PARTISAN
REVIEW
55
certain army unit, in some capacity to do with the Ministry of In–
formation. He was to wait orders. In due course they came, and
he discovered that it was his task to spy on the navy, or rather, that
portion of it operating near him. Our navy, of course. He was always
unable to work out the ideology of this. That a Communist should
not
be
set to spy on, let's say, Russia, seemed to him fair and reason–
able, but why was he deemed suitable material to spy on his own
side? He found it all baffling, and indeed rather lowering. Then, at
a cocktail party, he happened to meet a naval officer with whom he
proceeded to get drunk, and they both suddenly understood on a
wild hunch, that they were engaged on spying in each other, one for
the navy, one for the army. Both found this work without much
uplift, they were simply not able to put their hearts into it, apart
from the fact that they had been in the same class at prep school
and had many other social ties. Not even the fact that they weren't
being paid, since it was assumed by their superiors - quite correctly
of course - that they would be happy to serve their countries for
nothing, made them feel any better. They developed the habit of
meeting regularly in a cafe where they drank wine and coffee and
played chess on a vine-covered arbour overlooking a particularly fine
bit of the Mediterranean where, without going through
all
the tedious
effort of spying on each other, they simply gave each other relevant
information. They were found out. Their excuse that they were
fighting the war on the same side was deemed inadequate. They
were both given the sack as spies, and transferred to less demanding
work. But until D-Day and beyond, the British army spied on the
British navy, and vice versa. They probably all still do.
The fact that human beings, given half a chance, start seeing
each other's points of view seems to me the only ray of hope there
is for humanity, but obviously this tendency must be one to cause
anguish to seniors in the diplomatic corps and the employers of your
common or garden spy - not the high level spies, but of that in a
moment. Diplomats, until they have understood why, always com–
plain that as soon as they understand a country and its language
really well, hey presto, off they are whisked to another country. But
diplomacy could not continue if the opposing factotums lost a proper
sense
of
national hostility. Some diplomatic corps insist that their
employees must only visit among each other, and never fraternise
