Spy Story

‘Colonel, I think they are sitting outside Norfolk. For all I know they are up the Thames as far as Stratford, and sending liberty crews ashore to see Ann Hathaway’s cottage. But so far, both sides have kept stumm about these operations. You base NATO exercises on a real Russian Fleet alert, and Russian Northern Fleet are going to get roasted. And the price they’ll have to pay for returning life to normal will be nailing one of our pig-boats.’

‘And you like it cosy?’

‘We’re getting the material, Colonel. We don’t have to rub their noses in it.’

‘No point in getting into a hassle about something like this, son. The decision will be made far above this level of command.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You think I’ve come into the Centre to build an empire? …’ He waved a hand. ‘Oh, sure. Don’t deny it, I can read you like a book. That’s what riles Foxwell too. But you couldn’t be more wrong. This wasn’t an assignment I wanted, feller.’ The athletic Marine Colonel sagged enough to show me the tired old puppeteer who was working the strings and the smiles. ‘But now I’m here I’m going to hack it, and you’d just better believe.’

‘Well, at least we both hate lords.’

He leaned forward and slapped my arm. ‘There you go, kid!’ He smiled. It was the hard, strained sort of grimace that a man might assume when squinting into the glare of an icy landscape. Liking him might prove difficult, but at least he was no charmer.

He swivelled in his chair and clattered the ice cubes in the jug, using a plastic swizzle stick with a bunny design on the end. ‘How did you get into the Studies, anyway?’ he asked me, while giving all his attention to pouring drinks.

‘I knew Foxwell,’ I said. ‘I saw him in a pub at a time when I was looking for a job.’

‘Now straighten up, son,’ said Schlegel. ‘No one looks for a job any more. You were taking a year off to do a thesis and considering a lot of rather good offers.’

‘Those offers would have to have been damn near the bread line to make Studies Centre the best of them.’

‘But you’ve got your Master’s and all those other qualifications: maths and economics; potent mixture!’

‘Not potent enough at the time.’

‘But Foxwell fixed it?’

‘He knows a lot of people.’

‘That’s what I hear.’ He gave me another fixed stare. Foxwell and Schlegel! That was going to be an inevitable clash of wills. No prizes for who was going to buckle at the knees. And what with all this lord-hating stuff … Ferdy wasn’t a lord, but he’d no doubt do for Schlegel’s all-time hate parade until a real lord came by in a golden coach. ‘And Ferdy fixed it?’

‘He told Planning that I’d had enough computer experience to keep my hand from getting jammed in the input. And then he told me enough to make it sound good.’

‘A regular Mr Fixit.’ There was no admiration in his voice.

‘I’ve earned my keep,’ I said.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Schlegel. He gave me the big Grade A – approved by the Department of Health – smile. It wasn’t reassuring.

From the next room there came the shouts of children above the noise of the TV. There was a patter of tiny feet as someone screamed through the house, slammed the kitchen door twice and then started throwing the dustbin lids at the compost heap. Schlegel rubbed his face. ‘When you and Ferdy do those historical studies, who operates the computer?’

‘We don’t have the historical studies out on the War Table, with a dozen plotters, and talk-on, and all the visual display units lit up.’

‘No?’

‘A lot of it is simple sums that we can do more quickly on the machine than by hand.’

‘You use the computer as an adding machine?’

‘No, that’s overstating it. I write a low-level symbolic programme carefully. Then we run it with variations of data, and analyse the output in Ferdy’s office. There’s not much computer time.’

‘You write the programme?’

I nodded, and sank some of my drink.

Schlegel said, ‘How many people in the Studies Group can write a programme and all the rest?’

‘By all the rest, you mean, get what you want out of storage into the arithmetic, process it and bring it out of the output?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘Not many. The policy has always been …’

‘Oh, I know what the policy has been, and my being here is the result of it.’ He stood up. ‘Would it surprise you to hear that I can’t work the damn thing?’

‘It would surprise me to hear that you can. Directors are not usually chosen because they can work the computer.’

‘That’s what I mean. OK, well I need someone who knows what goes on in the Group and who can operate the hardware. What would you say if I asked you to be a PA for me?’

‘Less work, more money?’

‘Don’t give me that stuff. Not when you go in to do Ferdy’s historical stuff for free nearly every Saturday. More money maybe, but not much.’

Mrs Schlegel tapped on the door and was admitted. She’d changed into a shirt-waist dress and English shoes and a necklace. Her dark hair was tied back in a tail. Schlegel gave a soft low whistle. ‘Now there’s a tribute, feller. And don’t bet a million dollars that my daughters are not also in skirts and fancy clothes.’

‘They are,’ said Helen Schlegel. She smiled. She was carrying a tray loaded with bacon, lettuce and tomato toasted sandwiches, and coffee in a large silver vacuum jug. ‘I’m sorry it’s only sandwiches,’ she said again.

‘Don’t believe her,’ said Schlegel. ‘Without you here we would have got only peanut butter and stale crackers.’

‘Chas!’ She turned to me. ‘Those have a lot of English mustard. Chas likes them like that.’

I nodded. It came as no surprise.

‘He’s going to be my new PA,’ said Schlegel.

‘He must be out of his mind,’ said Mrs Schlegel. ‘Cream?’

‘There’s a lot more money in it,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Yes, please. Yes, two sugars.’

‘I’d want the keys to the mint,’ said Mrs Schlegel.

‘And she thinks I’ve got them,’ explained Schlegel. He bit into a sandwich. ‘Hey, that’s good, Helen. Is this bacon from the guy in the village?’

‘I’m too embarrassed to go there any more.’ She left. It was clearly not a subject she wanted to pursue.

‘He needed telling,’ said Schlegel. He turned to me. ‘Yes, clear up what you are doing in the Blue Suite Staff Room …’ He picked a piece of bacon out of his teeth and threw it into an ashtray. ‘I’ll bet she did get it from that bastard in the village,’ he said. ‘And meanwhile we’ll put a coat of paint on that office where the tapes used to be stored. Choose some furniture. Your secretary can stay where she is for the time being. OK?’

‘OK.’

‘This history stuff with Foxwell, you say it’s low-level symbolic. So why do we use autocode for our day to day stuff?’

I got the idea. My job as Schlegel’s assistant was to prime him for explosions in all departments. I said, ‘It makes much more work when we programme the machine language for the historical studies but it keeps the machine time down. It saves a lot of money that way.’

‘Great.’

‘Also with the historical stuff we nearly always run the same battle with varying data to see what might have happened if … you know the kind of thing.’

‘But tell me.’

‘The Battle of Britain that we’re doing now … First we run the whole battle through – Reavley Rules …’

‘What’s that?’

‘Ground scale determines the time between moves. No extension of move time. We played it through three times using the historical data of the battle. We usually do repeats to see if the outcome of a battle was more or less inevitable or whether it was due to some combination of accidents, or freak weather, or whatever.’

‘What kind of changed facts did you programme into the battle?’ said Schlegel.

‘So far we’ve only done fuel loads. During the battle the Germans had long-range drop tanks for the single-seat fighters, but didn’t use them. Once you programme double fuel loads for the fighters, there are many permutations for the bombing attacks. We can vary the route to come in over the North Sea. We can double the range, bringing more cities under attack and so thinning the defences. We can keep to the routes and attacks actually used, but extend fighter escort time over the target by nearly an hour. When you have that many variations to run, it’s worth bringing it right the way down, because machine time can be reduced to a quarter of autocode time.’

‘But if you were running it only once?’

‘We seldom do that. Once or twice we’ve played out a battle like a chess game but Ferdy always wins. So I’ve lost enthusiasm.’

‘Sure,’ said Schlegel, and nodded in affirmation of my good sense.

There was a silence in the house, and the countryside was still. The clouds had rolled back to reveal a large patch of clear blue sky. Sunlight showed up the dust of winter on the austere metal desk at which Schlegel sat. On the wall behind it there was a collection of framed photographs and documents recording Schlegel’s service career. Here was a cocky crew-cut trainee in a Stearman biplane on some sunny American airfield in World War Two; a smiling fighter pilot with two swastikas newly painted alongside the cockpit; a captain hosed-down after some final tropical-island mission; and a hollow-cheeked survivor being assisted out of a helicopter. There were half a dozen group photos, too: Marine flyers with Schlegel moving ever closer to the centre chair.

While I was looking at his photos there was the distant roar of a formation of F-4s. We saw them as dots upon the blue sky as they headed north.

Schlegel guessed that they were going to the bombing range near King’s Lynn. ‘They’ll turn north-west,’ he said, and no sooner had he spoken the words than the formation changed direction. I turned back to the sandwiches rather than encourage him. ‘Told you,’ he said.

‘Ferdy didn’t want to give anyone the excuse to say that the machine time was costing too much.’

‘So I hear, but this historical stuff … is it worth any machine time?’

I didn’t react to the provocation. A man doesn’t give up his spare time working at something he believes not worth continuing. I said, ‘You’re the boss, that’s what you’ll have to decide.’

‘I’m going to find out what it’s costing. We can’t go on eating our heads off at the public trough.’

‘Strategic Studies is a trust, Colonel Schlegel. Under its terms, historical studies were a part of its purpose. We don’t have to show a profit at the end of the year.’

He pinched his nose as a pilot might to relieve sinus pressure. ‘Have another sandwich, kid. And then I’ll run you down to the station for the two twenty-seven.’

‘Foxwell is a historian, Colonel, he’s given quite a few years to this historical research. If it was cancelled now it would have a bad effect on the whole Studies Group.’

‘In your opinion?’

‘In my opinion.’

‘Well, I’ll bear that in mind when I see what it’s costing. Now how about that sandwich.’

‘No mayonnaise this time,’ I said.

Schlegel got up and turned his back on me as he stared out of the window after the fading echoes of the Phantoms. ‘I’d better level with you, son,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Your screening’s not through, but I can block in the plan. The trustees have relinquished control of the Studies Centre, although they will still be on the masthead of the Studies Centre journal and mentioned in the annual accounts. From now on, control is through me from the same naval warfare committee that runs the USN TACWAR Analysis, your British Navy’s Undersea Warfare Staff School and NATO Group-North at Hamburg.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, you’ll be able to carry on with the historical games, if that’s what you want, but gone are the days of the horse and buggy – and you’d better be sure Foxwell knows it.’

‘I’m sure it will become evident, Colonel.’

‘You’re damn right it will,’ said Schlegel. He consulted his watch. ‘Maybe we’d better get your coat – remember that damn station is running fast.’

5

No game decisions or plays are valid or binding except those made in writing during game time.

RULES. ‘TACWARGAME’. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON

Ferdy Foxwell had this solid fuel stove in his office. He was some kind of fire freak, because he’d bribed five successive porters to bring him coal from next door without a chit. I thought the porters changed over just to make him go through the bribe business all over again, but Ferdy said that was just my nasty mind.

Anyway, he had this stove and I liked to go into his office in the winter time because I was a fire freak, too, in a small way of business.

When I entered I found Ferdy reading Red Star, the Soviet Defence Review, designed by Smersh to kill by boredom.

‘There are one hundred and twenty military academies in Russia,’ said Ferdy. ‘And that’s not counting technical staff colleges.’ He turned the page and folded it into a small wad again, turning it in his hands as he read down the column. He looked up as he got to the end. ‘Is Schlegel Irish?’

‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘One of the Boston O’Schlegels.’

‘I thought he must be,’ Ferdy said.

‘That last programme failed, Ferdy. They’d set the bloody label twice. When one of the boys corrected it, it read-in but then stopped. The intermediate print-out is on its way.’

‘Ummm.’

‘Someone will have to stay tonight.’

‘What for?’

‘If we don’t finish today, we won’t have machine time again until Thursday. Unless you know some way of fiddling the computer charges.’

Our programmes were written in FORTRAN (Formula Translation Language) and fed into the computer on tape together with a ‘processor tape’, that translates it into instructions of a sort the machine can comply with. By means of the FORTRAN, certain common errors (like the double printed label that was Ferdy’s fault) were programmed to respond on the print-out. On this tear-off sheet the machine had written: ‘I’m only a bloody machine but I know how to print a label once only.’

I thought Ferdy would laugh, and I pushed the sheet across the desk to him, half expecting that he would pin it up on his board. He looked at the machine’s message, screwed it into a ball and tossed it in the direction of his waste-basket.

‘Bomber bloody Schlegel will have to hear about it, I suppose.’

‘He looks at the sheets every day.’

‘Only because you take them up to him.’

I shrugged. Ferdy had no need to do these programmes personally, but since he’d done this one it was his error and a stupid one. There was no way to hide it from Schlegel.

There was no real need for a clash to come between Ferdy and the boss, yet it seemed to have an inevitability that they had both recognized already. Foxwell regarded my job as Schlegel’s personal assistant as blacklegging; Schlegel was convinced that I spent half my working hours covering up for the incompetence of my cronies.

Ferdy dropped the wadded journal into his out-tray and sighed. He’d not been reading it, he’d been waiting for me to come back from the computer. He got to his feet with a lot of creaking and groaning. ‘Fancy a drink?’

‘At the Lighthouse?’

‘Wherever you like.’

Ferdy was usually more imperious in his invitations. I interpreted it as a plea. I said, ‘As long as I’m not too late home.’

It was a cold evening. The Lighthouse was crowded: regulars mostly, some medical students and a Welsh Rugby club that had been infiltrated by hard-drinking Australians. ‘I knew he’d turn out a bastard,’ said Ferdy, pulling a cashmere scarf tight around his throat. The drinks came and he pushed a pound across the counter. ‘Have one with us, Landlord.’

‘Thank you, Mr Foxwell, a small bitter,’ said the barman. Characteristically, Ferdy chose a sheltered piece of bar counter under one of the huge sherry casks that formed one wall.

‘You’re the only one who can run the Russian desk, Ferdy,’ I told him. ‘Why don’t you talk to Schlegel tomorrow? Tell him that if he doesn’t give you the two girls and your programmer back you’ll do something drastic.’

‘Drastic?’ said Ferdy. ‘You mean the old karate chop: zap! Pow! Wallop!’

‘Well he couldn’t get anyone else for weeks, Ferdy. And they couldn’t leave the desk unmanned, could they? Hell, you don’t need the money anyway. I don’t know why you’ve stuck it as long as this.’

‘Zap, pow, wallop, Schlegel,’ said Ferdy experimentally. ‘No, I don’t think that’s my style.’

‘More my style, you mean?’

‘I didn’t say that, old chap.’

Ferdy twisted up his face and gave an impression of Schlegel. ‘And cut out this zap, pow, wallop crap, Foxwell. You show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.’ He let a trace of Schlegel’s suppressed Southern drawl creep in at the end. I dreaded to think what Ferdy did to imitate me when I wasn’t around.

I said, ‘You should get some of your titled relatives down to your place one weekend …’

‘And invite Schlegel and his “bride”. You know I had considered even that …’

‘Big heads think the same.’

‘But it’s a bit feeble, isn’t it?’

‘You know your relatives better than I do.’

‘Yes, well, not even my bloody titled relatives deserve a weekend of Schlegel. Drink up, old lad, he’s bringing some more.’

Ferdy had ordered more drinks by raising an eyebrow at a garrulous barman that he treated like an old family retainer. I paid for them, and Ferdy laid into his brandy and soda as though he didn’t want to risk it being knocked over. ‘What’s the difference,’ he said, after draining it. ‘It’s obvious the bloody Yanks are going to close us.’

‘You’re wrong there,’ I told him.

‘Time will tell,’ he said portentously.

‘No need to wait. I can tell you that they are pumping a couple of million into the Studies Group over the next six months. We’re going to have five hours a day computer time, including Saturdays and Sundays.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

But Ferdy knew that I was in a position to tell him. ‘Scenarios,’ I said. Instead of the studies, we were going to do projections forward: strategic guesses on what might happen in the future.

Ferdy is only a few inches taller than me but he is able to make me feel like a dwarf when he leans forward to murmur in my earhole. ‘We’d need all the American data – the real hard stuff,’ he said.

‘I think we’re going to get it, Ferdy.’

‘That’s pretty high-powered. Scenarios would be top level security. Joint Chiefs level! I mean we’d be running alive with Gestapo! … plastic credit cards with our photos, and Schlegel looking at our bank balances.’

‘Don’t quote me, but …’ I shrugged.

Ferdy tucked into his brandy and soda. ‘OK,’ Ferdy muttered, ‘industrial action it is then.’

As if on cue Schlegel came into the saloon bar. I saw him look round for us. Systematically he checked everyone along the counter and then came through into the public bar. ‘I’m glad I found you,’ he said. He smiled to indicate that he’d overlook the fact that it was still office hours.

‘Brandy and soda for me,’ said Ferdy. ‘And this is a Barley Wine.’

‘OK,’ said Schlegel; he waved his hand to indicate that he’d understood. ‘Can you do the Red Admiral tomorrow for some visiting firemen from CINCLANT?’

‘Zap, pow, wallop,’ said Ferdy.

‘How’s that again?’ said Schlegel, cupping his ear.

‘Bit short notice,’ said Ferdy. He shuffled his feet and bit his lip as if trying to work out the difficulties involved, although we all knew that he’d have to do it if Schlegel asked.

‘So was Pearl Harbor,’ said Schlegel. ‘All I’m asking for is a simple ASW run-through, to show these idiots how we work.’

‘Anti-Submarine Warfare run-through,’ said Ferdy patiently, as though encountering the expression for the very first time. It was easy to understand why Schlegel got angry.

‘Anti-Submarine Warfare run-through,’ said Schlegel, without concealing the self-restraint. He spoke as if to a small child. ‘With you acting as the C-in-C of the Russian Northern Fleet and these NATO people running the Blue Suite to fight you.’

‘Which game?’

‘The North Cape Tactical Game, but if it escalates we’ll let it go.’

‘Very well,’ said Ferdy, after stretching his silence to breaking point.

‘Great!’ said Schlegel, with enough enthusiasm to make some of the Welsh Rugby club stop singing.

He looked at the two of us and gave a big smile. ‘There’ll be Admiral Cassidy and Admiral Findlater: top brass from CINCLANT. Well, I’ve got a lot to do before they arrive.’ He looked around the pub as if to check on our associates. ‘Don’t be late in the morning.’

Ferdy watched him all the way to the door. ‘Well at least we know how to get rid of the bastard,’ said Ferdy. ‘Ask him to buy a round of drinks.’

‘Give it a rest, Ferdy.’

‘Oh, don’t think I don’t see what’s going on. You come out and buy me a drink and soften me up for him.’

‘OK, Ferdy,’ I said. ‘You have it your way.’ Just for a minute I was about to blow my top, the way I would have done in the old days. But I had to admit, I was Schlegel’s assistant, and it could have looked like that. I said, ‘Just four beats to the bar, Ferdy. Remember?’

‘Sorry,’ said Ferdy, ‘but it’s been a bloody awful week.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I’m sure they are watching the house again.’

‘Who?’

‘Our burglary last May; could be the same people.’

‘Oh, burglars.’

‘Oh yes, I know you all think I go on about it.’

‘No, Ferdy.’

‘You wait until you’ve been burgled. It’s not so damned funny.’

‘I never said it was.’

‘Last night there was a taxi outside the house. Driver just sat there – nearly three hours.’

‘A taxi?’

‘Say it was waiting for a fare. Ask me if the meter was on – it was on. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a burglar. What’s a cab doing out there in the mews at three o’clock in the morning?’

It was a good moment to tell Ferdy about my visit to number eighteen. I’d have to tell someone sooner or later and so far I’d not even told Marjorie. It was then that I remembered that I’d not seen Mason – the one who’d identified me – in the office lately. ‘Do you remember that little creep named Mason? Did the weather printouts. Had that tiny dog in his office some days, the one that crapped in the hall and that Italian admiral trod in it.’

‘Mason, his name was.’

‘That’s what I said: Mason.’

‘He’s gone,’ said Ferdy. ‘Doubled his salary, they say. Got a job with some German computer company … Hamburg or somewhere … good riddance if you ask me.’

‘How long ago?’

‘While we were on the trip. A month or so. You didn’t lend him any money did you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s good, because I know he went off only giving personnel twenty-four hours’ notice. Personnel were furious about it.’

‘They would be,’ I said.

‘He came to us from Customs and Excise,’ said Ferdy, as if that explained everything.

The best way was probably to mention the number eighteen business to Ferdy like this, over a drink. What was the alternative: suspect everyone – paranoia, madness, sudden death, and into the big King Lear scene.

‘Ferdy,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

I looked at him for a full minute but didn’t speak. Confiding is not one of my personality traits: it’s being an only child, perhaps. That’s Marjorie’s theory, anyway. ‘Brandy and soda, wasn’t it, Ferdy?’

‘That’s it, brandy and soda.’ He sighed. ‘You wouldn’t want to come back while I look at that programme again?’

I nodded. I’d already told Marjorie that I’d have to stay. ‘It will be quicker if both of us do it.’

When I finally left the Centre I didn’t drive directly home. I went over to Earl’s Court and cruised past my old flat. At the end of the road I parked and thought about it for a minute or two. For a moment I wished I had confided in Ferdy and perhaps brought him here with me, but it was too late now.