The Looking Glass War (18 page)

Avery, watching him, felt suddenly disturbed.

He was a man; not a shadow. A man with force to his body and purpose to his movement, but somehow theirs to direct. There seemed to be nowhere he would not walk. He was recruited; and had assumed already the anxious, brisk manner of an enlisted man. Yet, Avery accepted, no single factor wholly accounted for Leiser’s recruitment. Avery was already familiar, during his short association with the Department, with the phenomenon of organic motivation; with operations which had no discernible genesis and no conclusion, which formed part of an unending pattern of activity until they ceased to have any further identity; with that progress of fruitless courtships which, in the aggregate, passed for an active love life. But as he observed this man bobbing beside him, animate and quick, he recognised that hitherto they had courted ideas, incestuously among themselves; now they had a human being upon their hands, and this was he.

They climbed into the taxi, Leiser last because he insisted. It was mid-afternoon, a slate sky behind the plane trees. The smoke rose from the North Oxford chimneys in ponderous columns like proof of a virtuous sacrifice. The houses were of a modest stateliness; romantic hulls redecked, each according to a different legend. Here the turrets of Avalon, there the carved trellis of a pagoda; between them the monkey-puzzle trees, and the half-hidden washing like butterflies in the wrong season. The houses sat decently in their own gardens, the curtains drawn, first lace and then brocade, petticoats and skirts. It was like a bad water-colour, the dark things drawn too heavy, the sky grey and soiled in the dusk, the paint too worked.

They dismissed the taxi at the corner of the street. A smell of leaf mould lingered in the air. If there were children they made no noise. The three men walked to the gate. Leiser, his eyes on the house, put down his suitcases.

‘Nice place,’ he said with appreciation. He turned to Avery: ‘Who chose it?’

‘I did.’

‘That’s nice.’ He patted his shoulder. ‘You did a good job.’ Avery, pleased, smiled and opened the gate; Leiser was determined that the others should pass through first. They took him upstairs and showed him his room. He still carried his own luggage.

‘I’ll unpack later,’ he said. ‘I like to make a proper job of it.’

He walked through the house in a critical way, picking things up and looking at them; he might have come to bid for the place.

‘It’s a nice spot,’ he repeated finally; ‘I like it.’

‘Good,’ said Haldane, as if he didn’t give a damn.

Avery went with him to his room to see if he could help.

‘What’s your name?’ Leiser asked. He was more at ease with Avery; more vulgar.

‘John.’

They shook hands again.

‘Well, hullo, John; glad to meet you. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-four,’ he lied.

A wink. ‘Christ, I wish I was thirty-four. Done this kind of thing before, have you?’

‘I finished my own run last week.’

‘How did it go?’

‘Fine.’

‘That’s the boy. Where’s your room?’

Avery showed him.

‘Tell me, what’s the set-up here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who’s in charge?’

‘Captain Hawkins.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Not really. I shall be around.’

‘All the time?’

‘Yes.’

He began unpacking. Avery watched. He had brushes backed with leather, hair lotion, a whole range of little bottles of things for men, an electric shaver of the newest kind and ties, some in tartan, others in silk, to match his costly shirts. Avery went downstairs. Haldane was waiting. He smiled as Avery came in. ‘Well?’

Avery shrugged, too big a gesture. He felt elated, ill at ease. ‘What do
you
make of him?’ he asked.

‘I hardly know him,’ Haldane said drily. He had a way of terminating conversations. ‘I want you to be always in his company. Walk with him, shoot with him, drink with him if you must. He’s not to be alone.’

‘What about his leave in between?’

‘We’ll see about that. Meanwhile, do as I say. You will find he enjoys your company. He’s a very
lonely
man. And remember he’s British: British to the core. One more thing – this is most important – do not let him think we have changed since the war. The Department has remained exactly as it was: that is an illusion you must foster even’ – he did not smile – ‘even though you are too young to make the comparison.’

They began next morning. Breakfast over, they assembled in the drawing-room and Haldane addressed them.

The training would be divided into two periods of a fortnight each, with a short rest in between. The first was to be a refresher course; in the second, old skills, now revived, would be related to the task which lay ahead. Not until the second period would Leiser be told his operational name, his cover and the nature of his mission; even then, the information would reveal neither the target area nor the means by which he was to be infiltrated.

In communications as in all other aspects of his training he would graduate from the general to the particular. In the first period he would familiarise himself once more with the technique of cyphers, signal plans and schedules. In the second he would spend much time actually transmitting under semi-operational conditions. The instructor would arrive during that week.

Haldane explained all this with pedagogic acrimony while Leiser listened carefully, now and then briskly nodding his assent. Avery found it strange that Haldane took so little care to conceal his distaste.

‘In the first period we shall see what you remember. We shall give you a lot of running about, I’m afraid. We want to get you fit. There’ll be small-arms training, unarmed combat, mental exercises, tradecraft. We shall try to take you walking in the afternoons.’

‘Who with? Will John come?’

‘Yes. John will take you. You should regard John as your adviser on all minor matters. If there is anything you wish to discuss, any complaint or anxiety, I trust you will not hesitate to mention it to either one of us.’

‘All right.’

‘On the whole, I must ask you not to venture out alone. I should prefer John to accompany you if you wish to go to the cinema, do some shopping or whatever else the time allows. But I fear you may not have much chance of recreation.’

‘I don’t expect it,’ Leiser said; ‘I don’t need it.’ He seemed to mean he didn’t want it.

‘The wireless instructor, when he comes, will not know your name. That is a customary precaution: please observe it. The daily woman believes we are participating in an academic conference. I cannot imagine you will have occasion to talk to her, but if you do, remember that. If you wish to make inquiries about your business, kindly consult me first. You should not telephone without my consent. Then there will be other visitors: photographers, medical people, technicians. They are what we call ancillaries and are not in the picture. Most of them believe you’re here as part of a wider training scheme. Please remember this.’

‘OK,’ said Leiser. Haldane looked at his watch.

‘Our first appointment is at ten o’clock. A car will collect us from the corner of the road. The driver is not one of us: no conversation on the journey, please. Have you no other clothes?’ he asked. ‘Those are scarcely suitable for the range.’

‘I’ve got a sports coat and a pair of flannels.’

‘I could wish you less conspicuous.’

As they went upstairs to change, Leiser smiled wryly at Avery. ‘He’s a real boy, isn’t he? The old school.’

‘But good,’ Avery said.

Leiser stopped. ‘Of course. Here, tell me something. Was this place always here? Have you used it for many people?’

‘You’re not the first,’ Avery said.

‘Look, I know you can’t tell me much. Is the outfit still like it was … people everywhere … the same set-up?’

‘I don’t think you’d find much difference. I suppose we’ve expanded a bit.’

‘Are there many young ones like you?’

‘Sorry, Fred.’

Leiser put his open hand on Avery’s back. He used his hands a lot.

‘You’re good, too,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother about me. Not to worry, eh, John?’

They went to Abingdon: the Ministry had made arrangements with the parachute base. The instructor was expecting them.

‘Used to any particular gun, are you?’

‘Browning three-eight automatic, please,’ Leiser said, like a child ordering groceries.

‘We call it the nine-millimetre now. You’ll have had the Mark One.’

Haldane stood in the gallery at the back while Avery helped wind in the man-sized target to a distance of ten yards and paste squares of gum-strip over the old holes.

‘You call me “Staff”,’ the instructor said and turned to Avery. ‘Like to have a go as well, sir?’

Haldane put in quickly, ‘Yes, they are both shooting, please, Staff.’

Leiser took first turn. Avery stood beside Haldane while Leiser, his long back towards them, waited in the empty range, facing the plywood figure of a German soldier. The target was black, framed against the crumbling whitewash of the walls; over its belly and groin a heart had been crudely described in chalk, its interior extensively repaired with fragments of paper. As they watched, he began testing the weight of the gun, raising it quickly to the level of his eye, then lowering it slowly; pushing home the empty magazine, taking it out and thrusting it in again. He glanced over his shoulder at Avery, with his left hand brushing from his forehead a strand of brown hair which threatened to impede his view. Avery smiled encouragement, then said quickly to Haldane, talking business, ‘I still can’t make him out.’

‘Why not? He’s a perfectly ordinary Pole.’

‘Where does he come from? What part of Poland?’

‘You’ve read the file. Danzig.’

‘Of course.’

The instructor began. ‘We’ll just try it with the empty gun first, both eyes open, and look along the line of sight, feet nicely apart now, thank you, that’s lovely. Relax now, be nice and comfy, it’s not a drill movement, it’s a firing position, oh yes, we’ve done
this
before! Now traverse the gun, point it but never aim. Right!’ The instructor drew breath, opened a wooden box and took out four magazines. ‘One in the gun and one in the left hand,’ he said and handed the other two up to Avery, who watched with fascination as Leiser deftly slipped a full magazine into the butt of the automatic and advanced the safety catch with his thumb.

‘Now cock the gun, pointing it at the ground three yards ahead of you. Now take up a firing position, keeping the arm straight. Pointing the gun but not aiming it, fire off one magazine, two shots at a time, remembering that we don’t regard the automatic as a weapon of science but more in the order of a stopping weapon for close combat. Now slowly, very slowly …’

Before he could finish the range was vibrating with the sound of Leiser’s shooting – he shot fast, standing very stiff, his left hand holding the spare magazine precisely at his side like a grenade. He shot angrily, a mute man finding expression. Avery could feel with rising excitement the fury and purpose of his shooting; now two shots, and another two, then three, then a long volley, while the haze gathered round him and the plywood soldier shook and Avery’s nostrils filled with the sweet smell of cordite.

‘Eleven out of thirteen on the target,’ the instructor declared. ‘Very nice, very nice indeed. Next time, stick to two shots at a time, please, and wait till I give the fire order.’ To Avery, the subaltern, he said, ‘Care to have a go, sir?’

Leiser had walked up to the target and was lightly tracing the bullet holes with his slim hands. The silence was suddenly oppressive. He seemed lost in meditation, feeling the plywood here and there, running a finger thoughtfully along the outline of the German helmet, until the instructor called:

‘Come on. We haven’t got all day.’

Avery stood on the gym mat, measuring the weight of the gun. With the instructor’s help he inserted one magazine, clutching the other nervously in his left hand. Haldane and Leiser looked on.

Avery fired, the heavy gun thudding in his ears, and he felt his young heart stir as the silhouette flicked passively to his shooting.

‘Good shot, John, good shot!’

‘Very good,’ said the instructor automatically. ‘A very good first effort, sir.’ He turned to Leiser: ‘Do you mind not shouting like that?’ He knew a foreigner when he saw one.

‘How many?’ Avery asked eagerly, as he and the sergeant gathered round the target, touching the blackened perforations scattered thinly over the chest and belly. ‘How many, Staff?’

‘You’d better come with me, John,’ Leiser whispered, throwing his arm over Avery’s shoulder. ‘I could do with you over there.’ For a moment Avery recoiled. Then, with a laugh, he put his own arm round Leiser, feeling the warm, crisp cloth of his sports jacket in the palm of his hand.

The instructor led them across the parade ground to a brick barrack like a theatre with no windows, tall at one end. There were walls half crossing one another like the entrance to a public lavatory.

‘Moving targets,’ Haldane said, ‘and shooting in the dark.’

At lunch they played the tapes.

The tapes were to run like a theme through the first two weeks of his training. They were made from old gramophone records; there was a crack in one which recurred like a metronome. Together, they comprised a massive parlour game in which things to be remembered were not listed but mentioned, casually, obliquely, often against a distracting background of other noises, now contradicted in conversation, now corrected or contested. There were three principal voices, one female and two male. Others would interfere. It was the woman who got on their nerves.

She had that antiseptic voice which air hostesses seem to acquire. In the first tape she read from lists, quickly; first it was a shopping-list, two pounds of this, one kilo of that; without warning she was talking about coloured skittles – so many green so many ochre; then it was weapons, guns, torpedoes, ammunition of this and that calibre; then a factory with capacity, waste and production figures, annual targets and monthly achievements. In the second tape she had not abandoned these topics, but unfamiliar voices distracted her and led the dialogue into unexpected paths.