That’s how Hastings describes himself in the foreword to The ABC Murders.
Does Christie ever explain how Hastings got his OBE?
Or is it just assumed it was something to do with his service in WWI?
I think the Novel “The Big Four” explains it to my satisfaction.
He was working for the government. Sorta.
But I don’t really believe it’s fully explained in known Christie novels.
An Order of the British Empire would not normally be awarded for military service or normal wartime activities, certainly not for the sorts of things that a captain might reasonably be expected to do.
Crossing the Andes by frog, being an ad hoc adviser to the warlord ruler of an allied state, appointment to civil office in one of the colonies (and not fucking it up too much), starting a charity built around muscular Christianity, or deciphering a lost language were all extra-curricular things done by British military officers who could expect an OBE in the mail one day.
Isn’t that a requirement for being Detective Protagonist’s sidekick? An otherwise well respected and accomplished professional reduced to a gawping idiot in relation to the Great Detective’s stunning brilliance?
It was originally conceived as a civilian order, but a military division was added in 1918:
The order had been established primarily as a civilian award; in August 1918, however, not long after its foundation, a number of awards were made to serving naval and military personnel. Four months later, a ‘Military Division’ was added to the order, to which serving personnel would in future be appointed.[8]
Hastings was never presented in that light. As a person, he was an amiable idiot, interested in fast cars and pretty girls. As a character, he was the usual useful foil sidekick. If he hadn’t befriended Poirot when he first came to the UK from Belgium, I doubt if Poirot would have kept him as hanger-on.
So more Bertie Wooster than Doctor Watson.
Therein lies a possible dissertation…
It certainly can’t have been for anything which required competence. Hastings is probably the thickest detective sidekick in literary history.
Are those all real examples? I’m curious how one would “cross the Andes by frog”, and the “muscular Christianity” sounds like it has a story behind it, too.
‘Ripping Yarns’ is a documentary series that covers the work of British Gentlemen (civilian and military like) who attempted OBE-worthy acts in the late 19th-early 20th C. Crossing the Andes by frog is just one of thee topics they explored in depth.
The series is written by a noted medieval scholar and re-enacted by one of the most eminent modern documentary travelarians. Heartily recommended to stiffen your upper lip.
See episode 5:
For muscular Christianity in English public schools:
Britain awarded a ton of OBEs around the end of World War One (25,000 by 1921). It was a medal that any talented (or lucky) commoner or woman might receive. I suspect Christie was actually belittling Hastings by noting his OBE.
A lot of code words in that description. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
Free in specially marked boxes of Weetabix: Your own real OBE.