Dick Savage and Colonel Edgecombe

Dick Savage and Colonel Edgecombe form a relationship of military sponsorship built on Dick’s social fluency, practical usefulness, and ability to move comfortably among officers and French hosts. Edgecombe first appears among the officers who dine frequently with Dick in Tours; when he takes charge of the Post Despatch Service, he transfers Dick into his office as an assistant with the rank of captain. That appointment carries Dick from a subordinate role among Major Thompson’s horse dealers into a new administrative and diplomatic orbit, and ultimately gives him a place in the American Peace Conference courier service in Paris.

From the Tours dining circle to the Post Despatch Service

Before Edgecombe became Dick’s commanding officer, the two were already part of a regular social circle. Dick had been transferred to Tours through Major Thompson’s interest in having a young subordinate who could speak French and talk about Kipling. He boarded with an agreeable older woman, worked through a Personnel Department contact to get his brother Henry out of the infantry, and often dined with Thompson, Edgecombe, and other officers. The officers came to depend on Dick’s ability to order a meal properly, select suitable wines, and converse with French women. His usefulness was social as well as official: he could make limericks, manage a table, and draw on the cachet of being the grandson of General Ellsworth.

The shift in Dick’s career came when the Post Despatch Service was established as a separate organization under Edgecombe. As its head, Edgecombe took Dick away from Thompson and the horse-dealing circle and made him one of his assistants, with the rank of captain. The change was both a promotion and a transfer into a different kind of work. Dick’s command of French and his knack for navigating social situations, already displayed at the Tours dinners, now suited a service whose work would bring him into contact with the American delegation and its movements.

Edgecombe’s authority also had practical consequences for Dick’s family. Once Dick had joined the Post Despatch Service, he immediately managed to get Henry transferred from the officers’ school to Tours. The transfer did not secure Henry a high rank: it was too late for anything above a first lieutenancy. The episode shows Dick using his new position to act on behalf of his brother, while the opportunity to do so rests on the office Edgecombe has given him.

A working alliance, tested in the armistice days

When a false armistice rumor swept through Tours, the headquarters erupted in drinking, backslapping, and impromptu dancing among officers and enlisted men. After the rumor proved false, the mood turned guarded: people around the Despatch Service headquarters seemed to know more than they would say. On the night of the actual armistice, Dick ate supper with Edgecombe and several other officers. Their exchange in the courtyard afterward turned the public significance of the day into a moment of personal recruitment.

Edgecombe called it a great day for the human race, then drew Dick aside with news that President Wilson would attend a peace conference in Paris. Edgecombe had been ordered to place the Despatch Service at the American delegation’s disposal, making its personnel the conference’s couriers. He offered Dick the possibility of going home if he wanted to, but Dick quickly said he preferred the chance to travel in Europe and expected the conference to be a circus. Edgecombe narrowed his eyes at that answer and reminded him that service should come first. He also stressed that the information was confidential. Dick agreed, though he could not suppress a grin when he returned to the officers’ table.

The exchange captures the terms of their alliance. Edgecombe makes the opportunity available and speaks to Dick as a subordinate whose service obligations matter; Dick accepts the assignment partly because it offers travel and an escape from having to return home to look for work. His eagerness is not hidden from the colonel, and Edgecombe’s rebuke does not cancel the offer. Their relationship therefore combines official discipline with a clear recognition that Dick has ambitions and interests beyond military duty.

Paris: authority, access, and social performance

The Paris assignment placed Dick in the center of a new official world. He arrived in a new whipcord uniform with silver bars at his shoulders and money in his pockets. The Hôtel de Crillon, Place de la Concorde, and Rue Royale formed the ceremonial hub of the city, where Wilson, Lloyd George, and the Belgian royal couple appeared among the dignitaries escorted by the French Republican Guard. Dick’s duties and travel brought him into this setting, while the scenes around it revealed how readily official life blended with dining, drink, gossip, and display.

Dick and Edgecombe continued to appear together beyond the office. At tea in Eleanor Stoddard’s stately drawing room, Edgecombe admired the setting and complimented their hostess; she then teased Dick about the impression he had made on Edgar Robbins. The scene places Dick within the colonel’s social company, but also shows that Dick was developing a reputation of his own among the people around the conference. His access did not depend only on his rank: his attentiveness, conversation, and ability to leave an impression were part of what made him useful in this milieu.

Edgecombe also included Dick in encounters that linked official circles with public relations and corporate influence. Soon after Christmas, he took Dick to dinner with J. Ward Moorehouse, a New York publicity man said to be close to Colonel House. Before they met, Edgecombe explained the family connection and asked Dick to assess Moorehouse’s character, remarking that the young captain seemed to have a keen eye for people. Dick responded by watching and listening rather than dominating the conversation. The episode presents Edgecombe not simply as a superior assigning tasks, but as someone who recognizes Dick’s observational ability and invites him to exercise it in a consequential social setting.

The limits and consequences of Edgecombe’s sponsorship

Edgecombe’s support gave Dick rank, work, travel, and proximity to the peace conference, but it did not determine what Dick would do after military service. Following a picnic with Eleanor Stoddard, Moorehouse let Dick understand that a position would be available in his office when Dick left the service. Dick described the prospective work to his mother as public-relations and publicity advising for corporations including Standard Oil, and as a means of continuing his own work on the side. That civilian opportunity came from Moorehouse, not from Edgecombe; the colonel’s role had been to bring Dick into the Paris courier world where such connections became possible.

Across the relationship, Edgecombe repeatedly converts Dick’s social competence into institutional opportunity: first by making him an assistant captain in the Post Despatch Service, then by sending him to Paris as a courier for the American delegation, and by bringing him into rooms where influential people can observe him. Dick, in turn, accepts the advantages while remaining candidly attracted to travel, novelty, and a life beyond military routine. The relationship is therefore neither a simple story of paternal mentorship nor only a chain of commands. It is a practical alliance in which Edgecombe’s authority opens doors and Dick’s adaptable intelligence helps him pass through them.