To
seem to know all, to betray no surprise, to refuse to hurry--itself a
confession of miscalculation; by attention to these simple rules,
Dubois had built up a steady reputation from the days when he had been
a promising junior officer, a still, almost abstracted young man,
deliberate but ready. Even then men had looked at him and said: 'He
will go far.' Through fifty years of peace he had never once been found
wanting, and at manoeuvres his impassive persistence had perplexed and
hypnotised and defeated many a more actively intelligent man. Deep in
his soul Dubois had hidden his one profound discovery about the modern
art of warfare, the key to his career. And this discovery was that
NOBODY KNEW, that to act therefore was to blunder, that to talk was to
confess; and that the man who acted slowly and steadfastly and above all
silently, had the best chance of winning through. Meanwhile one fed
the men. Now by this same strategy he hoped to shatter those mysterious
unknowns of the Central European command. Delhi might talk of a great
flank march through Holland, with all the British submarines and
hydroplanes and torpedo craft pouring up the Rhine in support of it;
Viard might crave for brilliance with the motor bicycles, aeroplanes,
and ski-men among the Swiss mountains, and a sudden swoop upon
Vienna; the thing was to listen--and wait for the other side to begin
experimenting.
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