Between Silk and Cyanide (47 page)

He studied the list as if it were a roll of honour, then emitted his second 'Good God.' He was likely to need a third very shortly as I'd prepared a major diversion for him.

Opening my briefcase, I said that the best way to judge a coder like Cucumber was to examine the mistakes he'd made while he was still at training school. I then produced every practice message Cucumber had encoded, and dumped them in front of him. 'And there's something else you should look at which may help you even more…'

I then produced a nautical log-book in Cucumber's handwriting which his instructor had retained after I'd warned him what would happen to his balls if he destroyed anything personal which might be of use to us. My briefcase was now far lighter than my conscience.

I could have saved Harvey a great deal of work by summarizing my own examination of the messages and the log-book, but this would, have negated Operation Sidetrack.

He protested that he'd need a 'bit of time' to examine them properly. Could he take them to his office and keep them for the next few days?

Ignoring Nick's nod, I said I was very sorry but we had our own security rules, and under no circumstances could documents like these be allowed to leave the code department.

I decided that Heffer's new smoke ring meant 'bloody good tactics but don't go too far', and asked Harvey if he spoke Dutch.

He nodded abruptly and I realized that I'd insulted him. Switching on the brown-melter, I suggested that he should read the log-book now and tackle the message later so that we could at least make a start at discussing 'Prijs'/'Preis'.

He accepted the bait, but said he'd prefer to examine the lot here and now if we didn't mind giving him a 'bit of time'.

Nick told him to take as long as he needed, and not to hesitate to ask any questions.

The Gurus then had a whispered conversation about Bodington (neither of them trusted him) while I thought about his admiration of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, which I shared when he spelt them properly. I wondered what masterpiece of a horror story Poe would have written if he'd witnessed SOE masturbating at its own crucifixion, and whether his prowess as a cryptographer would have earned him a place at Bletchley.

Still thinking about Poe, I felt the nudge of a theme which would one day be known as 'Peeping Tom', but dismissed it as surplus to requirements, and felt the ditty-box beckoning:

Little lady
With a long needle
Seldom threaded
Where is she headed?
Little lady
With a small box
Which she always locks
Why is she dreaded?
And why does she smile
When she orders
Cards with black borders?
[26]

Harvey's bit of time turned out to be precisely that, and I wondered how thorough he'd been. Ten seconds later he left me in no doubt. Holding up a page of notes, he announced that he'd found eight spelling mistakes in the practice messages and four in the logbook including a word which Cucumber had spelt with an 'ij' on one page and an 'ei' on another.

He then declared that unless there was something he'd overlooked there couldn't be much doubt that 'Prijs'/'Preis' was no more than a mistake, and that Cucumber was an even worse speller than he was.

There were in fact ten mistakes in the practice messages and six in the log-book, but it had taken me a lot longer than thirty minutes to find them and his concentration was to be envied.

Without the slightest warning or change of expression he asked if I had any reason to suspect that Kale and Cucumber had been caught, or that any other Dutch agents were blown.

Making my last effort to bite back the truth, I heard myself telling him I'd found it impossible to reach any reliable conclusions about Kale and Cucumber from the Germanicized spelling of 'Preis', and that there was little else in their traffic to go on. As for the other agents, their security checks could be tortured out of them and weren't reliable anyway, which was why we were introducing silk codes which could be destroyed after every message, plus security checks which—Nick interrupted what had begun to sound like patter.

'I think our friend's got the point,' he interjected.

Our friend agreed that he had, and asked a few nebulous questions which I answered in kind.

He then said he'd absorbed as much as he could for one session, and thanked me for 'all the stuff I'd prepared for him.'

I assured him that I'd help him in any way I could.

He shook my hand before I could dry it, though he was probably used to slippery customers. He looked back at me apologetically as he reached the door. 'I'd better warn you. I'll be coming back very shortly.'

So, I hoped, would my self-respect.

A few days after the meeting Nick was made a member of the Executive Council, with the rank of brigadier. He was the first director of Signals to acquire Cabinet status.

I didn't hear from Harvey again.

Giskes peaked in July.

Like all skilled fiction-writers from Graham Greene (whom SOE tried to head-hunt) to chancellors of the Exchequer, he had the knack of keeping his readers in suspense till the last chapter, and his handling of Jambroes and Kale was an example of his art.

Both were commanders-in-chief of the Dutch Secret Army. The former had agreed to return in November '42 after months of procrastination, but had been 'killed in a street fight' on the day he was ready to leave. The latter had been appointed his successor, and from February onwards London had been urging him to return. But his prevarications had been on a par with his predecessor's, and N section had finally lost patience with him.

He was informed on 15 June that he must return in July, and that details of his escape route would be sent to him via his operator, Broadbean.

Kale received his instructions a week later, and they must have taken his breath away, if Giskes hadn't already done so. He was to make his way to Paris, where his escort would introduce him to a group of French agents who would guide him across the French and Belgian escape lines until he reached the Swiss frontier, and as soon as he'd crossed it London's contacts would do the rest.

This was the first time that SOE's escape lines had been put at the disposal of the Dutch, an achievement for which Giskes deserved an iron cross with N section nailed to it.

Forty-eight hours later London received Kale's reply. He accepted the plan in principle but continued to maintain that his commitments to the Secret Army prevented him from leaving himself, and urged N section to allow Nicolas de Wilde, his second in command, to use the escape lines in his stead. He was also anxious for an important contact named Anton to be smuggled out of Holland as he had information which would be a great help to the government-in-exile is well as to the British.

In a rare display of security-mindedness N section insisted in knowng more about Anton before allowing him to use the escape lines, and continued to insist that Kale must report in person; in the first week in July he finally agreed.

I offered to wager Heffer a box of cigars against an early book on Thimbles which his wife coveted (a pricey item, but 84 wouldn't miss it) that Kale would find a last-minute excuse for staying in Holland. but the Guru wasn't in a betting mood.

On 9 July Kale sent a message via Broccoli suggesting that it would be much quicker if he made the journey in a sea-going lifeboat fitted with the latest security devices which some friends in Zeeland had put at his disposal. He added that Mangold would take command in his absence.

On 10 July N section agreed that he could travel by sea, but urged him to take every possible precaution, and to send London full details his departure.

Two days later he sent a message via Netball that he was leaving the mouth of the Schelde on the midnight high tide and would head for Broadstairs. His lifeboat was capable of doing seven knots in calm water, was painted grey and would show three flags. He estimated that it would reach Broadstairs the following afternoon.

At Gubbins's instigation planes of Fighter Command patrolled the mouth of the Schelde at high tide, and their controller reported that although visibility was excellent no craft of any kind had been spotted. Reconnaissance continued throughout the day and naval patrols were called in but there was still no sign of a sea-going lifeboat.

On 15 July Mangold sent a message via Netball that Kale had left mouth of the river at high tide on the night of the 14th/15th. Fighter Command again sent out patrols but were unable to find any trace of the lifeboat.

On the 17th all searches for Kale were abandoned.

On 18 July Netball sent a message which was the first of its kind to pass through the code room. I was convinced it was personal from him to me.

The message stated that Mangold had heard nothing from London and was anxious to know if Kale had arrived safely, a persuasive enough text.

But Giskes had made one of his rare mistakes: the message was only eighty letters long.

I'd spent two and a half hours briefing Netball and knew the eyes nose and broken teeth of his coding. He would never send a message with less than 150 letters in it unless he were trying to tell London he was caught.

I'd taken particular care with him because he was to carry a six months' supply of poems to distribute to other agents, and because he was dropping to a highly suspect reception committee organized by Cucumber.

Convinced that he was going to be caught, I'd used him as a messenger boy to persuade Giskes that London had no immediate intentions of changing the poem-code.

I regarded his eighty letters as an SOS which he knew I'd pick up. He'd also expect me to realize that Mangold had also been caught. I took out my report on Netball's briefing and hurried in to Nick with it.

Heffer was present, and they stopped their conversation as soon as I entered, which I tried to interpret as a compliment. I showed them Netball's message but they'd already seen it and found nothing wrong with it.

I then handed them my report.

They studied it at length, and each other for even longer, and something passed between them which was a generation away from me. They agreed that it was an extraordinary lapse on Netball's part and might well have the significance I attached to it, but it would need careful consideration.

I suggested that we should respond to Kale's message normally and ask N section to point out his mistake to him.

They again exchanged looks.

After a long pause Nick telephoned Bingham and asked him to remind Netball at his next sked never to send less than 150 letters.

I made a final effort to stress that this wasn't a lapse on Netball's part but a brilliant way of warning us that he was caught, and suggested that Harvey should be informed of it.

Reddening, Nick put my report in his briefcase, and repeated that he'd discuss it with Gubbins.

Just before Heffer and I went our occasionally separate ways, I asked him what he thought the outcome of their discussion would be.

'I suspect you'll have a meeting with Gubbins.' As usual, he was right.

In many ways mortal, Gubbins was unable to conceal his intense fatigue, but a single glance from him was still the equivalent of a brain-scan, and he subjected me to an exceptionally long one. I sensed that I was going to be addressed as Marks and not Leo, and glanced at Nick to guess how much support I could expect. He as sitting motionless, as if breathing through his ears.

'Now then. Marks…' Speaking at a rate of nots (thinking in puns helped to lessen his impact), he said that Netball's eighty-letter message was disturbing but couldn't be regarded as conclusive proof to he was caught as there was another factor that could account for it. '… and it's one that you constantly overlook…'

He then pointed out that no matter how carefully I briefed agents, and he had no doubt that I did, they were under so much pressure in the field that they were likely to forget every word that I'd said to them, especially when they had to transmit urgent messages, and that Netball's unusual mistake had probably been caused by exceptional tension.

'Sir, that's about as likely as Giskes offering to return Kale to England on the back of a whale.'

Gubbins brusquely informed me that my understanding of agents was strictly limited to teaching them codes, and Netball was a case in point. I expected him to behave in the field as he did in the briefing room, a mistake which had caused me to overlook a vital question: If Netball were blown, why had he been allowed to send only eighty letters? If my theories about Giskes were right, the Germans knew our security rules even better than we did. That being said, I was right to have brought the message to Nick's attention but on no account must I bring it to Harvey's. It was his job to establish facts and he mustn't be sidetracked by persuasive conjectures.

'… is that clear?'

'Absolutely, sir.'

It was even clearer that there was something behind all this and that I was the one being sidetracked.

He then asked how many silk codes would be available by the beginning of August.

Four hundred WOKs and three hundred LOPs, sir.' He disliked the word LOPs, and I hastily amended it to letter one-time pads.

'That may not be enough.' Glancing at Nick, he warned me to expect demands for the new codes from 'unexpected quarters', and urged me to concentrate on increasing production.

With a sudden twinkle, for which I'd have forgiven him anything except living, he asked if I were still having problems finding suitable women.

I assured him that the new intake had doubled, but we were always on the lookout for promising talent. I didn't add that his secretary, Margaret Jackson, had everything we sought for in a woman except availability.

After repeating his warning not to sidetrack Harvey, he gave me his customary nod of dismissal, but added a rider as I stood up to go. 'You're doing a good job, Leo. But you'd do a damn sight better one if you'd leave some things to other people…'