A Companion to Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour

Chapter Nine

Fin de ligne

1

489 Fin de ligne
End of the line (French)

490 Palazzo Corombona
EW had a very minor character in Brideshead Revisited named Vittoria Corombona who owned a palace in Venice where Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte experience ‘a night … such as Byron might have known’. EW liked to retain places and minor (and occasionally major) characters from novel to novel.

490 cachet
a medicinal liquid enclosed in an edible case which disguises the foul taste

490 “sun-rays”
clearly the product of an early form of sun-bed or sun-lamp

2

491 ‘Entrate e s’accomode.’
‘Come in and make yourself comfortable.’

492 ‘Sono più abituato … Sicilia.’
‘I am used to the Genoan dialect but I can understand and make myself understood everywhere in Italy outside Sicily.’

492 ‘Siciliano lei?’
‘You are Sicilian?’

492 ‘Ho visitato … parte d’Italia.’
‘I have visited Sicily but I lived on the Ligurian coast for quite a time. I have travelled in almost every part of Italy.’

492 ‘Li per me tutto andrà liscio’
‘That would be very easy for me.’ (dialect)

492 bogged down
The allied forces had landed on the mainland of Italy in early September 1943 at the same time as the new Italian government capitulated. The Germans had been expecting this development and had reinforced their positions with the result that allied advance was slow, especially as the terrain was difficult. The Salerno landings in the same month met unexpectedly strong resistance and Naples was not captured until 1st October. The Italian declaration of war on Germany on 13th October made surprisingly little strategic difference, the Germans having already fixed up a great line of defences known as the Gustav Line across Italy about 100 miles south of Rome. By November things were in a balanced state, neither army able to advance. Winter was upon them, making progress in the Apennine Mountains almost impossible.

492 ‘partisani’
These partisans, like the Yugoslav partisans mentioned earlier (note to page 464), were left-wing, almost entirely communist. Like them, they carried out guerrilla raids on the weaker German positions and on transport strongpoints.

3

493 IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY?
This is the kind of poster put up in public places during the war that attempted to jolly the British people into habitual obedience to bureaucratic demands. This one would appear to want to save on the fuels necessary to keep transport running. It is doubtful if many scheduled journeys were cancelled simply because of a lack of demand created by the British people obeying such posters. It is much more likely that they were simply cancelled on orders from above. Since very few people were able to procure petrol (gasoline), there were not many road journeys from early on in the war.

493 subfusc
black or very dark

493 flimsy newspapers
Newspapers were printed on the thinnest paper possible in order to conserve valuable supplies.

494 Tresham … Dacre
These really are the names of recusant families, i.e. Catholics who remained true to their faith through the penal times. They are the people with whom Mr Crouchback felt at ease.

4

This section is largely taken up with an account of the Requiem Mass for Mr Crouchback, counterpointed by Guy’s thoughts about his own impoverished spiritual state. In his Preface to SH, EW wrote: ‘All the rites and most of the opinions here described are already obsolete.’ This is particularly true of the Requiem, which has changed not only in ritual but in tone since EW wrote US.

494 a Puginesque structure
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) was the great English architect of the Gothic Revival of the early part of Victoria’s reign. He favoured a return to full Gothic glory in modern church building, though his sons and followers modified his extravagance. He was also a first-rate and original thinker, developing and preaching a theory of design based on utility, quality and harmony.

494 Act of Emancipation
This is the 1829 Act of Parliament which removed civil disabilities from Catholics in Britain.

494 presbytery
the house where the priest lives, usually next to the church

495 His lordship the bishop
The Catholic bishop in Somerset at this time was the Bishop of Clifton, the Rt. Rev. William Lee.

496 Father Geoghegan was fasting
At this time Catholics were required to fast from the previous midnight in order to receive Holy Communion, though fasting was (and is) not incumbent on those aged under 21 and over 59. Since only Father Geoghegan appears to be fasting, he is the only one taking Communion, something which would be unimaginable today.

496 hatchment … impaling … simple blazon without quarterings
A hatchment is a diamond-shaped panel on which the arms of a deceased person are displayed. In early times it used to be hung outside his home, but was quickly restricted to funerals. If the dead man had been married, as is true of Mr Crouchback, his wife’s arms would also be shown on the right-hand side of the hatchment as you look at it (actually the sinister or left-hand side technically) - this is impalement. Since both Mr and Mrs Crouchback are dead, the background is black on both sides; if she had still been living the background to her arms would be white. Ivo had died unmarried, so he had a hatchment with just the Crouchback arms on it (simple blazon). In heraldic terms Ivo’s hatchment would be unfitting for use at his father’s funeral.

496 purgatory
See my note to page 105. Periods of time spent in Purgatory by repentant sinners were immense by earthly standards, though this was the way that the Church expressed the value of a repentant action rather than a literal ‘sentence’. Reciting a certain prayer might be worth 1000 days or 30 years, for instance (these were partial indulgences); another devout action might be worth the whole act of purification (a plenary indulgence).

496 Cardinal Hinsley
(1865-1943) Archbishop of Westminster from 1935, Cardinal from 1937. A Yorkshireman, he spent much of his career as a teacher at home and then in Africa; he had the unusual distinction of being called out of retirement to assume the highest office in the Roman Catholic church in England. He became famous for his denunciations of Nazism and Fascism during the war but before it he had, like many people, been less condemnatory.

497 Prie-dieus
See my note to page 26.

497 sable and argent
i.e. black and silver (heraldic terms)

497 a device that had actually been carried into battle
This phrase emphasises the antiquity of the Crouchback family. Their ancestors had actually carried shields painted with their arms into battle - indeed the reason why arms existed originally was so that nobles could be recognised, especially in battle.

497 catafalque
a raised platform on which a coffin rests

497 the Lord Lieutenant
This is the King’s representative in the county, deputed to do all the many polite offices which the King cannot do in person, such as being present here at Mr Crouchback’s funeral. The position is an honorary appointment. Lords Lieutenant attend the King, other members of the Royal Family and foreign heads of state during their visits to the county, and make all the arrangements for them. They are in effect the monarch’s link with the local community.

497 Knights of Malta
a Catholic order, once military, whose purpose is now ceremonial and charitable. The order has a distinguished history. The knights originally operated in the Holy Land in the Middle Ages to look after sick pilgrims, but soon added the waging of war on Islam to their aims. From 1309 they lived in Rhodes and there put up a noble defence against the assaults of the Ottoman Turks. Their greatest feat was the defence of Malta in 1565. After Napoleon invaded the island in 1798 the Knights were permanently excluded and went to Rome. Here they maintained an organisation with a precarious but implicit sovereign power.
We later learn (on page 568) that Peregrine Crouchback is a knight of this order. The fact that he does not wear his robes at his brother’s funeral might be thought puzzling, but it is a family rather than a ceremonial occasion, and there is a representative of the order present in formal dress anyway.

498 genuflected
A genuflection is an act of respect often adopted by Catholics in church, in which they bend their right knee to the floor and then rise again.

498 Confiteor
i.e. I confess. It is the Latin name for the Confession. In the rite current at this time, the Confiteor was said twice near the beginning of Mass, first by the priest and then by the server in the name of the congregation, and then said again by the server as the communicants waited at the altar-rail in order to obtain pardon for the venial sins that they may have committed in the church since the server's first confession.
The ritual of the service was conducted in Latin, though a considerable amount of it was not easily audible to the congregation. (In Spain there was the frequent and atrocious practice of having the whole Mass said silently.)
The words of the Confiteor as said by the priest were :

498 the absolution
After the Confiteor the priest utters the words asking for divine forgiveness (in Latin).

498 Kyrie
This prayer for mercy still retained its original Greek words. (All other parts of the Mass had been created in or translated into Latin in the early years of the Church’s history.) At that time each of the three invocations was said three times alternately by the priest and server :

498 ‘In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit.’
These words are from the Gradual of the Mass for the Dead. The Gradual occurs between the Epistle (or Lesson) and the Gospel reading. Guy puzzles over the meaning of part of it, but the regular translation of the whole sentence was ‘The just man shall be in everlasting remembrance; he shall not fear for evil report’.

498 Dies Irae
This great Latin poem of the Day of Judgment, with its fearsome terrors, no longer appears in the Mass of the Dead, having been removed in the reforms following the Second Vatican Council (though it is still permissible to use it). It was written by Thomas of Celano (died about 1256) and incorporated into the Requiem Mass in Italy and France by the end of the fifteenth century. It was promulgated for the whole Roman church in 1570. Thomas probably got the idea for both music and words from one verse in the Libera me, the Response after the Mass for the Dead.
The opening words of Dies Irae are :

498 Ingemisco …
a verse from Dies Irae :

499 “The Grace of God is in courtesy”
This is a quotation from a Hilaire Belloc poem called Courtesy. The relevant lines are :

Of Courtesy - it is much less
Than courage of heart or holiness;
Yet in my walks it seems to me
That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.

499 praesente cadavere
in the presence of the body (Latin)

499 Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, via mutatur, non tollitur
There is a misprint. The third phrase should read vita mutatur. The sentence is from the Preface of the Dead in the Mass and means For the life of thy faithful, O Lord, is changed, not taken away. Guy amends this to ‘... is changed, not ended’.

499 Canon
the part of the Mass when the bread and wine are consecrated and become the Body and Blood of Christ

500 auditiones malae
‘evil reports’ (as above, note to page 498)

500 Garden of the Soul
the devotional manual written by Bishop Challoner (see note on page 229) and first published in 1740. It contains devotions for all occasions, formal and private, including the text of the Mass. The instruction to Put yourself (actually Place yourself) in the presence of God occurs at the start of the section on An Examination of Conscience.

500 They also served who only stood and waited.
This is an adaptation of the last line from Milton’s sonnet On His Blindness :

… Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

500 He saw himself as one of the labourers …
as told in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 20, verses 1-16.

500-501 the last gospel
As practised before the reforms consequent upon the second Vatican Council, Holy Mass invariably included (after the technical ending of the service) the recitation (in Latin) of the opening of the Gospel of Saint John (verses 1-14). This was known as the Last Gospel. It went as follows :

Those of us who remember the Last Gospel will also remember the unseemly haste with which many priests delivered it, as if desirous of preventing any rapidly-departing parishioner from getting through the door before the Mass had finished.

501 picked up his bowler hat
Either Box-Bender has forgotten the fact that there is a coffin to be got out of church or he did not know that the priests would return to take part in the ritual of Absolution.
A bowler hat is what Americans call a derby, i.e. a hat with an upturned brim all round and a domed top; it is the kind of hat that Charlie Chaplin wore in his films. The first bowler hat was designed by the hatters James and George Lock of St. James Street in London in 1850 for their client William Coke, later Earl of Leicester. For the actual making of the hat the Locks called on their regular hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler, who had a factory in Southwark in south London.

501 Absolution
The priest, after finishing the actual Mass, returns to give the Absolution, a prayer for mercy for the deceased.

501 modestly took a place behind the Lord Lieutenant
The Lord Lieutenant is the King’s representative in the county and so, in his own county, outranks any Member of Parliament; but Box-Bender should be considered to be one of the family - he is Mr Crouchback’s son-in-law - and so ought to go ahead of anybody who is not a member of the family. Only a man such as Box-Bender who is sensitive to social opinion could have even thought about slotting in behind a grand personage on such an occasion.

501 Antiphon
An antiphon is verse sung by two groups, i.e. one line or verse sung by one part of the choir, and the next by the rest, and so on alternately until the end. The antiphon here is probably Libera me (Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death …).

501 Paternoster … Benedictus … De profundis
Three prayers. In English they are the Our Father, the Canticle of Zechariah from the Gospel of Saint Luke 1, 68-79 (Blessed art Thou, Lord God of Israel) and Psalm 129(130) (Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord). At this time they might easily have been said in Latin. All might have been used at a funeral, though the Benedictus is usually considered to be a morning prayer.
Here are these prayers, in the Latin of the Vulgate and in English (the Douai-Rheims-Challoner Bible in the case of the Benedictus and the De Profundis).

502 your nephew
The Lord Lieutenant must think that Guy is Box-Bender’s nephew! Probably he has mistaken Box-Bender for Peregrine Crouchback. This is the sort of amiable error persons in some authority can easily make.

502 stucco facade
The front of the building (at least) has been covered with exterior plaster, a favourite device of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

502 dower house
See my note to page 14.

502 factor
It is not usual for the manager of an English estate to be called a factor; the term is generally considered to be Scottish.

502 Caroline
i.e. from one of the two periods when a Charles was king of England. Charles I ruled from 1625 until he was deposed and had his head cut off in 1649; Charles II from 1660 to 1685. The term is generally used of the period of the first Charles, but whatever the reign the decoration is certainly seventeenth century.

503 corbels
A corbel is a stone structure which juts out of a wall and supports something above, e.g. the arch of a vault. It is sometimes carved into a figure e.g. a face, grotesque or otherwise.

503 dried egg … adulterated flour
In the war eggs were most commonly supplied in the form of powdered dried egg, and indeed it was an important import from the United States under the Lend-Lease scheme. One packet of dried egg was said to be equal to twelve fresh eggs.
Flour had turned grey under the impact of government decrees that more flour was to be extracted from wheat grains. The result was what most people at the time thought an indigestible loaf of bread (known as the National Wheatmeal Loaf), though it is praised today as a healthy development.

503 spam
Spam was meat, mainly pork, which had been compressed before being put into tins. It was first manufactured in the United States by George A. Hormel & Co., and was another valued import in times of wartime austerity. The word comes from the first and last letters of spiced ham. Spam was not the only canned meat that America sent; others were called Prem and Tang!

503 saccharine
Sugar was heavily rationed, and substitutes were strongly favoured. Saccharine was the most prominent; it had been discovered as far back as 1878. Its unpleasant aftertaste was not considered an obstacle.

504 your father left his affairs in good order
The solicitor’s words prove that Mr Crouchback had been no fool when he gave up the estate and retired to Matchet. Guy and Angela are left what was, for the time, a considerable sum of money.

5

507 ‘I? I don’t think I understand you,’ said Dr Puttock icily.
Dr Puttock is distancing himself from Virginia’s plea, which he knows fully well is a request for an abortion. At that time, practising abortion was a criminal offence.

507 douceur de vivre
the ability to make life sweet and undemanding for oneself (French)

508 Victorian rationalists
Victorian scientists and thinkers generally held that reason and logic, investigation and observation, were the sources of knowledge. In believing this, in EW’s judgment, they ignored other sources of truth such as religion. They would have scoffed at his criticism, of course.

509 à propos
to the point

510 Brook Street
a fashionable street in Mayfair running from Grosvenor Square to New Bond Street. Claridge’s Hotel is in Brook Street.

511 Ruby at the Dorchester
Ruby is based on the hostess and socialite Emerald Cunard (1872-1948, born Maud Burke), widow of the shipping magnate Sir Bache Cunard. She and other members of high society did take refuge in the Dorchester Hotel at some periods in the war, using the basement floor as a species of air-raid shelter. Since the Dorchester Hotel (opened only in 1931) was made of reinforced concrete, many people considered they were more likely to survive a direct hit there than anywhere else. Their confidence was probably misplaced but fortunately never put to the test. EW had some fun in the war lampooning ‘the literary ladies of the Dorchester Hotel’.

511 Lord Curzon - and Elinor Glyn
After the death of his first wife, Lord Curzon (1859-1925), late Viceroy of India and a leading figure in the Conservative party, had an affair with the novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943) which became a relationship that lasted for eight years.

513 Boni di Castellane
Boniface, marquis de Castellane (known as Boni) (1867-1932), was one of the celebrated ornaments of the Belle Époque, a famous wit and dandy. He nevertheless had a political career as a deputy in the National Assembly between 1898 and 1910. He married the American heiress Anna Jay Gould, a woman whose unhandsome face provoked him into the celebrated pun Vue de dot (dos), elle n’est pas mal. He is known today, if at all, for the company he kept : Proust, Cocteau, Colette, Anatole France, etc., and the lady who is the subject of the next entry.

513 Marchesa Casati
Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) was one of the most extraordinary women of the early twentieth century, deliberately transforming herself into a femme fatale with an exotic and outlandish character. She liked to use naked servants to wait on her guests at dinner, to wear live snakes as jewellery, and to walk in the park with cheetahs on leashes. She owned several palaces in Italy and France. She was the woman of the period whom artists most often wanted to draw, paint or photograph. Because her daughter married two Englishmen, she lived the last twenty years of her life quietly in London.

513 Pavlova
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was the most famous ballerina of her age. She danced with the Ballets Russes in 1909 but was never really part of that company; and in 1913 she set up her own group with which she toured the world. After World War I she lived at Hampstead in north London not far from the house of EW’s parents (and, incidentally, from that of my grandparents). Her most famous dance was The Dying Swan, a performance of which exists on film.

513 Blight Street
I cannot locate this street in London, so I imagine it is an invention. It is certainly in an area very different from Mayfair.

514 Pied Piper
As most famously recounted by Robert Browning, the Pied Piper of Hamelin led all the children of the town away to an unknown destination, never to be seen again. The children of Blight Street have been evacuated to supposedly safer areas of the country.

515 Sacred Heart
A statue of Jesus displaying his heart, which is red and encircled by thorns; these characteristics represent his love and sacrifice for humanity. There used to be a strong devotion in Catholic circles to the Sacred Heart, not yet extinct today.

515 Benares ware
excellent decorated brass objects produced in India at a place now called Varanasi.

516 Herr von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) had been the German Ambassador to Britain but in 1938 was appointed Foreign Minister. He was to be executed as a result of the Nuremberg trials.
It is difficult to get firm facts about such matters, but there have been persistent rumours that British Intelligence agencies used the occult in order to try to influence the minds of the Nazi leaders. The mere knowledge that the British were doing this might have upset some of them, especially the superstitious Ribbentrop.

6

517 he consulted Roget … Bob Acres, Jerry Sneak
Roget is the Thesaurus, of course. This entry has changed over the years : dunghill-cock, Bob Acres and Jerry Sneak seem to have been ejected from modern editions, as unfortunately has nidget.
Bob Acres is a bumpkin in The Rivals (1775) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Jerry Sneak a hen-pecked husband in the play The Mayor of Garratt (1763) by Samuel Foote (1720–1777).

517 ‘the swarming rabble of our coistrel curates’
This splendid Elizabethan-sounding invective does turn out to be Elizabethan. The phrase is from the dedication to Lawiers Logike (1588) by Abraham Fraunce (about 1558-1633). This influential book was a treatise on logic and law and the relationship between the two, containing illustrations in English and Latin verse. Scholars tell us that Shakespeare derived his knowledge of the law, such as it is, from it.
A coistrel is a knave or varlet, and is therefore a term of reproach.

518 Coke-upon-Littleton
This phrase too has disappeared. Ludovic is just looking down the columns of the book (it is just as likely be a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary as Roget) and has found a phrase obsolete even when the dictionary was first collated. It is the cant name of a mixed drink, usually stout and brandy.
The name derives from the title of a legal text-book, the Commentary upon Littleton’s Tenures (generally judged to be the first law book printed in England, in 1481 or 1482) written by the distinguished lawyer Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) as the first volume of his Institutes of the Common Law of England (1628). Coke’s preface explains why he felt it necessary to translate Littleton and present his own commentary in English - in order that the nobility and gentry of the realm may understand (the law), seeing that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
One is driven to suppose that boozy law students gave the drink its name in a fit of either esteem or hilarity. Littleton seems to be the humble stout and Coke the transforming brandy. (Coke, by the way, is pronounced ‘Cook’.)

519 in the ivory tower of avant garde letters
i.e. in the secure and impregnable fortress where he hoped, isolated, to develop his powers of experimental writing.

519 ‘trauma’
Psychologists had taken the medical term trauma (meaning a wound to the body) and applied it to a distressing experience that causes emotional shock and may even have long-lasting psychological effects years after the event.

519 Nemesis : Eumenides … les talionis
Nemesis was originally a goddess in ancient Greece but came to mean a kind of indignant and avenging disapproval. The Eumenides were three goddesses of vengeance, also called the Furies, who came from Hades to pursue the wicked. Because they were specially feared, they were called, by an act of propitiation, eumenides (which means The Kindly Ones). Ludovic feels as if he is being hunted down by an abstract but relentless vengeance.
The phrase les talionis (these days, more usually lex talionis) means the law of retaliation (Latin). Since lex talionis does not allow retaliation as a defence argument in law, it is not, despite appearances, a law enjoining or permitting vendettas. This is, however, the meaning popularly given to the phrase today.

7

520 Fate
So not only Ludovic feels a powerful and implacable force driving life on.

521 the litter of contraceptives
This was unfortunately only too literally true. A majority of the British population would not have seen contraceptives until the war years, though they were discreetly available to men, for example through their barbers’ shops. When American servicemen came to Britain they were liberally supplied with them and frequently urged to use them, a request with which they were only too happy to comply.

522 ‘Music while you Work’
A programme of popular and light music which was broadcast twice a day from 1940 to 1967 on the BBC Radio Light Programme. It was intended to lift the spirits and morale of factory workers at a low time and so was broadcast twice a day from 10.30 to 11 and from 3.30 to 4 or 4.15. The government hoped to keep the production rate in factories up by providing a cheerful, rhythmic background to the stupefying routine and encouraging a sense of solidarity with other working people. The programme became a national favourite even in peacetime. The BBC took the opportunity of the reorganisation of its services in 1967 to drop the series.

522 Canvey Island
A near-island in the Thames Estuary perhaps thirty miles from central London.

8

523 ‘arboretum’
a place sown with many different trees, supposedly for the purposes of study

523 nominal roll
i.e. list of names

526 wingless
i.e. not wearing the badges which indicated his career; they had the shape of outstretched wings.

526 Dotheboys Hall
See my notes to page 76 and page 233.

526 Serbo-Croat
The language of what before the war was the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (i.e. Yugoslavia). There are possibly three distinct forms today (Serb, Croat and Bosnian), but they can all understand one another. Since the Croatians use the Latin alphabet and the Serbs the Cyrillic they find it more difficult to read each other’s language than to speak it.

526 Jugoslavia
This spelling of Yugoslavia used to be very common in Britain but is now much rarer. It accords more closely with the Slav spelling (Jugoslavija) but had the unfortunate consequence that the J could be given an English pronunciation, as it is in the slang expression we meet later on, the Jugs.

526 Dalmatia
a long sliver of coastal territory on the Adriatic Sea and the islands adjoining it, now in Croatia. For many centuries it was ruled by Venice, with the consequence that evidence of Italian art and life is still strong.

527 Partisan Liaison Mission
Guy’s role is becoming clearer. He is being considered for inclusion in a mission to the Communist guerrillas in Yugoslavia.

527 Eighth Army esprit de bloody corps
The Eighth Army was the British army which had won the battle for North Africa and was then in Italy attempting with difficulty to make an advance. Its successes had at last created a sense of efficient purpose that was in striking contrast with earlier lack of morale.
Gilpin’s rebuke of de Souza proves that the membership of the Partisan Liaison Mission was being manipulated and that the left-wing group would act together to neutralise opposing viewpoints and to forward their own.

528 “Roman candle”
This is explained on pages 530 and 531.

528 steeple-chasing
A steeplechase today is a horse-race over jumps on a race-course. (The Grand National is the most famous steeplechase in Britain.) Originally, however, it was a race over country, whatever the obstacles, from one defined spot to another, often designated by the steeple of a nearby church.

528 Education Corps
Here EW gives expression to a charge made by right-wingers during and after the war, that the policy of creating education courses for soldiers was a means by which radical ideas were introduced to men not accustomed otherwise to more than superficial thought on such matters, and so politicising them on a large scale.
The education corps was one response for dealing with the boredom of soldiers waiting at home for action to happen. There had been a corps before the war, but the defeat at Dunkirk spurred the authorities to create something more adequate for the troops. By 1943 a great number of civilian lecturers was employed to give lectures on a vast array of subjects, and there was also an Army Bureau of Current Affairs that was responsible for providing compulsory adult education for all soldiers. In 1943 three hours a week were set aside for this purpose.
The idea was for platoon commanders or their equivalent to present factual information supplied by the Bureau which would provide the basis for discussion among the soldiers. As always, much depended on the presenter, and there were examples of commanders who refused to have anything to do with the process. As time passed, left-wing opinion saw the project as being uncritical defence of the status quo, while right-wingers were sure that radical propaganda was being peddled under the guise of education. EW inclined to the latter opinion.

532 Nissen hut
a wartime prefabricated building made out of corrugated steel. Its characteristic shape was of a cylinder cut in half lengthways. It was quick to manufacture and quick to erect.

532 Daily Mirror
a daily newspaper of considerable popularity whose politics favoured the Labour party, though originally it had been somewhat conservative. It was popular at this time, however, not for its politics or even its sport, but for the strip cartoon Jane, in which a buxom female got into many scrapes which necessitated a coy revelation of an inch or two of flesh. Another popular cartoon character in the newspaper was the time-travelling strongman Garth.

532 The crate
i.e. the aircraft (R.A.F. slang)

533 He experienced rapture
EW himself, like many others, felt this kind of exhilaration when he made a jump while on a parachute course. Scientists tell us today that this is owing to the sudden production in the brain of large quantities of phenylethylamine, a chemical that is also produced during the passionate stages of a love affair.
EW too broke his leg jumping from a plane, though in his case on his second jump.

533 locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis
a place of comfort, light and peace (Latin). This phrase comes from the Commemoration of the Dead in the old Latin Mass. The priest prays for all those who sleep in Christ to be given this reward.

534 the readers of his confidential report
Among whom we may count ourselves, since we can read Ludovic’s report on pages 550 and 551.

535 a well-marked contrast in appearance
EW is suggesting that fighting soldiers are fit and healthy because they are given plenty of wholesome exercise and food, while sedentary men are fat and unhealthy because of their lack of exercise and their meagre and far less beneficial diet.

536 A.N.Other
This name was then commonly printed in programmes for sporting events where the final composition of the teams was uncertain and nobody had yet been selected for the position.

537 antonym
An antonym is a word which means the opposite of another given word (for example, light is an antonym of dark and so is bright). Ludovic’s usage is not precise, since the antonym of guest would presumably be host (if there is one at all). But Ludovic is fascinated by uncommon words.

537 ‘Major Dracula’
De Souza has nicknamed Ludovic after the vampire count in the book (1897) by Bram Stoker (1847-1912).

538 savoury
a light, tasty dish served either at the beginning of a meal to create appetite or, as here, at the end of a meal instead of a dessert.

538 ‘Father won’t buy me a bow - wow - wow - wow …
This song by Joseph Tabrar (under its correct title of Daddy wouldn’t buy me a bow-wow) had a recrudescence after World War II, but it was recorded by Silas Leachman as far back as 1892. It was a favourite song of Vesta Victoria and, almost incredibly, Toulouse-Lautrec painted May Belfort singing it in 1895.

538 In Haiti they call them “zombies”.
De Souza is of course pressing his long-term joke rather than suggesting a serious point.

540 It isn’t an offence in the Air Force.
The R.A.F. was famous for being less disciplined in everyday matters than the other branches of the armed forces, but was no less precise and punctilious in combat and danger.

541 Some joker in Alex gave him a parcel …
Now we know why Dr Akonanga in Brook Street (page 515) did not receive his scorpions!

541 Security check-up.
This reason, though invented by de Souza, would have been very believable in war-time.

542 oubliettes
De Souza is again being inventive. Fremantle has probably never heard of an oubliette. It is a dungeon cell with only one entrance - in the ceiling. It is therefore generally escape-proof and an ideal place to put an enemy whose presence might be embarrassing and whom you want to disappear permanently. One could easily increase his distress by shutting out all light and forgetting to throw food down.

542 ferruginous
rust-coloured (reddish). EW appears to be imitating Ludovic in his use of Roget.

543 coureur
woman-chaser (French slang)

544 Woolton sausage
I have been unable to identify this exact invention, though a recipe for sausage pancake was recommended by Lord Woolton’s Ministry of Food. It sounds quite interesting, actually, so I include the recipe here.

545 little perisher … polished off
More slang. These phrases are characteristic of London or Cockney speech; little perisher could indicate affection as much as the opposite. Polished off here means completely finished (i.e. eaten).

546 based on the dimensions of the Great Pyramid
The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Gizeh near Cairo has been the unfortunate victim of hundreds of such imaginative theories, ranging from its being the product of astral visitation to its possessing secret chambers which hide untold wealth or explosive religious and/or political information. Even now not all its passages and chambers have been investigated.

546 blower
A blower is a telephone; though it does not seem quite right in this context. R.A.F. men certainly kept in contact with developments in the air war by phone.

546 Admin
The Administrative Officer in the hospital; he is the A.O. mentioned by Captain Fremantle on page 548.

547 sounds of jazz wailed and throbbed
Enthusiasts for the art-form should not take this remark to be specially targeted at them. EW was notably unmusical, disliking every aspect of music. He had, however, a repertoire of tuneless songs which he sang at his family when provoked.

549 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.
De Souza quotes a line from Rupert Brooke’s poem The Soldier. The opening reads :

If I should die, think only this of me :
  That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed

549 Anglo-Sephardi
De Souza’s origins lie in the Jews of the Diaspora who settled in Spain or Portugal but were then forced to leave. His own ancestors obviously came to settle in Britain.

550 manumission
technically a release from a state of slavery

551 Uriah the Hittite … resonant Jacobean diction
The story of Uriah is told in the Second Book of Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. His wife Bathsheba was beautiful and King David lusted after her. He ordered his commander Joab to place Uriah in the thick of the battle where he might be killed. This stratagem proved successful and David went on to marry Bathsheba and become the father of Solomon by her, though he had to circumvent the consequent disapproval of the Lord.
Ludovic knows the story in the Authorised Version of the Bible, and it is therefore the noble periods of that translation that is described as having Jacobean diction, since it was in King James I and VI’s time (1611) that it was published. As a consequence Americans know it as the King James Bible. The British know it as the Authorised Version though in fact it was never authorised as such.
Ludovic fully realises that he is emulating David in sending a man whom he sees as an obstacle on a dangerous assignment.

9

552 reincarnation of Florence Nightingale
This officer is described in such a way because the nurse Florence Nightingale was known as the Lady with the Lamp. During the Crimean War, she used to visit wounded soldiers in her wards at night carrying such a lamp.

553 Staffordshire figure of Mr Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), four times Prime Minister of Great Britain, was a noted celebrity in his own times and a popular figure for representation in pottery.
Staffordshire is the county of England that is most associated with pottery. Figurines were made there from the middle of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century ones tend to be bold and crude, but a large number of celebrities were commemorated in this way.

553 Peter Pan … Sir James Barrie
Barrie (1860-1937) was the creator of the children’s play Peter Pan (1904), which is popular right into our own times. He was also the author of Quality Street (1901), The Admirable Crichton (1902), and Dear Brutus (1917), all of which can occasionally be seen today.

553 Asquith’s cabinet
Herbert Henry Asquith, later 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852-1928), was Liberal Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. He led one of the great reforming governments of British history, but his programme was incomplete at the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

553 Lots of Scotch are.
EW is indulging in a little fun. At the time when he wrote SH (approximately 1950-1961), the Liberal party, so great forty years before, had been all but extinguished. Only six M.P.s were elected in 1951. The greatest support for the party in the fifties came from what was called the Celtic fringe, i.e. the wilder areas of Scotland and Wales. The party’s fortunes have turned round in the years since SH was published; in the 2005 General Election they obtained 62 seats.

554 Fragonard … Léger
These two painters are bracketed by their commitment to satisfying and celebrating a class of society, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) the pre-revolutionary aristocracy of the eighteenth century, Fernand Léger (1881-1955) the working-class of the Industrial Revolution. Fragonard’s most characteristic paintings are fluent, delicate and mildly erotic; Léger’s are dominated by cylinders and machines in canvases where even people seem to become robots. In fact Léger’s art was so modern and mechanistic it did not satisfy the canons of Socialist Realism so that, though he joined the Communist Party, his work was not approved by its opinion-formers. Léger based some of his techniques upon graphic art.

554 Hitler had proclaimed a taste for ‘figurative’ painting
Figurative painting is a genre of art in which the accurate representation of human or animal forms or of nature is pre-eminent. It is therefore the kind of painting which the majority of people most easily finds acceptable. Adolf Hitler himself had some training and possibly some talent in art, though laziness seems to have prejudiced his advancement; he even dabbled with modern ideas before deciding on representational art as being the holy grail. Avant-garde art such as that pursued by Léger was anathema to him.

554 Parsnip
Parsnip is one of EW’s recurring characters. A poet, he and his inseparable ‘companion’ Pimpernell represent in EW’s novels the spirit of the Thirties in English Literature. Their work is coyly modern, proletarian and political in nature. At the beginning of World War II the two of them take up university posts in the United States. By 1943 Parsnip is Professor of Dramatic Poetry at the University of Minneapolis, while Pimpernell is Professor of Poetic Drama at St Paul.
The two men on whom they are based are undoubtedly W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.

554 Kafka … Klee
For Kafka see my note on page 475.
Paul Klee (1879-1940), German-Swiss artist who worked with both Der Blaue Reiter and the Bauhaus and benefited from most of the major artistic movements of his time. His reputation has remained high since his death.

554 bibelots
small but attractive ornaments such as might be placed in a display cabinet or on a shelf

554 papal court
Peregrine Crouchback is a papal knight; on page 568 we learn that he is the Privy Chamberlain, the Knight of Devotion and Grace of the Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem. He is therefore what is called for the sake of convenience a Knight of Malta. On occasion he might be asked to serve at the court of the Pope in Rome. In some circles he would be known as Sir Peregrine Crouchback but it is not the custom in Britain for knights who derive their titles from foreign courts to use them.

554 saturnine
gloomy and sullen

554 Dardanelles
i.e. in the Gallipoli campaign

555 honorary attaché
An attaché is a person attached to an embassy or diplomatic mission. He would usually have a well-defined responsibility, e.g. he might be a military attaché. Peregrine appears to have had no such brief but made himself useful (or, just as likely, a nuisance) where he could.

555 chancery
the political office attached to an embassy

555 decline in the value of the pound
As a consequence of Britain going off the gold standard in 1931, the pound sterling promptly lost 28% of its value and floated down to a more sustainable relationship with the other major world currencies. The result for people like Peregrine was that living abroad was not the easy option it had been in the 1920’s. It also meant that some dependent currencies were made insolvent; thus the pound’s important status in world finance came to an end.

556 Bordighera
a winter resort on the Ligurian coast of Italy. It cannot be far from Santa Dulcina.

556 Shocking news from the eastern front.
Peregrine Crouchback has all the attitudes of his nephew but redoubled. For him the news that Britain’s ally the Soviet Union is advancing into central Europe is unmitigated disaster. He would wish to see the Germans victorious in the east and the British and Americans in the west - an impossible outcome.
This attitude was rare in Britain at this time. Modern readers need to realise that Peregrine did not want a victory for Nazism but the preservation of Latin Christianity from atheistic communism. Looked at in another way, Peregrine and those who shared his opinion would be quite certain that at some point in the future Britain would have to face up to a victorious Soviet Union, as indeed happened after World War II. From their point of view it was a pity the Germans could not successfully see off the Red Menace before succumbing to a British victory.

556 Bolshevists
i.e. Communists. Bolshevik is a term that dates from the time of the formation of leftist parties in Russia.

556 It’s a mad world, my masters.
A Mad World, my Masters is the title of a comedy (1608) by Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). The play would be known only among a small circle of literati.
The phrase might also have been familiar to Peregrine as the first words of a rustic poem by John Taylor, the self-styled Water Poet (1580-1653), who was fond of writing boisterous nonsense, often about his many curious travels by water. The poem is called Western Voyage and was published in 1630 though probably written much earlier. King James I was reported by Ben Jonson as saying that he did not see ever any verses in England equal to the Sculler’s, an opinion not much shared by others then or later.

556 Dominican
a member of the Order of Friars Preacher (O.P.), an order of mendicant friars created in 1215 by Saint Dominic (Dominic de Guzmán, 1170-1221). The special character of the Dominicans was given by their obligation to preach Christian doctrine (something which up till that point was the duty only of bishops and similar ecclesiastics), and therefore by their need to study theology deeply. One result was that they fostered extremely able and well-versed men of high intellectual achievement.
Peregrine’s disapproval of them in general would almost certainly be due to the flights of theology that some of them indulged in, especially as they attempted to promote social changes based on theological ideas. I have no doubt that EW is remembering his own disputes with a Dominican he met in France called Father Marie-Alain Couturier (1897-1954). This friar was keen on modern art; in fact he liked to invite atheists and non-Catholic artists to design or create works for specifically Catholic purposes, something others were vehemently opposed to his doing. He also had conventional left-wing ideas of the time, including supporting the idea of worker priests and what is called today the option for the poor, things that EW thought unnecessary and unnecessarily divisive in a Christian community.

557 Chindits
a raiding brigade of British, Gurkha, and Burmese guerrillas which aimed to harass the Japanese behind the front lines in Burma. They were also known as Wingate’s Raiders because they were organised and led by General Orde Charles Wingate (1903-1944). Wingate was killed in an air crash just as the Allied troops began to get mastery of the Japanese forces, and from then on there was nobody around to stop the Chindits from being used by the authorities as normal soldiers.
The word Chindit comes from the Burmese word chinthé, the name of a mythical creature, half lion, half dragon. Their statues stand guard outside the entrance of Burmese pagodas. The troops had a representation of it on their badge.

557 viceregal duties
King George VI was also (the last) Emperor of India. Since the king had to stay in London, the Viceroy ruled India in his place. A splendid court was maintained even in war-time, but as with all such endeavours it was largely dominated by protocol and routine.

558 Teheran
From 28th November 1943 to 1st December Churchill, President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin met at the Persian (Iranian) capital in order to discuss the future shape of the war and the peace. No-one really expected the war to be won that winter.
The discussion centred on the timing and logistics of the Second Front in Europe. Stalin agreed to an eastern offensive to coincide with the forthcoming invasion.
There was also some discussion of political issues. Stalin not only wanted the Soviet Union to retain the frontiers won by the treaty with Germany in 1939 and in the Russo-Finnish War of 1940, he also wished to annex the Baltic coast of East Prussia. On the Polish question the Western Allies and the Soviet Union found themselves in sharp disagreement, since Stalin did not want the Free Polish government in London to take over when the country was liberated.
It was becoming clear to many observers that the Russians would prove rapacious and intransigent. Nevertheless Roosevelt felt that he could handle Stalin.

558 Churchill introduced Mr Roosevelt to the Sphinx
After the Conference at Teheran, Churchill and Roosevelt went to Cairo to discuss their reactions to the discussions and to have a tripartite meeting with the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek. While there the two western leaders went together to see the Sphinx and the Pyramids.

559 St Nicholas’ Day
6th December. This is the saint who in medieval Europe had considerable honour as a charitable and benign patron of children and was then transformed into Santa Claus in the United States, whence he has re-invaded the rest of post-Christendom.

559 prep school
See my note to Preparatory School on page 75.

560 piquet
a card game for two players using a pack of 32 cards. The twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes are left out.

561 a Scarlet Woman
i.e. a woman of excessive sexuality, confidence and rapacity, basically a prostitute. The original Scarlet Woman is in The Revelation of St John (Apocalypse) 17, where she symbolises the city of Rome and its excesses.

561 the fall of the house of Crouchback
This echo of doom (reinforced by the reminiscence of the title of Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher) reminds us that there is no male heir to the family title and lands (such as they are). But things are going to work out in a mysterious way not dissimilar perhaps to God’s.

562 a long way
Few people would consider it a long way, but in the pouring rain it would be a trial to walk there.

562 ‘nuisance raid’
Partly because planes were needed on the Eastern Front and partly because the bombing of British cities was by late 1943 a more dangerous business for German bombers, there were many fewer raids than there had been earlier in the war. Some that did occur appeared to have no obvious target and were not part of a concerted plan; they were therefore known as nuisance raids.

562 Exactly. Like Helen of Troy.
Peregrine is taking a strictly moral view of the story of Helen and Paris and thinking of Helen as an adulterous scapegrace rather than as a romantic heroine. This is his view of Virginia Troy too, at present.

563 only the beginning of other troubles
i.e. with the Russians

564 opposite Victoria Station
The restaurant cannot be much more than two hundred yards from Peregrine’s apartment.

565 outré
i.e. unconventional

566 the “o” is short as in homogeneous
This mistake is commonly met today. The word homosexual means liking the same sex (from the Greek) rather than liking men (from the Latin). After all women can be homosexual, and such women do not like men.
Peregrine’s comparison with the pronunciation of homogeneous would not be so effective today since that word too is generally mispronounced with a long o. (Encarta Dictionary gives this new pronunciation first place.) I have also heard it pronounced with the correct short o but with the accent on the second syllable so that the second e disappears altogether.

566 I knew a fellow once
Peregrine’s lack of acquaintanceship with men he knew certainly to be homosexuals seems unbelievable in today’s more relaxed times, but in the first half of the twentieth century it was possible to go through the world not recognising any at all, provided you kept away from a few locales which might have a reputation for no worse than ‘raciness’.

566 expatiation
being detailed in a minute way

568 I’m not really competent to
Apart from his not being a priest (the only competent authority to his mind), Peregrine finds the conversation growing distasteful. His is the kind of mind which does not like to discuss matters which are not clear as daylight to him already.

568 Lady Plessington
She was presumably one of the Plessingtons at Mr Crouchback’s funeral, but is more important as being the mother of Domenica, who will be Guy’s second wife.

569 a word, then unprintable
and obviously still unprintable when SH went to press. I have no such restrictions and can confidently announce that the word is fuck.

569 floater
unfortunate mistake

10

571 the dismemberment of Christendom
The recent talks at Teheran had begun the process by which parts of the world which were up for grabs were made into spheres of influence, a process which was to continue as Germany and her allies collapsed. EW thought of the subjugation of large parts of central Europe as the subjection of Christian values to tyrannical atheistic materialism.

571 Balkan terrorists
These are of course the partisans of Yugoslavia and other nations of south-eastern Europe.

572 Their political sympathies were identical.
The brigadier has clearly not achieved his position through military talent. (His lack of medals indicates that.) He is therefore one of the individuals who have used the special circumstances of war to worm their way into a position of some power, often in areas that other, more active spirits found boring. EW is implying that this was the way that some of the left-wingers worked.

572 compromised with royalist refugees
The tone and phraseology of the Brigadier and Sir Ralph make it quite clear that the aim of the Balkan Liberation Committee, in their eyes, consisted of putting control of those countries in Communist hands rather than just winning the war against the Germans.

572 establish confidence lower down
i.e. accustom the officers in the lower ranks to the aims and philosophy of the Communist party, or at least an acceptable facsimile of them. The two men probably do not believe that they can turn them all into Communists.

572 I should think he was just what we need
i.e. somebody to represent their organisation at middle levels whom everyone will accept, and behind whose innocent appearance they can pursue their own interests

11

574 Boxing Day
26th December, the day after Christmas Day, unless that day is a Sunday, as it was in 1943, in which case it is 27th December. It was originally the day on which the poor boxes in church were opened and their alms were distributed to the poor; it then became the day when servants and tradesmen expected an annual gratuity for their services. At one time they presented a box as a receptacle for gifts of money but this practice has now all but ceased. This particular day was chosen both for its nearness to Christmas Day and the fact that 26th December is St Stephen's Day. St Stephen was the first Christian martyr; he had been a deacon so that his responsibilities included the distribution of alms to the needy.

574 an almost nefarious bird
Nefarious because the Scrope-Welds fed it on scraps from their rations. During the war people were actually brought to trial and fined for doing this. Poultry could be kept (my family did it in our garden), but the birds were supposed to live off what they (or you) found on the ground. My father, who was a railwayman, often brought home grain that had conveniently fallen from damaged sacks.

574-575 effete … It means you’ve just given birth.
Well, not quite. It means exhausted after having given birth (or debilitated through having done so several times). From this meaning naturally grew the metaphorical one of lacking strength or capability to cope and consequently decadent, so Virginia has used the word quite correctly.

575 Think of Toulouse-Lautrec.
Guy means that over-bred people are not necessarily under-sexed. His example, the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, was an aristocrat and physically deformed, but Guy asserts that his sexual appetite was great, as indeed it was.

577 Childermas
A medieval name for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the babes and children murdered by Herod on learning from the Wise Men that the Christ had been born at Bethlehem (Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 2, verses 16-18). The feast is on 28th December.

578 Pyne’s Horace
The editor was actually John Pine (1709-1756). He edited the works of the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (60 B.C.-8 B.C.) under the title Horatii Flacci Opera and published them in two volumes in 1733 and 1737. The edition has been termed one of the most esteemed and remarkable works in the history of bookmaking since not only were the illustrations engraved on copper plates, the entire text was also. I have not seen the books but am told they are beautifully produced.

579 the registrar
This would be the local Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Since in the eyes of the state Guy and Virginia have been divorced, they need to be remarried if they are again to be regarded as legally married. The Church, of course, has always considered them married but it would insist on their regularising the situation with the state.

580 something Americans describe as ‘beyond the call of duty’
Guy thinks of this phrase as specifically American because it is part of the citation to the highest military honour awarded by the United States, the Medal of Honor. These words do seem to me to have an American character.

581 “All differences are theological differences”
I have not identified who said this.