Between Silk and Cyanide (77 page)

To my astonishment, I found that I meant it.

Templer was waiting for me in my office.

'Well? What did you make of him?'

'I'm sure he'll do a good job for both sides, sir.'

'Wilson tells me you did a bloody good one yourself. He was listening in.'

I remembered Schiller's last question to me. 'He's anxious to know when he's going to be sent in.'

'Have your bumph ready in two days at the latest. He'll be back in his homeland by the end of the week.'

I dispatched the 'bumph' to X section and waited for Templer's next visit, but he suddenly stopped calling on me.

I then learned from Heffer that he was leaving SOE. According to the Guru, Montgomery had something else in mind for him and he'd soon be taking off. 'Don't try to make sense of it, this is SOE,' he said, and returned to his newspaper.

A week later I still hadn't heard from Templer and was wondering whether to call and say goodbye or to wait for the official announcement when in he walked.

I couldn't believe what I saw: he was carrying a small posy of flowers, which he presented to me with great delicacy, and I wondered what the hell he thought I was.

'These are for your mother. Tell her they're from you as they bloody well should be.' He then insisted that Muriel took them away and put them in water as they couldn't survive the whole day in my stink-hole of an office. He then settled down to the less serious business of Periwig.

'You'll be sorry to hear that your friend Schiller has met with a fatal accident—they'll have found the codes on him by now so get a move on with those dummy messages. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.' I felt the singe of his number two glare. 'I suppose you know that I'm leaving this place?' He didn't actually say stink-hole but his expression conveyed it.

'Yes, sir.'

'Of course you do!—damn stupid question. Barry is taking over, and he'll be getting in touch with you. Help him all you can. You'll find him a lot easier to deal with.'

I didn't comment.

'There are two questions I've been meaning to ask you but never got round to… But you're under no obligation to answer them, is that understood?'

I was too touched by the flowers to do anything but nod.

'The first concerns Holland. I've heard many versions about what went wrong there. I'd like to hear yours. You have my word it'll go no further.'

That was good enough for me.

I began with Ebenezer's stip-step-stapping, explained the significance of the total lack of coding mistakes and ended with Plan Giskes, but made no reference to my battles with SOE as I felt he understood.

He thanked me for making things clear to him, and then said that his other question was personal. 'But I repeat—you don't have to answer it if you don't want to—is that understood?'

I nodded.

'What made you become a cryptographer?'

I had a stock answer for this but it wasn't the moment for it. I described how I'd broken 84's code at the age of eight, and he listened with the hint of a smile while I synopsized the consequences. He then quietly informed me that all his military books had come from 84, and that he'd probably met my father. 'Short chap. Writes very quickly… a bloody good salesman.'

'That's Dad.'

'One of his oldest customers used to be a pal of mine. His name's Clarence Hatry. Don't suppose you've heard of him.?'

I hoped for Periwig's sake that his other suppositions were better founded.

I knew so much about Hatry that even in Templer's presence I could think of little else…

Hatry was a financier who'd defrauded the City of London of two million pounds, which in the early thirties was a significant achievement. Most of his vast library had come from 84, and he walked into the shop in the middle of a major slump, told Father that he knew times were difficult, and apologized for having to ask him to make an offer for his library.

Although books for which Dad had paid £1,000 would no longer fetch £100, he knew Hatry needed to raise money for his trial at the Old Bailey, and told him that he had 'a bit of good news for him'. He was able to offer him a profit on his books—'a small profit mind you, but a profit'. Despite his partner's protestations he bought Hatry's library for three times what it was worth but, being Dad, he didn't leave it at that.

When Hatry was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, he contacted the prison governor (a fellow Freemason), and Hatry was made the prison librarian. When he was finally released, he bought a well-known bookshop, used it to raise capital for his other operations, and made another million pounds…

'Yes, sir—I know a bit about Hatry.'

'He'd have done a damn good job for SOE—especially in the finance department.' He glanced at his watch, and I wondered how to say goodbye to him.

He had his own way of saying it to me. Reaching into his pocket, he took out his fountain pen and carefully laid it on the Periwig code-book. 'I caught you looking at this with more respect than you've ever shown me. Hope you'll make better use of it than I do.' I was at a loss for the words which I hoped the pen would one day write.

He allowed me a moment to recover. 'I'll say this for you, Leo—you've been a new experience—and I've had a few in my time, I can tell you that.'

I stood up when he did. 'I've enjoyed every minute of it, sir.'

His final words echoed round the room. 'Stop playing games.'

He played a few himself in the years which followed: by the mid sixties he was Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, head of the Imperial General Staff. His nickname amongst those who understood his achievements in the war against Japan, and the one he most savoured, was the 'Tiger of Malaya'.

To me he would always be Periwig.

I wrote the first draft of Peeping Tom with his fountain pen.

April's good news came first, and could hardly have been better. Hitler had committed suicide, and Tommy had escaped from Buchenwald! I knew the Führer's destination but had no idea of Tommy's until I learned from Colonel Dismore that though he'd been 'tortured beyond belief and was barely able to walk', he'd reached the American forces at Chemnitz, and was 'hell-bent' on making his way to Paris, regardless of German patrols. He was too choked to say more.

I also learned that Violette Szabo had been executed at Ravensbruck, and Noor Inayat Khan at Dachau.

Vera Atkins subsequently confirmed that neither girl had died alone. Violette had knelt down, holding hands with Lilian Roife and Denise Bloch, and been shot in the back of the head. Noor (perhaps remembering her Jakarta Tales) had also knelt down, and Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment and Eliane Plewman had crossed the bridge with her. Vera Leigh, Diana Rowden and Andree Borell had been given lethal injections at Natzweiler, and Yvonne Rudellat had been buried at Belsen.

The list of male agents who'd been executed was still coming in. So were rumours that the war was 'on its last legs', and that SOE must prepare for dismemberment. Unhappily for some of us, the latter part of this rumour had no foundation.

Although our traffic had been reduced by 80 per cent, so had the girls' vigilance, and I had to remind them that the code war hadn't ended with Hitler's death, and that until the new German supremo, Admiral Doenitz, had signed a promissory note called a peace treaty none of them must relax. The admiral knew better than to keep them waiting.

War-weary Baker Street, dispirited by the losses and aware of its mistakes, was revitalized by the details of Tommy's survival which began coming in.

Despite the torture he'd suffered at the hands of the Gestapo in Paris, he'd maintained his cover-story that he was Squadron Leader Dodkin, serial number 47685, and the Germans knew him as such when he arrived at Buchenwald. He'd escaped from the camp by convincing the German officer in charge of injecting prisoners with typhus that if he allowed him and twenty-one other prisoners to escape he'd testify on his behalf at his war-crimes trial.
[44]

He'd been injected with a harmless liquid instead of the deadly typhus, and was smuggled out of Buchenwald. He was then sent to other camps, but on 16 April escaped from a train bound for Czechoslovakia when it stopped to dispose of the 170 bodies to which his own was about to be added.

When he finally reached Chemnitz (after being captured by a German patrol, and escaping once again) he gave his American interrogators details of all the German troops and battery locations which he'd seen en route, and was disappointed that they wouldn't let him take part in the mopping-up operations.

He set out for Paris in a car driven by two friends, and although they were fired on by German patrols, with typical Tommy timing he arrived there on WE Day.

But that wasn't all he'd achieved. Whilst still in the typhus block expecting to be executed, he'd managed to smuggle three messages out of the camp. Two were farewell letters to Barbara and Dismore, the third was an official report which he'd enciphered in his Sea-horse code with his security checks correct.

The report gave details of the experiments in bacteriological warfare being carried out in Buchenwald, and stated that he and his fellow-prisoners would try to secure records of them until the arrival of airborne forces on or before the German capitulation. He asked for the message to be acknowledged by iodoform 'du moineau au lapin' and sent his love to Barbara.

The report finally reached London via the Americans, by which time he'd escaped.

On 8 May he flew back to England.

Colonel Dismore and Barbara were waiting on the runway. They'd been warned about his appearance.

A few weeks later I was writing a report for Nick when I heard the door open. Thinking it was Muriel, I didn't look up, and then became aware that she'd been silent for far too long.

An old man was watching me from the doorway. I was about to ask if he had an appointment, but realized in time that he'd never needed one.

I knew that sixteen of Tommy's friends had been suspended from hooks in the Buchenwald crematorium, and been killed by slow strangulation. They were hanging from his eyes.

'Fuck 'em,' I said.

T did my best…' His voice was a quaver.

I shook hands with him in the time-honoured way—by producing the cigar which I'd been keeping in my desk.

His smile hadn't changed, though it seemed to hurt his lips. 'Haven't smoked one for a while,' he said. 'Better keep it for the moment.' I lent him my cigar-case.

'Hope the report I sent came out easily. The light wasn't too good…'

'It was up to your usual lousy standards.'

He refused my offer of refreshments as he couldn't stay long, then asked how my parents were.

I told him they'd celebrated WE Day by going to the synagogue for the first time in twenty years, but had forgotten most of the passwords. 'It happens to the best of us.' He glanced at the pile of codes on the desk. 'Still at it, I see. Won't keep you now… just looked in to say hello… I'll probably call in one night for a chat.'

'I'll be here.'

We shook hands in silence.

I waited until his footsteps had shuffled away, and was then violently sick on behalf of mankind.

By the end of June the code department had been reduced to a skeleton staff and its head to a skeleton.

I'd made the mistake of trying to say goodbye to each girl individually, and been dismembered in the process. I'd found it impossible to thank them, and was astonished when some of them thanked me. When the question of their decorations arose I suggested to Heffer that they should all be made Dame Commanders of the British Empire.

'They'll be lucky if they get MBEs. Prepare a list but limit it to twelve.'

Before I could protest he said that honours for members of technical departments like Signals were causing SOE problems. The difficulty was that outstanding performers could hardly be given honours higher than those awarded to their superior officers, and that to save embarrassment decorations would be awarded according to rank. He added that it was just possible that one day the question of an honour for me might arise.

I assured him that in that unlikely event there'd be no problem as I'd accept no honour higher than the ones SOE gave the girls. 'Just think what that would make me. I'd be the first male Dame Commander of the British Empire.'

Although I'd have loved to enable my parents to dangle a bit of ribbon in front of the neighbours who'd sent their only child white feathers, I'd already been given the chance to shake hands with agents who'd returned from the field, and no other reward was comparable.

A month later Churchill was ousted as Prime Minister in the July elections and was replaced by Attlee. Nick (a Conservative in everything but Signals) was appalled that the man who'd ordered us to 'Set Europe Ablaze' had himself been extinguished.

Perhaps he identified with him, because he picked up a piece of paper which he'd kept on his desk for the past two months. It was a copy of a message which Eisenhower had sent to Gubbins when SFHQ in France was about to be dispersed. The message praised SOE's 'high achievements' in the battle against Germany, and included a phrase which most of us in Signals knew by heart: 'Particular credit must be due to those responsible for communications with the occupied territories.'

Glancing at the face of the man who most deserved the praise, I wondered what Nick's future would be when SOE closed down. On 5 August the Americans announced that they'd dropped an atomic bomb on Japan.

On the 9th they dropped another, and a few hours later Heffer dropped one on me.

He said that Japan was certain to surrender within the next few weeks, and that SOE would be disbanded by the end of the year. He then disclosed in confidence that Gambier-Parry (head of C's Signals) had asked Nick to find out whether I'd be prepared to work for C as soon as my present job was over.