fairly keen. I'll probably have to write a good deal of the thing myself, but then, I'm afraid I haven't much to do here either.'
'Sounds a good idea,' said Leonard. 'Very good idea.'
'Oh, then there'd be no objection from the security angle?'
'None at all. Quite the contrary. Excuse me.'
Leonard moved away down the room. This looked very much like the farmhouse sitting-room it had been forty years earlier, so much so that a mind inquisitive in other directions than Leonard's might have suspected a conscious attempt to preserve it. From 1946 until three months ago the house had sheltered successive groups of officers on Intelligence courses, and it would have been some of these, or the President of their Mess, who had had the floor relaid without its ancient dips and slopes being corrected, the wide fireplace re-bricked with the asymmetry of its flanking buttresses and low stub walls left as it was. Oak furniture predominated, including a rocking-chair with a vertical see-saw effect that nobody tried twice. Militarism appeared only in the dozen or so framed photographs, imported perhaps in a jeering spirit, showing officer-cadet classes now long since dead or pensioned off, groups of World War I generals and staff with mustaches and plumes, and a victory parade of the same era. The sole recent object was a large television set. Beside it, though not as if he were about to switch it on, stood the figure of the Chief Instructor.
From a distance this man evidently had no neck. Closer approach showed that there was a neck there after all, and a substantial one; its very thickness disguised it by blending it with the head. This was squat and heavy, with greying hair cut very short and a florid but small-featured face. The Chief Instructor was about fifty and getting fat, which his posture did nothing to hide. He was and looked a civilian in uniform. The uniform in this case, and on this occasion, was the Mess dress of the Army Information Corps, a dark-grey jacket and olive-green trousers. The olive-green revers of the jacket were covered with ash from the cigar its wearer was smoking. The Chief Instructor was called Major Venables. Nobody in the unit knew his Christian name.
'Good evening, Leonard,' he said in his tight, groaning voice.
'Hullo, Major. I was-'
'Not Major. I have told you before. I am no more a major than you are a captain. Venables is my name.'
'Sorry… Do you mind a bit of shop?'
'I welcome it, even your sort of shop. It is considerably more appealing than what passes for conversation among these fusiliers and dragoons. Well?'
Leonard dropped his voice. 'The revised schedule.'
Venables maintained his. 'I told you there would be no difficulty and there has not been. The persons who control our destinies were aware of their ignorance for once and allotted an over-generous period for the completion of training. Terminating the course two weeks sooner than originally planned will entail nothing more than some intensified homework on the part of my pupils. I cannot speak for the so-called Briefing Group. From what I see of them in this social slum I would judge that they would find it difficult to pass on accurately the words of ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen' within any fixed period of time.'
Leonard looked nervously about. 'Ssshh,' he said.
Venables laughed. It was like his voice talking without words. 'If a remark of that sort gives you cause for concern, you must find your duties very onerous. You should learn to take things more lightly.'
'Yes. I'm glad you feel you can manage all right in the shorter period. You've reported to that effect, of course.'
There was a pause. Venables's mouth gathered round his cigar, which was of square cross-section. A cube of ash fell onto his jacket. 'Are you not invading my province and exceeding your authority? Provided my contacts with my superiors are secure they are no concern of yours. And if these trinkets they gave us to wear on our clothing mean anything you are debarred from giving me orders. And allow me to say that I very much resent first learning of this change of date through you rather than in due form from my superiors.'
'I'm sorry… Venables. I wasn't trying to order you about, honestly. It's just that my people seem to think I ought to know everything all the time. It gets difficult not to pry. As regards me getting the news first, that's just, well, inter-departmental rivalry. Showing how quick off the mark they are.'
'Yes. Why inform you by dispatch-rider instead of the equally secure and, as it proved, less unreliable method of scrambler telephone?'
Leonard shrugged. 'Well, there was a lot of detail. And I suppose it made somebody feel more important, sending for a DR. You know what they're like.'
'I am beginning to.'
'There's just one more point.'
'Oh dear. Yes?'
'Small but important.' Leonard reminded himself whose uniform he was wearing and faced Venables more squarely. 'You remember that you were not to divulge the bringing forward of the Operation until midnight tomorrow at the earliest.'
'Yes, yes.'
'This has now been amended. You are not to divulge it until what is in your opinion the last possible moment, and you are to give in writing forty-eight hours' notice of that moment. And that's an order. You see, you weren't quite accurate just now when you said I wasn't to give you orders. In all Security matters you do as I tell you.'
Venables threw his cigar-butt into the fireplace. 'Mm. Shall I not be informed of this by my own superiors? The matter of the giving of notice and so on?'
'No doubt. I was told to pass you your instructions as soon as possible.'
'Very well. I bow to your authority.'
