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By Root 2819 0

life under a blazing sun. Perhaps he had. He had come to the Section from employment as one of the Intelligence Officers at Headquarters on the Gold Coast, owing his knowledge of Spanish – at first naturally steering him to duties with the Neutrals – to many years spent on the wholesale side of the fruit trade. Language as usual proving of less consequence than facility for handling an ‘opposite number’ with tact, he had in due course gravitated to the more responsible job with an Ally. Stebbings, who took Borrit’s place with the Spaniards and Latin-Americans, was also, oddly enough, in the fruit business, though on the retail side, where he had a nervous breakdown when his firm went into bankruptcy at the outbreak of war. If addressed sharply, Stebbings’s left eyelid twitched, probably in consequence of that collapse. He remained always rather afraid of Finn. All the same, he tackled his duties with judgment. Stebbings was recently married to a Portuguese, a fact that continually worried the Security people. Borrit, on the other hand, was a widower. He must have been forty, perhaps a shade more, because he had seen action in the first war, though only as a result of having falsified his age to the recruiting authorities. During the occasional lulls of work Borrit and Stebbings would talk earnestly of fruit. Pennistone and Borrit had a standing rivalry over the Section’s car – a vehicle of inconceivably cramped seating accommodation – for the first use in the morning.

‘Wait a moment…’ said Pennistone.

‘I’ll drop you,’ said Borrit. ‘If you’re on the way to the Titian.’

Pennistone turned to me again.

‘Where was I?’

‘Q (Ops.).’

‘Ah, yes – the point is there’s only the traditional one man and a boy at Meshed.’

‘That’s the key name?’

‘We shall be hearing a lot about Meshed – and resorts like Yangi-yul and Alma Ata. Some sort of a reception centre will have to be rigged up. There may be quite a party to deal with once they start.’

‘What am I to say to Q (Ops.)?’

‘Just ventilate the question. They may have other ideas to ours.’

‘They’re presumably prepared for this. They were on the distribution.’

‘But will want to be brought up to date from our end – and we’ll need their background stuff to tell the London Poles.’

‘Do you mind if we go, Pennistone?’ said Borrit. ‘Otherwise I’ll be late for my appointment with Van der Voort.’

Pennistone, never to be hurried, stood in deep thought. He was as likely to be reflecting on Cartesianism as on the best way to approach Q (Ops.). Borrit made another move towards the door.

‘What was it? I know – trouble again about Szymanski. You wouldn’t think it possible one man could be such a nuisance. There’s now doubt whether it’s his real name, because a lot of people are called that. MI5 want a word about him. Try and clear it up. Another good deed would be to extract an answer from Blackhead about the supply of straw for stuffing medical establishment palliasses. They’re frantic about it in Scotland.’

‘Blackhead’s not raised objection to that?’

‘He says straw comes under a special restrictive order. He should be alerted about the evacuation too, so that he can think of difficulties.’

Borrit opened the door, allowing a sharp current of air to drive in from the passages. This was done as a challenge. He leant on the handle, looking rather aggrieved. There were some shouts from the others requiring that the door be shut at once. Borrit pointed to Pennistone and myself. He would not venture to leave without Pennistone, but, to humour him, we both made a move towards the corridor.

‘Come as far as the staff entrance,’ said Pennistone. ‘In case I think of other urgent problems.’

We followed Borrit down the back staircase. On the first floor, Intelligence, in its profuse forms, mingled with Staff Duties, a grumpy crowd, most of them, especially the Regulars (‘If they were any good, they wouldn’t be here,’ Pennistone said) and a few Operational sections, on the whole less immediately active ones, the more vital tending to have rooms on the floor above, close to the generals and higher-grade