SPY SCHOOL

Arbuthnot

Tinker, Tailor, Dandy, Spy

Torquil Arbuthnot, having retired from the secret service, spills the beans on how he was originally recruited and trained as a spy

Although this manuscript has been cleared by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, they have insisted that certain words are redacted for reasons of national security, and to keep the KGB guessing. was first approached to be a spy by the usual method, the ‘tap on the shoulder’. My tutor at Oxbridge suggested I might like to dine with the Master of [redacted] College, as there was some frightfully good egg from the Foreign Office he thought I might it find amusing to meet. I duly toddled along and was seated next to Colonel [redacted], a lean, scarred man with a pronounced limp who proceeded to quiz me on my views on the “The more louche and unhinged recruits went to Flashman’s, where they were let loose on the dressing-up box. Their training included how to ride a camel, opium smoking, sword fighting and escaping without one’s trousers”

Matabeleland question, whether I could field-strip a Webley Mk 5 revolver blindfolded and how long it took me to do The Times crossword. He must have liked what he saw and heard because, the next month, I was asked to lunch at the Travellers’, and by the time the port and stilton arrived I’d agreed to be trained as a secret agent.

I was given a railway chitty and duly travelled down to a large manor house in secluded grounds just outside Chipping [redacted]. The first week was spent being interviewed by a variety of experts to determine one’s aptitude and talents (or lack thereof). One’s level of sanity was also assessed by the resident psychiatrist. “In some situations,” the trick-cyclist explained, in between swatting at imaginary flies, “the barmier you are, the better.” I was asked what foreign languages I spoke and admitted to fluency in French and German (due to my time at the Sorbonne and Heidelberg), passable Spanish (from matador school) and a smattering of various Nilo-Saharan dialects (my gap year as a Barbary pirate). My interviewer looked a bit askance at this, explaining that speaking foreign languages was often accompanied by other disagreeable proclivities. “All very well being glib in frou-frou languages like French if you’re a dancing instructor.”

After the initial interviews and tests, we were assigned our training. Rather like at prep school, we were allocated boarding houses based on our evaluations. For example, those grammar school types with a chip on their shoulder were sent to Deighton’s, while those who had a C-grade or above in O-level Maths went to Bletchley’s. The training differed between houses. Those in Le Carré’s were taught to speak in elliptical sentences and encouraged to use baffling vocabulary, so that even a pencil was known as a ‘bowstring’ and a bus ticket was a ‘nightingale’. They were intensively trained to be barely-functioning alcoholics.

Deighton types would spend much of their training being taught how to submit expenses claims in triplicate, how to cheek their betters and being sent on Cordon Bleu cookery courses. They received a clothing allowance for off-the-peg suits and

beige raincoats. (Once the beige raincoats become threadbare they are handed down to the spies in Le Carré’s.) The more louche and unhinged recruits went to Flashman’s, where they were let loose on the dressing-up box. Their training included how to ride a camel, opium smoking, sword fighting and escaping without one’s trousers. They would also spend many months at the School of Oriental and African Studies, learning exotic languages and picking up exotic diseases.

I was allocated to Fleming’s, where my first exercise was to memorise the 1930 edition of The Savoy Cocktail Book. I was then sent on placement to a French casino to master the roulette wheel, and spent some time with a card-sharp in Las Vegas, learning the tricks of the trade. We were sent on exercises; attaching a limpet mine to the Woolwich ferry, for example, or stealing the hubcaps from the Russian Ambassador’s car.

We all received general lectures on the threats facing Britain, both internal and external: the Russian Bear, North Korea, Johnny Afghan, alumni of the London School of Economics and megalomaniacs with their own private store of nuclear bombs. We were informed that MI5 no longer infiltrates left-wing groups, since these are comprised of undercover policemen looking for girlfriends. Finally it was drummed into us fledgling spies that, although the Boche are never to be trusted, the real enemy is always the French.

On successfully completing spy probation we were given a badge, a cyanide pill, a box of false moustaches, a bottle of invisible ink, a set of monogrammed [redacted] and an account at Majestic Wine. On my last day at ‘spy school’ I asked the HR-wallah about job security. He said it was hard to guarantee, as I might end up riddled with machine-gun bullets while shinning over the Berlin Wall, or my parachute might fail over the Gobi Desert. But if I made it through unscathed then I would, at the end of my years of loyal service to my grateful country, be able to retire with an OBE and a decent pension, or the Order of Lenin and a dacha outside Moscow. n