‘What?’

‘I went into Woody Dewar’s room, just as you told me. But I didn’t succeed.’

‘What did you do?’

‘This.’ Natasha opened her coat to show her naked body. She had a voluptuous figure and a luxuriant bush of dark pubic hair.

‘All right, I get the picture, close your coat,’ said Volodya. ‘What did he say?’

She switched to English. ‘He just said: “No.” I said: “What do you mean, no?” He said: “It’s the opposite of yes.” Then he just held the door wide open until I went out.’

‘Bugger,’ said Volodya. ‘I’ll have to think of something else.’

(ii)

Chuck Dewar knew there was going to be trouble when Captain Vandermeier came into the enemy land section in the middle of the afternoon, red-faced from a beery lunch.

The intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor had expanded. Formerly called Station HYPO, it now had the grand title of Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area, or JICPOA.

Vandermeier had a marine sergeant in tow. ‘Hey, you two powder puffs,’ Vandermeier said. ‘You got a customer complaint here.’

The operation had grown, everyone began to specialize, and Chuck and Eddie had become experts at mapping the territory where American forces were about to land as they fought their way island by island across the Pacific.

Vandermeier said: ‘This is Sergeant Donegan.’ The marine was very tall and looked as hard as a rifle. Chuck guessed that the sexually troubled Vandermeier was smitten.

Chuck stood up: ‘Good to meet you, Sergeant. I’m Chief Petty Officer Dewar.’

Chuck and Eddie had both been promoted. As thousands of conscripts poured into the US military, there was a shortage of officers, and pre-war enlisted men who knew the ropes rose fast. Chuck and Eddie were now permitted to live off base. They had rented a small apartment together.

Chuck put out his hand, but Donegan did not shake it.

Chuck sat down again. He slightly outranked a sergeant, and he was not going to be polite to one who was rude. ‘Something I can do for you, Captain Vandermeier?’

There were many ways a captain could torment petty officers in the navy, and Vandermeier knew them all. He adjusted rotas so that Chuck and Eddie never had the same day off. He marked their reports ‘adequate’, knowing full well that anything less than ‘excellent’ was, in fact, a black mark. He sent confusing messages to the pay office, so that Chuck and Eddie were paid late or got less than they should have, and had to spend hours straightening things out. He was a royal pain. And now he had thought up some new mischief.

Donegan pulled from his pocket a grubby sheet of paper and unfolded it. ‘Is this your work?’ he said aggressively.

Chuck took the paper. It was a map of New Georgia, a group in the Solomon Islands. ‘Let me check,’ he said. It was his work, and he knew it, but he was playing for time.

He went to a filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer. He took out the file for New Georgia and shut the drawer with his knee. He returned to his desk, sat down, and opened the file. It contained a duplicate of Donegan’s map. ‘Yes,’ Chuck said. ‘That’s my work.’