Between Silk and Cyanide (30 page)

I found myself thinking about the ageing process, an undignified business which both sides in the war were doing their best to spare us:

When your words
Become distant relatives
Who seldom visit you
When all dates are one
And all times the same
And what you put down
You can no longer pick up
Remember that you
Now helpless
Who used to be a fighter
Make fools
Feel brighter.

Another one for the ditty-box perhaps?
[16]

Keeping the best till the last like the Supersalesman that he was, Wills took me into the 'special documents' department where most of the forgeries were done, and showed me what he'd provided for the Golf team.

They were to be issued with forged Dutch, Belgian and French identity cards, frontier passes, dyes for forging German passes, rubber stamps with Swastikas on them, and everything else that would be needed to guide Jambroes through France and Belgium to the Spanish escape-line. Some of the printing had been done by Professor Newitt of the Imperial College of Science where Wills had his own office. He also had the use of a workshop in the Natural History Museum—where Julian Huxley was his technical advisor on urgent problems such as the reproduction of excreta.

Glancing at his watch, which concealed god knows what, he finally asked what he could do for the agents' code department.

I had to be careful how I answered him. I'd been warned by Joan who knew him well, that he had a propensity for taking instant dislikes to people, and that his receptivity was an excellent example of his own camouflage. She'd also told me that he used to be an art director at Elstree Studios, that he'd graduated to making films (including Song of Freedom with Paul Robeson), and that his present production at the Thatched Barn was running well over budget. To get the best out of Wills, he had to be confronted by a major challenge, and there weren't many which were new to him.

Wishing I could sing like Paul Robeson, I began the Song of the WOK by stressing that agents would resist carrying them because of the number of random street searches. The decisive factor would be the quality of the camouflage.

Clearly disappointed that he couldn't see a problem, he said that silk codes could easily be camouflaged in toothpaste tubes with special compartments, in shoelaces with soft tubes inside, and in an infinite number of conventional objects which would certainly stand up to random street searches, and might even be safe under close examination.

Having disposed of the WOK problem, he picked up two lumps of coal which were packed with high explosives and began to describe their glowing future. WOK were obviously just another job to him. Determined to raise their status, I shot some questions at him: Could code-keys be invisibly printed?—on handkerchiefs perhaps? How could agents read them?—and when they'd used them, how could they erase them? They couldn't cut them away and walk around with their handkerchiefs in tatters!

In his excitement he dropped both lumps of coal, and I said goodbye to my parents.

But they must have been defective (the coals, not my parents) because the only explosion came from Wills himself: 'Y-E-S!—we can do it.

Of course it was practical for WOKs to be invisibly printed! And of course the agents could read them. He'd invented a new invisible ink which could be detected only when exposed to infra-red lighting. All the agent needed to do was switch on a torch with infra-red discs inside it and he could read the WOK-keys without difficulty. Nor did the torches need to be camouflaged. Everyone in occupied Europe carried one to cope with the blackout.

My suggestion about handkerchiefs was good but there were other possibilities. WOKs could be invisibly printed on men's shirt-tails and pants and on women's knickers and petticoats. As for erasing each key chemically, it was a fascinating problem and would have immediate attention.

The Tiltman of camouflage now galvanized everyone within earshot at his Barnet Bletchley. WOKs could be microfilmed and carried in containers which could be hidden in various parts of the body as the navel or rectum. A matchstick could accommodate 200 WOK-keys. It would be hidden in an ordinary box of matches and agent could identify it by a tiny indentation which only he knew about. As for reading the microfilm, he was working on a small powerful microscope with detachable parts which could easily be assembled and which would be no problem to camouflage.

He then began a long technical discussion with his assistants, many of whom he'd recruited from Elstree Studios.

They rapidly lost me. Nor was I any longer necessary. I was a little disturbed about codes being concealed in the rectum, and intended to be missing when the coders of Grendon announced: 'We have received our first indecipherable due to anal interference beyond the agent's control.'

But everything else I'd heard and seen had removed my last anxiety about the future of silk codes. If Wills could devise a lavatory chain which acted as an aerial, he was capable of camouflaging anything. I might even be able to return me to Baker Street camouflaged as an adult.

I decided to leave before he had the chance.

There were only three things which SOE's agents could anticipate with confidence. That their parachutes would open, that their L-tablets would kill them, and that their messages from London would be accurately encoded.

The Signals directorate could be sure of only one thing. That any WT operator who received a message which he couldn't decipher would ask the Home Station to 'check and repeat' it at his next sked. This elementary procedure was a fundamental act of self-preservation, and as reflex to an operator of Boni's calibre as switching on his set.

His indecipherable had been transmitted to him on 15 February, and he'd acknowledged receipt of it by sending AK/R in Morse. He'd also acknowledged receipt of Bingham's new number 60, which amplified several parts of his (as he believed) cancelled text. That was twenty-four hours ago, and from his next sked onwards it was essential to play the devil's (Giskes's) advocate and assume that Boni was free until his responses proved otherwise.

On 16 February London and Boni exchanged messages. London's message (number 16) informed Boni of a change of plan. The money he'd asked for would not be delivered to him by the Golf team but by the two other agents (Tennis and Hockey), who were waiting to be dropped. The message confirmed that a stores operation would take place that night.

Boni's message (number 59) broke new ground. It contained an urgent request from Koos Vorrink (code-named Victory). Vorrink wanted the BBC to broadcast messages twice daily warning Dutchmen against a Gestapo agent named Johnny, who claimed to have arrived from London with important instructions from the Dutch government. The message ended with a short account of Mik's (Cabbage's) recruiting activities in The Hague and Leiden.

This was Boni's first chance to report that he'd received an indecipherable from London, but it wasn't necessarily significant that he didn't. He could easily have encoded his number 59 before receiving the message he couldn't decipher. He must be given the benefit of such doubt as there was.

On the 17th Boni missed a sked. He'd missed remarkably few (eight in all) since he'd begun transmitting in June of last year, but missing this one wasn't necessarily significant. Circumstances didn't always permit WT operators to be at their sets when their signal-plans demanded it, and their surest way of keeping their inflexible schedules was to be in enemy hands.

It it was now forty-eight hours since he'd received the indecipherable. He couldn't know that it was a cancelled message any more than he could know what instructions it contained, and if he didn't ask for it to be 'checked and repeated' at his next sked Plan Giskes would have to be disclosed to SOE at once.

He had a second sked on the 17th, and this one he kept.

London's 62 was transmitted to him. It asked for a detailed descripion of Johnny (the Gestapo agent) and promised that Vorrinck's request for warnings to be broadcast was being taken up immediately with the authorities concerned. The message ended with further question about new recruits.

He acknowledged receipt of the message. He then transmitted QRU, which signified that he had no traffic of his own to pass.

To me, this was the most significant message he had ever passed but SOE didn't respond well to negative inferences and I decided to wait one more sked in case he referred to the indecipherable. Perhaps it was taking the Germans longer to break than I'd thought.

On the 18th Boni transmitted his 60th message. In it he confirmed that the first batch of containers had been successfully dropped, and he was waiting for the rest, together with the agents and the florins. He also confirmed that London's messages had been received understood and passed on to Victory and Cabbage, and could send further details about Johnny. He would also send details about the new recruits.

He didn't once refer to the indecipherable, and there was even a phrase in the message which made me wonder if he were trying to tell us he was caught. It went all the way back to his days as a trainee operator.

Although it was appalling security, when Boni was at training school (spring '42) all agents were instructed to use stock phrases like 'Your message received and understood'. Boni had used this particular phrase only three times in the whole of his traffic. Was it coincidence that he was using it now? How could he (the most experienced operator in the field) say to London, 'Your messages received and understood' when he'd had one for three days which was completely indecipherable?

I now realized that his missed sked was not insignificant. Nor were the gaps in his traffic. They were examples of Giskes's timing. He'd waited until the first part of the stores operation was complete, and the containers safely in his hands, before replying to London's messages.

And with four more agents, six more containers and 10,000 florins yet to come, he had nothing to gain and invaluable time to lose if he asked the amateurs he was playing with to 'check and repeat' an indecipherable message they were clearly unaware of sending.

But his contempt for London (though justified) left me in no doubt whatever that Boni was caught.

And who else? What about Parsnip, Cabbage and Potato—and other agents whose traffic he handled?

What about Ebenezer and his gallant attempts to stip, step and stap?

What about the links these agents had with the Committee of Liberation? And the Secret Army? And Jambroes himself ? How complete was Giskes's victory? Surely to God not total?

Balanced minds must decide the next step.

'Christ,' exploded Heffer when I owned up to Plan Giskes. 'Now you've done it.'

He accompanied me to Nick's office and stood beside me while I tried to prove that Giskes was head of N section.

Nick listened to me with his eyes half closed, then glanced despairingly at Heffer, and examined the indecipherable like a coroner with putrescent corpse. A few moments later he put it in his briefcase, rose abruptly from the desk.

Ignoring me completely, he hurried to the door, addressing Heffer over his shoulder. 'See that he stays in his office. And stay there with till I get back.'

The Guru and I had the office to ourselves.

He refused to discuss Boni's traffic. His immediate concern was the harm I had done to the Signals directorate.

With a final puff of his cigarette, and probably of me, he said that Nick was about to be appointed head of Signals, that he'd spoken highly of me to CD and Gubbins, and that my unauthorized actions would reflect on his judgement in the worst possible way. They might result in Ozanne continuing in office, which would be the greatest disservice anyone could render SOE

I tried to assure him that I would take full responsibility but he shook his head. My conduct would still cast doubts on Nick's judgement of people.

And on his. He had been my greatest supporter till now.

Stubbing out his cigarette as if it were an errant coding officer, he warned me that when Gubbins returned from North Africa (he'd been away since 21 January) my unauthorized action would be reported to him. He also warned me that if there were any other irregularities I ought to own up to, now was the time to do so. It would be fatal to let Gubbins discover them for himself. Did Heffer suspect what I'd been doing with de Gaulle's secret code? I'd sometimes wondered.

Nick hurried back without saying where he'd been and proceeded to prove the Guru's prescience. My report on Plan Giskes would be shown to Gubbins when he returned in March and the General would decide what action—if any—was called for. In the meantime, under no circumstances must I discuss Plan Giskes with N section or with anyone else in SOE. If the country sections found out that their traffic had been tampered with by someone in Signals, they'd lose confidence in the whole damn lot of us. Was this clear?

'Yes Sir'. It was even clearer that he and Heffer had lost it in me.

By the end of February, SOE's bid to convince the Chiefs of Staff and other sceptics of its D-day potential had been launched with last-chance urgency.

The six Gunnersides had dropped into Norway; Passy and Tommy had landed in France; and for those who believed the collected works of Herr Giskes (otherwise known as the Dutch traffic) the Golf team had arrived safely in Holland, and were staying with their reception committee. I was still waiting to hear when Tiltman's assistant was arriving from Bletchley to discuss the production of WOKs but I now had another reason for wanting to see him. I was determined to introduce one-time pads for agents' traffic but couldn't do so without Bletchley's help.

Although Tiltman had pronounced WOKs 'an excellent system as the keys could be destroyed after every message', they had two drawbacks. They obliged agents in the field to use double-transposition, a cumbersome process in any conditions, and for security reasons every WOK message had to contain at least 100 letters, which was often far more than the agents needed to send. But one-time pads were unbreakable even by Bletchley, and if they were issued to agents their traffic would have a diplomatic level of security, which was what it deserved. They could send as few as ten letters and get off the air, and I wanted them to keep their WOKs in reserve, and have poems in their heads in case they lost their silks or couldn't get to them in time.