Between Silk and Cyanide (60 page)

To my astonishment he replaced the poem and selected two more.

I realized too late that C had guided his hand to a batch of poems which I was equally reluctant for him to see.

I'd marked the poems UFA (unsuitable for agents). I used them once a fortnight to convince the girls that the Germans could reconstruct any code-poem provided they had sufficient specimens of it.

I'd composed the UFA he was reading after listening to the traitor Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) extolling the virtues of the Führer on Berlin radio:

His first few goose-steps
Were no damn use steps
And his opening Heils
Gave his mother piles
For he was still in her womb
When he began campaigning
For Lebensraum
As she felt him growing
His mum couldn't help knowing
That she was housing
A rabble-rousing
Frenetic anti-Semitic peripatetic
Not even the strongest emetic
Could dislodge
When he finally crossed the border
In physical good order
He could hardly have been littler
But grew up to be Hitler.

I'd pencilled the last verse in the margin as it had occurred as an afterthought:

Although the sperm
Which created him
Hated him
It elated him.

A bemused PITA then turned to the second UFA as if it couldn't be worse than the first, and discovered how wrong he was:

She spent her hours
Breast-feeding flowers
Fearful of rabies
From the lips of babies
Her terror of skin
And what sheltered within
Made her humour
A tumour
Malign and malignant
A figment and fragment
Of all that was stagnant
In the refuse bin
Of her unknown sin
At the end of her life
She ignored her food
And swallowed her knife.

'Good God,' whispered PITA, clearly doubting His existence.

I hastened to assure him that we didn't inflict poems marked UFA on agents.

'I'm delighted to hear it. I suppose you chant them to each other?'

He pushed the ditty-box aside as if it were SOE's future, and glanced at his watch.

Abandoning his course, I asked how many words he remembered of the UFAs he'd read.

'Piles.' he said with feeling. 'You seem to think that Hitler gave them to his mother.'

I informed him that indecipherables were the code department's haemorrhoids, and that UFAs were the best antidote we had.

'… do you mind if I explain why, sir?' I then pointed out in less technical language:

a) That the speed with which the enemy could break a poem-code depended on the number of messages they'd managed to intercept (known in the trade as 'depth').

b) That the more 'depth' they accumulated, the easier it was for them to reconstruct the words of a poem.

c) That every time an agent had to re-encode an indecipherable, he was providing them with another sample of his poem.

'… now you see where UFAs come in?'

'If you use them as ointment for haemorrhoids, there's only one place…'

I explained that to ram home the dangers of 'depth' to the girls, and to give it to them as people, I wrote a dozen transposition keys on the blackboard, all based on the same UFA, and challenged them to reconstruct the entire poem.

I added that although this extended them to their outer limits (and taught me what they were), when they found that they could reconstruct even the most unexpected phrases they worked round the clock to keep agents off the air. I added that their 90 per cent success rate had already been increased by the introduction of charts, and that the RAF wouldn't be kept waiting on D-Day for the latest reports from the field.

'I'd now like to resume your crash course —'

'Thank you—your time is up, and I've heard enough.'

He then switched off his stop-watch and accused me of wasting the best part of an hour trying to blame all SOE's calamities on the poem-code we'd inherited from C, and of giving him a lot of waffle about the precautions C hadn't thought of taking, when all he was concerned about was hard fact and not inter-departmental rivalries, which frankly sickened him.

He seemed equally nauseated by the array of silks awaiting his inspection—'I'd better look at the new codes your brigadier thinks so highly of. I see you've set them out to their best advantage.'

'Sorry! I'm not prepared to discuss them with you until I've aswered your last remarks.'

I didn't mind being addressed by him as if I were an East End barrow-boy because that's how Father's career had started, but I could no longer stomach the contempt which blazed from his corneas of which he appeared to have several.

I told him I was sorry if all he'd got out of the past hour was digs at C and waffle; I'd intended to convey to him the very hard fact that between now and D-Day scores of agents were likely to lose their silks, and would have to arrange their dropping operations in poems.

This meant that the RAF would continue to be in danger from our traffic no matter what precautions we took, and I thought he should know it.

My frankness seemed to puzzle him and I decided to explain it.

'I was hoping that absolute honesty from me might be worth a Lysander or two from you.'

Without any warning he sprang to his feet and strode to the door.

I was convinced that I'd wrecked SOE's chances, and called out to him in despair. 'PITA.'

He swung round so angrily I suspected that his Christian name was Peter, and that he wouldn't tolerate familiarity from a barrow-boy.

'What was that?'

'I was about to tell you that "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper" was a code-poem—but the agent who used it spelled pickled with two 'it's, and it took us thirty-eight thousand attempts to break his message! I thought you should know we don't give up easily!'

He clearly considered that I was more pickled than the peppers.

Backing towards the door, he gravely thanked me for my invaluable information and announced with some urgency that he had to have a pee!

'Second door on the left, sir. The chain needs a bit of a pulling.'

'So does my leg.'

He then went about his business, and I spent his loo-time (which was all too short) calling out suggestions for Brossolette's indecipherable.

He resumed his seat not perceptibly relieved, and waited for the barrow-boy to explain the contents of his stall.

Forty minutes later I was convinced that he understood as much about WOKs and LOPs as anyone I'd briefed. Although he didn't ask a single question, I could feel his interest growing when I showed him the Jedburgh code-books, which were to be used on D-Day with letter one-time pads, and which the Americans had accepted.

He seemed even more interested when I told him that we'd mounted a deception scheme called Gift-horse to persuade the enemy that WOK-traffic had been passed in poem-codes 'in the hope of wasting their bloody time.'

He still appeared to be riveted when I showed him a Gift-horsed WOK, and pointed out the indicator groups which we'd deliberately duplicated.

He then asked a question which caught me completely off-guard:

'I assume you know about the two Dutch agents who've escaped to Switzerland?'

His timing was brilliant, and I realized that I'd been handled by a master.

'Well, do you know about them or don't you?'

I admitted that I did.

'Do you accept their statements that almost the whole of the Dutch Resistance is in enemy hands, and that your codes and passwords are completely blown?'

'I haven't read their statements, sir.' It was true. Nick had read them to me, but I needed time to think.

'Marks, I'm going to cut this short…' He didn't specify which part of my anatomy he meant. 'What do you believe the position in Holland and Belgium really is?'

'A fucking disaster, sir.'

'Well?'

The honest way to answer him would be to show him my Dutch and Belgian reports but I still didn't know if I was supposed to let him see them. I knew that I was going to, and decided I'd need a cover-story to protect me from the charge of wilfully disobeying I orders.

I'd maintain that he'd asked me for a report on security checks but the bastard had so flustered me that I'd shown him the wrong documents, and he was halfway through them before I'd realized my mistake, an explanation so improbable that SOE might believe it. But I'd need pita's co-operation, and didn't know how to get it.

'Take your time, old chap. I want your considered opinion.'

His use of 'old chap' could only have come from the old chap upstairs as it was Father's way of comforting me from childhood onwards. I started considering what Dad would do if he had PITA to deal with.

He had one trick for which he was infamous. "Whenever he was ready to bid for a library he'd conceal two pieces of paper with a different offer written on each. He'd then invite the vendor to write down what he thought his library was worth while he pretended to do the same. As soon as he saw the vendor's estimate, he'd produce whichever piece of paper was closest to it, and the deal was done. I decided to adopt his technique in a worthier cause.

'I'd better show you these, sir.' I unlocked my centre drawer and produced three folders. 'These will give you an analysis of every Dutch and Belgian agent's security checks from '42 onwards…'

They were in fact my Dutch reports, and I now had to persuade PITA to insist on seeing them.

'Oh Christ, sir! I've just realized I'm not allowed to show these to anyone! SOE has some very strict rules.'

He bridled at being considered anyone. 'I suspect Brigadier Nicholls would make an exception, but we needn't trouble him. You don't have to show them to me—you can summarize them,'

'I really think it would be better if you read them, sir.'

'I'll be the judge of that. Summarize them.'

I need a cover story, you prick. If I show you something I'm not supposed to it's because I made a mistake. Mea culpa, SOE, mea maxima culpa (another Latin phrase I had good reason to know).

'I wish you would accept my judgement, sir, if only on this. It really would be better if you read at least one of them.'

'I've already told you my decision. Now kindly get on with it.'

Although I outranked him, being a civilian, I couldn't force him to read what he didn't want to, and had only one hope left. The folder I most wanted him to see 'slipped' from my fingers and fell open at page one, which was headed 'Plan Giskes' (I admitted in the first paragraph that I'd no authority to launch it).

He glanced at it perfunctorily, then stiffened slightly and picked the folder up. He read the whole of page one, then looked up at me with a glimmer of understanding. 'I must insist on reading your reports on Dutch and Belgian security checks. Shall I contact Brigadier Nicholls?'

'That won't be necessary, sir—but may I leave them with you while I go next door to help with that indecipherable?'

His abrupt nod concluded the deal.

'Would you like some coffee?'

'Black and strong, please.'

He put the folders face downwards on the desk when Muriel arrived with her tray. Staring at the selection of cream cakes she'd reserved for the occasion, he informed her that they'd help him to digest 'Mr Marks's reports on security checks.'

She knew at a glance what I'd given him to read but left without comment.

PITA picked up the folders and weighed them by the ounce. 'Come back in an hour.'

'Right, sir, but if you need me for any reason, just press that intercom.'

'I'll try to avoid it,' he said, and began sipping his coffee.

The indecipherable was waiting on Muriel's desk.

Dispossessing her, I completed two new sets of blanket attacks and dispatched them to the station and to the Norgeby House coders with instructions to the supervisors to monitor the girls' progress as the procedures would be new to them.

I made a dozen attempts myself, and by sheer luck discovered Brossolette's mistake. He'd chosen one key from the first line of his silk and the other from the third instead of using them in pairs the way they were printed. I telephoned Tommy to tell him the message was out and cancelled the blanket attacks.

The indecipherable forced me to accept that even with silks no mistake was so improbable that our agents wouldn't make it, and I began preparing a new series of blanket attacks for WOK malefactors.

I was startled when Muriel warned me that the air commodore's time was up.

I wondered if the same could be said of SOE's.

PITA was staring at my favourite patch of ceiling. The folders were tightly closed as his face. He waited until I was seated before acknowledging my return.

'How's the indecipherable?'

'The girls broke it after 800 attempts.'

He made no comment and continued staring at the ceiling. 'I have only one question,' he finally announced.

He relapsed into silence he showed no signs of breaking.

A sliver of panic began crawling up my spine. He should have had a spate of questions. One sounded ominous.

To ease the tension, I laid odds on what it was: 2-1 it was about the results of Plan Giskes, 5-1 it was about the 'Heil Hitler' call-sign, 10-1 it was about the Dutch agents who'd been allowed access to the Belgian escape lines…

But PITA had something more important on his mind: 'Where did you get those incredible cream cakes?

I saw that two had disappeared, and was spared the embarrassment of answering him when he patted his stomach and said it would be a kindness to his tailor if I withheld the information.

Showing little benevolence himself, he brusquely announced that there was nothing in the reports I'd shown him that we needed to discuss. He then patted his stomach again, and I'd have liked to help him. 'I've seldom enjoyed a better cup of coffee—visiting SOE has some advantages.'

He glanced at his watch, and stood up abruptly. 'It's time I called on Brigadier Nicholls. Perhaps you'd point me in the right direction.'

What else have I been trying to do the whole bloody morning?

'I'll take you to his office, sir.'

We walked into silence down the longest corridor I'd known.