I simply endeavored to keep General Huxley from being smothered in pieces of paper-and found myself smothered instead. The idea was to figure out what he would do, if he had time, and then do it for him. A person who has been trained in the principles of staff or doctrinal command can do this; the trick is to make your mind work like your boss’s mind in all routine matters, and to be able to recognize what is routine and what he must pass on himself. I made my share of mistakes, but apparently not too many for he didn’t fire me, and three months later I was a major with the fancy title of assistant chief of staff. Chalk most of it up to the West Point ring, of course-a professional has a great advantage.
I should add that Zeb was a short-tailed colonel by then and acting chief of propaganda, his section chief having been transferred to a regional headquarters I knew only by the code name JERICHO.
But I am getting ahead of my story. I heard from Judith about two weeks later-a pleasant enough note but with the juice pressed out of it through rephrasing. I meant to answer her at once but actually delayed a week-it was so pesky hard to know what to say. I could not possibly tell her any news except that 1 was well and busy. If I had told her I loved her three times in one letter some idiot in cryptography would have examined it for ‘pattern’ and rejected it completely when he failed to find one.
The mail went to Mexico through a long tunnel, partly artificial but mostly natural, which led right under the international border. A little electric railroad of the sort used in mines ran through this tunnel and carried not only my daily headaches in the way of official mail but also a great deal of freight to supply our fair-sized town. There were a dozen other entrances to G.H.Q. on the Arizona side of the border, but I never knew where any of them were-it was not my pidgin. The whole area overlay a deep layer of Paleozoic limestone and it may well be honeycombed from California to Texas. The area known as G.H.Q. had been in use for more than twenty years as a hideout for refugee brethren. Nobody knew the extent of the caverns we were in; we simply lighted and used what we needed. It was a favorite sport of us troglodytes-permanent residents were ‘trogs’; transients were ‘bats’ because they flew by night-we trogs liked to go on ‘spelling bees’, picnics which included a little amateur speleology in the unexplored parts.
It was permitted by regulations, but just barely and subject to stringent safety precautions, for you could break a leg awfully easily in those holes. But the General permitted it because it was necessary; we had only such recreations as we could make ourselves and some of us had not seen daylight in years.
Zeb and Maggie and I went on a number of such outings when I could get away. Maggie always brought another woman along. I protested at first but she pointed out to me that it was necessary in order to avoid gossip . . . mutual chaperonage. She assured me that she was certain that Judith would not mind, under the circumstances. It was a different girl each time and it seemed to work out that Zeb always paid a lot of attention to the other girl while I talked with Maggie. I had thought once that Maggie and Zeb would marry, but now I began to wonder. They seemed to suit each other like ham and eggs, but Maggie did not seem jealous and I can only describe Zeb, in honesty, as shameless-that is, if he thought Maggie would care.
One Saturday morning Zeb stuck his head in my sweat box and said, ‘Spelling bee. Two o’clock. Bring a towel.’
I looked up from a mound of papers. ‘I doubt if I can make it,’ I answered. ‘And why a towel?’
But he was gone. Maggie came through my office later to take the weekly consolidated intelligence report in to the Old Man, but I did not attempt to question her, as Maggie was all business during working hours-the perfect office sergeant. I had lunch at my desk, hoping to finish up, but knowing it was impossible. About a quarter of two I went in to get General Huxley’s signature on an item that was to go out that night by hypnoed courier and therefore had to go at once to psycho in order that the courier might be operated. He glanced at it and signed it, then said, ‘Sergeant Andy tells me you have a date.’