayonnaise or dressing of some kind or, worse, an omelette. Frightful substitutes were common during the war.

446 Tanks for Russia Week … idea of Max’s
Max Beaverbrook, later Lord Beaverbrook, a newspaper owner and publisher, and friend of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill (see my note to page 358), was now responsible for keeping the war machine running in the industrial field. His energy was phenomenal; the idea of having a Tanks for Russia Week was merely one of his bright ideas. It involved the authorities telling British workers that all the military production for one week (that of 22nd September 1941) would be sent to the Russian front. The idea was to harness the proletarian sympathies of the British working-class and to get unionist activists behind the war effort. The effect was great : output more than doubled. Box-Bender’s cynical remark that the tanks would go where they were really needed (i.e. to British forces in North Africa) proved wide of the mark since by the end of September 450 aircraft had been despatched to Russia.

446 Harold Macmillan
The future Prime Minister (see my note to page 334) was already well-known as a rising Conservative politician. At this time he was Under-Secretary in the Colonial Office. The point of the remark is that Macmillan was on the left of the party, a fact which displeased many Conservatives like Box-Bender. They would have rejoiced to see him standing uncomfortably for the singing of ‘The Red Flag’, expecting him to be aware that he was acknowledging that his politics had some similarity to those of the new allies (though in fact he was never a communist and never held extreme left-wing views).

446 the Red Flag
the great aspirational song of the Communists. Its opening verse and the chorus demonstrate why Macmillan might have felt ill at ease :

The people’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their heart’s blood dyed its every fold.

(CHORUS)
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

446 Mrs Maisky
the wife of Ivan Maisky (1884-1975). He was the Soviet ambassador to Britain from 1933 to 1943. He wrote Memoirs of a Soviet Ambassador: the War, 1939-43, an interesting account of his time in Britain during World War II. His duty was to pester Winston Churchill into opening up the Second Front (the invasion of Europe) as soon as possible. On his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
Both Mr and Mrs Maisky were popular figures in Britain during the war.

446 “Good old Uncle Joe”
i.e. Joseph Stalin. Newspapers in Britain promoted this friendly image of the Soviet dictator in order to allay the grumblings of left-wing discontent and to give the hard-pressed Britons the feeling that a powerful and comfortable ally had been found.

447 The Spiritual Combat by Francis de Sales
Actually Saint Francis de Sales did not write this book. It was however his favourite devotional reading; he carried a copy in his pocket for 18 years. It is by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli (1530-1610) and is a famous classic on the strategy for achieving spiritual perfection and salvation, first published in 1589.
François de Sales de Boisy (1567-1622) was a remarkable missionary for the Catholic faith in areas which had come under Calvinist influence near Geneva. He became Bishop of Geneva itself in 1602, though of course he could never go there; his seat was in Annecy. He was a new kind of bishop, kindly, patient, mild, always visiting his flock, ever mindful of the needs of the poor. His reputation for holiness was widespread even among Protestants. He was canonised in 1665. St Francis’s own famous book on spirituality is called An Introduction to the Devout Life.

447 Christ the Ideal of the Monk by Abbot Marmion
Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923), an Irishman, served as the third abbot of Maredsous in Belgium from 1900 to 1923. He was a noted spiritual author and retreat master, and his book Christ the Ideal of the Monk was translated from the French and published in England in 1926. It is considered a spiritual classic today. He was venerated in 1999 and beatified in 2000; there is a possibility that he will soon be declared a saint.

447 Spiritual Letters of Don John Chapman
Dom John Chapman (1865-1934) was a great patristic scholar and the fourth abbot of Downside Abbey from 1929 to 1934. Abbot Chapman was well known not only as a scholar but as a spiritual guide. His Spiritual Letters, published in 1935, are still known to many today and contain an important discussion of contemplative prayer.

447 The Practice of the Presence of God by Lawrence
Lawrence is Brother Lawrence, the name in religion of Nicholas Herman (about 1605-1691), a French monk who was remarkable for living and proclaiming a life of joy with God. For him life was simply an awareness of the presence of God at all times. This small book, consisting of four remembered conversations and fifteen letters, was compiled by his friends after his death. His message is so simple and direct that it has in modern times attracted many from beyond his faith, including New Age devotees.

448 Swelling out of all recognition
H.O.O., in the guise of its true nomenclature Combined Operations, did enlarge remarkably at this time. Propaganda successes and demands from the public and from Winston Churchill for more offensive action were decisive in gaining it a powerful hold.

448 a female Soviet sniper
I have not yet identified this particular sniper, but there is no doubt the Soviets employed such women. One of them was Tanya Chernova, who was the lover of the male sniper Vassily Zaitsev, immortalised in the film Enemy at the Gates. Another was Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who killed no fewer than 309 of the enemy (36 of them German snipers) and toured the United States as a heroine.

448 Scunthorpe, Hull, Huddersfield, Halifax
towns in northern England which at that time were smokily industrial and grimy

448 His old acquaintance
i.e. Major Grace-Groundling-Marchpole, brother of the intelligence chief.

449 I’ll just run through the detail.
This is the drill for piling arms again. It seems full circle for Guy.

2

This is the point where US begins. When he prepared SH, EW left out a considerable passage of explanation that appears in the opening section of US, the Prologue : The Locust Years. The opening paragraph of US actually read :

When Guy Crouchback returned to his regiment in the autumn of 1941 his position was in many ways anomalous. He had been trained in the first batch of temporary officers, had commanded a company, had been detached for special duties, had been in action and acquitted himself with credit; he had twice put up captain’s stars and twice removed them; their scars were plainly visible on his shoulder straps. He had been invalided home on an order direct from GHQ ME and the medical authorities could find nothing wrong with him. There were rumours that he had ‘blotted his copybook’ in West Africa. When he was commissioned in 1939 his comparative old age had earned him the sobriquet of ‘uncle’. Now he was two years older and the second batch of officers in training were younger than those who had joined with him. To them he seemed a patriarch; to him they seemed a generation divided by an impassable barrier. Once he had made the transition, had thrown himself into the mêlée on the ante-room floor, had said ‘cheerioh’ when he drank with them, and had been accepted as one of themselves. He could not do it a second time. Nor were there any longer mêlées and guest nights, nor much drinking. The new young officers were conscripts who liked to spend their leisure listening to jazz on the wireless. The first battalion, his battalion, followed Ritchie-Hook biffing across the sands of North Africa. A draft of reinforcements wore sent out to them. Guy was not posted with them. Hookforce, all save four, had been taken prisoner in Crete. He had no comrades in arms in England except Tommy Blackhouse who returned to raise another Special Service Force. They met Tommy in Bellamy’s and he offered him a post on his staff, but the shadow of Ivor Clare lay dark and long over Commandos, and Guy answered that he was content to soldier on with the Halberdiers.

450 The army in the Far East now suffered as they had done.
The Japanese advance had overwhelmed Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and most of Burma, and the slow process of regaining lost territory was in its early stages in 1943.

450 a chap of your age
In August 1943 Guy is within two months of his fortieth birthday.

451 Italy surrendered … the king’s flight
By summer 1943 Italy had gone through a series of military reverses. She had lost her east African empire in 1941, all her North African forces had surrendered by May 1943, and the 250,000 troops sent to help the Germans in Russia were known to be having an appalling time. Many Italians wondered what the country was doing fighting in such far-off places. With extensive allied bombing of industrial areas came a collapse of civilian as well as military morale. In July 1943 Allied troops invaded Sicily and quickly captured the island. This provoked a movement to oust Mussolini, an action the king, Victor Emmanuel III, was only too happy to approve on July 25th. The new Prime Minister was Marshal Badoglio, who immediately set about assuring the Germans that the war would continue while secretly arranging an armistice with the Allies. When the armistice was declared openly on September 8th, the Germans seized Rome and became an occupying power.
The king fled Rome for Brindisi on the same day, just ahead of the Germans’ arrival.

451 the Piedmontese usurpation
Italian unification had been finally and fully achieved in 1870 when Rome had been incorporated into the kingdom. But for many years before this there had been a gradual process of integration in which several strands of political emphasis were discernible, ranging from revolutionary demands to papal claims to leadership. The most successful politician in the period turned out to be Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1810-1861), virtual Prime Minister to King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont; he was able to present his king as the natural ruler of the country. When Italy was established in 1861, though the coalescence was not yet complete, Victor Emmanuel was acknowledged as king.
Guy considers it a usurpation because the incorporation of the city of Rome into Italy had meant the ending of the Pope’s temporal authority (except in the small area of the Vatican City).

451 Lateran Treaty
In 1929 the Pope and the Italian state concluded this treaty which at last regularised their relationship after 59 years of silence. In it the special position of the Catholic faith was recognised and protected in the state; for example religious instruction was made compulsory in state schools, and the Catholic view of marriage was enshrined in the constitution (i.e. there could be no divorce). In return the Pope recognised that Rome was the capital of the Italian state. Italy recognised his complete independence and sovereignty over the Vatican City. (The Treaty was replaced in 1985 by a Concordat which stated that Catholicism was no longer the state religion. Its most obvious effect was that compulsory religious instruction in state schools was abandoned.)
Guy’s attitude that the Lateran Treaty was a mistake is based on his feeling that the Pope should not have accepted the loss of Rome and the Papal States. Moreover, after 1929 the Pope had to take into account Italian political and bureaucratic susceptibilities when before he could ignore them and consider only the needs of the church in Italy. Guy believes that the Pope should have continued a prisoner in the Vatican. It is just possible that he expects the Pope to lay claim again to his lost territories.

451 Risorgimento
This is the Italian term for the unification process. It means resurgence.

451 Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was one of the great military leaders of the movement for Italian unity. He was a republican who became famous throughout Europe for his defiance, and sometimes success, in the face of great odds. His reputation was sealed by amazing triumphs in securing Sicily and Naples in 1860 even though he had to fight several battles against regular soldiers. The kingdom of Italy was created the following year with his approval, despite his republican leanings.

451 Cavour
See my note on the Piedmontese usurpation above.

451 The House of Savoy
The Piedmontese kings came from this family, since their ancestors had been Dukes of Savoy.

451 King of Rome
This was the title Napoleon Bonaparte gave to his only son Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte (1811-1832); the child’s mother was the Empress Marie-Louise. After Napoleon’s exile to Saint Helena the boy went to live in his mother’s Austrian homeland though she herself became Duchess of Parma in Italy. He was specifically excluded from the successions in both France and Parma; in compensation he was given the Austrian title Duke of Reichstadt. He died young of tuberculosis. Though he never ruled in France, the Bonapartists called him Napoleon II, which is why his cousin styled himself Napoleon III when he became Emperor in 1852.

451 When we declared war on Finland …
Declaring war on Finland was a natural consequence of accepting the Soviet Union as an ally. Finland had after all joined Germany in invading Soviet territory.

453 The Mystical Body
Mr Crouchback here is using a phrase which was much discussed in religious circles at this time. In 1943 Pope Pius XII issued his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi, in which he gave the current Catholic thinking on the nature of the church. The Mystical Body is the body of believers with Christ as their spiritual head, a concept which can be derived from the New Testament (in Saint Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the Romans). The Pope popularised the term Mystical Body of Christ when he used it to describe the Catholic church, whether Triumphant (already in heaven), Suffering (enduring penance in Purgatory) or Militant (struggling on its way on Earth).

3

454 Transit Camp
a place where officers and men on the way from one posting to another could be accommodated

454 Man-power Directive
In the first two years of the war Britain eliminated the high unemployment characteristic of the thirties through conscription into the army and the gearing-up of the war and support industries. From 1941 it became clear that there were not enough men to fill all the gaps. The government instructed the Ministry of Labour to carry out annual Manpower Surveys which had the task of identifying problem areas and suggesting remedies. The Manpower Survey reporting in October 1941 stated that there would be a deficit of 300,000 people for the armed forces and the munitions industries by the middle of the following year.
Government’s response was several-fold, including extending the call-up to men aged between 18 and 51 and, for the first time in a civilised country, announcing the call-up of single women in their twenties (though not to the front line). There was also a directive, repeated in later years, that everybody was to find some extra form of what was called national service which would free able-bodied men to go into the forces. People could moreover be directed into duties with the civil defence, the fire service and the police. Many people thought that the element of compulsion which was now introduced into home duties destroyed the enthusiastic and idealistic spirit which had pervaded the country before. Certainly, by autumn 1943 the pleas of the government for the people to do extra work smacked of desperation.
Germany had the same problems, mainly because nearly all her young men were involved with the forces, but attempted to solve the problem by using captured enemy as virtual slave labour. This procedure was not available to the British.

454 that’s old for your rank
The legless major is indirectly rebuking him for not achieving a higher rank.

454 Aden
the port and associated territory on the south coast of the Arabian peninsula which was then a crown colony of the British Empire. It was not a favourite place for British servicemen because of its intense heat and fierce (and even now untamed) tribesmen. Aden today is incorporated into the republic of Yemen.

455 almoner
In modern times an almoner is a social worker in a hospital. In fact, nowadays they are usually called medical social workers. It is difficult to see why, apart from his intelligence, Guy is thought a suitable candidate for such a post.

455 rehearse the Anzio landings
Anzio is a seaside town about 35 miles (60 km) south of Rome that was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the Italian Campaign in World War II. On January 22nd 1944 the Allies managed to land over 30,000 troops in one day in an attempt to disrupt the solid German defence of central Italy. The preparations hinted at in the word rehearse were undoubtedly responsible for the efficiency displayed on this occasion. The Germans, however, responded quickly enough to contain the beachhead for four months. Once the breakout occurred the capture of Rome from them was a matter of days.

455 liaison officer … God knows what he does.
A liaison officer maintains the communications between one group and another, here Blackhouse’s command and H.O.O. headquarters. Guy’s burden of work as liaison officer would largely depend on how far H.O.O. and Blackhouse think they need to consult one another. Blackhouse’s words indicate that Guy would not be overworked. This state of affairs would be doubly true when Blackhouse actually becomes commander of H.O.O., as he soon does.

455 Westminster Abbey
The royal chapel near the Houses of Parliament in London, the burial place of many of England’s kings and a favourite tourist attraction today. It is also the site of the coronation of the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom.

456 A Captain Montague
This British hero (1752-1794) died during the battle described in the entry two places below.

456 Flaxman
John Flaxman (1755-1826) was Britain’s premier sculptor and designer in the later Georgian period. He was also a noted illustrator. He created many memorial sculptures, including the Nelson Monument in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. He completed the memorial to Captain Montague in 1802.

456 the waters of Ushant
The first major sea battle between France and Britain in the French Revolutionary Wars was the battle subsequently known as the Glorious First of June. It was fought some 400 miles off the Breton island of Ushant (Ouessant) in 1794. It was technically a British victory as six of the French ships were captured and another sunk, though the French navy had successfully lured the British away from a convoy of 130 ships bringing much-needed grain to France from America.

456 SECOND FRONT NOW
The Soviet Union was desperate for some relief from the German invasion of its territory and demanded that Britain (and later the United States) invade western Europe. This project was known as the Second Front, the Soviet Union itself having the First; the nomenclature ignores the fact that a second front already existed first in North Africa and then in Italy. Communist Party members ardently promoted the Russian demands, and indeed at this time acted always in accordance with Soviet wishes.

456 British, American, Polish, Dutch, French
The United States had been catapulted into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941. By October 1943 there were hundreds of thousands of American G.I.s in Britain preparing for the Normandy landings of June 1944. The Polish, Dutch and French soldiers were members of the Free forces, those who had escaped from their homelands when they were overrun and who continued the fight from Britain.

456 ‘Woolton Pies’
See my note to page 418.

456 Bombing had ceased for the time being
The Blitz was well and truly over, and indeed the bombing offensive had passed to the Allies. The first V1 missile or doodlebug was not to be launched until 13th June 1944.

456 The sword
See my note to page 445.

457 this year of the Sten gun
a 9-millimetre submachine gun. It became the standard submachine gun in the British army for two decades. It had been designed as a way of avoiding having to buy the expensive Thompson sub-machine gun (Tommy-gun) from the United States, but in fact it proved an unpopular weapon with the British soldier. This was because the Sten gun had an unfortunate habit of jamming at inopportune moments, i.e. when it was most needed at moments of crisis.
Waugh appears to be ironically comparing the beautiful Sword of Stalingrad, exquisitely crafted but never to be used in anger, with the ugly and only intermittently effective Sten gun that really ought to have been more competently engineered.

457 Goldsmiths’ Hall … Victoria and Albert Museum
Goldsmiths’ Hall, near Saint Paul’s Cathedral, is the headquarters of the Goldsmiths’ Company, one of the twelve great livery companies of the City of London. The Company has its roots in the Middle Ages, and indeed the first Hall was built in 1339. The present one is the third, having been opened in 1835. The Company operates the London Assay Office, which hallmarks precious metal articles.
The Victoria and Albert Museum is the National Museum of Art and Design. It is responsible not only for the collection, preservation and display of important articles in the field, but also for research and education.

457 The Times ‘dropped into poetry’.
This poem did appear in the newspaper. As poetry it is negligible, but it does serve EW’s purpose in indicating how a pseudo-religious attitude towards the Sword of Stalingrad was deliberately created; the use of words and phrases like bow’d down my head, Light (with a capital L), spirit, and O Mortal give the game away.

457 Edward the Confessor
(1003-1066) King of England from 1042 to 1066. He was canonised in 1161. He built a new church on the Westminster Abbey site, though it was already inhabited by monks; the present building is a later replacement.

457 sacring place of the kings of England
i.e. the place where kings were anointed during their coronation. Since 1066 Westminster Abbey has been the location of every coronation of the kings and queens of England and then of the United Kingdom.

458 F.A.N.N.Y.
i.e. First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, an organisation for women. The second N is superfluous and humorous.

458 sumptuary regulations
i.e. rules controlling Jumbo’s expenses, especially those spent on himself

458 Ruben … fresh eggs and olive oil
The point is of course that for everybody else in London at that time, such ingredients were almost unprocurable.
Ruben is based on Mr Jimmy Marks (1886-1976), the manager of Wiltons Restaurant (then in King Street, St James’), who was equally able to surprise his customers with unexpected quality.

459 the Lootenant
The spelling indicates that Kerstie is using the American pronunciation of the word Lieutenant. (The recommended English pronunciation is ‘Lef-tenant’, but in Britain now you will just as often hear the American, especially among young people.) As American soldiers and accents became common in Britain in 1943 and 1944, their customs and modes of speaking began to be used by admiring British; indeed the trend dates from the 1920’s, when shellac records and stage shows began to popularise the accent.
EW based the character of the Loot on a Sergeant Stuart Preston (1915-2005), who was a ubiquitous figure in London society in the last couple of years of the war and was in civilian life an art expert. (See his obituary.)

459 P.X. stores
The shops on American bases were known as Post Exchange stores, of which P.X. is an abbreviation. Even more valued by English girls than razor blades and chewing gum were nylon stockings, especially as silk stockings had been banned in 1940. (The silk was all needed for military purposes, e.g. making parachutes.)

459 Cowes
i.e. the week of sailing based at Cowes on the Isle of Wight every August, which acts as an extension of the London season. The festival did not take place during the war, of course.

459 tried meagrely to entertain
One of the great difficulties about acting as hosts to the American soldiers was that they were very much better fed and supplied than the rationed British civilians were, and so hospitality could appear to be very grim and even grudging. General Eisenhower attempted to solve this problem by recommending his men to take food along with them!

460 Sylvia Beach
the American bookshop owner and publisher (1887-1962) who had set up her business in Paris after World War I. Among the books she published was Ulysses by James Joyce (1922). Her shop in Paris, called Shakespeare and Company, survived until 1941. George Whitman (1913-) revived the shop in 1964.

460 Fuseli
Henry Fuseli (original name Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741-1825) was a Swiss-born English painter who produced canvases on high romantic themes. Many have a sinister or macabre quality, especially his most famous painting The Nightmare (1781, in the Goethe Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main).

460 the escutcheon on the scabbard will be upside down when it is worn on a baldric
This observation is undoubtedly true, as photographs of the sword prove. The answer is of course that it will never be seen hanging on a baldric but upright in a display position.
An escutcheon is a heraldic shield; the Sword of Stalingrad displayed the king’s coat of arms. A baldric is a belt worn from one shoulder, invariably the right, to the opposite hip on which the sword inside its scabbard can be hung.

460 But I was certainly surprised at your College of Arms passing it.
The Loot is being surprisingly and unexpectedly pedantic, perhaps; but his knowledge is faulty. The King is himself the fount of honour, and so his decision in the matter would be final; though whether there had been an argument between him and the College of Arms which the king had had to solve by issuing a fiat is very doubtful.

461 Hendon to Clapham
two London boroughs a considerable distance apart. This fact means that H.O.O. has property in some widely-spaced areas of London.

461 a Swahili witch-doctor
Swahili is the main language of east Africa and is today the national language of Tanzania and Kenya.

461 Royal Victorian Institute
This institute does not exist, but is a very convincing invention since Brompton is an area where large numbers of public-spirited institutions of the Victorian era are situated. It is undoubtedly based on the Natural History Museum.

461 megalosaurus
or megalosaur, a large carnivorous dinosaur of the Jurassic period. Its fossil had first been discovered and identified by the Rev. William Buckland in the 1820’s.

462 A.T.
See my note to page 227.

462 “Beaches”
This turns out to be a nearby room where model beaches are constructed for illustration purposes. It is clear that the invasion of Europe is already being seriously planned.

462 Capt. for Brig. Commander S.S. Forces
i.e. From the Captain, for the Brigadier who is the Commander of Special Service Forces (Blackhouse).
From September 1943 EW’s friend Bob Laycock was Chief of Combined Operations in succession to Lord Louis (later Earl) Mountbatten.

463 ‘Brides-in-the-bath’
This nickname is a reference to the murderer George Joseph Smith (who had several aliases). He was found guilty of the murders in successive years from 1912 of three of his wives. His crimes were only discovered because the father of one of the victims noticed the similarity in the manner of their deaths - all had died in their baths. He was found to have married them - and others - bigamously. He was hanged in August 1915.

463 disciples of William Morris
Morris (1834-1896) was the energiser of the Arts-and-Crafts movement in Britain and the English-speaking world, and himself a prolific designer, craftsman and poet. His influence can be seen to this day in the myriad ramifications of the Do-It-Yourself movement. Morris was also an early socialist who, despite his domineering temperament, preached ownership in common; this fact accounts for the reference to ‘Susie’ professing communism like his distant models.

463 It affords the People an opportunity for self-expression
The tendency of extreme left-wing politicians and philosophers to refer to the People as if they were an indistinguishable mass with but one mind, and that mind willing to be directed along paths of political virtue as perceived by themselves, is one of the more shameful and puzzling aspects of twentieth-century history. In capitalising the word and giving this sentence to Sir Ralph, EW characterises him neatly and effortlessly as a sympathiser with the communists.

463 ‘political indoctrination’
This phrase was certainly current in the second half of World War II. It was originally intended to mean political education and was presented as such at first, but was soon in reality a euphemism for awakening in one’s hearers a desire for political change that would bring down the present political structure. Thus it developed a pejorative flavour.

464 Foreign Affairs Summary
This would be an internal newsletter. It is clear from what Sir Ralph goes on to say that it is used as a means of promoting the views of left-wingers like himself. Perhaps the greatest success of the left wing in the war was this political indoctrination of large sections of society, including the army; some opponents, including EW, believed that it was responsible for the mobilisation and solidifying of discontent with the ruling classes which resulted in the landslide victory of the Labour Party in the 1945 General Election.

464 Tito’s the friend, not Mihajlovic
Here EW introduces the major motif of the last part of SH.
Josip Broz, pseudonym Tito (1892-1980), was a Communist party organiser and militant agitator from his time as a prisoner of war in Russia in World War I. After the German occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941 his secret groups transformed themselves into effective resistance forces known as Partisans with the double aim of driving out the Germans and seizing power in Yugoslavia. This second goal brought them into conflict with the other major group opposed to the Germans, the Chetniks.
The leader of the Chetniks was Dragoljub Mihailovic or Mihajlovic (1893-1946), a Serbian army officer who was the royal government-in-exile’s minister of war. His early feats of resistance against the occupation aroused admiration in Britain, but the ferocity of German reprisals led him to moderate the actions of his forces and brought him into conflict with Tito. Mihailovic decided on a policy of waiting for the allied invasion before launching all-out attacks on the Germans. His moderation allowed Tito to characterise him and his forces as near-collaborators of the Germans and gave the opportunity to left-wingers in Britain and in sensitive positions in the military to press for the support of the west to go to the Communist Tito rather than the royalist Mihailovic. The British government sent a mission under first Bill Deakin and then Sir Fitzroy Maclean to report on the situation in Yugoslavia and to recommend action; it was this mission that EW joined in the summer of 1944.
Maclean’s report was all that Tito could have hoped for (though EW later prepared one which pointed out the disastrous implications for the church of a victory for Tito in Yugoslavia). The west switched its support to Tito, and he duly gained power as the war ended. Mihailovic went into hiding but was captured and executed for treason. There is no doubt that a considerable amount of the activity of Mihailovic’s Chetniks during the war went into fighting off the Partisans (even to the extent of encouraging the Germans to target Tito’s men) and that this fact led to his trial; but then this kind of behaviour had not been just one-way.
Tito was to go on to be the ruler of Yugoslavia for 35 years after the war. He eliminated all opposition, but never found a successful balance between the centralising tendency of the Belgrade government and the strong decentralising movements of the six individual states that made up the federation, with the result that within twelve years of his death the country broke up.

464 the wrong horse in Malaya. And in China too.
Sir Ralph thinks that in both these countries Britain should support the Communist-led groups. In Malaya (now Malaysia) there was after the war to be an Emergency lasting for twelve years as Communist guerrillas tried to subvert the political developments which led to a conservative form of independence in 1957. The Communists, who were Chinese rather than Malay, were defeated by 1960.
In China, on the other hand, the Communists under Mao Zedong (1893-1976) were to achieve success by 1949, driving the opposition, the nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975), to take refuge in the fortified island of Taiwan.

464 Chiang is a collaborationist.
It is of course one of the techniques of revolutionaries to stick a label on an opponent like this; moderate policies lay him open to charges of insufficiency. Mihailovic was condemned in the same way.

464 a bit of a bourgeois at heart
Susie has got it right here. It is surprising how much the working-class movements of the mid twentieth century were led by people from the middle and upper classes. It no doubt accounts for their root-and-branch approach to political change : they have torn up their past and their inheritance and think it right for society to be forced to follow suit.

465 efficiency expert
People such as this man began to appear in numbers during the war. Large-scale unfamiliarity with their skills gave them a cachet which has perhaps never been sufficiently diminished in contemporary society. An efficiency expert was needed in H.O.O. to make sure that everybody was employed to best advantage for the war effort; it was a natural development from the Manpower Surveys mentioned above. The fact that Guy has not got a typist indicates that the decisions of this expert are not especially helpful.

4

466 M.M.
Ludovic, now a commissioned officer (a major), won the Military Medal for his exploits as a non-commissioned officer, in escaping from Crete and saving Guy’s life.

466 Intelligence Corps
Then a recently established corps, EW explains its some of its functions on pages 472 and 473.

466 St Margaret’s, Westminster
the chapel of the Houses of Parliament. It is right next to Westminster Abbey.

466 King’s Guard order
i.e. in their full ceremonial uniform

466-467 bridegroom’s name was familiar on advertisement hoardings and the labels of beer bottles
EW is having a little private joke here. In 1929 his friend Diana Mitford had married Bryan Guinness, heir to the brewing business and later Lord Moyne, in what was the society wedding of the year. She later divorced him and married the British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Some of the details of the wedding celebrations in SH are similar to the real event, which was well publicised.
We know from page 476 that the bride in SH was named Lady Perdita; but she has little in common with the real Diana Mitford.

468 ‘valet’ … ‘secretary’
The inverted commas tell us that these were purely formal titles. It seems clear that Ludovic was Sir Ralph’s catamite.

468 unusually early divorce
Diana and Bryan Guinness divorced in 1934 after five years of marriage. She was 24 and he was 29.

468 That’s all right, cock.
A phrase typical of working-class London.

469 Hanover Terrace … Ebury Street
streets of considerable prestige in London

469 Lapsang Suchong
a large-leaved Chinese tea. It has a smoky flavour and should never be mixed with milk.

470 Everard … Survival
Everard Spruce is a character EW based on his friend and colleague Cyril Connolly, and Survival is the magazine Horizon, which Connolly co-founded in 1939 and edited until 1950, when it ceased publication.
Connolly laid himself open to EW’s ribaldry with some of his writings. One of them, The Unquiet Grave, which he published in 1944 under the pseudonym Palinurus, is a collection of often pretentious though occasionally thought-provoking pensées in the manner of Ludovic. In the last section of SH EW can therefore have a double ration of teasing Connolly, through Ludovic’s literary mode and Spruce’s character and editorship. (He had already named Apthorpe’s thunderbox Connolly’s Chemical Closet!)

470 “A pansy sitting on its laurels”
The badge of the Intelligence Corps shows a Union Rose surmounted by a crown and flanked by laurel leaves. There is also a scroll inscribed Intelligence Corps and a motto, Manui dat cognitio vires, which is usually translated as Knowledge Gives Strength to the Arm.
Ludovic knows that the word pansy is ultimately derived from the French word pensée, meaning thought. The flower’s name comes from its propensity to hang its head as if in deep thought.
The word also has homosexual connotations. It stands for an effeminate homosexual, and so the phrase is also a comment by Ludovic on his one-time relationship with Sir Ralph.

470 Everard thinks it dated
The most famous book named Pensées is that by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), first published in 1660, though many lesser writers have attempted the form, including Logan Pearsall Smith and Cyril Connolly. Dated seems an inadequate word.

471 Time and Tide
This was a popular political and literary magazine founded by Viscountess Rhondda in 1920. At first it was liberal and feminist in orientation but became more conservative over the years as its owner-editor’s own opinions changed. Lady Rhondda spent her fortune keeping it afloat and it managed to survive until 1977, nineteen years after she died. Despite Spruce’s disdain, many of the great writers of the period wrote for her.

471 sabre
A sabre has a slightly curved blade with one sharp edge, the outer.

471 Bluebell
a metal polish

473 trained at a neighbouring aerodrome to jump in parachutes
The German victory in Crete impressed Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, so much that he demanded that the British Army’s parachute division should be vastly increased, and quickly. He seems not to have realised, as Hitler did, that the German parachute troops in Crete had suffered unacceptable losses; even today there are men who remember the fun time they had as British soldiers when at will they shot parachutists both in the air and as they landed weaponless and encumbered by their parachutes. Only incompetent leadership had prevented an overwhelming victory of the nature of what Americans call a turkey shoot : many men later stated that they were amazed when they were ordered to retreat.
The result of Churchill’s edicts was a rapid rise in the number of parachute troops and in the number of places where training could take place - naturally, at airfields. EW’s own training took place at Ringway near Manchester and not in Essex.

473 Fowler
i.e. Modern English Usage, first published in 1926 by H.W. Fowler (1858-1933). In the book he gives advice on English grammar and the right choice of words. He is particularly scathing about slipshod phrases, vogue words and unnecessarily obscure technical vocabulary. His recommendations sometimes appear odd or finicky today and he has lost some of his battles, but in general one can gain benefit from the book. It is still published, revised by later authorities.
EW himself always kept a copy of Fowler handy to aid him in a difficult construction or choice of words.

473 Roget
Peter Mark Roget first published his famous Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases in 1852. In a thesaurus words and phrases of similar or related meaning are placed together. So the right word or expression can be found when you have an idea that has not yet been formulated into language. Or at least that is the idea.

474 to Ireland or to America ... the Fire Brigade
The only literary person I can think of who went to Ireland during the war was John Betjeman, but he was employed as a press attaché. He seems to have been something of a spy too. EW’s inclusion of Ireland is undoubtedly a tease of Betjeman.
The most prominent writers who went to America were W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. They both stayed to become American citizens, though late in life Auden returned to Oxford first as Professor of Poetry and then as a retired scholar. EW satirised them in his fiction as Parsnip and Pimpernell (see page 554).
For the Fire Brigade, see my note to page 216.

474 Cheyne Walk
a prestigious road (pronounced chainee) along the embankment in Chelsea where there are many fine houses. Large numbers of prominent people have lived there.

475 The secretaries
Connolly was famous for having a number of young ladies around him. EW refers to them caustically several times in his Letters and Diaries.

475 style associated by the newspapers with the King’s Road
The King’s Road in Chelsea was associated after World War I with a form of bohemianism, mainly because students from the Chelsea College of Art adopted that style of living.

475 Logan Pearsall Smith ... Kafka
Pearsall Smith was an American man of letters (1865-1946) who became a British subject. He employed a succession of literary young men, including Cyril Connolly, as his personal secretary. Pearsall Smith was very concerned with perfection of style, and developed a precise, balanced prose which some found prissy. A characteristic statement of his was : What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers. He wrote a book of pensées which he called Trivia (1917). A typical example of his thoughts is :

THE SPIDER

What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse?
No, what it is really most like is a spider’s web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its center, pondering for ever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a Czech writing in German who expressed in his fiction the concerns and fears of contemporary society in the increasingly uncertain and alienated early twentieth century. In his bleakest book, The Trial, the protagonist is arrested for an undefined crime and spends his time afterwards seeking acquittal from ever more inaccessible courts and help from people who only increase his isolation. He goes to his execution still ignorant of his crime, protesting his innocence and begging for help. Kafka is supposed to have laughed immoderately and almost continuously as he wrote the book.
What a book would be that could be described as Kafka written by Pearsall Smith beggars the imagination; perhaps horrifying but inexplicable experiences narrated in a tone of balanced, precise and almost prim non-commitment.

5

478 “The Voice of Trimmer” Sunday evening postscripts
The BBC did put on such little talks, intended to bolster morale and indicate the superior civilisation of Britain in comparison with the grimness of Germany. Much the most famous were J.B. Priestley’s fireside chats.

478 a “Commando dagger”
One of the famous Commando weapons, it was an elegant knife with a sharp blade on both edges. Its official name was the Fairbairn-Sykes No. 2 fighting knife. Its length, at seven to eight inches (17-20 cm) for the blade, was perhaps slightly long for its purpose. More modern daggers are shorter and used for disabling the opponent’s throat from behind, so silencing him and giving the opportunity for lethal blows to the heart and abdomen.

480 I’ve got to refund the money - £250. It doesn’t sound much
Virginia is pretending. Not only can she not find the money, it is a large amount by the standards of the time. It is certainly the annual wage of an average manual worker or a little more.

481 ‘come out’
i.e. entered society for the first time as an adult. In high society it involved a number of formal occasions for a girl, including a dance in her honour and being presented to the King and Queen.

6

482 blue patrols
See my note to Blues on page 81.

482 refugees
i.e. the people who habitually slept underground. They had done so at first to escape from the German bombing campaign above, but continued to do so though the period of intensive bombing was now over.

482 drabs
i.e women. Drab was a term for a slovenly, lazy woman and later came to mean prostitute. The word seems a little harsh for the girls who were dating American soldiers, though many were willing to bestow favours for gifts of unprocurable luxuries.

483 this clot
Mr Crouchback is therefore suffering from a thrombotic condition, which is life-threatening even under modern treatments. It could be a development from another undefined condition.

483 Grenadier
an officer of the Grenadier Guards (see my note about the Guards on page 9)

484 espadrilles
a shoe with a fabric upper and a sole made of twisted cord

484 found English currency confusing
It is not at all surprising that the Loot finds English money difficult to understand. At that time (before decimal currency was introduced in 1971) an archaic system still existed. There were four farthings in one penny; twelve pennies in one shilling; and twenty shillings in one pound. Teachers had to spend a considerable amount of time in mathematics lessons inculcating the necessary techniques for handling the currency. Even so, there are still a few elderly people around today who would rather that decimalisation had never happened.

485 Drowned Sailor motif - an echo of the Waste Land perhaps
The Waste Land was the great defining publication of modern English poetry (1922). The American poet (later naturalised Briton) T.S.Eliot (1888–1965) attempted to characterise the modern age as a cultural, social and political desert, and did so with many references to the culture of the past. In Part IV, Death by Water, he introduced the drowned merchant-sailor Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead :

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his youth
Entering the whirlpool.

It is clear that Ludovic’s book is full of memories and images from Crete, an impression reinforced by the next entry. Here Spruce has picked upon the image of the sapper whom Ludovic threw overboard.

485 the Cave image
Ludovic led Hound to a cave, of course, where deserting and freebooting allied soldiers had created some form of temporary community. Probably Hound’s murder lies behind Ludovic’s use of this image.

485 Freudian psychology
In his theory of the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud created one of the most enduring ideas of the twentieth century, influential in all areas of western culture. In developing the theory, he used the metaphor of a cave. Outside the cave is the conscious mind where everything is accessible to apprehension just as light makes everything in the open air visible. But within the cave there are depths where unacceptable thoughts (often sexual ones) lurk, almost inaccessible to conscious awareness. Here linger things too painful to remember, to emerge perhaps in the form of psychological illness, especially if the struggle to repress these images is long-term and continuous.
Spruce’s mention of a spontaneous liberation of the unconscious shows that he accepts the propositions that Freud postulated. Ludovic in response says he has not read a lot of psychology though we know that he relished books on the subject (page 468).

487 Banquo had turned host
Banquo in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is killed on the king’s orders but appears as a spirit to haunt him at a feast. One would certainly be alarmed if a ghost presided at a banquet.

487 ‘slosh’
Slosh is a variation of snooker and billiards. Its rules are complex when written down but simple enough in play. The essential features are : Points are scored by cannons (American : caroms), pots, and in-offs. The six colours are placed as in snooker, but there is only one red, placed in the dead centre of the top cushion. The white is placed in the dead centre of the bottom cushion. The players use the same cue ball, which is usually the spot white from a billiards set. The balls score only when they go in their assigned pockets, otherwise a foul is declared. All cannons score two points but there is a scale for the other scores according to the colour of the balls (as in snooker); but the red is worth 30 points.

488 sonnet
a strict poetic form containing 14 lines, though with several possible rhyming schemes. Its restrictions usually prove stimulating to poets.

488 Was the second ‘who’ a relative pronoun with ‘good’ as its antecedent?
A good question. Ludovic is wondering whether it is the good which scorns the vestures and is therefore to be dreaded. On the other hand, the ‘who’ could just mean ‘of he who’; in fact I am inclined to think it does.
The quoted verses do in fact come from the winning entry of this competition. It was published in Time and Tide on 6th November 1943 and its author is given as ‘Denvil’.

488 Stele
A stele is an ancient decorated stone slab. It appears that Ludovic has used this unusual word because of its similarity in sound to steel (though scholars usually pronounce the final e, making the word sound like steely). This cleverness has not impressed the judges. His sonnet, lucid or not, is clearly another attempt to efface his memories of the sea journey from Crete to Egypt.