Between Silk and Cyanide (57 page)

The mush out of the way, I returned to work.

On 2 November the Executive Council wrote formally to Nick praising the code department's 'outstanding achievements', and as their approval was often synonymous with incompetence I wondered what we were were doing wrong.

Three factors may have contributed to our sudden popularity: our output of silk codes had increased by 50 per cent (due entirely to Murray); our briefing officers had learned discipline from Audrey tdthout losing their allure; and our coders were breaking 90 per cent of their indecipherables in under twelve hours, at an average of 2,000 attempts per indecipherable. We'd also begun reproducing the Free French code-book, which had arrived from Algiers (it was to be used in conjunction with letter one-time pads), but I suspected that the real reason for the council's plaudits lay elsewhere.

I then learned from Heffer that they weren't a reward but a down payment for what the council hoped we'd achieve in the most imporant operation the code department had yet taken part in: we were expected to make a major contribution to the latest battle with C.

The civil war had broken out in a new direction. Both sides were competing for the patronage of some American VIPs who'd arrived in London on a shopping expedition.

They were all senior members of OSS, which had opened a thriving branch in Grosvenor Square halfway between Baker Street and C's HQ. One reason for their visit was to investigate the relative merits of C and SOE before deciding which contender should have the privilege of sharing their business, and their head (General 'Wild Bill' Donovan) had announced his intention of inspecting the whole of the Signals directorate when he had a minute or two to spare.

The OSS had many functions (some of which we understood few of which they did) and was divided into three main branches—one specialized in the gathering of secret intelligence, and was the equivalent of C; another was known as SO and was the American counterpart of SOE; and the third specialized in research and analysis though no one seemed sure into what.

Having already co-operated with both organizations in the invasion of North Africa, the Americans distributed their favours evenly and a new joint venture with SOE was being planned for D-Day. It consisted of dropping three-man teams into France, each consisting of one American, one British and one French member who'd be wearing uniform (they were fully trained saboteurs, and uniform might save them from being shot). They were to be known as 'Jedburghs', and their function was to supervise local Resistance groups, liaise with the invading forces, and maintain wireless contact with London. But there was one major snag in the Jedburgh concept. The Americans insisted on handling all the traffic themselves at their newly built wireless station at Poundon, which was to be known as 53c. They also insisted that an American signals officer must command the station, which would use only American wireless operators.

As soon as they'd got Nick's reluctant agreement (he was in no position to argue) they made what seemed to them a sensible request. Since they were 'kind of new' to clandestine traffic, as soon as 53c opened early next year they suggested taking over the Norwegian traffic from 53a 'to help them get their hand in', and after consulting the council (those well-known experts on Signals problems). Nick agreed.

The decision to entrust Norwegian and Jedburgh traffic to a station which hadn't yet passed a single message scared the Morse out of our signalmasters and the silk out of me. But the Americans were full of surprises (a few of them welcome) and they asked Nick to advise them on the setting-up of their code room, which they wanted us to staff with our most experienced coders.

Nick was delighted to agree, and instructed me to prepare to transfer 'the best of our FANYs' to the American station.

I tried to point out that our teams of coders had been depleted by transfers abroad but he cut me short in mid-splutter, and ordered me to produce a list of suitable candidates within a week at the latest. He stressed that of all the jobs I had in hand, this was 'by far the most important'.

I didn't tell him that it was the one I felt least equipped to do.—I'd lost all confidence in my ability to choose reliable coders. I'd also begun to wonder if I'd ever possessed it.

I'd discovered a flaw in the girls' functioning which I couldn't account for and which I was determined to keep to myself until I did.

I'd learned that 90 per cent of the girls made major mistakes which were wholly out of character, that experienced coders behaved like beginners when we least expected it, and that methodical plodders, the life's blood of a code room, were just as accident-prone as coders with flair.

I hadn't realized the extent of the carelessness (consciously, that is) until Noor's message to London with eighteen letters in her transposition-key.

I'd left strict instructions with the station that, in the event of this happening, the supervisor was to notify me at once and teleprint the code-groups to London.

But the supervisor had taken no such action, and if it hadn't been for my unease about Noor I wouldn't have asked to examine the code-groups. I then discovered that she'd inserted her distress signal.

The supervisor in question whispered, 'Oh Christ.' when I pointed (her mistake, and I left it to the most successful briefing officer in history to take the matter further.

But although I'd let her off lightly in case she lost all her self-confidence, her lapse jolted me into making a complete list of every major mistake the coders had made over the past six months. It was like counting the bullet wounds in a much-loved body. They totalled twenty-three.—not half as many as I'd made myself but probably the true figure as it took no account of the mistakes I was sure they'd covered up.

I then listed all the errors which the coders in London had made during the same six months. They totalled twenty-five (Londoners had easier time concealing them as I was their next-door neighbour).

Comparing the two lists, I sensed a pattern to the lapses which I couldn't define.

I then discovered that the malfunctioning wasn't confined to the coders, and that every branch of the code department appeared to be flawed. Wrong codes had been taken to final briefings, WOK's had been incorrectly assembled, and LOPs intended for the training schools had been sent to Nick's office, where they'd languished for a week. Even Muriel had made mistakes when typing agents' code-cards, and had failed to correct them.

I again sensed a pattern to the lapses but it continued to elude me.

Determined to discover the unknown factor, and hoping its name wasn't Marks, I re-read
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
. But according to Freud, an expert in off-moments, most carelessness was unconsciously motivated and triggered by sexual frustration, and if this were true of the girls I must put my country first and end their deprivation.

In the meantime I had twenty coders to select for 53c and had so far chosen only two, and one of these I had doubts about. With less than forty-eight hours of Nick's deadline remaining, I decided to pocket my pride with my other loose change and consult Captain Henderson, the personnel officer in charge of the Signals directorate's FANYs.

I hadn't seen the attractive Canadian since she visited me with Miss Furze to debate recruitment, but I'd done my homework on her. I'd learned that her several hundred charges called her 'Mother Hen' and knew that they could safely confide in her as she had a liberal interpretation of her CO's dictum, 'FANYs shall at all times conduct themselves like ladies'. When I arrived for my appointment the passage was thronged with FANYs waiting to be counselled, and half of them were coders.

She at once asked for a progress report on two corporals at 53a who'd been promoted sergeants. As both girls were high on my list of gifted 'unreliables', her question enabled me to come to the point immediately, the hallmark of a good personnel officer.

I explained the importance of the new code room, and said that, much as I wanted both sergeants to be part of it, I was extremely concerned about their unaccountable lapses. She nodded wisely, which encouraged me to disclose the full extent of the problem and admit that it was baffling me.

She suggested that it might have something to do with periods.

Thinking she meant moon periods, I sharply reminded her that we were discussing coders and not agents.

Permitting herself a glance of disbelief, she explained that girls had 'monthly problems' which could well upset their concentration, and that many of them suffered acute discomfort a few days before their periods began.

Having no sisters except my mother, I was obliged to ask 'Mother Hen' for further and better particulars and realized from the silence which followed that I'd blown my cover as a man-about-town.

Lifting the receiver, she informed her secretary that she wanted no calls put through for the next thirty minutes.

I wondered what could possibly take her so long to explain, and awaited anxiously when she began, 'Well now, Mr Marks…' She then gave me a birds and bees description of the girls' monthly cycles, and I had the utmost difficulty in not blurting out that this was the pattern which had been eluding me.

I became even more convinced of it when she said that some girls sailed through their periods with hardly any ill-effects, but that in the majority of cases the onset of their periods made them tense, erratic and depressed, even under the best of circumstances, which SOE's most certainly weren't.

Warming to the over-heated subject, she pointed out that most of the girls had never worked before but suddenly found themselves in remote country stations where agents' lives depended on their skill, and that if their periods occurred when they were subjected to inordinate pressure it was a miracle that they were able to function at all.

I was also most concerned about how the 'monthly disturbances' affected women agents, though she understood that in most cases their periods stopped altogether when they arrived in the field.

It was my turn to nod wisely. I thanked her for confirming what I long suspected and said how much I regretted not consulting her before as it was obvious that certain measures must be taken at once

'Really, Mr Marks? I'd be interested to hear what they are.'

Once more the man-about-town, I outlined my programme for the alleviation of periods. She or someone she appointed must inform me of the relevant dates, and I would then arrange for the girls to be given tasks which wouldn't overtax them. This would apply particularly to coders engaged in blanket attacks, and to briefing officers giving agents their final exercises, when nothing less than their best would do. The sooner the information was available, the sooner we could give the Americans a model code room and ensure continuity of performance throughout the entire department.

Captain Henderson looked at me as if it were time to change my nappies, a task for which officers in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry had received no training. 'Do you realize what you're asking?'

She then explained that periods were a 'most delicate matter' which none of the girls would be willing to discuss! The relevant dates didn't appear on their files, and the subject hadn't once cropped up at any of her interviews, nor did she think it was ever likely to. The regimental doctor might know a few of the dates but he wouldn't disclose them unless instructed to do so by the head of the FANY. It was essential to respect the girls' privacy, but if I absolutely insisted, she'd arrange for me to meet the corps commander, though she'd prefer not to be a fly on the wall as it was likely to come tumbling down.

I was forced to make a guarded admission of my total bemusement.

'It's clear to me that once a month even FANYs must conduct themselves like ladies—but I just don't understand why they're so shy about discussing it.'

'Few men do, Mr Marks.' She said it so forcefully that I wondered if she were married.

'What do you suggest, Captain Henderson?'

'Recruit more girls, increase their rest periods, and send them on leave every couple of months. And above all, respect their privacy.'

I aborted a poem:

This woman in front of me
Is making a complete…

'There's one thing you could do, Captain Henderson—tell me some of the problems they bring to you.'

But mother hens of her calibre were seldom taken off-guard, and she looked at me quizzically. 'If you're trying to find out whether your name crops up, it's fair to say that it does from time to time. Sorry, Mr Marks, but that's all I'm prepared to tell you.'

She smiled apathetically and pressed the buzzer on her desk.

But she'd also pressed one in me and I was glad to be dismissed.

She'd made me realize that by the time I'd discovered the dates of the girls' periods they'd be too old to have them, and that more radical measures were called for.

I decided to tackle the problem cryptographically and made a blanket attack on the girls' forty-eight mistakes to establish a pattern. But even with the inventory in front of me, pin pointing their 'trying times' was like breaking an indecipherable with a mis-numbered key-phrase and a dozen hatted columns.

After several hours of total immersion I managed to establish that one thoroughly reliable girl made serious errors during the same four days of every month but at no other time. And that seven others who were equally dependable also made them at monthly intervals, though the dates varied by roughly a week. But in all cases the pattern was unmistakable.

I selected six of these girls for 53c, and completed the list with a mixture of plodders and supervisors whose cycles were predictable.

I barely glanced at the names before nodding his approval. I was anxious to tell him how the list had been compiled, but this was the wrong moment to discuss the intricacies of female signals. I was equally anxious to compare notes on the subject with Tiltman of Bletchley, but decided to postpone convening a national period conference until I knew what I was talking about, should that time come.