Level 7

Anyhow, the notion that leave might be in store for me put me in a cheerful frame of mind as I walked over to the administrative block and entered the C.O.’s office. The C.O. was as quiet and controlled in his manner as ever, perhaps—so it seems to me now—even quieter and more controlled than usual. He asked me to take a chair, and then told me that the report on my final training was quite good. I was to be promoted to major, and would receive the increased pay which went with the rank. “As a matter of fact,” he added with a superior smile, “you’ll be getting rather more than I get, because of your technical qualifications.” I thanked him for the news, and thought how cleverly he camouflaged his feeling of inferiority.

“Now, your leave,” he went on, and my hopes rose. “Unfortunately,” and he paused on the word, conscious of having scored, “that will have to be postponed for a day or two. You have been ordered down.”

This meant underground, to the deep military installations of whose existence we trainees were, of course, aware, but which we had never seen.

“You’ll be able to gain first-hand knowledge of those matters with which your training up here has made you acquainted. And then,” with his sweetest smile, “you will be truly capable of fulfilling your duty and repaying your country for the money, time and energy it has invested in you.”

I swallowed that remark too. Coated, as it was, with the sweet sugar of higher rank and pay, it went down fairly easily.

“After you return from the trip down,” the C.O. concluded, “you will go on two weeks’ leave. This is a part of the order from above, which even I could not change if I wished to.” He could never say a pleasant thing without some bitter twist; but it did not worry me. I was already thinking about my leave—my ordered leave.

Did the C.O. know that this leave business was only a trick, part of the routine for taking me, and my fellows, smoothly down? I did not think so. He was just passing on orders which he, just then, understood as little as I did.

When I asked him at what time I was expected to leave, he told me that a car was already waiting for me outside his office. This struck me as rather unusual, for normally an order of this sort allowed some time for personal preparation. Still, one purpose of a military training is to accustom you to obeying orders without asking questions. I therefore accepted without query another curious fact: that I should take nothing with me, not even a toothbrush. “Everything will be provided on the spot,” said the C.O. “Just get into the car and go.”

This was becoming interesting. But there was no time for meditation. I stood up, saluted, left the office, stepped into the waiting car, and we were off. I remember glancing at my watch. The time was 8.30.

It was not until a few days later, after my destiny had been made known to me, that I understood the reason for this haste. The Supreme Command wanted to take no chances. It did not want the men and women who were ordered down to talk to anybody who was to remain. They had to be taken down directly, without any contact with friends and relations. The only man who knew that we—myself and some others from my camp—were going down was the C.O., and he could be relied upon to keep his mouth shut. Even the toothbrush I left had a function to fulfil. It would serve as evidence that my disappearance was purely accidental and unrelated to any military task. If I had been sent somewhere on duty, I would surely have taken my toothbrush with me. In short, my companions and I had to vanish as inconspicuously as possible, as if the earth had opened and swallowed us up. Which is precisely what happened.

The car in which I was being driven was a closed military model of unremarkable appearance, the type of car which might have been used by anybody from a lieutenant to a general. I was sitting by myself in the rear seat, feeling most comfortable. I clearly remember this sensation of comfort, because it occurred to me that this was the way a major should feel. I realise now how silly I was to let the business of my new rank fill my mind at that moment. But, reclining on the soft seat, I felt like Napoleon after Austerlitz.