joke of the War Studies Centre. If they ever give us a badge or a coat of arms that will be on the scroll beneath it.
I watched Ferdy as he ran his fingertips over the Arctic map. 'There is another trip scheduled for us next month.'
'So I hear,' I said.
'With Schlegel,' said Ferdy archly.
'He's never been to the Arctic. He wants to see it all working.'
'We will have only been back a month by then.'
'I thought you liked the long trips.'
'Not with bloody Schlegel, I don't.'
'What now?'
'I've waited a week to have my library permit renewed.'
'I waited a month last year. That's just old English bureaucracy. That's not Schlegel.'
'You always make excuses for him.
'Sometimes, Ferdy, you can be a little wearing.'
He nodded repentantly.
'Hang on a minute,' said Ferdy. He was a curiously lonely man, educated to feel at home only with the tiny world of men who identified his obscure Latin tags, tacitly completed his half-remembered Shelley and Keats and shared his taste for both the food and jokes of schooldays. I was not one of them, but I would do. 'Hang on for five minutes.'
The Tote — the computer's visual display — changed rapidly as he fingered the keyboard.
We were playing a modified number five scenario: the Russian A.S.W. (Northern Fleet) had twenty-four hours of 'war imminent' to neutralize the Anglo-American subs on Arctic station. In this case the scenario opened with a mirv sub one hundred miles north of Spitzbergen. If Blue Suite got that — or any of their missile subs — much closer to Murmansk, Ferdy would not be able to attack them without a risk that the resulting explosion would wipe out his own town. This was the basic tactic of the twenty-four-hour game: getting the Blue Suite subs close to the Russian towns. Ferdy playing what Schlegel called 'madman's checkers' could never pay off.
'They think it's till over down there, do they?' Ferdy said.
I said nothing.
'We'll see,' said Ferdy.
There was a double long flash on the phone. I picked it up.
'Schlegel here. Did you bring the Mediterranean Fleet analysis?'
'It wasn't ready. They said they'd put it in the satchel with the stuff for the library. It's probably there now, I'll get it.'
'You don't have to carry books over here from the Evaluation Block. We got messengers do that.'
'A walk will do me good.'
'Suit yourself.'
'I have to go,' I told Ferdy. 'We'll have that chat later on.'
'If your master allows.'
'That's right, Ferdy.' I said with a little irritation showing through. 'If my master allows.'
The Evaluation Building was three hundred yards down the road. There would be no important movements in the war game before the noon bound. I put on my hat, coat and scarf and took a walk through the brisk Hampstead winter. The air smelled good. After the Centre, any air would smell good. I wondered how much longer I could go on working in a project that swatted warships like flies and measured wins in 'taken-out? cities.
Chapter Thirteen
Conclusions reached by any member of stucen staff concerning the play are deemed to be secret, whether or not such conclusions were based upon play.
Evaluation looked like a converted office block but once you got inside the front door it was not at all like a converted office block. There were two uniformed Ministry of Defence policemen in a glass box;) and a time clock, and a wall full of punch cards that the two men spent all day every day inspecting very closely before placing them in different racks.
The policeman at the door took my security card. 'Armstrong, Patrick,' he announced to the other man, and spelled it, not too fast. The other man searched through the cards on the wall. 'Did you just come out?' said the first cop.
'Me?' I said.
'Did you?'
'Come out?'
'Yes.'
'No, of course not. I'm just going in.'
They've muddled the cards up again this morning. Sit down a moment would you?'
'I don't want to sit down a minute,' I sad patiently. 'I don't want to sit down even for a second. I want to go in.'
'Your card is not in the rack,' he explained.
'What happens to the cards is strictly your job,' I said. 'Don't try and make me feel guilty about it.'
'He's looking as fast as he can look,' said the gate man. The other man was bending and stretching to look at the entry cards on the wall. As he did it he repeated 'H I J K L M N O P' over and over again to remind himself of the sequence.
'I'm only going up to the library,' I explained.
'Ah,' said the gate man, smiling as if he'd heard this same explanation from any number of foreign spies. 'It's all the same in'it? The library is on the third floor.'
'You come with me, then,' I said.
He shook his head to show that it was a good try for a foreigner. He wiped his large white moustache with the back of his hand and then reached inside his uniform jacket for a spectacle case. He put his glasses on and read my security card again. Before we had the security cards, there had been no delays. I was a victim of some Parkinson's law of proliferating security. He noted the department number and looked that up in a greasy loose-leaf folder. He wrote down the phone extension and then went into the glass booth to phone. He turned to see me watching him, and then slid the glass panel completely shut, in case I should overhear him.
I lip-read him saying, 'This card has been used once this morning and there is no exit time against the entry. This holder is…' he turned for a better view of me, '… late thirties, spectacles, clean shaven, dark hair, about six foot…' He stopped as I heard Schlegel's rasping voice even through the glass panel. The gate-man opened it. 'Your office want to speak with you.'
'Hello,' I said.
'That you, Pat?'
'Yes sir.'
'What are you playing at, sweetheart?'
I didn't answer. I just gave the phone back to the gate man. I suppose Schlegel got my message because the gate man had no time to close the panel before Schlegel's voice spilled over, cursing him for all kinds of a fool. The old man's face went bright pink and he subdued Schlegel with a barrage of placatory noises. 'Your boss says to go ahead,' said the man.
'My boss says that, does he. And what do you say?'
'We'll sort out the cards. Someone has probably walked out with the card still in his pocket. It happens sometimes.'
