The Honourable Schoolboy

Chronology

These are the fifth, sixth and seventh le Carré spy novels featuring George Smiley. Peter Guillam first appeared in le Carré's first book, Call for the Dead (1961). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was followed by The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People in 1979. The three novels were later published as an omnibus edition titled Smiley Versus Karla in 1982.

Plot

In 1974 George Smiley, the new chief of the secret intelligence service referred to as The Circus, continues to investigate his spy service in the aftermath of his exposure of Bill Haydon as Gerald the mole. Attempting to follow the trail of Karla, the Moscow Centre spymaster and to protect his politically-weakened spy service, Smiley launches an offensive against the Soviets. He and analysts Connie Sachs and Doc di Salis look into investigations unreasonably suppressed by the outed mole. They discover that Sam Collins's investigation of a money laundering operation in Laos could point to involvement by Karla.

Smiley recalls The Honourable Jerry Westerby, a newspaper reporter and occasional Circus operative and dispatches him to Hong Kong. Westerby coerces a banker into allowing him to photograph the documents of a trust account; the destination of the Soviet money. The papers reveal the name of the holder, Drake Ko. Investigations in Hong Kong and London identify a missing woman named Elizabeth Worthington as Ko's blonde girlfriend, Liese Worth. She had believed herself to be a British intelligence agent working with Sam Collins.

U.S. Intelligence reports that Ricardo has approached them with information about an opium cargo he was to fly to China. The Americans want to arrest Ko but first allow Smiley up to twelve weeks to pursue Circus interests. Smiley quickly realises that Tiu, Ko's second-in-command, travelled to Shanghai six weeks before Ricardo's flight to meet with Ko's brother, Nelson, a high-ranking Chinese official and Soviet mole; Tiu was to arrange their rendezvous, through which Nelson would escape China. Westerby manœuvres Lizzie to dinner and interviews her about the connection between Ricardo's flight and the Soviet embassy. Westerby surmises she knows nothing of Nelson or the Soviet connection.

Smiley decides to force Ko to react to being spied upon, thereby advancing Operation Dolphin. Westerby manipulates Lizzie Worthington into coming to dinner. She calls Tiu to the restaurant; before him, Westerby interviews her about Ricardo, the bush pilot, about the connection between Indocharter Air Transport and the Soviet embassy in Vientiane. Surprised and somewhat relieved, Westerby perceives her ignorance of the gold seam, of Nelson Ko and of the Soviet connection.

On Circus orders, Westerby finds the bush pilot-opium smuggler Charlie Marshall in Battambang, Cambodia and manages to board a flight Marshall is flying en route to Phnom Penh. Ricardo also is aboard but Westerby doesn't grasp who he is until Phnom Penh; in evading him, Ricardo shoots at Westerby. That night, Westerby takes Marshall from an opium den and interrogates him, learning that Lizzie was a heroin courier for Collins; that she directly intervened with Drake on Ricardo's behalf; that Tiu offered Marshall $5,000 for a flight, which he turned down and where, between flights, Ricardo hides.

Westerby pursues Ricardo by ferry, across the Mekong River into Thailand; Ricardo tells Westerby that Tiu, on behalf of Ko, hired Ricardo to fly opium into China and pick up a package, paying Ricardo's debts as an advance for the job; instead of completing the job, Ricardo stole the opium and the Beechcraft airplane and went into hiding. Westerby tells Ricardo that Nelson was the package. Ricardo tries to kill Westerby again, using a delayed-action hand grenade in the fuel tank of his hired car; Westerby smells a rat and safely watches the car explode.

On 30 April 1975, Westerby arrives at an American air force base in north-east Thailand and cables his report to the Circus; he also learns that the North Vietnamese Army has captured Saigon, winning and ending the Vietnam War (1945–75). The Circus orders his return to London, not via Hong Kong. Westerby takes no notice and goes to Hong Kong. At his flat he finds the corpse of Luke, his photojournalist roommate, who has been shot.

To ascertain the success of Operation Dolphin, Smiley, Guillam, and Fawn (Smiley's factotum-bodyguard), along with the CIA men Martello and Murphy, are in Hong Kong to capture Nelson Ko. Smiley knows that Nelson will escape China (as Drake did in 1951) on a fishing fleet junk, going to the southernmost island of Po Toi.

On the run, and spurred on by schoolboy romanticism, Jerry Westerby remains in Hong Kong to rescue Lizzie Worthington (he takes her from a cocktail party) and to protect Nelson from capture by the Circus, while the CIA spies on Drake. They go to her apartment; Smiley enters unannounced and Westerby, expecting either Drake or Tiu, assaults him, before realizing it is his boss. In turn, Fawn manhandles Jerry. Smiley orders Fawn and Guillam to put Westerby aboard a flight to London but Westerby escapes, gets Lizzie and they take a boat to Po Toi. There, she shows him the places special to Drake, helping Westerby to determine where Nelson will land from China. After arranging a next-night rendezvous with Westerby, Lizzie returns to Hong Kong.

That night on Po Toi island, Westerby finds Drake and Tiu at the beach, awaiting Nelson. After disarming and disabling Tiu, Westerby tells Drake that he wants Lizzie for himself, in exchange for saving Nelson from the British and the Americans. Drake is sceptical and hesitates. Yet just as Nelson lands, American helicopters appear and load Nelson on a helicopter. As the helicopters pull away, Westerby is shot and killed by Fawn. The CIA, not the British, detain and interrogate Nelson; his interrogators do not include di Salis and Sachs. The success of Operation Dolphin yields top Circus jobs for Enderby and Collins, who becomes (temporary) Chief of the Circus. Smiley and Connie Sachs are retired with pensions and Peter Guillam is sent to head the scalphunters in Brixton.

Circus jargon

The characters' jargon establishes the fictional authenticity of the espionage portrayed in The Honourable Schoolboy; examples of John le Carré's tradecraft language are:

Characters

The Circus

The Steering Committee (authorising further operations after the Ko bank account papers are obtained)

Other characters

Adaptations

Jonathan Powell, producer of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), said the BBC considered producing The Honourable Schoolboy but a production in South East Asia was considered prohibitively expensive and therefore the BBC instead adapted the third novel of the Karla Trilogy Smiley's People (1979) which was transmitted in 1982. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, casting Joss Ackland in the minor role of Jerry Westerby was logical, if the original intent was retaining him as the protagonist of a television adaptation of The Honourable Schoolboy novel.

In 1983 the BBC adapted The Honourable Schoolboy to radio. Martin Jarvis played Jerry Westerby and Peter Vaughan played George Smiley. A subsequent BBC radio adaptation, first broadcast in 2010 in the Classic Serial slot, featured Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley and Hugh Bonneville as Jerry Westerby, as part of Radio 4's year-long project to adapt all eight Smiley novels.