Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

He gets up and walks over to his bookshelf. “I’ve arranged for some of you fellas to sign on for the admin practices course up at Western, in London, and I’ve been pulling together stuff from some new books that are starting to float around out there.” He pulls out a hefty wedge of bound mimeographed paper and drops it onto his desk. He flips through, creating a breeze. “These things aren’t just bedtime stories, they walk you through every aspect of an actual business. General Electric, American Motors…. You can deduce the aims of an organization by analyzing its actions.” He lets the pages fan shut again. “Human behaviour.” He pats the book and gives the others a cagey look. “Think of Tom Sawyer as the original management whiz.”

An officer near the back says, “How do you get someone else to paint the fence?”

“And give you the apple,” adds another from the opposite end of the room. Laughter.

Jack says, “So far, military admin practices have erred on the side of action. We’re looking to redress that. At the same time, you don’t want the pendulum swinging so far that you get loads of analysis — every what-if in the book — and wind up crippling your ability to act. Not every leader can pull off both. A fella you’d fly to hell and back with might be hopeless on the ground.” He wedges the book back onto the shelf, then turns, places both hands flat on the desk in front of him and looks them in the eye. “You’ve got to ask yourself, where do I fit into the picture? Am I looking at the whole picture, or just part of it? Which part can I influence?”

After a moment, one of his finance instructors says, “In other words, how big is my box?”

“Bang on,” says Jack.

The door opens a crack and a young Flying Officer puts his head in. “Sir, it’s a Captain Fleming on the phone for you, should I—?”

“Tell him I’ll call back in a bit,” says Jack.

“Yes sir,” says the FO, withdrawing.

Vic Boucher says, “You moonlighting, sir?” The others chuckle. There are no captains in this room; there are flight lieutenants. In Canada, “captain” is an army rank.

Jack grins. “Some flatfoot up at National Defence HQ probably thinks he can up the army quota in the Flying School.”

“‘Army pilot?’” says one of the men. “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

Jack is going to enjoy this group. He glances at his agenda and asks Squadron Leader Baxter to brief them on some cadet personnel issues, then sits back. Captain Fleming . He keeps his eyes on the speaker, easily focusing on two things at once: “… with the Nigerian cadets, and while not all the Egyptians celebrate Christmas, we’ve made special provision for them to….”

Oskar Fried must be on his way. The blue sky through Jack’s window, the row of hats, the smell of wood polish and pencil shavings peculiar to schools and government offices, all are warmed to mingling by the afternoon sun, and he basks in an unlooked-for sense of well-being. He is in no hurry to return Simon’s phone call. If “Captain Fleming” calls, it means the matter is of ordinary importance. If “Major Newbolt” calls, it means drop what you’re doing. Jack was amused when Simon picked the code names. While the Fleming reference is obvious if not ludicrous, he must remember to ask Simon where Newbolt comes from. He reaches for his pencil and resumes tapping as he listens—“… Ad Pracs, Accounting, Statistical Analysis….”

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Art . The felt animals have begun their migration across the bulletin board. Madeleine is unsurprised to see that she is indeed a hare in reading. She has, however, in spite of being an excellent speller, been designated a tortoise in writing. She is being penalized for penmanship. Apart from the fact that her writing still looks too much like printing, no matter how hard she tries, she always runs out of room at the end of each line and winds up with words scrunched in the verbal equivalent of a pileup on the highway.

It is five to three and Mr. March has chosen the best botanical drawings and prepared them with Scotch Tape: buttercups by Marjorie Nolan, tulips by Cathy Baxter and dandelions by Joyce Nutt. Madeleine drew excellent daisies with faces and long eyelashes — one is smoking a pipe, one is winking, a third has a moustache and glasses. Her disappointment at not being chosen is tempered by the realization that she is lucky to have earned a dolphin in Art for such unrealistic flowers, as it’s apparent, now that she glances around, that the purpose was real-life. She casually folds her arms over her daisies.

Mr. March says, “Diane Vogel, proceed to the front of the class please.” He lifts her up by the armpits and she sticks the three pictures over the window of the inside door — the one that opens onto the corridor. He sets her back down and says, “Thank you, little girl. You may return to your desk.” Then he gestures to the door, like a lady on a Duncan Hines cake commercial: “Thus we turn our best face to the rest of the school.”

Madeleine looks at the papered-over window. The art is facing out. At least we don’t have to stare at Margarine Nolan’s buttercups.

“You’re getting company,” says Simon.

“Oskar Fried is here.”

“Not yet, this is something else, bit of a wrinkle.”

Jack is in the phone booth next to the grocery store. He felt a little odd answering it; what if someone were to see him? No one did, but if someone had, how would he have justified answering a pay phone and proceeding to have a conversation? He was startled by the only answer that came to mind: adultery.

“They’re sending a second man,” says Simon. “Another officer will be joining the mission as your counterpart.”

“My counterpart?”

“Your opposite number, as it were. A USAF type.”

“Why are they involved?”

He realizes as soon as he asks that Simon is not about to answer, and indeed Simon replies, “Cooperation under the terms of NATO, dear boy, your tax dollars at work.”

Jack recognizes annoyance beneath the casual tone, and senses that, if he asks now, Simon may actually tell him something. “Why do we need another man?”

“Because nature and the United States Air Force abhor a vacuum. They also abhor relying on anyone but themselves.”

“Isn’t this a joint effort?”

“Oh yes. As Abbott says to Costello, ‘You follow in front.’”

“I didn’t know MI6 worked so closely with the American military.”

“Keep pumping me and I’ll blow up.”

Jack chuckles. “So what’s our second man supposed to do?”

“For the most part, he’s simply to be there on the ground, in case.”

“In case what?”

Simon sighs. “They don’t want to entrust Fried solely to a Canadian.”

“We work with the Yanks all the time, what’s the problem?”

“Well, Canada is leaky, for one thing.”

Jack again sees Igor Gouzenko, hood over his head, naming names in Ottawa. But that was years ago. Along with the atomic spies at Chalk River…. “It is?”

“It’s a bloody sieve.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Simon groans. “Point taken, Messrs Burgess and Maclean have rather tarred our good English name of late. But I went to Oxford, mate, not Cambridge.”

“So where do I meet up with this USAF type?”

“There’s an exchange position at your station, yes?”

“That’s right. It alternates between Americans and Brits”—Jack is a little taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to him that the American would actually be posted to Centralia. Group Captain Woodley must be in the loop after all. “It’s supposed to be a Yank this time but the fella’s late.”