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By Root 6347 0

thought that Mime and his fellow Nibelungen haunted these murky subterranean regions, but they were in fact peopled by more important, less easily replaceable beings, many of whom practised mysteries too momentous to be exposed (in a target registering already more than a dozen outers, though as yet no bull’s eye) to the comparative uncertainties of life at street level or above. Here, for example, the unsleeping sages of Movement Control spun out their lives, sightless magicians deprived eternally of the light of the sun, while, by their powerful arts, they projected armies or individual over land and sea or through the illimitable wastes of the air. The atmosphere below seemed to demand such highly coloured metaphor, thoughts of magic and necromancy bringing Dr Trelawney to mind, and the rumours in the earlier war that he had been executed in the Tower as a spy. I wondered if the Good Doctor, as Moreland used to call him, were still alive. Indiscreet observance of the rites of his cult, especially where these involved exotic drugs, could bring trouble in this war, though retribution was likely to stop short of the firing squad. Moreland himself, with Mrs Maclintick, had left London months before on some governmentally sponsored musical tour of the provinces.

Like a phantasm in one of Dr Trelawney’s own narcotically produced reveries, I flitted down passage after passage, from layer to layer of imperfect air-conditioning, finding the right door at last in an obscure corner. Q (Ops.) Colonel was speaking on the scrambler when I entered the room, so I made as if to withdraw. He vigorously beckoned me to stay, continuing to talk for a few seconds about some overseas force. Abyssinia might have been a good guess. He hung up. I explained where I came from and put myself at his disposal.

‘Ah, yes …’

He began to sort out papers, putting some away in a drawer. He gave an immediate impression, not only of knowing what he was about himself, but also of possessing the right sort of determination to use any information available from other sources. Inefficiency was rare in the building, but there was inevitably the occasional boor or temperamental obscurantist.

‘Polish evacuation – here we are – these troops held by our Russian Allies since their invasion of our Polish Allies in 1939. They’ve retained their own units and formations?’

‘We understand some in Central Asia have, or at least certain units have already been brigaded after release from prison camps. General Anders is organizing this.’

‘The lot are in Central Asia?’

‘At least eight or nine thousand Polish officers remain untraced.’

‘Rather a large deficiency.’

‘That’s a minimum, sir. It’s been put as high as fifteen thousand.’

‘Any idea where they are?’

‘Franz Josef Land’s been suggested, air.’

‘Within the Arctic Circle?’

‘Yes.’

He looked straight in front of him.

‘Unlikely they’ll be included in this evacuation, whatever its extent?’

‘Seems most unlikely, sir.’

‘Just the figures I have here?*

He pushed them over.

‘So far as we know at present. On the other hand, anything might happen.’

‘Let’s have a look at the map again … Yangi-yul … Alma Ata … There’s been constant pressure for the release of these troops?’

‘All the time – also to discover the whereabouts of the missing officers.’

He wrote some notes.

‘Lease-Lend …’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘You see the consignment papers?’

‘From time to time some minor item is earmarked for the Polish forces in Russia and the papers pass through our hands.’

Once, when one of these interminable lists of weapons and vehicles, matérial of war for the Eastern Front, had come to us, Pennistone had compared the diplomatic representations of the moment, directed to obtaining the release of the immobilized Polish army, with a very small powder in a very large spoon of Lease-Lend jam. Now, the Germans penetrating into the country on an extended front, these solicitations seemed at last to have attracted official Soviet attention. This must have been four or five months before the siege of Stalingrad. Q (Ops.) Colonel ran through facts