The pressure of the two-minute intervals between turns mimicked the stress of action against U-boats at sea, and each officer would often be caught up in the fiction, no longer viewing the chalk lines and wooden models as game pieces, but as the real ships, wakes and explosions they represented. The game occupied an unusual position between reality and make-believe. No limbs or lives were lost here on the linoleum ocean. But neither was the game fully abstracted, in the way that Monopoly is based on, but distinct from, the property business. For the men who played WATU’s game, who had often
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