Spy Story

‘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.’