Between Silk and Cyanide (46 page)

I relied on the FANYs for coders, on the personnel department for WOK-makers, and on God for briefing officers. Anxious not to overload the Almighty (his blessing on LOPs was urgently required), I also relied on both the FANYs and the personnel department for Briefing Officers, whom I collected as if they were rare first editions. The ones I most coveted had to be in mint mental condition, (preferably with their bindings intact.)

But other organizations were also scouring the market for incipient code-mindedness. Bletchley and C were constantly head-hunting, had top priority and were expert scavengers. We were also up against the Foreign Office and the Signals units of the armed forces.

Since competing with the opposition by orthodox means was getting us nowhere, I contacted two of SOE's most formidable ladies, Miss Furze and Captain Henderson, to discuss alternative measures.

Miss Furze's function was to recruit female civilians for the whole of Baker Street, Captain Henderson's to supply the Signals directorate's FANYs. Although I was aware that both empresses preferred to be visited, I invited them to meet me in my office, and was amazed when they accepted.

My first step was to show them a pile of indecipherables waiting to be broken, a heap of WOKs waiting to be collated, and a long list of agents waiting to be briefed. I then asked them what they could do to strengthen our depleted workforce.

Miss Furze's expression said 'Fuck all', and Captain Henderson's confirmed it.

I the pushed the exhibits aside and waited for the worst. Miss Furze reminded me that the staff she provided 'didn't grow trees', though I allowed them to walk about looking as they did.

They came from the Ministry of Labour and National Service, which had fallen badly behind in its quota because of the huge demand for woman to replace men.

Captain Henderson added that FANY recruitment had fallen off for much the same reasons, and because of competition from the WAAF and the WRNS (the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the Women's Royal Naval Service).

They then looked at each other sympathetically, and took it in turns to emphasize that they couldn't see any prospect of the situation improving.

According them the deference due to experts, I suggested that the real reason why so few girls were coming our way was that the officials who interviewed them hadn't the slightest idea how to detect incipient code-mindedness.

Two explosions occurred in the immediate vicinity, one from anger the other from natural causes.

Thundering from all points. Miss Furze accused me of being partly responsible for the shortage of applicants.

'But what have I done?' I asked in a rare burst of genuine innocence.

'It's what you haven't done,' she snapped. Waving an umbrella at me (on all too close inspection it turned out to be a finger), she pointed out that she'd twice asked me for a written analysis of the qualities I was looking for so that she could send a copy of it to the ministry but she might just as well have saved her breath. She also pointed out that I'd rejected fifteen of the candidates she'd sent me but hadn't troubled to explain why.

Captain Henderson then joined in the indictment, stressing that I'd turned down twenty FANYs without giving her my reasons, and still hadn't listed the attributes her interviewers should look out for.

The truth was, I didn't know myself.

I was wary of saying that if a girl admitted she loved music and crossword puzzles but was hopeless at arithmetic we could usually repair the damage a maths teacher had done, and turn her into a coder. They'd simply ask new candidates, 'Do you like music and crossword puzzles and are you bad at arithmetic?' and leave it at that. Nor did I relish the tedium of explaining how to measure a potential WOK-maker's threshold of boredom. I also shirked trying to define the instinct which said, 'This girl can do it.'

I promised to deliver a summary by the end of the week.

'Which week?' Miss Furze enquired sweetly.

The empresses then departed, leaving me no closer to the thousands of young hopefuls queuing round the country for a chance to help the war effort.

Determined to get our fair share of them, I sent the Ministry of Labour an aide-memoire: 'Do not reject any girl on grounds of insanity without first offering her to SOE.'

The memo backfired.

The ministry sent a copy of it to Air Commodore Boyle (head of personnel board), who passed it to Commander Senter (head of Security), who instructed me to report to him at once.

Brandishing my memo as if it were scorching his fingers, he informed me that no one in his right mind would make any reference SOE on a sheet of notepaper headed Inter Services Research Bureau, thereby blowing Baker Street's cover! I'd commited a major breach of security.

I apologized for my terrible gaffe, and assured him that it wouldn't happen again (I'd use toilet paper next time).

That isn't all!' he thundered. He then castigated me for daring to communicate with the ministry 'without the prior knowledge and consent' of the personnel department, and warned me that I hadn't heard the last of it.

On my way out I had just enough sense not to head-hunt his secretary.

Through June and I were on the point of expiring, I came to life when Nick asked me to discuss the month's production figures with as his continued support for WOKs and LOPs was their lifeline. took me several hours to prepare them, and Muriel stayed past midnight to type them, but they were waiting on his desk when he arrived next morning.

Ten minutes later he sent for me.

I still didn't know if my gaffe had been reported to him, but nothing in his manner suggested that I was anything less than welcome.

The figures showed that we were ahead of schedule and had increased our reserves of silks by 100 a week. He said that, considering the difficulties, we were making excellent progress, and he would need to show the figures to Gubbins. He then asked if I foresaw any problems in July.

'Plenty.—and they're all to do with recruitment. We need more coders, more briefing officers, more WOK-makers…'

To my surprise, he closed his eyes the better to concentrate. 'I've an idea,' he said, as if it were a new experience.

I waited expectantly.

'SOE must instruct the ministry not to reject any girl on grounds of insanity if she's prepared to cut away and destroy Mr Marks.'

There was nothing left of me to cut away. I'd been given an object lesson in how to deal with subordinates.

Nick added that the only reason I hadn't got myself into very serious trouble was that my memo had amused Gubbins. He then said that the whole question of finding staff for the Signals directorate was now being looked into by the Executive Council, but under no circumstances must I dispatch any similar memos without consulting him first.

Wondering what mistakes I'd make next, and whether I had the resources to stay in SOE, and why I was suddenly depressed, depleted and devoid of all confidence, I returned to my desk and sought refuge in the ditty-box:

There is a strength
Beyond the one that is failing
An added length
To the time
Now run out
There is sight
In the eyes now closing
A light
Which none others can see
And it guides unbelievers
And other self-deceivers
To a place
Where they had never thought to be.
[25]

I then began describing the qualities which distinguished coders from briefing officers, and WOK-makers from the rest of mankind.

July began with the most disconcerting of all experiences: SOE behaving rationally.

I was informed by Nick that no more Dutch agents were to be sent the field for the next few months.

Heffer was present at the meeting, which suggested that I'd been told the good news first, and that Nick felt in need of support.

He added that supply drops into Holland would continue, though the RAF had cancelled their July ops. because of the losses they'd suffered in the last moon periods.

He then announced that Gubbins had ordered an internal enquiry into Dutch agents' security, and that I was to take part in it.

Better and better. So why was Heffer looking worried?

Nick disclosed that the enquiry was to be conducted by a member of the security department named Harvey, who was anxious to know about Kale's indecipherable in which 'Prijs' had been misspelt 'Preis'. He then spelled out my part in the inquiry.

I was to show Harvey how the poem-code worked, explain how indecipherables had been broken, and answer whatever questions he asked about coding procedures. But that was all that was required of me in the initial stages! Under no circumstances was I to refer to my Dutch reports, mention Plan Giskes, or disclose any of my other suspicions. Harvey must have a chance to make up his own mind about Holland without undue influence from anyone in Signals. He stressed that these instructions had come from Gubbins, and were irrevocable. He then asked if I had any questions.

'Only one, sir. Is this to be a genuine enquiry or an in-house cover-up?'

Heffer blew a number of smoke rings in my direction which I suspected were the Apache equivalent of 'You stupid little shit' but it was Nick who scalped me.

Speaking very quietly (his deadliest tomahawk), he said that if I couldn't do my job without questioning Gubbins's instructions or SOE's policies then he might have to look for someone who could. As for the enquiry, if I wasn't prepared to give Harvey a chance to make up his own mind without trying to influence him from the outset, then other arrangements would have to be made.

I didn't believe my job was seriously in jeopardy because C or Bletchley might need a new office boy, and there were one or two matters which SOE would prefer me not to discuss with them, but this wasn't the moment to put it to the test. I assured Nick that I would answer Harvey's questions as if he were a member of N section.

'Which is how you answer mine,' he said.

He then instructed me to report back to his office in two hours' time 'in a suitable frame of mind'.

The in-house enquiry took place on the bite of 11 a.m., and I arrived early carrying a bulging briefcase to show how seriously I'd prepared for it.

Harvey was already there, and I realized that I'd met him before in unfortunate circumstances.

I'd bumped into him (literally) in the security department's corridor after being blasted by my godfather. Major O'Reilly, for being the worst NDO in the history of SOE.

He shook hands as if taking my fingerprints, and said he knew , 'next to nothing about codes', and would be grateful if I'd explain the general principles before we got down to specifics at a later stage.

There were two ways of dealing with this. I could either spend an hour teaching him properly, or I could give him the simplified version which I used on FANY candidates to test their potential. Deciding on the latter, I showed him how to use his name as a key-phrase (which helped me to remember it), and explained the workings the poem-code's gearbox.

At this point the good candidates asked questions about the areas which I'd deliberately omitted, but this FANY's mind was focused elsewhere. 'Is this the only code the Dutch agents are using?'

I replied that at present it was, though they sometimes used Playfair to encode addresses, and I'd gladly show it to him but doubted if it would have much relevance to his enquiries.

He brusquely informed me that anything to do with addresses was of the utmost importance, and he'd like me to explain Playfair at a later stage. Would I now show him the Dutch agents' security checks?

He absorbed them in silence, seemed surprised at their simplicity, and asked if I had much faith in them.

'None at all except in special circumstances, which is why the whole system is being changed and silk codes introduced.'

Frowning slightly, he said he'd want to discuss the security checks in detail. 'But first I want you to tell me all you can about Kale's indecipherable message when he spelled "Prijs" in the German way, "Preis".'

I wondered whether he were setting a trap, and bumped into him again, this time verbally. 'It wasn't Kale who misspelt "Prijs". The messsage was encoded by Cucumber in his reserve poem number three.'

I could see that his surprise was genuine, and produced a copy of Cucumber's poem from my portable warehouse so that he could see it for himself. I also handed him Cucumber's code-groups, which I'd obtained from the station.

He examined them carefully, then asked how long it had taken us to break the message.

'Twelve hours.'

'How many goes did you need?'

'Five thousand, six hundred and eighty-one.'

'Good God.' He glanced at Nick and Heffer, who nodded confirmation.

'Whatever made you think of spelling "Prijs" "Preis"?' he finally asked with a hint of respect.

'It was suggested by two very bright colleagues, Mrs Denman and Mrs Brewis. They're very helpful with indecipherables.'

He made a note of their names while I caught a twinkle from Nick their favourite indecipherable.

Harvey looked up in time to spot the three of us smiling, and seemed to sense a conspiracy. A few seconds later I had nothing to smile about.

'Do you get many indecipherables?'

It was the question I'd been dreading but he'd phrased it carelessly. He should have said 'from Holland', and its omission was a godsend as it enabled me to give him a generalized answer.

'About fifteen a day. It depends on atmospheric conditions.' I wondered what they were like in Giskes's prisons.

He then asked if I considered Cucumber a careless coder.

I was about to say that no Dutch agent was allowed to be, and that this was one of Giskes's few mistakes, when Heffer puffed a warning in my direction.

Heeding it in time, I said that Cucumber had sent five indecipherables since he'd first begun operating in October '42. I then produced a list of the 4,000 attempts it had cost us to break them but didn't add that they'd all been caused by Morse-mutilated indicator-groups and not by mistakes in coding.