‘Two values,’ Major Folkestone said tactfully, as if Billy knew the word but had simply forgotten to say it. ‘Go on – this is most interesting.’
‘Course it ain’t as easy as that, is it?’ Billy complained, scratching the side of his head with a pencil. ‘The Nazis aren’t going to send coded messages – least not important coded messages – in just a double-sub code that kids like me can crack. There’s something else what I can’t work out, sir. What I always look for, ever since I first started this at school, is the repetition thing. You know – the stuff they all think’s so brilliant at school – it’s dead easy, all you have to look for is shape. Little words – like the and and and for – and you work on those to see which is which then get the letters that way. I can’t explain it very well, but that’s what I do. Kids just do letter codes, but they don’t code sentences. I do though. That’s why they can never crack my codes,’ he added, giving a proud sigh. ‘Least not that I know of, anyway.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Major Folkestone told him excitedly, buttoning up his shirt wrong. ‘How do you code a sentence?’
‘By sticking the short words on to long words – or a bit of a word on to the next word. That sort of thing. And I think that’s what they’ve gone and done ‘ere. ‘Cept I can’t work it out ’cos I don’t know German.’
‘Can I see that?’ Major Folkestone took Billy’s exercise book and examined what the boy had written out on the pages subsequent to the decoding columns. Even with his limited knowledge of German, the major could identify portions of enough words to indicate that Billy had certainly managed to get past the first two stages of the code and was all but through the third stage.
‘You’ve done extraordinarily well, Billy,’ Major Folkestone said, standing up and going to fetch his tie and Sam Browne belt. ‘Remarkable work, young Billy. I’ll see you get mentioned in despatches.’
‘Ta,’ Billy said with his sudden brilliant smile. ‘That is, I mean – thank you, sir.’
‘Ta will do just fine, Billy.’ Major Folkestone nodded solemnly. ‘Don’t mind ta at all. Now you’re not to say anything about this, not even to Marjorie. Not until I come back to you. It’s difficult to explain why – but you must understand we’ve got a lot of bright sparks working on this thing here, and if word gets out you’re running rings round them, it’s going to come over very badly.’
‘Mum’s the word.’
‘This won’t go unnoticed, Billy, I promise you that. As I said, I’ll see you get mentioned in despatches.’
The major smiled approvingly at him, after which he tapped him lightly on the head with his swagger stick and hurried out of the room. Billy scratched the top of his head, and then gave a sudden, vast, relieved yawn as his tiredness finally and at last caught up with him.
Back in the cottage he curled up in his bed and fell fast asleep in his clothes. Marjorie tried to rouse him, but Billy firmly pronounced himself dead to the world, and fell back once again into a deep sleep.
‘I’ll send a sick note to your teacher,’ Marjorie muttered, before hurrying off to work in the main house.
Two hours later, Major Folkestone had the results for which he had been hoping on his desk. Section C, the decrypting specialists, had finished the work Billy had so enthusiastically started, and decoded the message in full.
Although Billy was never to know it, it was a vital breakthrough. The relevant message unveiled the German plan to take advantage of the wedge they had driven between the British and Belgian troops in an area between Ypres and Menin. This critical piece of information was relayed at once to British High Command, with the result that they were able to redirect two divisions to help block the developing breach that could well have proved fatal in the event of any evacuation.
Despite this reprieve, three days later the Dunkirk perimeter was finally cut off, leaving over three hundred and fifty thousand troops and possibly an even greater number of civilians isolated on an area of only a hundred square miles.
‘There wouldn’t seem to be any way out for them now, sir,’ Marjorie said to Major Folkestone as a group from his section stood surveying the updated map. ‘There’s only sand to the north and sea to the south.’
‘And Jerry has it all covered,’ Major Folkestone replied. ‘Every road in the area can be commanded by enemy artillery fire, so all he has to do is keep shooting and drive us all into the sea. It all looks pretty damn’ bleak. Particularly since on top of it all, there are goodness knows how many military vehicles and all important supplies on those beaches. We’re looking at possible heavy losses all round here.’
But since it was not the job of anyone at Eden Park to help decide strategy but just to pass on to the War Office any information they might garner that might be helpful or instructive, all everyone could do was maintain a watching brief, while working on any messages they might intercept from the enemy.
In the early hours of one morning, Kate, who was on a late shift, picked up a message that was being transmitted from behind enemy lines to a receiver somewhere in London. It was coded and so she sent it at once to Section C, who had little trouble in decrypting the information now they had successfully decoded the earlier and extremely vital message that had been passed on to them. Once she had been handed back the translated message, Kate hurried down to Major Folkestone’s office. He too was working into the early hours as everyone gave their maximum effort to try to help the rapidly deteriorating situation on the French shores.
‘I don’t think this can really be so,’ the major said after he had carefully read the message not once but three times. ‘No, I really don’t go for this at all.’
‘I’m assured it’s an absolutely correct decryption, sir,’ Kate said, standing the other side of his desk.
‘I don’t mean that, Kate,’ Major Folkestone replied. ‘Of course it’s bona fide – what I mean is I don’t believe Herr Hitler is going to allow us to escape in the hope of our making a quick and convenient peace. At least, if he is, then he’s got another think coming.’
‘But why hasn’t the enemy tested our defences, sir? They only seem to have had a go at the south-western section, and not bothered with any other areas.’
‘Maybe Herr Hitler believes fat Hermann when he says that his air force is so mighty it can simply wipe us all off the map there single-handed. If so, he hasn’t allowed for our boys. None the less, this information must be passed on immediately, and what we must concentrate on is trying to find out to whom Jerry was broadcasting.’
‘So far I understand the trace shows London definitely, and possibly a receiver somewhere in Mayfair.’
‘Hmm. Someone somewhere is operating from London, some Nazi agent.’
The next day, in response to governmental urging, an armada of little ships set sail from English ports all along the southern coast in the hope of helping transport the retreating forces from the French shore to the naval ships waiting in deeper waters. They succeeded triumphantly, helping three hundred and forty thousand British, French and Belgian soldiers.
The cost was high, since two hundred and fifty of the thousand little ships that made up the rescue force were blown up and sunk with all hands. Besides this civilian and naval loss there was the terrible cost in weapons, ammunition and vehicles that had to be abandoned, fired or blown up so they would not fall into the advancing enemy hands. At the final reckoning, on the sandy shores of northern France lay the wrecks of near one hundred thousand vehicles, from tanks to motorcycles, to armoured vehicles of every kind. Two and a half thousand artillery guns, and half a million tons of ammunition, a seemingly unsustainable loss to the outnumbered and overwhelmed British Expeditionary Force and its few allies.
‘The French garrison in Dunkirk has surrendered,’ Major Folkestone told the Nosy Parkers at his briefing on the morning of 3 June. ‘I imagine it won’t be long before the whole country follows. I also imagine it won’t be very long until Italy decides to get into bed with Germany, and if I’m right we�
��re going to be standing alone. If this is the case, then rather than be downhearted we shall not redouble our efforts to prevail – we shall increase them one hundred fold. I am equally sure I express the wishes of everyone present when I say that we will probably be better going it alone, isolated as we are from the rest of Europe, and we can only thank God from the bottom of our hearts that we are an island.’
Someone shouted a hear hear! from the back of the great hall, an affirmation that was immediately followed by a hearty three cheers. But although everyone left the hall full of determination to work and fight ever harder, they all knew full well that, as their Prime Minister had said, while Dunkirk was a splendid deliverance, wars were not won by evacuation.
‘Pretty grim, eh?’ Marjorie commented to Kate as they prepared to return to work. ‘If what Major Folkestone says is true—’
‘Which I think it is, I’m afraid,’ Kate chipped in.
‘Then if ever there’s a chance of us being invaded—’
‘This is it.’
The two young women looked at each other, putting on their bravest faces. Both of them knew that across the Channel the mighty Luftwaffe was preparing to bomb and blitz their towns and cities, paving the way for the inevitable invasion.
Sitting huddled in the lifesaving warmth of a thick blanket in the tiny cabin of one of the rescuing small craft headed back for England’s shores, a young man sat silently contemplating his escape. Cut off well behind the enemy lines in the town of St Dix which he had failed to reach in time to contact Section H as hoped, he had very little idea of what was happening ahead of him, although he could see from his hiding place the massive movement of German troops headed north-east towards the coast of France. Imagining this must be the build-up to the expected invasion, he had kept low until it seemed that all troop movements had finished.
He waited another two hours buried behind bales of straw at the top of one of the farmer’s huge barns near the road the Germans had been using to transport their soldiers, tanks and artillery; waited until the dust from the huge convoys had settled before making any move.
Unsure of where to go and quite what to do and without hope of another opportunity to make contact with his section, he reckoned that the only way home for him was also to head for the coast and try to find a breach in the enemy lines through which he might pass unnoticed. He knew it was only a slim chance; in fact as he began to walk through the countryside keeping the coast road to his right and a constant watch and ear out for any sight or sound of approaching traffic he knew his chances of making it home were all but non-existent – until he heard the sound of a motor bicycle approaching from behind.
Diving into the ditch and drawing his service revolver at the same time he looked back down the road to see a German despatch rider heading for the coast. He could see the messenger was alone, but moving too fast for him to be able to fire at him with any degree of success, until he heard the bike coming to a halt, and saw the rider lift a cigarette packet out of his top pocket, and start to light up. Knowing that he was being presented with a perfect piece of luck, he aimed his revolver and fired, hitting his target in the head with satisfactory accuracy.
As he dragged the dead messenger into the ditch to strip him of his uniform and papers he knew this was not just a piece of luck, it was also his only chance of salvation.
Less than half an hour later he had caught up with the last line of advancing Germans. Happily for him no one paid the slightest attention other than to wave him through in response to the evident urgency of his demeanour. Once out of sight of the advancing battalion, he turned his bike to head north-east rather than due north, guessing that since he had been specifically directed to proceed to a position west of Dunkirk, and since he had gathered from previous messages that the British Expeditionary Force was headed in that direction, his only chance of getting through the German lines was to hope that the British and their allies had a line of solid defence around that part of the coast.
Some time later he reached a gap near Nieuport just before General Brooke’s II Corps closed it. Now, dressed as a German despatch rider, he feared that his luck was on the verge of being reversed. Happily he was able to dump the stolen motorcycle, along with his German uniform. Without the motorbike, and dressed once more as a Frenchman, he tied a white handkerchief to a stick, and hoped to God none of the British soldiers he was facing was in the mood for indulging in some free target practice.
Captured minutes after making himself apparent, he was taken straight to the Commanding Officer who interrogated him for some minutes before becoming sufficiently convinced of his bona fide standing. Which was how he found himself just one of the thousands waiting and hoping to be rescued from the vast sandbanks lining that part of the French coast.
The next day, having survived devastating bombardment, and witnessed the annihilation of so many of the patient soldiers who waited on the beach beside him, knowing they were sitting ducks for the Luftwaffe, he found himself on board a small fishing smack that had set sail from the little port of Bexham in West Sussex.
Two hours later he was finally ashore in his homeland, filthy, exhausted and quite unable to believe his good fortune.
A further six hours later, after another debriefing, a good wash, a change of clothes and his first meal in two days, having been given final clearance, Scott Meynell headed as quickly as he could for Eden Park, where his young life was destined to take a wholly unpredictable turn.
Chapter Twelve
Following the evacuation of Dunkirk, everyone’s thoughts were concentrated on not just the possibility of invasion but the moment it might be due. No longer was it something to be put at the back of people’s minds, a dread but a distant one, as in the days before the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force when everyone imagined that while Hitler might wish to invade their homeland, as long as there was an army, a Navy and an air force to protect them the former Austrian housepainter would think twice before launching an all-out assault across the Channel.
But now with so much invaluable military equipment lying abandoned and burned out on the nearby French beaches, and with the Expeditionary Force returned home dispirited and all but defeated in their own minds, a feeling of inevitability settled over the nation as everyone tried to avoid the thought that it was only a matter of time before they heard the crash of jackboots on the streets, the rumble of tanks across the countryside and the sound of blitzing bombers arriving in ferocious numbers.
Every precaution was immediately taken to try to thwart, hinder and bewilder any invading force. Not a signpost anywhere was left standing in its original position, all being either taken away or falsely aligned. Every town sign was removed and every railway station name was painted out. Travelling became a nightmare, particularly by train where in blacked-out conditions, unless passengers were familiar enough with their route to be able to count their stops, many who were not so fortunate found themselves getting off at wrong stations, and trying vainly to find their way home in pitch darkness.
Yet somehow everyone kept going, supported by Churchill’s ever-growing outward pugnacity.
Of course, like everyone else, the Nosy Parkers at Eden Park all lived in dread of an invasion, imagining time and again that every sound they heard in the night might be the enemy at the door.
One night Marjorie, Kate and Billy were all awoken by the sound of steady trampling on the gravel path that ran under their bedroom windows.
‘Shsh!’
Kate turned the light on and stared at Marjorie.
‘My God, they’re here, Marjorie. They’re at the door.’
Marjorie went to say something in return.
‘Shsh!’
The sound was undeniable. It was most definitely that of tramping soldiers, and it seemed they were now knocking at the back door. The sound rang out loud and clear, and Marjorie lost all colour, knowing as they both did that this must be it.
Although their knees were turning to
jelly, and their insides to water, the young women knew just what they had to do. They had to be prepared to kill, or die, or both.
Grabbing the weapons they always left ready by their beds – in Marjorie’s case a bread knife and in Kate’s an antique policeman’s truncheon which she had found only lately in an old outhouse – they found that Billy had beaten them both to it. When they collided with him downstairs they found him standing at the front door with a pitchfork in one hand, a bed-knob in the other and an impish smile on his face.
‘It’s only a couple of goats,’ he said. ‘They must have got out of their field!’
Kate and Marjorie, still trembling with the shock of thinking that they had been about to have to tackle a platoon of Nazi soldiers, followed the line of Billy’s hand and saw not two but three goats happily ensconced in front of the kitchen drying rail. At the sound of Billy’s voice they had turned their bearded faces towards their night-dressed visitors, to be greeted with a yell of indignation from Kate.
‘Stop that!’
However, the goats busily eating the girls’ underwear were most reluctant to give up their prize.
‘Wonderful,’ Kate exclaimed, as Marjorie opened the back door to shoo the animals out. ‘They nearly gave me heart failure.’
‘Me too!’ Billy laughed. ‘I thought sure as any-thin’ it was the Nazis come up the drive to murder us in our beds.’
‘Wonder what we would have done if they had been Germans,’ Marjorie said, shoving the last of their unwelcome visitors back into the night as Kate closed the kitchen door.
‘Gone for ’em of course, given them what for,’ Billy replied. ‘I’d have run ’em through with me fork before they could say Heil Hitler.’
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 24
