Between Silk and Cyanide (48 page)

'Thank you, sir.'

I stormed into Heffer's office unannounced. 'Heff,' I said at my most deferential, 'what the fuck's going on in this abattoir?'

The Guru enjoyed dealing with technical questions. 'Do I take it… that you've been slaughtered?'

I blurted out what I hadn't fully thought through, a mark of my respect for him. 'Something's going on in Holland that Gub and Nick don't want me to know about. If they can't trust me, they should bloody well start looking for a new head of Codes, and the sooner the better. I mean it, Heff.'

He pointed to a chair, and a few smoke rings later he said that I promised under the Official Secrets Act called friendship not to let him down, he'd tell me the 'sorry tale' they didn't want me to know about.

'Thanks. But I don't care any more.'

Having children of his own, he appeared not to hear this. 'C is trying to put us out of business.'

'Good luck to them,' I said, still smarting from not being trusted. 'But it's all to do with Holland.'

He shook his hand for the first time since I'd known him.

The 'sorry tale' emerged…

Towards the end of June C had informed Gubbins that they'd discovered from their own sources in Holland that eight of SOE's agents had been arrested. But being expert mixers, they hadn't left it at that! They'd sent the information to the Dutch authorities in London in the hope of shaking their already waning confidence in us.

'… but that's nothing compared to what else the bastards have done.'

They were using the information to convince the Chiefs of Staff that SOE was incapable of organizing an uprising in Holland or where else. He then explained why Kale's disappearance was the biggest bonus they could have had.

The Chiefs had been promised a chance to question Jambroes when he returned to London, but Gubbins had had to tell them that he'd been killed in a street fight just as he was leaving. They'd been waiting since November to question his successor, and Gubbins had now had tell them that Kale had also met with a 'fatal accident' at the last moment. Coming on top of C's news about the eight arrested agents, if the Chiefs had the slightest reason to suspect that the whole Dutch Resistance was in enemy hands, SOE could lose its mandate.

'… and would be the end of our role on D-Day.'

He paused to see what effect this was having.

I asked who the captured agents were.

Looking at me blandly, he professed not to know. As he was under no obligation to tell me anything, I pretended to believe him, and waited equally blandly for him to finish.

He added that no one had done more than Gubbins to secure our mandate, and that the only reason he didn't want me to disclose my anxieties to Harvey was that his report might be leaked to C, who'd pass it on to the Chiefs of Staff.

And the sooner the better.

The Guru then pointed out that Gubbins and Nick had been assessing security-mindedness for longer than I'd been born, and the question of them not trusting me didn't arise. They had great confidence in the way I ran the code department but somewhat less in the way I ran myself! They knew bloody well that I was prone to unpredictable responses, such as writing to the Ministry of Labour and felt that the less I knew about C's skulduggery, the less likely I was to send a protest to Winston Churchill. But as soon as the present crisis was over, they'd brief me fully, and until that happy day I couldn't really blame them for proceeding on a 'need to know' basis.

At this point the telephone rang. He lifted the receiver reluctantly, and a few seconds later switched over to the scrambler.

His face growing greyer by the moment—a substantial achievement—he listened for several seconds, then finally said 'Christ!' and replaced the receiver. He lifted it again immediately, and asked to be put through to Gubbins's office because he had an urgent message for Nick.

I stood up to leave but he shook his head emphatically. I was all ears—a considerable improvement—as he informed Nick that there'd been a development concerning Netball which he must know about at once.

Major Adams (the CO of 53b) had told him that Ken Howell (the chief signalmaster) had been suspicious of Netball's operating since he'd begun transmitting two weeks ago, and at the end of today's sked he'd set a trap for him.

Knowing that German wireless operators often signalled 'HH' (Heil Hitler) when they were about to sign off, he'd signalled 'HH' to Netball at the end of his sked, and Netball had replied 'HH' without a moment's hesitation. The speed of Netball's response had convinced Ken that Netball's set was being operated by a German.

Adams was anxious to apologize to Nick for Howell's unauthorized action, for which he accepted responsibility.

I could hear Nick barking questions at him but couldn't tell from Heffer's answers what he was asking, one of the Guru's outstanding accomplishments. But it was his final response which interested me most.

'Right!' he said. 'I'll make sure Marks knows, if he doesn't already,'

He replaced the receiver. 'So now you know.' he said. 'And you can go back to work.'

'Heil Howell.' I replied. And continued heiling him for the rest of the day.

But that wasn't the end of SOE's indebtedness to the single-minded sinalmaster.

Nick went to the station on the 19th to listen to Netball's next sked. He was accompanied by a civilian whom no one could identify (Heffer conjectured that 'he was a trusted colleage from Y'). Each of them carried 'split-cans' (radio sets which enabled them to listen to both ends of the transmission simultaneously).

Netball was several minutes late for his sked (not significant) and signalled 'QRU' ('I have no traffic for London'). Howell replied 'QTC' ('We have a message for you'), and proceeded to transmit it (the message warned Netball never to send less than 150 letters). Howell then signalled 'HH', and Netball immediately replied 'HH'.

'Right,' Nick was heard to say to his companion, 'that's it then.'

I asked Heffer what he thought 'that's it' meant.

'You're the cryptographer,' he said. 'You decipher it.'

But understanding my peers was yesterday's dream. The only reality I could be sure of was that Heffer had put himself at risk for me.

I visited 84 when the shop was deserted, and the next day he was able to present his wife with her book on thimbles.

Throughout July the traffic made clear (if confirmation were necessary) that Holland wasn't our only nightmare. Every country section had become a sea-going lifeboat which might not arrive. The Prosper circuit had collapsed, and there'd been no further news of Peter and Odette. And Buckmaster had developed an attitude problem.

He accepted that Prosper had been caught but was trying to persuade himself, his colleagues and me that Archambault was free. Keeping his options open, he continued to exchange messages with Archambault in the hope that he wouldn't be executed. But there were limits to what he could say, and an idea for helping him had occurred to me.

It would lend conviction to Maurice's messages if we dropped a WOK to Archambault. The Germans were unlikely to suspect that we thought he was blown if we sent him a silk with instructions in its use, and urged him to cut it away and destroy it key by key, and limit his messages to 100 letters.

We'd also give him new security checks, and explain that if he changed his indicator-groups by his secret numbers the Germans could never work them out if he'd destroyed his previous keys. Unable to find any flaws in the concept (always disturbing) I consulted Nick and Heffer.

They sympathized with my intention (always a bad sign) and agreed that the Germans were unlikely to kill Archambault if they thought we still trusted him. They also agreed that some silks were bound to be captured, and that making the Germans a present of one wouldn't affect their security. But both Gurus felt that the timing was wrong and that it would be in the interests of agents as a whole if we delayed the discovery of silks for as long as we could.

Heffer conceded that the idea would probably achieve its objective, but that in the hands of F section 'it would end by doing more harm than good'.

I didn't argue; out of deference to their experience, and because I was worried by Heffer's comment. It didn't occur to me until I'd left them that the idea could be helpful to other country sections, and might prolong the lives of captured Dutch agents.

I was about to turn back when I realized that like most amateur welfare officers I was in danger of becoming addled.

I'd given Netball a six months' supply of poems to persuade Giskes that we had no reason to doubt their security but he might ask himself why we hadn't given him silks instead. And even if the bastard concluded that they weren't available at the time (22 April) he was bound to ask himself two vital questions: What had prompted London to make such drastic changes? And was there any further point in keeping the agents alive?

It was time to think again.

Everything was eclipsed (including Giskes) by a telegram from Sweden in main-line cipher which arrived on the 15th. It was originated by Ronald Turnbull ('our man' in the Stockholm legation).

The telegram stated that German scientists at the research station Peenemünde were under orders from Hitler to devise ways of mass-producing long-range rockets so that he could carry out his threat to 'plaster London with thousands of missiles a day till it was razed to the ground'.

Turnbull added that new radio apparatus for the rockets was being researched at Bornholm (a Danish island which the Germans had sealed off), and that the scientists were under great pressure from Hitler to complete their experiments.

Unnsealing the secrets of Bornholm would be the Danish directorates responsibility, and Hollingsworth's response was immediate. On 16 July he asked me to call on him as soon as I could, and showed me a message which was to be transmitted to Duus Hansen in a few hours' time:

Can you report on activity at Peenemünde where enemy are producing and experimenting with long range rockets. It is believed that radio apparatus on Bornholm is connected with these experiments. We urgently need a description of the rockets and their emplacements, and as much information as possible about the scale of rocket and projector production at the research station. Hollingsworth then disclosed his anxieties about the Peenemünde traffic.

Most of if would be passed by Duus Hansen, and he was anxious for him to stop using his poem-code and switch to a silk, which could either be dropped to him during the August moon or sent to Sweden and infiltrated. The difficulty was that the system would be new to him. Did I think he could learn to use it from written instructions? And did I foresee any other problems?

I replied that Hansen knew as much about WT as anyone in Signals, and I was certain he'd have no difficulty understanding how to use a WOK from written instructions and, at a later state, a onetime pad. The only problems I foresaw were his security checks, which mustn't be included with his silks and would have to be delivered to him separately.

Hollingsworth assured me that a trusted courier would hand the checks to him in a coded message, and that on reflection the safest course would be to send all his codes via Sweden. Would it take long to produce them?

He had a dozen WOKs on his desk an hour later with a set of instructions which I'd done my best to keep simple. When he telephoned to tell me that he'd tested the instructions and found them 'just the job' I felt like a guided missile.

The latest developments in Holland brought me sharply back to earth. N section had ordered the Dutch agents to attack enemy installations, though the security of their WT links must at all costs be preserved. Their targets included U-boats, coal harbours and railway sidings, as well as goods trains, electrical repair shops and factories producing spare parts for night fighters.

N section also required information about the Luftwaffe divisions in Amsterdam, and urgently needed to know at what times night fighters were lined up on the tarmac at Venio and Gilze in readiness for takeoff.

The agents were quick to comply. According to a spate of messages from Ebenezer, Parsley, Catarrh, Cucumber and Co., freedom fighters had successfully attacked patrol boats, barges and railway carriages in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Delft, as well as mine-sweepers, coach-building factories and storage depots, but had suffered very few fatalties.

Other 'reliable' information continued to reach N section: Catarrh reported that the cut-out who delivered the Victory group's message was a traitor and gave a full description of him; Broadbean was arranging for two agents to be smuggled to England, and asked London to broadcast a contact phrase, 'A better world starts with yourself; and Cucumber was continuing his efforts to establish what happened to Kale and his boat.

I wasn't the only one to express concern about the missing commander.

Mangold sent a message via Netball saying that although there'd been no news of Kale, he was still hoping that his old chief was safe. Meanwhile he'd continue to take Kale's place, and to carry out his instructions.

Despite all this traffic not a single agent had made a mistake coding. Nor could I see any signs in the outgoing messages that SOE had really accepted the extent of the collapse. Perhaps the new operations were part of an SOE master plan which I'd be told about the C crisis was over. Perhaps with a capital pee…

I was about to close the books on July when I received the biggest shock of my SOE life.

Nick walked in accompanied by my former boss Dansey, who left his main-line code department without very good reasons. Mercifully unaware of what these were, I produced the special sandwiches reserved for welcome visitors, and won a short reprieve.

Nick then informed me that he and Gubbins were becoming increasingly concerned about our Middle East traffic, and had decided Dansey should go to Cairo in August to improve the efficiency of the main-line code room, and to prevent further backlogs. I was to join him in Cairo a week later to deal with the agents' traffic, and to explain the importance of WOKs and LOPs.