The Officers’ Mess was a large prefabricated building near the Administration Compound. The front was decorated with small stunted flowers in the shape of a badge of the unit that built it. ‘You are now getting indigestion through the courtesy of the Army Catering Corps.’ A blast of barbecue-chicken-hot-air hit me as I went in.
Then all was cool and calm. The long white crispy tables, the jugs of ice-water making noises like the treble end of a xylophone. The stainless steel, the low murmur of serious masculine conversation, the purr of air-conditioning units. This was reality, this was the world – not the scene through the window; that was a fable.
The vichyssoise was rich with fresh cream, through which the fugitive flavour of leek came mellow and earthy; it was cold and not too thick. The steak was tender and sanguine, dark with the charred carbon of crusted juices, and served with asparagus tips and pommes allumettes. The coffee came along with strawberry short-cake. I ate it all, drank the weak coffee, then settled back with a Gauloise Blue. Poisoning seemed an unlikely method of dealing with my defection.
1 MI5.
[Aquarius (Jan 20–Feb 19) Actions by friends may seem strange but remember that your moodiness may influence them.]
The Officers’ Mess was a low building, prefabricated as everything on Tokwe was, and single-storeyed. I walked out through the restaurant, through the simple starched shirts, the uniformly short haircuts. Snatches of German and small bite-sized pieces of Hungarian ran like strands of a web across the clipped Harvard speech and the drawn-out vowels of men who had been at Oak Ridge for so long that it had become their permanent home. I moved slowly listening with my finger-tips. No eye followed me as I entered the lounge where gaunt tubular frames had large floral-patterned plastic padding impaled upon them in relentless discomfort. Near the window I saw Jean; the group of aircrew I had noticed at the bar the previous evening were flying close formation on her. I knew they were SAC lead crews. The lead crews were the ones with the higher scores at bombing and navigation. They are raised a rank when they become lead crews, and so these boys were majors and lieutenant-colonels. One of the biannual exams they had, involved the committing to memory of one complete enemy target briefing. If they fail the exam they revert to their old rank. This had been a complicated session in 1944, but now, flying these eight-engine B52s at 600 mph after a thirty-minute check over the intercom before take-off, it was cosmic! Finding the tanker aircraft whose crew, one hoped, was similarly skilled in navigation; refuelling in flight while moving at stalling speed behind a tanker only three feet away, and then moving on a town they had never seen except in photographs; to drop a thermo-nuclear bomb, was a test of mathematical skill, dexterity, memory, and of confidence in the judgement of their leaders unparalleled since Constantine’s Edict saw the last Christian share a double bill with the lions. Soviet air space was often penetrated at a time when an explosion or a launching was expected. These SAC people were going to observe this one from the air as a comparison. To know which Soviet ground targets these three-man crews had committed to memory would be a very valuable ‘intelligence sequence’. The chances of Jean unloading such an item from them was remote, but I sat down a few chairs away and busied myself with some old unchecked expense accounts and indents that Alice had slipped into my case at the last moment without my noticing. Jean was doing a thing that men agents have to learn, but most women do naturally. She stood back and let the conversation move between the others, listening or guiding as needed. I hope she didn’t do that funny stare she tended to do when concentrating, because these charácters wouldn’t miss it. They were tumbling over just to talk in front of her.
‘Yes, sir,’ a balding man of about thirty-eight was saying; his eyes were too small but his jaw strong and tanned.
‘But for me, New York is a city. I like to travel, I really do, but you just can’t beat little ole New York, boy!’
‘New York, I like, but it’s a little like Chi, I’d say. New Orleans – there is a city, there is a city!’
‘Then you’ve never been to Paris, France.’
‘Parley Fransays. I lived six months in Paris. Now there’s the last country on earth where women are subordinated to men.’
‘And that goes for India. Do you know, in Afghanistan a camel costs more than a wife? This old guy was sitting riding on his camel. I’d seen him around, I knew he spoke a little English. I pulled up by him. I had a little red English MGA at the time, went like a bird. “Why aren’t you giving your wife a lift, Chas?” I said. (We all called him Chas.) “No, there are minefields here near the aerodrome,” he said. “You let her walk then?” So he said, “Yes, it’s a very valuable camel.” Can you beat that? He said, “It’s a very valuable camel.”’
A tall fair-haired major diluted his drink with a splash of ice-water. ‘Bel Ami who was French, and knew all about women …’
‘You know he’s using the worst mix in the world?’ Jean opened her eyes an eighth of an inch.
‘Alaska, that’s the biggest state. Ask any Texan,’ said the balding one, and laughed.
‘And I’ll tell you the Texan answer – “Oil”.’
The tall major who knew Bel Ami, lifted his glass and contradicted, ‘You see this drink? If you were gonna measure the volume of this drink do you take account of the ice?’ He paused. ‘You don’t. And that’s how it is with Alaska. It’s all ice.’
The chuckling was interrupted by the lounge door opening; a plump major looked quizzically around the room, dark glasses bisecting his large globe-like face. Beside him a neatly assembled girl army secretary in khaki shirt and slacks, both a carefully chosen size or so too small, shifted uneasily before the clear, unequivocally carnal gaze from so many efficient male eyes. Hoping to break an atmosphere as thick as cooling fudge, the newcomer asked if anyone had seen his navigator. No one answered, and here and there an unkind grin clearly stated the alienation that his social success had wrought. He turned awkwardly in the doorway and someone said affably, ‘Give my love to your wife and children.’
The balding one took advantage of the time pause. He went on going on. ‘My pappy used to say, “Drink Scotch by itself; with rye mix a little water, bourbon, mix it with something strong, something really strong.”’ He laughed loudly. ‘Something really strong,’ he said again.
‘I like Germany. I like to eat there. I like to drink there. I like German girls.’
‘I was living in Scandinavia.’
‘It’s not the same. It’s different in Scandinavia.’
‘I was at school in a big town in northern Scandinavia,’ said Jean, jumping in agilely as an agent must, and speaking the truth as an agent should.
‘Narvik,’ said the balding one. ‘I know it very well. I knew every bar in Narvik this time last year. Right?’ he asked Jean.
She nodded.
‘How many’s that? Three?’ said the man who knew Bel Ami.
I had completed most of the indents for the typewriter ribbons, recording tape and assorted junk of every day by the time the airmen had ‘holycowed’ and ‘go-go-goed’, ‘see you latered’, ‘izz at the timed’ out of the lounge. She came up behind me and touched the top of my head. I found the unexpected intimacy of her physical contact as shocking as if she’d undressed in public. As she moved into view and sat down opposite me I reappraised her attitude. She was anxious to let me know, to reassure.
The