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About an hour later, and with no preparation, Captain Jones found himself centre stage with General Popov in front of approximately 150 officer students interpreting the address (which was not at all simple) and the follow-up questions. This lasted for about an hour following on from General Smith's half-hour briefing. At the end of it, Captain Jones was drained of mental energy, hut there was no respite. The two generals still wished to converse over coffee and biscuits. This was morning and it was going to be a long, long day.'

This excerpt could be taken from the memoirs of almost any member of the armed forces who has acted as a military interpreter What follows is an account of some of my experiences and other events that occurred during a career In the army and as a civilian in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) stretching from the mid 1950s to the mid 1990s. They all refer to interpreting Russian, but can so easily be related to the experiences of almost all military linguists, regardless of the language This is not an article about how to improve one's technique in interpreting, but aims to give the reader some idea of what it is like to act as the lips of one's senior officers.

At the outset, I should point out that, although one refers to the 'military interpreter', this does not mean that such a trade or profession exists officially in the forces. It does no. First and foremost a person in uniform is a soldier, sailor, or airman. He is trained to carry out the specific duties of his 'trade' - be it to shoot from a rifle, steer a ship or strafe a convoy. Operating as a linguist / interpreter comes second to those priority duties. However, when acting as an interpreter, one is expected to be as good as any professional civilian interpreter. After all, many situations can be tense and dangerous (consider the recent events in the former Yugoslavia) and potentially may be detrimental to our relationships with other countries. Woe betide the interpreter who makes not so much a howler, e.g. Ich bin ein Berliner, but a real mistake leading to complete and potentially fatal misunderstanding.

The Armed Forces do provide langage courses for their personnel. These cover those languages which are operationally in greatest demand. They are extremely intensive and very effective. A typical example is the Russian diploma course, which lasts 18 months. This cannot be compared with 18 months study at a university, where 'academic' years last only a few months. One and a half years in a military school means just that. The student begins lessons at 8:30am and finishes at approximately 4:30pm and is expected to do 2 to 4 hours homework in the evenings Leave is taken, but is the usual 6 weeks per annum.

Until a few years ago virtually no graduates on these courses were trained in interpreting techniques. One officer was dispatched to Berlin having just completed the Russian language course and, after three days, found himself sifting between a British and Russian general interpreting involved and complicated negotiations about border incidents Many other military interpreters have shared similar experiences. Recently practical training in interpreting has been developed and I understand now plays a larger part in the language course.

Military interpreters do not work normal hours. If necessary, they work 24 hours a day This of course, leads to fatigue and the danger of not being able to maintain the required standards However, he has to avoid the moment when one's eyes glaze over in the middle of an interpreting task and the mind shuts down it's extremely important to relax or sleep whenever possible in order to recharge batteries. I have even known some interpreters perfect the technique of the 'speed-sleep' i.e. dozing off very deeply for five minutes and then awakening fairly refreshed.

Interpreting tasks are always a challenge and working as a military interpreter can be character-building (or indeed the opposite). I recall an incident some years ago when working with three other interpreters during a five day visit of a group of Soviet Army generals to our staff college None of us had had any previous experience of note and we had all been plucked from our normal jobs, which had nothing at all to do with languages or interpreting. On day two, we found ourselves on a tour of Windsor Castle and it was the turn of a young infantry major to act as interpreter. Our own chief was a major general with a reputation for being a 'fire-eater': he spoke no Russian, but could see when someone was struggling. Our gallant major was very rusty and clearly having a hard time at the first point on the tour. As the group moved on, our genera! grabbed hold of the major and, unseen by the Russians, frog marched him round a corner He grabbed the lapels of his tunic, lifted him almost six inches off the ground and threatened him with all kinds of horrible things if he didn't sort himself out.

The effect was immediate and startling. Suddenly, we had a confident and competent interpreter who hardly put a foot wrong for the remainder of the week However, I would not necessarily encourage any reader to employ such methods in motivating their interpreters

Along with many others, I first Learned Russian in the 1950s after being conscripted into the Armed Forces. However, due to the Cold War, none of us was able to meet Soviet Russians and visit their country All this changed dramatically with Gorbachev, Perestroika and the advent of various arms control treaties and agreements to improve contacts between East and West.

In 1990 found myself joining a new unit formed by the MOD when the UK signed the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Under this Treaty, signed by the countries of NATO and the former Warsaw Pact, participating countries are able to send inspection teams into each other's territory to inspect military units and verify that each is reducing its conventional weapons In accordance with the provisions of the treaty. In addition to this, under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and because of the signing of other arms control treaties, the opportunities for taking part in exchange visits has increased tremendously. Suddenly, those of us who had lived and worked throughout the period of the Cold War were meeting our counterparts face to face, and working together to reduce the amount of military hardware and strengthen confidence between the signatory countries. Pilots who had faced each other from the cockpits of their fighter aircraft were now discussing their previous confrontations over a glass of vodka or whisky. From the Russian interpreters' point of view all this opened the doors to the exciting prospect of lots of interesting interpreting work.

The following are brief accounts of some of the experiences encountered during the years I was involved with Russian Interpreters in the field of arms control. There were many incidents, some amusing! some serious, but each one enriched the depth of our knowledge and experience.

The first concerns the position of the interpreter in an arms control inspection team. He is not merely the 'lips' of the group, but an active member of the team I recall one icy day in Germany, finding myself In the middle of a snow-covered parade square interpreting for our chief and a genera from an East European country. The general had asked to talk to us there, since there was no chance of being overheard. He then proceeded to complain that he felt we had been deceiving him. After verifying that I had heard him correctly, what followed was not only me interpreting between the two chiefs! but also playing an active part in resolving the problem.

Similarly, I remember acting as an interpreter between an RAF sergeant and a Russian colonel. It was about one in the morning when the sergeant offered the colonel a RAF 'lunch-box' containing chocolate, sandwiches and cake, etc. The Russian was offended by what he considered to be charity and whilst interpreting, I had to warn the sergeant (from the corner of my mouth) that the Russian was extremely upset and that the sergeant should do as requested no matter what. This turned out to involve standing to attention. whilst being torn off a strip Everything was eventually smoothed over and, indeed, the next morning the colonel offered an apology to the sergeant for reacting in the way he had.

I was guilty once of, perhaps, going too far in acting as an interpreter and team member. On this occasion I was working with a RAF aircrew and prior to our departure from Moscow, it was necessary to file a flight-plan and obtain information on weather conditions, etc. Having helped out in such matters on previous occasions, I continued to ask questions of the Russian official in the presence of the aircraft captain without giving the latter the opportunity to ask those questions himself. albeit, through me He became quite angry, feeling that I was doing his job for him and asked me to stand aside. However, he had to call me back into action within a minute or so when he realised the obvious - he spoke no Russian and had no moans of communicating without me

This point also came home to me after completing a task on a RAF base. One of the officers on the station made a special point of coming over to me to thank me and say what had become clear to everyone, that, 'Without you acting as our interpreter, today's events could not have been possible'"

Military interpreters on an arms control mission find themselves working non-stop for 4/5 days when the only time they are not working is when they are in bed. Even that sometimes does not work out. I remember on one occasion going to bed at 1am only to be dragged out at 2am in order to interpret for a Belorussian colonel who wished to make a statement to our team.

Conditions also play a large part. One February we found ourselves in the UraI Mountains inspecting armoured vehicles that were so deeply covered with snow that only the turrets could be seen! On another occasion during a 'cultural visit' to Stonehenge, I stood with our visitors in the open with an easterly gale blowing and with the temperature well below zero, trying to cope with interpreting the words of an extremely knowledgeable but long-winded guide. Even the Russians found it too cold and uncomfortable and I was relieved when they asked us to cut the visit short.

Invariably. interpreting tasks are extremely rewarding. One I particularly recall was helping to brief a Russian two-star airforce general to prepare him for a flight in one of our two-seater training aircraft. He was an ex-MiG 29 pilot and was excited at the prospect of piloting one of our aeroplanes First he had to strip down to his underwear in order to don RAF issue underwear and flying suit, etc. for his trip. We worked out a system of communication between the RAF pilot of the aircraft and the general, so that the general knew when he was able to take over control and when he was to hand it back again. On
their return, the general, who had not flown for five years, was gleaming with delight and could not stop talking about the experience of the low-level flight and releasing bombs on the practice ranges felt that all my hard work during the two-hour briefing prior to the flight had been well worth the effort.

During a visit to the UK by a group of Russian junior officers, the commanding officer of one of our cavalry units offered them a set of plates as mementoes of their visit. The plates depicted that unit's success over the Russians during the Crimean War. The Russians accepted the gifts with good humour and friendly banter. On another occasion, I was sharing the interpreting with a Russian officer interpreter who, unfortunately, found the Russian winter more of a problem than I did. He couldn't stand the cold, drank too much vodka too quickly and was eventually carried from the briefing room feet first, never to be seen again'. I hasten to add that, as far as I know, this was not a regular occurrence.

Acting as the 'lips' in a military environment is always a great challenge to one's ability as an interpreter, one's mental and physical stamina and one's sense of humour, but, having dealt successfully with the problems, the rewards are without equal.