retransmitting electronic intelligence from the Barents Sea…' he tapped the War Table, '… I'll give you a dozen five- figure groups before they trip the nuclear minefields and end your game for ever.'
The New Zealand officer said, 'And game-time is always much slower than normal?'
'Yes, for many reasons it has to be. Tomorrow, when you are in the Blue Suite trying to control this ocean full of ships, submarines and aircraft, worrying about supplies and air cover for your bases — when you're trying to judge which of the sighting reports are a Soviet strike force, and which are liver spots, you'll wish you had double the bound time that you'll get.'
'But you'll fight us single-handed?' said the German.
'No,' said Ferdy, 'I'll have the same size staff that you'll have.'
I interrupted him. 'Mr Foxwell is being modest,' I said. 'Red Suite Command Staff is a coveted assignment for those of us who want to catch up on their light fiction.'
'I've been the Red Admiral many times by now,' said Ferdy. 'I can remember so many of the computer responses for my logistics. I can keep the overall line-up in my mind's eye more easily than you'll be able to. And I know all the tactics you are likely to pull out of the hat. By the way, have you decided which of you will be with me on the winning side?'
'Me,' said one of the American submarine Captains.
'The confidence you display, Mr Foxwell.' The German smiled acidly. 'Is that because the standard of visiting staff officers is so low, or are you so expert?' He licked his lips as if tasting the last drips of lemon juice.
'I'll tell you my secret,' said Ferdy. 'You're mostly experienced naval men with many years of sea duty. All sailors are romantics. You look at this table and you see frigates, cruisers and nuclear subs. You hear the breakers, smell the warm diesel and hear the voices of old friends. Committing those units — and the men inside them — to battle is a traumatic experience for you. You hesitate, you vacillate, you die.'
'And you are not a naval man, Mr Foxwell?' the German asked.
'As far as I'm concerned,' said Ferdy, 'you're just a bag of plastic markers.' He picked up one of the plot markers that gave the strength, direction and identity of a naval force steaming past the Jan Mayen Island. Gently he tossed it into the air and caught it. Then he hurled it into the far corner of the room where it landed with a noise of breaking plastic.
The War Room was silent. The two Admirals continued to look at Ferdy with the same polite interest with which champions eye contenders at weigh-ins.
'Then we'll see you all tomorrow, gentlemen,' said Ferdy. 'And come out fighting.'
Chapter Seven
The success or failure of all games will be measured only by the lessons learned through post-game analysis (pogana). In this respect the object of each game is not victory.
WHEN THERE was a game in progress, the Studies Centre became a different sort of place. The mess served forty lunches and there wasn't even standing room in the upstairs bar. My new job as Schlegel's personal assistant meant that I spent a great deal of time in. the Control Room looking down from the balcony to the War Table. Also I was one of the few people permitted to visit both Blue Suite and Red Suite while the game was in progress.
Ferdy and his five deputies were in Red Ops in the basement. His conference room adjoining it was seldom used unless a real crisis occurred. Ferdy liked to be in the darkened Ops Room watching the Visual Display Units and arguing with the plotters. Even then he got bored sometimes, and would invent complex disputes just so that Schlegel would send me down there to sort it out. Not that there was ever an outward sign of the pandemonium that was in the staff's minds. Even in Blue Suite on the first day they were cool calm and collected, reading data print-outs or asking for clarification from one of the Technical referees.
Like the opening moves in a chess game, the first few bounds were predictable. The knight's opening — and its offensive-defensive posture — was directly comparable with both sides putting their nuclear subs up close to the coastal cities of the enemy. For such a move inhibited attacks on them (for fear the submarine's atomic missiles would be triggered by depth charges and their cities destroyed). Pulling the bishops out through the gaps could be likened to the fighting for the northern coastline of Arctic Norway, for the Russian Navy needed ice-free ports to utilize its full surface fighting strength in the Atlantic.
The winter struggle for ports below the drift-ice limits was more a matter of luck than judgment. The invasion of Norway by Russian land forces was not designed by Red Suite. Ferdy had to read it off the big computer. Its progress depended upon strategic games played by nato and the U.S.N. at other places and other times. A Russian air-supplied move through the long finger of Finland that pointed at Tromso leaves the naval arm to pursue its oven war. But an amphibious bid for the port of Narvik relegates the submarines to defensive roles and puts Red Suite into the intricate business of ice-breaking, Northern Route patrols, convoy escorts; and it means devoting all the air to defensive umbrellas.
Ferdy was lucky; the current strategic theory was that Sweden and Finland would resist an overland movement, and this centred the fighting too far east to drain Northern Fleet resources, Ferdy breathed a sigh of relief when he read the Land Forces report off the teleprinter.
He offered me one of his best cigars. I waved it away. 'I'm trying to stop.'
'Bad timing,' said Ferdy. He carefully cut the Punch Suprema and offered one to the American submariner who was acting as his aide. 'A stogie, kid?'
'No thanks, comrade.'
Ferdy puffed gently as the cigar started to glow. 'And I'll want air recce and the exact limit of the drift- ice.'
'We've got that,' said the submariner.
'We've got the seasonal average. I want it exactly.' He scribbled a request for the air reconnaissance and a clerk 'typed u: onto the teleprinter that was connected to Schlegel's Control Balcony.
'The forecast is two miles with a four thousand foot ceiling,' said the weather clerk.
The clerk at the teleprinter waited for Control to reply before reading off the answer. 'They are giving us two Be-10's Mallow flying boats, out of Murmansk.'
Ferdy ran a red chinagraph pencil across the map, mating a line to divide the White Sea from the Barents Sea at its narrowest place. The clerk at the teleprinter took the Be-io's punch card and asked the computer the arming details of the: jet flying boats that Ferdy was going to use. They were equipped with rockets, homing torpedoes and depth charges. Ferdy nodded and passed the print-out to the submariner.
'Put them up earliest,' said Ferdy. He turned to me. 'Schlegel will bring that cloud down and write those flying boats off you see.'
'Don't be stupid, Ferdy. That weather comes off the computer, you know that.'
Ferdy smiled grimly.
I'd continued to use the personal locker in the Red Ops, more because clearing it might have offended Ferdy than because it was very convenient to me. I went through into the narrow locker room and let the door bang closed behind me before switching on the lights.
There were eight lockers there, one for each of the Ops Room staff, and a couple of spares. Mine had a
'My locker's been forced, Ferdy.'
'I noticed that,' said Ferdy.
'Thanks a lot,' I said.
'Shouting won't help things,' said Ferdy.
