The Secret Pilgrim by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page A

and Ben were considerable partners, weren’t you?” he asked.
    â€œWe shared a cabin at Sarratt, yes.”
    â€œSo that’s what—kitchen, couple of bedrooms, bathroom?”
    â€œNo kitchen.”
    â€œBut you were twinned for your training course as well?”
    â€œFor the last year of it. You choose an oppo and learn to work to each other.”
    â€œChoose? Or have chosen for you?”
    â€œChoose first, then they approve or break you up.”
    â€œAnd after that, you’re landed with each other for better for worse?”
    â€œPretty much, yes.”
    â€œFor the whole of the last year? For half the course, in fact? Day and night, as it were? A total marriage?”
    I could not understand why he was pressing me about things he must have known.
    â€œAnd you do everything together?” he continued. “Forgive me but it’s some time since I was trained. Written, practical, physical, you mess together, share a cabin—a whole life, in fact.”
    â€œWe do the syndicate work together, and the strongarm stuff. That’s automatic. It begins with being roughly the same weightand physical aptitude.” Despite the disturbing tendency of his questions, I was beginning to feel a great need talk to him. “Then the rest sort of follows naturally.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œSometimes they split us up—say, for a special exercise if they think one person is relying too much on his oppo. But as long as it’s fifty-fifty they’re happy for you to keep together.”
    â€œAnd you won everything,” Smiley suggested approvingly, helping himself to another wet plate. “You were the best pair. You and Ben.”
    â€œIt was just that Ben was the best student,” I said. “Whoever had him would have won.”
    â€œYes, of course. Well, we all know people like that. Did you know each other before you joined the Service?”
    â€œNo. But we’d run parallel. We were at the same school, different houses. We were at Oxford, different colleges. We both read languages but we still never met. He did a short service commission in the army, I did the same in the navy. It took the Circus to bring us together.”
    Taking up a delicate bone-china cup, he peered doubtfully into it, as if searching for something I had missed. “Would you have sent Ben to Berlin?”
    â€œYes, of course I would. Why not?”
    â€œWell, why?”
    â€œHe’s got perfect German from his mother. He’s bright. Resourceful. People do what he wants them to do. His father had this terrific war.”
    â€œSo did your mother, as I remember.” He was referring to my mother’s work with the Dutch Resistance. “What did he do—Ben’s father, I mean?” he continued, as if he really didn’t know.
    â€œHe broke codes,” I said, with Ben’s pride. “He was a wrangler. A mathematician. A genius, apparently. He helped organise the double-cross system against the Germans—recruit their agents and play them back. My mother was very small beer by comparison.”
    â€œAnd Ben was impressed by that?”
    â€œWho wouldn’t be?”
    â€œHe talked of it, I mean,” Smiley insisted. “Often? It was a big matter for him. You had that impression?”
    â€œHe just said it was something he had to live up to. He said it was the up-side of having a German mother.”
    â€œOh dear,” said Smiley unhappily. “Poor man. And those were his words? You’re not embellishing?”
    â€œOf course I’m not! He said that with a background like his, in England you had to run twice as fast as everyone else, just to keep up.”
    Smiley seemed genuinely upset. “Oh dear,” he said again. “How unkind. And do you think he has the stamina, would you say?”
    He had once more stopped me short. At our age, we really didn’t think of stamina as being limited.
    â€œWhat