by David Boyle
“Your time in Berlin. You were not working then as a journalist, were you?”
“No,” said Xanthe.
“Yet you are one now? Is that right?”
“I am.”
“It is just that your accent is, how do they say it – mid-Atlantic? You have evidently spent time also in England.”
Xanthe was clutching the chair in front of her. Where was this going?
“I do not, of course, claim you are any more than you seem. Only, when I see you again, I will know for definite. I have specific orders to check on the past affiliations of American journalists and, believe me, I will check on you.”
Xanthe glanced nervously at Betty, who stared straight ahead. She appeared to have escaped, for now.
“And one other thing, before I forget,” said Jurgen with a piercing stare. “I believe you have recently given birth. I see by your eyes that I have guessed correctly.”
Xanthe looked down. She could not glance at either her questioner or her friend.
“It is true, is it not?”
She nodded. She knew what she would have to say and she did not want to at all.
“Then may I ask who is looking after your baby? And why you came here so soon on a journalistic escapade?”
Xanthe looked up, clearly aware of the lie she must tell.
“Because the baby died and I needed the job to get away from the memory. There. Now you know.”
The tears which flowed now were quite genuine. Jurgen stared uncomfortably, unsure how to reply.
“My sympathies, Miss Johnson – or should I give your married name? You are married, I assume?”
“Jurgen! Can’t you see you’ve asked enough questions! Leave her alone, can’t you?” Betty was fierce in her defence.
“Nonetheless, and I address this to Miss Shirley, Mrs Shirley – I will check these stories. I will check. Do not underestimate me.”
“C’mon, Jurgen. We don’t underestimate you. You made your point, ok?”
Jurgen stood tall, took a deep breath and smiled triumphantly.
“And now,” he said. “It is not often given to us the chance to tell a journalist the news, but I thought I would share the latest with you. Have you heard it? No, I apologise again for keeping you cooped up. I understand that London radio reported yesterday that their battlecruiser Hood has been sunk, early that morning, and another battleship badly damaged. It exploded in action against German surface forces off the coast of Iceland. A great naval victory, against the invincible British navy too! I wanted to tell someone.”
*
Xanthe made her way on foot across the city in the late afternoon heat. There was no swastika flying above the Acropolis, as she had been led to believe.
She had been shaking, in the hours ever since she heard Jurgen’s news. German surface forces, powerful enough to sink one of the biggest warships in the world – it could only mean one thing. Bismarck was already out; it was too late. All that effort had been for nothing. The battleship was now preying on the convoys that kept Britain alive and in the war, and two capital ships had been beaten off. There was no way the navy could equip every convoy with a fleet powerful enough to fight off an attack of that kind. It was a naval disaster all right, and all because she had been delayed.
Or was it? They did seem to have been ready for Bismarck. They had pinpointed her enough to intercept, but – by the sounds of it – they would have been forced to split the Home Fleet in two to do so. It was still her fault. If only she had not dawdled so in Aegina. And now she had missed her radio operator too.
Xanthe knew about HMS Hood because of her links to Ralph, a political appointee at the Admiralty. She knew what the ship represented. Certainly, there were ships in the Royal Navy which packed a bigger punch. But Hood was, by some way, the biggest, the most famous, possibly also one of the oldest, yet the fastest, and perhaps also the best loved. She could imagine her steaming full speed through the freezing ocean and mists off Iceland at dawn, the battle ensigns flying, black smoke pouring from her twin funnels, flashing out orders by signal lamp to her accompanying ships.
It would have been a sight to see. She almost longed to have been there herself to see it, except that – if she had – she also would have been thrown into the icy sea to a quick death from exposure and drowning.
How could the navy have allowed it?
The answer was, she realised again with a pang, because they had no idea which route Bismarck would be taking to the Atlantic, and they’d had to divide their forces. With creeping despair, she realised that she had failed. She should have provided that information and she was too late. Those drowned, frozen sailors would be forever on her conscience.
She sat on the steps of the Metropolis, the cathedral, and watched the city still resting, after her exertions of two nights before, and began to think about her other worry. Betty.
Betty had not been pleased with her after Jurgen’s speech.
“Was that true, honey? Berlin and England? I mean why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I told you I had been studying in England.”
“Yes, but Berlin? I mean, why not? Because listen, honey, if you’re something you don’t seem – if Jurgen’s right to be suspicious of you – then I may be in one hell of a fix. I mean, I really took to you. I think we took to each other. Now I can’t – I mean, I will not ask you to be straight, in case you can’t. Only I didn’t think I had to ask. I mean, really… And why didn’t you tell me about the baby – I mean, I’m a reporter dammit, I should have put two and two together, but why didn’t you say?”
Xanthe felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. Why should those in intelligence, who believed they were doing something straightforward, be expected to let everyone down – to betray. And she could not come clean now. Too much depended on it. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Betty, I…” She reached out towards her new friend. “What can I say? I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I’ve loved being in your company. And yes, I was in Berlin – and I kept quiet about it because I was called something else then. I had a different name. And look, Betty, there is a story there involving love and shame, and I will, I promise, tell it to you – in full. I just can’t right now, partly, but only partly because it is just too upsetting. I can’t expect you to trust me, yet that’s all I can do.”
She burst into tears. Betty reached into her handbag and brought out a hanky.
“I’m sorry, Betty. All I can say is I am what I seem to be. I am.”
“That’s all very well, Shirley. But I have to get out of here too. I don’t want to be collateral damage to someone else’s agenda. Now, I hope to see you at my flat later but – just for a while – I’m going to calm down and do some thinking and prepare for the broadcast.”
She walked off with dignity and one backward wave. Xanthe watched her go, sadly and guiltily. Then she set her mind on the task ahead.
She had been wondering if there might be a slim chance. What would the radio operator do if she had not shown up? What would she have done in the same position? There was only one thing she could have done – try again the same time the following night.
As she sat on the steps of the Metropolis, she could think of nothing else, continually weighing up her chances. She had to try.
*
It was just dark. There was little traffic, not just because there was so little petrol, but because the blackout was now being fully enforced – after the air raid – and driving was a dangerous business. She had followed a circuitous route to the safe house to make sure she was not being followed. She stopped outside the unassuming doorway she had been shown by the priest only three days before, and she knocked. Once.
Immediately the door opened what seemed like a crack, and she was dragged through. It was pitch dark inside, and she felt the cold, oily muzzle of a gun held to her head.
“Speak your name.” The voice was quiet and confident.
“Shirley. Snow in Ibiza.”
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br /> In an instant, the gun left her temple.
“Shirley! Terribly nice to meet you. How do you do?”
This is very English, she thought. Just like a tea party in Cambridge.
“Hi!” she said.
“My name is Billy and I’m the sparks.”
“What happened to Robin?”
“Change of plan, but worry not – I have your package. I’ve left it for you to open, though. Didn’t want to get things too muddled!”
Her eyes were getting used to the gloom. Billy looked like a slept-in counterpane, tatty and crumpled. And unshaven.
“You look dreadful,” she volunteered. “Did you walk all the way from London?”
“What did you expect? Brylcream?”
She was surprised he was defensive. Perhaps he liked her.
“Sorry, Billy. I meant it as a joke. You’re a sight for sore eyes, actually.”
Billy smiled and relaxed as he brought out Xanthe’s package.
“I was one of thirty of us, left behind for wireless ops after the troops left and the Nazis came in. You’re almost the first Brit I’ve seen since then.”
“I’m not actually British.”
“Whoopsie, sorry! Trust me to put my foot in it. Now here we are. I’m at your disposal.”
It might be best not to announce myself as an American again, thought Xanthe. It wouldn’t do for rumours of a rogue American to reach Jurgen’s ears. He would quickly put two and two together, but Billy was discreet enough not to ask.
He gave a little, rather embarrassed, bow.
“Thank you, Billy, for everything you’ve done. Now let me try and put my machine together.”
It had been less than a week since Xanthe had left home, but already the machinery before her seemed unfamiliar. She reminded herself that she knew Enigma machines, and all their various models, as well as she knew anything else in this insane world now. She put the pieces in order. Keyboard first, then the rotors, then the steckerboard, a spaghetti bolognese of wires. They needed a supply of electricity, and the source was going to have to be Billy’s battery.
It looked nothing like the real thing, of course. This was a fake Enigma. But assuming Bletchley had managed to extract the settings of the day and would, as they should have done every night at this time, broadcast them to her – then it would be an effective machine.
But hold on. The lights were not coming on. “Have you plugged it into your battery?”
“Hold your horses! Just doing it now.”
Billy put some finishing touches to the makeshift wires attached to his radio equipment.
“Bingo,” he said quietly. “Should work now. Bang on time.”
Xanthe put her finger on the X button and was delighted to see the B come up.
“Ok, it’s on – we’re on! Now, where’s that message for me?”
“Hold on, blimey you’re impatient. Five minutes still till we’re due.”
It seemed like an age. Then at 10.15 p.m., Billy suddenly swept into action and put his headphones on his head.
More waiting.
“What’s happening now?”
“I’m just waiting for our call sign. Then…” His face concentrated suddenly, and he reached for the pad.
Again, nothing.
“What’s the sign?”
“Can’t say,” said Billy. “Sorry, careless talk and all that. Wait!”
The air seemed to be filled with imaginary bleeps and dots and dashes. Billy’s hand flew across his pad. Then he took off his headphones.
“Well?”
“Well,” said Billy, tentatively. “There are three sentences for you, but I don’t understand them. ‘A bright dark moon the sky. Every joy on your infantile verandah as quiet Kenyan wildebeest has nothing to do for Sundays through May but June.’ And finally, ‘Every girl wants one.’”
“Sounds odd, doesn’t it? That’s the settings, ok. Let’s get on, shall we…?”
“No, hold on, there’s more. There’s also a message: ‘Beast now loose. Imperative know destination. Immediate.’ They must be desperate. They’ve only coded it once. I suppose they must be hoping nobody makes a connection, but even I can hazard a guess what that one’s about.”
“Well, if you do, please don’t say it,” said Xanthe warningly. “Was it broadcast from London?”
“Yes, on Radio London on the English language wavelength. They’ve been doing the same every night for the past few nights at this time.”
Xanthe was thinking as fast as she could. She felt exhausted and struggled to keep herself thinking clearly.
How was it the settings? We can’t know everything, she told herself, but these were going to be their best guess in Bletchley at the Luftwaffe Enigma settings for the day – one reason for making the signal at 11 p.m. The minutes were ticking by too. Come on, Xanthe…
“What’s the moon got to do with it,” asked Billy.
“The first sentence gives me the order of the rotors, I, II and IV, then the ring positions they need to be set in. Those are the letters in the alphabet. It isn’t a difficult code, I’m glad to say. ‘Moon the sky’ that’s the – um – thirteenth letter, so we get thirteen, twenty, nineteen. That’s not too tough.”
She clicked the rotors into their correct positions.
“The second sentence is the wiring for the so-called steckerboard. What was it again? ‘Every joy’ means we link the E and the J, ‘on your’ is the O and the Y.”
She grappled with the spider’s web of wires and plugged them in either end.
“Can you read out the rest of the sentence? Thanks, Billy.”
The pretend steckerboard was plugged and they were ready to go.
“Oh yes, the third sentence, that’s the kennegruppen code for the day – ‘Every Girl Wants One’ which means EGW.”
Xanthe was also thinking tactically. Her original purpose was to find out when Bismarck was sailing. The ship had now sailed and, judging by the tenor of the coded signal she had just received, they had now lost track of her. There had been a battle, so they had obviously known where the battleship was at one stage, but now the Hood was at the bottom of the ocean, their quarry lost somewhere in the Atlantic.
The navy must be taking other measures. They could not conceivably be relying entirely on her. But, even so, the weight of responsibility hung heavily. She must not get this wrong. Somewhere, four or five thousand miles away, forty thousand tons of naval metal was in the ocean spray, waiting for a convoy taking food or families to or from America. If she could possibly, possibly prevent their unnecessary and hideous deaths, by fire or drowning, she would do so.
But then why, in those circumstances, should Bismarck be heading anywhere in particular? That was the oddity. The purpose of her voyage was not to head anywhere, but to lurk somewhere on the convoy routes, refuelling occasionally from Nazi tankers. If the Admiralty believed she was heading somewhere, then it could only be for one reason: the Bismarck was damaged. Perhaps in the encounter with the Hood and maybe others. Perhaps later. Perhaps the navy had managed to get an aircraft carrier within striking range before they lost her. Maybe she was even leaking fuel oil across the Atlantic too. It explained the sudden urgency: Bismarck was heading for the safety of home ports, either back in Norway or in occupied France. But which one?
Still, none of this was, in a sense, her business. She just had to do what she had been trained to do – and to do what she was told.
“That’s right,” said Billy, reading her thoughts. “Ours is not to reason why…”
“Tennyson,” said Xanthe. “I once had a crossword clue about that!”
“Ours is but to do and die – that’s the next line,” said Billy.
It was black humour, given their predicament, but it was at least humour. The tension seemed to relax. They were not defined by this poky basement and the smell of long-spilt ouzo.
“Ok, twenty minutes to go,” said Billy grinning. “How’re you getting on?”
�
�I’ve got to write this signal, haven’t I?”
She sat down. She was pretty clear in her mind about what she was going to write. She started in English.
“Chief of Staff to General Jeschonnek urgent message to Luftwaffe staff, Reich Air Ministry, Berlin. Jeschonnek has godson aboard Bismarck. Please advise heading.”
Yes, that was about it. But was it too stark? Who knows – those were the lines she had been advised to try, basic, obvious and peremptory. It depended, above all else, on Nazi deference to make its mark. If an RAF air marshal of the seniority of Jeschonnek had asked for such information, and on such a flimsy excuse, it would have rung alarm bells everywhere. But, with a little luck, it would not do so in a Nazi Germany now immune to nervousness about such privileges, such immunity to questioning. And Jeschonnek – what a silly name too, thought Xanthe to herself.
The main danger was that Jeschonnek or his staff would see the message and repudiate it, but the chances were that he would only know about it when the reply had been made and, by that time, it would be too late. The signal would have been picked up in Luftwaffe code in Bletchley and the cat would be out of the bag.
Still, all she could do was her very best. She wasn’t psychic. It was one of those occasions when she must not let the best be the enemy of the good. The signal had to go, now in sixteen and a half minutes. She translated it into German, then she set and double-checked the rotors and fed it through the Enigma process:
“Jeschonnek hat Patenkind an Bord der Bismarck. Bitte informieren Sie sich auf Fahrtrichtung.”
She read and re-read it. Is that what a Luftwaffe signal would sound like? Perhaps the mistakes in naval terminology might be assumed from a Luftwaffe officer. Still, there was no way now to make sure.
“Right, then,” she said. “Just let me put it into code.”
*
First, there was the time, 2300, followed by “1tle”, to show there was just one message, then the number of characters.
Next, the starting position of the rotors, using a random “trigram” – let’s say Xanthe Rose Schneider, XRS. She put the rotors so that those letters appeared in the little holes.
