'I am a conscript,' the boy began, according to Jerry Westerby. 'I have to serve in the army or I can't go to university.' In October he had been on basic training manoeuvres in the forests near Brno. There were always a lot of military in the woods there; in summer the whole area was closed to the public for a month at a time. He was on a boring infantry exercise that was supposed to last two weeks but on the third day it was called off for no reason and the troops were ordered back to town. That was the order: pack now and get back to barracks. The whole forest was to be cleared by dusk.
'Within hours, every sort of daft rumour was flying around,' Jerry went on. 'Some fellow said the ballistics research station at Tisnov had blown up. Somebody else said the training battalions had mutinied and were shooting up the Russian soldiers. Fresh uprising in Prague, Russians taken over the government, the Germans had attacked, God knows what hadn't happened. You know what soldiers are. Same everywhere, soldiers. Gossip till the cows come home.'
The reference to the army moved Jerry Westerby to ask after certain acquaintances from his military days, people Smiley had dimly known, and forgotten. Finally they resumed.
'They broke camp, packed the lorries and sat about waiting for the convoy to get moving. They'd gone half a mile when everything stopped again and the convoy was ordered off the road. Lorries had to duckshuffle into the trees. Got stuck in the mud, ditches, every damn thing. Chaos apparently.'
It was the Russians, said Westerby. They were coming from the direction of Brno and they were in a very big hurry and everything that was Czech had to get out of the light or take the consequences.
'First came a bunch of motorcycles tearing down the track with lights flashing and the drivers screaming at them. Then a staff car and civilians, the boy reckoned six civilians altogether. Then two lorry-loads of special troops armed to the eyebrows and wearing combat paint. Finally a truck full of tracker dogs. All making a most Godawful row. Not boring you am I, old boy?'
Westerby dabbed the sweat from his face with a handkerchief and blinked like someone coming round. The sweat had come through his silk shirt as well; he looked as if he had been under a shower. Curry not being a food he cared for, Smiley ordered two more krugs to wash away the taste.
'So that was the first part of the story. Czech troops out, Russian troops in. Got it?'
Smiley said yes, he thought he had his mind round it so far.
Back in Brno, however, the boy quickly learned that his unit's part in the proceedings was nowhere near done. Their convoy was joined up with another and the next night for eight or ten hours they tore round the countryside with no apparent destination. They drove west to Trebic, stopped and waited while the signals section made a long transmission, then they cut back south-east nearly as far as Znojmo on the Austrian border, signalling like mad as they went; no one knew who had ordered the route, no one would explain a thing. At one point they were ordered to fix bayonets, at another they pitched camp, then packed up all their kit again and pushed off. Here and there they met up with other units: near Breclav marshalling-yards, tanks going round in circles, once a pair of self-propelled guns on prelaid track. Everywhere the story was the same: chaotic, pointless activity. The older hands said it was a Russian punishment for being Czech. Back in Brno again, the boy heard a different explanation. The Russians were after a British spy called Hajek. He'd been spying on the research station and tried to kidnap a general and the Russians had shot him.
'So the boy asked, you see,' said Jerry. 'Sassy little devil, asked his sergeant: "If Hajek is already shot, why do we have to tear round the countryside creating an uproar?" And the sergeant told him, "Because it's the army." Sergeants all over the world, what?'
Very quietly Smiley asked: 'We're talking about two nights, Jerry. Which night did the Russians move in to the forest?'
Jerry Westerby screwed up his face in perplexity. 'That's what the boy wanted to tell me, you see, George. That's what he was trying to put over in Stan's bar. What all the rumours were about. The Russians moved in on Friday. They didn't shoot Hajek till Saturday. So the wise lads were saying: there you are, Russians were waiting for Hajek to turn up. Knew he was coming. Knew the lot. Lay in wait. Bad story, you see. Bad for our reputation, see what I mean? Bad for big chief. Bad for tribe. How.'
'How,' said Smiley, into his beer.
'That's what Toby felt too, mind. We saw it the same way, we just reacted differently.'
'So you told all to Toby,' said Smiley lightly, as he passed Jerry a large dish of dal. 'You had to see him anyway to tell him you'd dropped the package for him in Budapest, so you told him the Hajek story too.'
Well, that was just it, said Jerry. That was the thing that had bothered him, the thing that was rum, the thing that made him write to George actually. 'Old Tobe said it was tripe. Got all regimental and nasty. First he was mustard, clapping me on the back and Westerby for Mayor. He went back to the shop and next morning he threw the book at me. Emergency meeting, drove me round and round the park in a car, yelling blue murder. Said I was so plastered these days I didn't know fact from fiction. All that stuff. Made me a bit shirty, actually.'
'I expect you wondered who he'd been talking to in between,' said Smiley sympathetically. 'What did he say exactly,' he asked, not in any intense way but as if he just wanted to get it all crystal clear in his mind.
'Told me it was most likely a put-up ploy. Boy was a provocateur. Disruption job to make the Circus chase its own tail. Tore my ears off for disseminating half-baked rumours. I said to him, George: "Old boy," I said, "Tobe, I was only reporting, old boy. No need to get hot under the collar. Yesterday you thought I was the cat's whiskers. No point in turning round and shooting the messenger. If you've decided you don't like the story, that's your business." Wouldn't sort of listen any more, know what I mean? Illogical, I thought it was. Bloke like that. Hot one minute and cold the next. Not his best performance, know what I mean?'
With his left hand Jerry rubbed the side of his head, like a schoolboy pretending to think. ' "Okie dokie," I said, "forget it. I'll write it up for the rag. Not the part about the Russians getting there first. The other part. Dirty work in the forest, that sort of tripe." I said to him: "If it isn't good enough for the Circus, it'll do for the rag." Then he went up the wall again. Next day some owl rings the old man. Keep that baboon Westerby off the Ellis story. Rub his nose in the D notice: formal warning. "All further references to Jim Ellis alias Hajek against the national interest, so put 'em on the spike." Back to women's ping-pong. Cheers.'
'But by then you'd written to me,' Smiley reminded him.
Jerry Westerby blushed terribly. 'Sorry about that,' he said. 'Got all xenophobe and suspicious. Comes from being on the outside: you don't trust your best friends. Trust them, well, less than strangers.' He tried again: 'Just that I thought old Tobe was going a bit haywire. Shouldn't have done it, should I? Against the rules.' Through his embarrassment he managed a painful grin. 'Then I heard on the grapevine that the firm had given you the heaveho, so I felt an even bigger damn fool. Not hunting alone, are you, old boy? Not...' He left the question unasked; but not, perhaps, unanswered.
As they parted, Smiley took him gently by the arm.
'If Toby should get in touch with you, I think it better if you don't tell him we met today. He's a good fellow but he does tend to think people are ganging up on him.'