No Other Choice—别无选择（乔治·布莱克）（第一章~Section 2）
One of these new operations, known by the codename 'Sugar', was run from premises occupied by a British firm dealing in imitation jewellery. It traded under the name 'Gabions', not very profitably but this did not matter much as it was financed by SIS and provided excellent cover for the listening post. The Viennese young women who visited the shop could hardly have imagined that right underneath their feet recorders were taking down the telephone conversations of senior officers in the Soviet military HQ.
【其中一项代号为“糖”的新计划是在一家经营仿制珠宝的英国公司实行的。它以“石笼”的名义进行交易，利润不高，但这无关紧要，因为它是由SIS资助的，并为监听站提供了很好的掩护。光顾这家商店的维也纳年轻女性几乎无法想象，就在她们的脚下，录音机正在记录苏联军事总部高级军官的电话通话。】
The other operation, with the codename 'Lord', was run from a smart, modern villa in one of Vienna's fashionable suburbs surrounded by a green lawn kept in beautiful condition by an English major and his attractive young wife. They were a well-known and much appreciated couple in the mixed, international society of the Vienna of those days and the parties they gave frequently lasted until the early hours of the morning. I knew this major quite well from my days in the Dutch section of SIS, of which I was a member during the last year of the war. His name was John Wyke and he was, like me, partly of Dutch origin. At that time he had been involved in dangerous intelligence operations conducted from the liberated southern part of the Netherlands across the rivers into the northern part which was still occupied by the Germans.
【另一项代号为“勋爵”的行动是在维也纳时尚郊区一幢时髦的别墅里进行的，别墅周围是一片绿色的草坪，由一位英国的少校和他年轻漂亮的妻子打理得非常漂亮。在当时的维也纳国际上流社会中，他们是很有名望的一对夫妻，他们举办的聚会常常持续到凌晨。我在SIS荷兰分部的日子里就很了解这个计划，在战争的最后一年我是该分部的一员。他叫约翰·怀克，和我一样，有荷兰血统。当时，他参与了危险的情报行动，从荷兰已解放的南部地区，跨越河流，进入仍被德国占领的北部地区。】
The material obtained from these three operations reached such proportions that an overworked staff had to catch up with a three months' backlog and a monthly had become a fortnightly summary with several interim reports on special questions in between.
【从这三个行动获得的材料如此之多，以致过度劳累的工作人员不得不赶完三个月的积压工作，一个月的摘要变成了两周一次的摘要，其间有几份关于特别问题的临时报告。】
Very soon after the start of operation 'Conflict', it became clear that the two fluent Russian speakers who had been sent to Vienna to transcribe the tapped Soviet telephone conversations could not possibly cope with all the material that was flowing in. Additional staff had to be found. This was not easy. As anyone knows who has studied a foreign language one has to reach a really high standard to be able to follow telephone conversations. If it is borne in mind that the speakers in this case were not radio or TV announcers but military personnel using slang and technical terms and indulging in a great deal of bad language, it becomes clear that only one whose native tongue is Russian can effectively cope with such work. But such people were not easy to find, especially as they had to be absolutely reliable from a security point of view. Another difficulty was that there was a limit to the number of additional staff which the Vienna station could accommodate without drawing attention to its rapid expansion. It was therefore decided quite early on to transfer the processing side of the operation to London.
【在“冲突”行动开始后不久，情况就变得很明晰，被派到维也纳抄录被窃听的苏联电话的两名讲流利俄语的人员不可能处理所有源源不断的材料。必须增加工作人员。这并不简单。任何人都知道，学习过一门外语的人必须达到很高的水平才能听懂电话对话。并且在这种情况下说话的人不是电台或电视播音员，而是使用俚语和技术术语，并习惯于说大量污言秽语的军事人员，那么很明显，只有母语是俄语的人才能有效地应付这种工作。但这样的人并不容易找到，特别是从安全的角度来看，他们必须是绝对可靠的。另一个困难是，在不引起注意并迅速扩大的情况下，维也纳站所能容纳的额外工作人员的数目是有限的。因此，很早就决定将该行动的处理工作转移到伦敦。】
There was at that time in Head Office a small section, known by the symbol 'N' which, among such tasks as opening diplomatic mailbags undetected, when an opportunity to do so occurred, also studied conversations of foreign diplomats whose telephones were being tapped by MI5 for any matters of intelligence interest they might contain. The first impulse was therefore to make 'N' responsible for processing the 'Conflict' material. But 'N' was located in Head Office and incapable of physical expansion quite apart from the fact that its small staff of elderly and dignified linguists used to a leisurely pace of work were unlikely to be able to cope with a constant, heavy flow of traffic. So it was decided to set up an entirely new section with its own accommodation capable of expansion. This became all the more urgent as Peter Lunn, encouraged by the success of 'Conflict', was already putting forward plans for two more operations against specified Soviet cables in Vienna. It was in these circumstances that section 'Y' was born.
【总部有当时的一小分部,以“N”为象征,他们在打开外交邮袋等任务中未被发现,当机会出现时,还研究了外国外交官的电话。因此，第一个选择是让“N”负责处理“冲突”材料。但“N”公司位于总部，无法扩大业务规模。此外，员工人数不多，都是些年事已高、举止庄重的语言学家，他们习惯了悠闲的工作节奏，不太可能应付繁忙的工作。因此，它决定建立一个全新的分部，有自己的能力发展。在“冲突”取得成功的鼓舞下，彼得·伦恩已经提出了另外两项针对苏联在维也纳的特定电报的行动计划，这就更加紧迫了。正是在这种情况下，“Y”分部诞生了。】
The broad base of the section was formed by the transcribers who listened to the tapes, which were flown in three times a week from Vienna by a special RAF plane. They took down the material which was then passed on to what constituted the second tier, a group of twelve Army and Air Force officers (some retired, some seconded), who had a good knowledge of Russian. Their job was to study the conversations, extract what intelligence they contained and combine it with information obtained from previous conversations into a regular intelligence bulletin on the Soviet armed forces in Austria. The third tier was formed by Colonel Gimson and his second-in-command assisted by four secretaries. They were responsible for the general running of the section and liaison with Head Office and customer departments. An important third member of this team was Mr Newall, the administrative officer, who had the difficult task of finding fluent and reliable Russian speakers.
【这部分的基础是由听录音带的抄写员组成的，这些磁带每周由皇家空军的专机从维也纳空运来三次。他们把材料拿下来，然后交给第二级军官，由十二名陆军和空军军官组成的小组(有些是退休的，有些是借调的)，这些军官精通俄语。他们的工作是研究谈话内容，提取其中有意义的信息，并将其与以前谈话中获得的信息结合起来，制成一份关于苏联驻奥地利武装部队的定期情报公报。第三层由吉姆森上校和他的副指挥官组成，由四名秘书协助。他们负责该科的日常运作，以及与总部和客户部门的联络。这个小组的第三个重要成员是行政官员纽瓦尔先生，他面临着寻找流利且可靠的俄语使用者的艰巨任务。】
Many of these he found among the descendants of the so-called St Petersburg English. For many generations a number of English merchants had lived in Russia, especially in St Petersburg, where they traded in timber and furs and set up factories. Though often married to Russian wives, they had remained English and usually sent their children back to England to be educated. These, as a rule, were bilingual in Russian and English. After the revolution the last generation of these merchants and industrialists left Russia and settled in England.
【他在所谓的圣彼得堡英国人的后裔中发现了许多这样的人。许多代以来，许多英国商人一直生活在俄罗斯，特别是在圣彼得堡，他们在那里进行木材和毛皮贸易，并建立工厂。虽然他们的妻子通常是俄罗斯人，但他们仍然是英国人，通常把孩子送回英国接受教育。它们通常都是俄语和英语两种语言。革命之后，这些商人和实业家的最后一代离开了俄罗斯，定居在英国。】
Other 'Y' transcribers were daughters of Russian emigres, often women of noble origin, who had married Englishmen. Now, with their children mostly grown up, they were glad to have found quite unexpectedly interesting employment in which they could use their native tongue.
【还有一些“Y”的抄写员是俄国移民的女儿，她们通常出身贵族，嫁给了英国人。现在，她们的孩子大多已经长大成人，她们很高兴能找到一份意想不到的有趣的工作，可以使用她们的母语。】
A third category of transcribers was formed by ex-Polish army officers. These were mostly rather stiff, well dressed, exceedingly polite and sometimes dashing gentlemen, who spoke Russian fluently with a strong Central European accent and called each other by their military rank. They were former members of the Polish intelligence service, which during the war operated from London under SIS control, and had remained in England. These different groups of transcribers gave 'Y' a distinct flavour of its own, quite unlike that of other SIS sections. The Russians in common with the English produce a large number of eccentrics and a combination of the two nationalities is likely to bring out this characteristic in a particularly accentuated form. Anyone who had dealings with the staff of 'Y' soon became aware of this. There was plenty of Slav temperament and moodiness about and it required a great deal of tact and careful handling to keep the peace and the machine running smoothly. Tom Gimson, with his excellent manners, patience and sad charm was the right man to accomplish this. I assisted him in this task as best I could.
【第三类抄写员由前波兰军官组成。这些人大部分都很拘礼，穿着得体，非常有礼貌，有时还很时髦，他们说一口流利的俄语，带有浓重的中欧口音，根据军衔互相称呼。他们是波兰情报机构的前成员，战争期间，该机构在伦敦由SIS控制，并一直留在英国。这些不同的转录组赋予了“Y”一种独特的味道，与其他SIS部分完全不同。俄国人和英国人一样，都产生了大量的怪胎，而这两个民族的结合则更突出了这一特点。任何与“Y”员工有过来往的人很快就意识到了这一点。这里充满了斯拉夫人的性情和喜怒无常的情绪，这需要大量的耐心去处理，以保持和平和机构的平稳运行。汤姆·吉姆森，以他卓越的风度、耐心和悲凉的魅力，成为了完成这一任务的最佳人选。我竭尽全力协助他完成这项任务。】
It should not be forgotten that the work of a transcriber of telephone conversations is very exacting. Sometimes the lines are not very clear or the speech is slurred and individual words or whole parts of a sentence are difficult to make out. The passage has then to be played over and over again or somebody else has to listen and give his opinion before it begins to make sense. This requires a lot of patience and can be a heavy strain on the nerves. It is not surprising that this led sometimes to hysterics, especially among the women transcribers, if somebody in the room inadvertently made a noise just at the moment when the person trying to make out what a word was thought she had got it right and had to start all over again, or when there was a sharp difference of opinion on what the indistinguishable word was. It often took a lot of diplomacy to soothe ruffled feeling. From this point of view Tom was an ideal head of 'Y' When he spoke as equal to equal with a Polish ex-colonel, all the latter's accumulated bitterness, born of dashed hopes and ambitions and the loneliness of emigre existence, melted away. He felt himself, for a moment at least, an important man again, even though he spent his day with earphones on in a small basement room, behind a recording machine.
【应该知道，电话谈话抄录员的工作是非常严格的。有时语句不是很清楚，或者语法不清楚，单个的单词或整句话都很难听懂。然后，这段话必须一遍又一遍地播放，或者其他人必须在明白它的意义之前给出他自己的理解。这需要很大的耐心，可能会对精神造成很大的压力。这有时会有歇斯底里的情况，这并不奇怪，尤其是在女抄写员中间，如果在房间里有人无意中发出声音，就在那个人试图弄清楚她说对了什么词，而不得不从头再来的时候，或者当人们对难以区分的单词是什么有明显的意见分歧时。这通常需要很多手段来缓和紧张的情绪。从这个角度来看，汤姆是一个理想的青年领袖。当他以平起平坐的身份与一位波兰前上校谈话时，这位前上校由于希望和抱负的破灭以及流亡者生活的孤独而积累起来的所有痛苦都烟消云散了。尽管他整天都戴着耳机，呆在一间小地下室里，坐在录音机后面，但至少在那一刻，他觉得自己又成了一个重要人物。】
Nobody, not in the know, passing 2 Carlton Gardens would have guessed the skulduggery, including my own, that went on and the passions that flared up behind the stately facade of this aristocratic London town house.
【路过卡尔顿花园2号的时候，没有人会猜到其中的暗流涌动，包括我自己，在这座贵族气派的伦敦别墅庄严的外表下，所隐藏的行动。】
Much of my work consisted in liaising with the War Office and the Air Ministry. Often they were interested in specific items which they asked us to look out for in the transcribed material. If the required information was available I would write it up in a special report. In addition I was responsible for the processing of material obtained from microphone operations. This I found a rather frustrating job as, at any rate in my experience, these operations seldom produced hard intelligence. At best they were useful as an auxiliary in that they might provide information on the character, habits and contacts of the person against whom they were directed and thus might facilitate his recruitment.
【我的大部分工作是与陆军部和航空部保持联系。他们经常对特定的项目感兴趣，他们要求我们在转录的材料中寻找。如果有他们需要的资料，我会写在一份特别报告里。此外，我还负责对窃听器获得的材料进行加工。我发现这是一份相当令人头疼的工作，因为至少在我的经历中，这些行动很少产生硬情报。它们充其量是有用的辅助手段，因为它们可以提供有关被它们所针对的人的性格、习惯和联系的资料，从而可能有助于对他的策反。】
There were at that time among the senior officers in SIS, especially among those who were directly in control of 'Y' many who believed that the future of spying lay in the technical field and that in time the human element would become less and less important. Although to some extent they have been proved right I do not fully share that view. A great deal of military intelligence which in the last war could only be obtained by large numbers of agents, is now acquired by technical means such as satellites. There remain, however, important elements such as the opponent's true intentions and plans, which can only be obtained through the man who sits in the inner councils. Besides every technical innovation in the intelligence field sooner or later, and usually sooner, leads to the invention of some piece of equipment which sets it at nought. But then I may be biased in my view.
【当时在SIS的高级官员中，特别是那些管理'Y'的官员中，有许多人相信未来的间谍活动是面向技术领域，随着时间的推移，人的因素将变得越来越不重要。尽管他们在某种程度上被证明是正确的，但我并不完全同意这种观点。在上一场战争中，大量的军事情报只能由大量的特工获得，而现在则通过卫星等技术手段获得。然而，还有一些重要的情报，比如对手的真实意图和计划，这些只有通过内部委员会的成员才能获得。此外，科技领域的每一项技术创新迟早都会导致某些设备的发明，而这些设备的发明往往会让一些装备变得一文不值。当然，我的观点可能有些偏见。】
