A Perfect Spy

The colonel spoke carefully, with a soldier’s mistrust of words. He had a soft honey-coloured moustache and the limpid gaze of an entirely stupid man.

“It has been put to me by certain people that, assuming you are commissioned, you would do well to attend a certain training course at a certain establishment, Pym.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am therefore to submit a personal report on you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which I shall do. Favourable, as a matter of fact.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are keen. You are not cynical. You are not marred, Pym, by the luxuries of peace. You are somebody this country needs.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Pym.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If ever those people you’re mixed up with happen to be looking for a rather fit retired army colonel with a certain amount of je ne sais quoi, I trust you to remember me. I speak some French. I ride decently. I know my wines. Tell them that.”

“I shall, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Possessing little in the way of memory, the colonel had a habit of returning to conversations as if they were new to him.

“Pym.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pick your moment. Don’t rush in with it. They don’t like that. Be subtle. That’s an order.”

“I will, sir.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Spell it.”

Pym did.

“I’ll change it if they want. They’ve only to let me know. I hear you took a First, Pym.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Carry on.”

In the evenings, seated beside lonely men, Pym the ever-willing obliged by dictating letters of love to their girlfriends. Where the physical feat of writing eluded them, he acted as their amanuensis, adding personalised endearments to their specification. Sometimes, fired by his own rhetoric, he would burst into song on his own account, in the lyrical style of a Blunden or a Sassoon:

“Dearest Belinda,

“I cannot tell you what fun and simple human goodness are to be found among one’s working-class comrades. Yesterday — great excitement — we drove our twenty-five-pounders to a remote firing range Somewhere in England for our first Shoot, embussing before dawn and not reaching the r.v. till eleven. The slatted seats of a fifteen-hundredweight are designed to split the spine in several places. We had no cushions and only iron rations to munch. Yet the chaps whistled and sang in tremendous spirits all the way, acquitted themselves superbly and endured the journey back with only the most cheerful grumbles. I felt privileged to be one of them and am seriously considering refusing a commission. . ”

When a commission came his way, however, Pym contrived without difficulty to accept it, as witness the erogenous hillocks of khaki thread backed on green cloth, one to each shoulder of his battledress, whose existence he covertly confirms whenever the train enters another tunnel. The bare breasts of the peasant girls are his first since the election. With each new valley, he strains his disapproving gaze to see more of them and is seldom disappointed. “We’ll send you to Vienna first,” his commanding officer at the Intelligence Depot had said. “Chance to get the feel of the place before you’re pushed out into the field.”

“It sounds ideal, sir,” said Pym.

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