Fall of Giants

Fitz just felt that the British contribution to the war effort, and his part in it, had become even more important.

With a strong sense of doom, he drove on to the Ritz.

He entered the lobby of his favorite hotel and went into a phone booth. There he called the British embassy and left a message for the ambassador, telling him about Galliéni’s notice, just in case the news had not yet reached the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré.

When he came out of the booth he ran into Sir John’s aide Colonel Hervey.

Hervey looked at Fitz’s tuxedo and said: “Major Fitzherbert! Why the devil are you dressed like that?”

“Good morning, Colonel,” said Fitz, deliberately not answering the question. It was obvious that he had been out all night.

“It’s nine o’clock in the bloody morning! Don’t you know we’re at war?”

This was another question that did not require an answer. Coolly Fitz said: “Is there something I can do for you, sir?”

Hervey was a bully who hated people he could not intimidate. “Less of your insolence, Major,” he said. “We’ve got enough to do, with interfering bloody visitors from London.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow. “Lord Kitchener is the minister for war.”

“The politicians should leave us to do our job. But someone with friends in high places has stirred them up.” He looked as if he suspected Fitz, but did not have the courage to say so.

“You can hardly have been surprised at the War Office being concerned,” Fitz said. “Ten days’ rest, with the Germans at the gates!”

“The men are exhausted!”

“In ten days the war might be over. What are we here for, if not to save Paris?”

“Kitchener took Sir John away from his headquarters on a crucial day of battle,” Hervey blustered.

“Sir John wasn’t in much of a hurry to get back to his troops, I noticed,” Fitz rejoined. “I saw him dining here at the Ritz that evening.” He knew he was being insolent but he could not help himself.

“Get out of my sight,” said Hervey.

Fitz turned on his heel and went upstairs.

He was not as insouciant as he had pretended. Nothing would make him kowtow to idiots such as Hervey, but it was important to him to have a successful military career. He hated the thought that people might say he was not the man his father was. Hervey was not much use to the army because he spent all his time and energy patronizing his favorites and undermining his rivals, but by the same token he could ruin the careers of men who concentrated on other things, such as winning the war.

Fitz brooded as he bathed, shaved, and dressed in the khaki uniform of a major in the Welsh Rifles. Knowing that he might get nothing to eat until dinner, he ordered an omelette sent up to his suite with more coffee.

At ten o’clock sharp his working day began, and he put the malign Hervey out of his mind. Lieutenant Murray, a keen young Scot, arrived from British headquarters, bringing into Fitz’s suite the dust of the road and the morning’s aerial reconnaissance report.

Fitz rapidly translated the document into French and wrote it out in his clear, swooping script on pale blue Ritz paper. Every morning British planes overflew German positions and noted the direction in which enemy forces were moving. It was Fitz’s job to get the information to General Galliéni as quickly as possible.

Going out through the lobby he was called by the head porter to take a phone call.

The voice that said: “Fitz, is that you?” was distant and distorted, but to his astonishment it was, unmistakably, that of his sister, Maud.

“How the devil did you manage this?” he said. Only the government and the military could phone Paris from London.

“I’m in Johnny Remarc’s room at the War Office.”

“I’m glad to hear your voice,” Fitz said. “How are you?”

“Everyone’s terribly worried here,” she said. “At first the papers printed nothing but good news. Only people who knew their geography understood that after each gallant French victory the Germans seemed to be another fifty miles inside France. But on Sunday The Times published a special edition. Isn’t that odd? The everyday paper is full of lies, so when they tell the truth they have to bring out a special edition.”

She was trying to be witty and cynical, but Fitz could hear the fear and anger underneath. “What did the special edition say?”

“It spoke of our ‘retreating and broken army.’ Asquith is furious. Now everyone expects Paris to fall any day.” Her façade cracked, and there was a sob in her voice as she said: “Fitz, are you going to be all right?”

He could not lie to her. “I don’t know. The government has moved to Bordeaux. Sir John French has been told off, but he’s still here.”

“Sir John has complained to the War Office that Kitchener went to Paris in the uniform of a field marshal, which was a breach of etiquette because he is now a government minister and therefore a civilian.”

“Good God. At a time like this he’s thinking about etiquette! Why hasn’t he been sacked?”

“Johnny says it would look like an admission of failure.”

“What will it look like if Paris falls to the Germans?”