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Chapter 9
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Spies, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Class Difference and Social Status
Memory and the Self
Imagination vs. Reality
War, Paranoia, and Belonging
Secrecy
Summary
Analysis
The older Stephen wonders if his younger self had finally understood who it was that called him. He remembers his reaction—frozen and unable to move. He describes the voice: it was not foreign or tramp-like, but familiar. The man asks if “Bobs” (Keith’s mother’s nickname) had sent him, and this shocks Stephen because he had previously only heard Keith’s father call her that. The older Stephen states that at that point, he did not think the man was an old tramp, but certainly a “German who was entirely English.”
Despite the familiarity of the man’s voice and the fact that he knows Stephen’s name, Stephen refuses to let go of the idea that the man is a German. In fact, that idea is so deeply engrained in his mind that it probably prevents him from realizing earlier that the man is Uncle Peter. His inability to concede the man’s “Germanness” speaks to the stubbornness of imagination and also the War’s effect of perpetuating nationalistic prejudice against Germans. Stephen has come to associate “Germanness” not with a country at all, but rather with a set of negative and alien qualities.
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The man asks for Keith’s mother, but Stephen , who can mostly just shake or nod his head in response, says she can’t come. The man then realizes that Keith’s father, “Ted,” must have found out the truth, and he groans. He then asks Stephen to tell Keith’s mother that he is sorry. Stephen just keeps nodding, unable to answer the man fully. The man finally says that there’s nothing else to say—“it’s over.”
The story slowly unfolds its truth as Frayn offers the reader clues about the man’s true identity—clues that the young Stephen still cannot or will not see. Furthermore, in his fear and confusion Stephen is frustratingly unable to speak clearly, when the man obviously desires company and answers to his questions.
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Stephen then tries to leave, but the man asks him to stay. He asks why Keith’s mother picked Stephen for this task, but Stephen can only shrug. The man comments on how Stephen and Keith were such a “nuisance” before with their spying games. The man then asks how Milly and Auntie Dee (who he only calls “Milly’s mother”) are. Stephen still can’t help thinking of the man as being German (and giving off germs), even though the man clearly knows Stephen and the other people of the Close.
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The man then starts ruminating to himself, talking about playing the “game” of war and eventually, “up there in the darkness five hundred miles from home,” finding a sudden darkness and terror within himself. He starts to cry, and describes how he’s failed those who trusted in him, and is now an outcast. He says the only thing that keeps him sane now is keeping track of the trains. He also tells Stephen that “It was always her. From the very beginning.” The man then hands Stephen a piece of silk to give to Keith’s mother, and he tells Stephen to tell her, “forever.” Stephen takes the silk and runs out.
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Stephen keeps the piece of silk, which is a pale green map of Germany (“his homeland,” Stephen thinks), with him all the next day, trying to figure out how to get it to Keith’s mother and tell her the word “forever.” In hopes of meeting her, after school Stephen goes to the lookout and finds that Barbara has made it tidy and changed the sign from "Privet" to "Private." At first he is worried that Keith will see this, but then he thinks that Keith will never come to the lookout again.
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Stephen sees Auntie Dee and Milly leaving the Haywards’ house, with Milly crying loudly. Keith’s mother follows them, but when she reaches Auntie Dee’s house the door is shut. Keith’s mother knocks, but Auntie Dee doesn’t open the door. Stephen notices that Keith’s mother is wearing another scarf around her neck today. He feels like he’ll never be able to deliver the man’s message to her.
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After dinner Stephen goes back to the lookout, and he finds Keith waiting for him, the bayonet in his hand. Stephen considers showing Keith the piece of silk as a way of avoiding his anger, but decides that he cannot. Keith, his eyes “cold,” angrily accuses Stephen of showing “her” their things. Stephen denies it, and Keith, calling Stephen “old bean,” reminds him of their oath. He then makes Stephen swear again that he didn’t reveal their secret things. Keith then opens the box and takes out the cigarette packet Barbara had brought—proof that she did see what was in the box.
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Stephen, ashamed, denies it again, but Keith smiles and pushes the bayonet against Stephen's throat. He keeps pushing it harder until it draws blood, and Stephen can feel the “germs” on the blade entering his body. Stephen starts to cry and bleeds more, and he considers that Keith is taking out his anger against his mother as well against Stephen. Stephen then realizes that Keith has learned this kind of torture from his father, and he suddenly realizes why Keith’s mother wears a scarf in the middle of the summer.
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Stephen again considers showing Keith the silk scarf in order to make everything better, but again he decides he cannot. Finally Keith removes the bayonet, and coldly mocks Stephen before turning to go. Stephen realizes that Keith “lost his nerve a fraction of a second before” Stephen lost his, and that the world has changed once more.
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Stephen goes home and tries to hide his neck wound, but his parents notice it and are horrified. As Stephen’s father cleans the wound, Stephen cries, but he doesn’t answer any of their worried questions and says nothing about what happened. His parents also ask about the missing rations, and Geoff speculates about what could have happened. Barbara then knocks on their door to ask for Stephen, but he continues crying.
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Time skips forward, and Stephen wakes up from a deep sleep. He briefly panics because he does not remember where he put the piece of silk. He then finds it under his pillow, now smeared with his blood, and decides to go out in the night to hide it. Once again he is afraid to sneak out, especially because tonight is finally the new moon, but he gets dressed and goes outside.
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Stephen decides that the only safe place to hide the scarf is beyond the tunnel. As he passes through the tunnel, something seems wrong, as if “the whole sound and shape of the world has become in some way dislocated.” Stephen makes it to the fence, and buries the scarf in the place where the croquet box had been hidden. Stephen then hears voices, and sees people coming through the tunnel and a vehicle (suggested to be an ambulance) heading towards the Barns. Stephen hides and watches, and realizes that the people are coming not for Stephen, but for the man.
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Stephen sees the men searching about with flashlights, and sees a stopped train on the tracks. Part of the train’s cargo is scrap metal from a broken airplane wing. The men then return to the vehicle carried a “load,” and they speak to each other, saying they got “most of him.” One of the men looks at the burden they’re carrying and vomits at the sight. Stephen feels sure that he is responsible for this tragedy—he imagines the man running away from these authority figures, slipping on the train tracks, and being cut to pieces by a train. Finally the ambulance drives off and the stopped train starts up again. Stephen returns home, and thinks “the game’s finally over.”
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