All the King's Men (20 page)

The message was unmistakeable, ‘We know where you live and we know your wife.’ The thought of Jeannot being subjected to Boemelburg’s surveillance frightened and infuriated Déricourt. The boundaries had begun to shrink – and his clever operation, played at the end of a very long and very loose piece of string, could with a single tug be ended. A peculiar dilemma had been created. In London he was protected by Bodington, and more distantly by Dansey. In Paris, that role was assumed by Boemelburg. London was London, this was Paris. Self-preservation dictated that his security depended upon Boemelburg’s success against the British. He would have to prove to the old Nazi that he had his best interests at heart. At worst, he was no more than a puppet held by controllers on both sides of the Channel for their own separate ends. At best, he might escape with his life.

Boemelburg and Déricourt no longer met in the empty flat near the Champs-Elysées. In future, other less senior officers would come for the Lysander material. Boemelburg insisted on a far more secure location where they could meet and where Déricourt could deliver the really important material.

For some months Déricourt had been given dispatches of mail from the PROSPER network to be sent to London on board the Lysanders – written communications between the networks and London, messages too long and detailed to be entrusted to the wireless. Drawings, photographs, lists of agents’ addresses, descriptions of sabotage plans, even letters to wives or sweethearts. Letters in minute copper-plate, sometimes typewritten on onionskin that went on for pages, sometimes no bigger than a piece of cigarette paper. Material that would provide a picture of the inner structure of the greatest network of
guerilla fighters that had ever been formed under one man. It would lead the SD to the heart of the machine – and, of course, to the date of the invasion.

Boemelburg was a creature of habit. He worked long, hard hours, rarely socialized with the rest of his colleagues, spent a weekend with his wife in Germany as regularly as possible, kept no mistress, and his movements to and from the Avenue Foch were as regular as clockwork. So it was to be expected that his meetings with Déricourt settled down into a regular pattern too.

At the appointed time Karl Braun, Boemelburg’s driver, would collect Déricourt, usually from somewhere around the Boulevard Beausejour near the Jardin du Ranelagh, and then drive him through the Bois de Boulogne to Boemelburg’s château in Neuilly. Braun would drive round to the side of the house, to a door used by tradesmen and which could not be seen by the neighbours. Déricourt, carrying the mail, would be met at the door by Boemelburg. The Frenchman was then entertained to dinner and a long evening of conversation followed.
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The next morning, the mail was passed to Kieffer who had it photographed and returned within 24 hours. Déricourt then slipped it onto the next plane back to London. It was not just PROSPER’s mail. All the networks in touch with Déricourt passed him their mail for London. This was treachery on a massive scale; Boemelburg’s appetite for intelligence was matched only by BOE/48’s ability to deliver it. In return, Boemelburg’s benevolence embraced the lives of Henri, his wife, Rémy and JuJu. They would need it.

During Déricourt’s absence in London, the seeds of denunciation had been sown in France. Henri Frager, who had never forgotten the incident when the SD had disturbed them at the schoolhouse in Tours, began to complain to Suttill that in his opinion Déricourt was untrustworthy. Suttill was at first not convinced that GILBERT
was a traitor, but as Frager persisted he began to have doubts. What really troubled him was a general lack of security in Déricourt’s operations, his over-inquisitiveness with contacts. It wasn’t much, no more than a tiny gnawing in a back tooth, but it contributed to Suttill’s general uneasiness.
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During the first week of May, Déricourt met with Suttill to discuss the details of an operation that would take Suttill back to London. A signal had recently been received requesting PROSPER’s return for an important briefing. The news had shot round the inner circle and of course raised everyone’s expectations. Everything to date clearly pointed to the fact that the invasion was at hand. The work-load had built up to an extraordinary level while the great network had expanded to cope. April’s massive increase in arms drops had already been dwarfed during the first two weeks of May. By the end of the month a total of 1006 Sten guns, 1877 incendiary bombs, 4489 grenades had been dropped. Judging from their work-load, PROSPER’s inner group was confidently predicting a June invasion, July at the latest.

Suttill, of course, had been expecting the call to London and simply took it as though it were the most logical preliminary to the invasion. The only ripple on the surface was his deep anxiety about the security of the group. Could the great network hold out until July?

The SD could not miss the signals of an impending invasion either, and when Déricourt informed Boemelburg of PROSPER’s planned return to London, the news was flashed to Berlin. On or about the 11th, Suttill purchased a return ticket to Amboise, where he rendezvoused with Déricourt and was taken to a safe-house he kept in that town.
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That night they listened to the BBC for the ‘personal message’ that signalled the operation was on for that night. Bad weather forced the RAF to cancel the flight and there was no BBC message. There was no message the following evening either. As they did their best to fill up the
time together Suttill was nervous and ill-at-ease.
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What passed between them is long beyond reach.

On Wednesday the 13th, the BBC finally came through and they set off on their bicycles for a field downriver towards Tours. Verity’s ‘Jiminy Cricket’ made a faultless approach, landed and disgorged two men. Francis Suttill climbed in, gave a thumbs-up to Déricourt and was gone. A few minutes later, Bunny Rymills’ Lysander came in to land. The double operation brought in three agents with instructions to re-establish the INVENTOR circuit and operate alongside Frager’s DONKEYMAN – Sydney Jones the organizer and liaison with Frager, Vera Leigh his courier, and Marcel Clech the radio operator. Last off the second Lysander was JuJu, now christened CLAIRE. A party of six pedalled off towards Amboise with the sound of Lysanders drifting away down the Loire, carrying PROSPER to his London rendezvous. At the station, even Déricourt was unaware of the silent group of Bony – LaFont men trailing behind them.

In Paris the following day, there was a touching reunion at a little bar in the Rue du Calisée. JuJu had telephoned her lover Besnard, ‘Voilà, I’m back. Can I see you?’ Any doubts she had about her feelings for him had been resolved in London. When finally they began to talk she completely surprised him, ‘I’ve just returned from London.’ Besnard took it in his stride and decided not to enquire. Two days later he met Déricourt who simply said to him, ‘The less you know the less you can say.’ Besnard had already come to the same conclusion. He liked Déricourt at first but as he came to know him better, he found he could not trust him. Julienne, he noticed, thought Henri was infallible.
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The decision to recall Suttill had been made at the very highest level, beneath the pavements of Westminster in the famous Cabinet War Rooms (CWR). Near where Churchill had his command post, buried under four feet of
concrete and steel, was a small conference room that was the meeting place of the London Controlling Section. In the Prime Minister’s personal headquarters the LCS, a commission of seasoned strategists and scholars, would gather and create deceptive stratagems to leave the enemy ‘puzzled as well as beaten’. Led by Colonel John Bevan, the LCS included such illuminati as Sir Ronald Wingate (deputy), Wing Commander Dennis Wheatley and Lieutenant Lady Jane Pleydell-Bouverie. Their single preoccupation during May 1943 was Operation COCKADE, a vast deception plan designed to convince the enemy the Allies would invade France in September 1943. Deception schemes were all the rage that summer and Churchill was their greatest advocate. He and the LCS were as one.

Up to nine regular members would meet round an ornately carved table, occasionally joined by representatives from MI6, MI5 and the American OSS. Dansey was a familiar face at the oak table. He had recently revealed intelligence that SOE’s PROSPER was badly penetrated and living on borrowed time. Under the bleak stare of the perpetual electric light, the LCS had decided to exploit the situation. It was at that stage that SOE’s top brass learnt of PROSPER’s situation. Subsequently, Churchill had passed the word to Lord ‘Top’ Selborne, then the Minister responsible for SOE, who passed it to Gubbins. From Gubbins it drifted down to Buckmaster; the PM wanted to see Francis Suttill – personally.

At COSSAC headquarters, a group of Army Intelligence officers were alarmed to learn of the LCS plan to exploit SOE’s patriotic armies in France. To the practical-minded officers, who would at some later date rely heavily on loyal Resistance armies in France, it seemed suicidal to abuse their patriotism for the sake of a deception plan. On 28 May, soon after Suttill’s return to London, they declared their concern:

Public opinion in all countries probably expects an attempt to be made this summer to open a
Second Front
by the invasion of France. No account has been taken in the plan … for the repercussions this operation may have on public opinion…

[They emphasized] … the repercussions in FRANCE might be such that patriots would no longer be prepared to play a part in future invasion operations.
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General Morgan was at that stage drafting the final report on COCKADE, which would explain precisely what it was expected to do. In the final planning, COCKADE had grown into a highly sophisticated scheme that was actually broken up into three main operations: COCKADE–STARKEY, meant to convince the Germans of an invasion at Pas-de-Calais; COCKADE–WADHAM, a fictitious landing by Americans at Brest Peninsula; and COCKADE–TINDALL, a fictitious landing in Norway. In his report, dated 3 June, Morgan acknowledged the Army Intelligence concern for ‘…undesirable political repercussions both in this country and abroad’ that would result from raising hopes for an invasion and then dashing them. But, at that stage time was short. ‘I recommend that this aspect
should not be allowed to influence or delay the necessary preparations
which must be put in hand now and at once.’
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The COCKADE–STARKEY fictitious D-Day was set for 7 September at Pas-de-Calais. The plan was immediately sent out to all the agencies responsible for putting it into effect.

Together, Lord Selborne and Francis Suttill rode in the back of a large black staff car down Baker Street, across Oxford Street towards Whitehall. Turning off The Mall at Horse Guards Parade they drove past the edifice of the Foreign Office to the doors of the Cabinet War Room. At
the entrance, guarded by Royal Marines in blue tunics with red tabs, they were identified and then ushered inside. After a long walk down a passage brightened by vividly painted plumbing, they were led into the reception room of a small flat. Off this was a dining room, a map room and a bedroom. Below them was the command HQ. A Marine brought them both a whisky and asked them to wait.

Churchill and ‘Top’ Selborne were very close friends and saw eye to eye on most matters of importance. It was not uncommon for Churchill to ask Top’ if he could see SOE agents before they returned to the field and it was the sort of request Baker Street was always keen to fulfil. Churchill’s entourage, on the other hand, would try and discourage Selbourne from bringing any of Gubbins’ ruffians round to the CWR because they said, ‘It got the Prime Minister over excited and he tended to take his eye off the ball.’ But on this occasion, there were no tales of derring-do to disturb his concentration.

Through a frosted-glass partition, Selborne and Suttill could see the unmistakable shape of the Prime Minister loom towards them and then recede. A moment or two later they were ushered into the Cabinet Room where Churchill sat waiting. He rose to greet them.

If there were minutes taken at the meeting they have either been lost or remain classified. Churchill’s diaries for the period were stolen some time ago and are still officially missing. There is no available record of precisely what words were used, what ideas were expounded, what visions were conjured; but when Francis Suttill emerged from the CWR he was a changed man. He had been charged with what he believed was the greatest secret of the war – the date of the invasion. Unfortunately, the news rather knocked him sideways. He was told the invasion would take place at Pas-de-Calais, on the northern coast of France, sometime during the first week of September. More than three months away.

If the full weight of the information entrusted to him
was any burden then there was no trace of it on his face when he saw Buckmaster. He spoke to no one in F Section about his conversation with the Prime Minister. Security was now his utmost priority. A debilitating fear that plagued a great many SOE agents abroad, was that Britain was just as thickly covered with German agents as France was by the SOE. And the worst nightmare, the one that gave them the coldest sweats in the early morning hours, was that the Germans had spies right in the very heart of Baker Street. Suttill was one who believed that.

Perhaps only Dansey would have appreciated the irony in that. The other wicked irony, of course, was that the secret Suttill locked away in his conscience, was a lie.

It was about this time that Brigadier Gubbins and some of his officers were ‘COCKADED’ – the term used to describe whether an individual was privy to the fact that COCKADE was a deception plan. Many people were involved in some element of COCKADE, thinking they were engaged in a training exercise or the like, but unless you were aware of the deception element of the operation, you were not ‘COCKADED’.
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