132
PA RT I S,A N
~
E
V I
EW
It is our general purpose, but not my specific task, to supply
logistical information to headquarters in the front and in the rear.
We are one of a number of stations that co-ordinate the numerous
reports both of the enemy's movements and of our own, and relay
these back and forth. These reports never fail to conflict with one
another, and no matter how well trained our spies, pilots, observers,
and scouts may be, we must keep a large staff working round the
clock to prevent mistakes, repetitions, and inconsistencies from ap–
pearing in our dispatches. Even so we have blundered many times,
and our only consolation, and at the same time the reason that
reprimands from headquarters have not been more severe, is the fact
that the enemy must work under the same disadvantages. Very often
a report so complicated and contradictory that it seems impossible
to submit, is nevertheless a true picture of the fighting. You can see
what we are up against. And then there are the many spontaneous
breakdowns of routine for which no one is to blame, the impatience
of my superiors which is always interfering with the work, the orders
handed down from above, countermanding orders that have already
been carried out, and so many other difficulties that are part of the
day's normal detail. To make matters worse a training class for scouts
is held in the basement of our schoolhouse and we often hear them
laughing or crying out in pain as they tumble about on the mats. I
have been trying to get this class removed, thus far without success.
My own work developed as a subsidiary of the main logistical
operation. My superiors are not yet convinced of the importance of
my task (I have been at it for eleven years!), but some of them are
interested, and all my equals and subordinates support me in it, so
I am not required to give up my investigations. I work in a semiofficial
capacity, filling in and sending out my own reports and as much cor–
roborative· material as I can lay my hands on-all this in addition to
my regular duties. I am kept very busy indeed, seldom working less
than sixteen hours at a stretch. I sometimes think, sitting as I do in
an old schoolhouse, that I am both schoolmaster and pupil: a teacher
to those who are beneath me in rank and an idiot child to my su–
periors.
I work on the enemy proper. I am trying to discover what he
is, what motivates him, what
his
nature is. And if you say, as so
many of my: superiors do, that this is known, I reply that I am at–
tacking his very essence. This is not known. In spite of the many
long years that we have been at war with him, and the periods of
time, in the past, when we lived at his side in restless peace, we know
