Between Silk and Cyanide

by Leo Marks

  Determined to get our fair share of them, I sent the Ministry of Labour an aide-mémoire: ‘Do not reject any girl on grounds of insanity without first offering her to SOE.’

  The memo backfired.

  The ministry sent a copy of it to Air Commodore Boyle (head of our personnel board), who passed it to Commander Senter (head of security), who instructed me to report to him at once.

  Brandishing my memo as if it were scorching his fingers, he informed me that no one in his right mind would make any reference to SOE on a sheet of notepaper headed ‘INTER SERVICES RESEARCH BUREAU’, thereby blowing Baker Street’s cover! I’d committed a major breach of security.

  I apologised for my terrible gaffe and assured him that it wouldn’t happen again (I’d use toilet paper next time).

  ‘That isn’t all!’ he thundered. He then castigated me for daring to communicate with the ministry ‘without the prior knowledge and consent’ of the personnel department, and warned me that I hadn’t heard the last of it.

  On my way out I had just enough sense not to headhunt his secretary.

  Although June and I were on the point of expiring, I came to life when Nick asked me to discuss the month’s production figures with him, as his continued support for WOKs and LOPs was their lifeline. It took me several hours to prepare them, and Muriel stayed past midnight to type them, but they were waiting on his desk when he arrived next morning.

  Ten minutes later he sent for me.

  I still didn’t know if my gaffe had been reported to him, but nothing in his manner suggested that I was anything less than welcome.

  The figures showed that we were ahead of schedule and had increased our reserves of silks by a hundred a week. He said that, considering the difficulties, we were making excellent progress, and he intended to show the figures to Gubbins. He then asked if I foresaw any problems in July.

  ‘Plenty – and they’re all to do with recruitment. We need more coders, more briefing officers, more WOK-makers …’

  To my surprise, he closed his eyes the better to concentrate. ‘I’ve an idea,’ he said, as if it were a new experience.

  I waited expectantly.

  ‘SOE must instruct the ministry not to reject any girl on grounds of insanity if she’s prepared to cut away and destroy Mr Marks.’

  There was nothing left of me to cut away. I’d been given an object lesson in how to deal with subordinates.

  Nick added that the only reason I hadn’t got myself into very serious trouble was that my memo had amused Gubbins. He then said that the whole question of finding staff for the Signals directorate was now being looked into by the Executive Council, but under no circumstances must I despatch any similar memos without consulting him first.

  Wondering what mistakes I’d make next, and whether I had the resources to stay in SOE, and why I was suddenly depressed, depleted and devoid of all confidence, I returned to my desk and sought refuge in the ditty-box:

  There is a strength

  Beyond the one that is failing

  An added length

  To the time

  Now run out

  There is sight

  In the eyes now closing

  A light

  Which none others can see

  And it guides unbelievers

  And other self-deceivers

  To a place

  Where they had never thought to be.*

  I then began describing the qualities which distinguished coders from briefing officers, and WOK-makers from the rest of mankind.

  Notes

  * He was beaten to death three weeks later on the orders of Klaus Barbie.

  * Used by a Jedburgh on D-Day.

  FORTY-THREE

  Operation Sidetrack

  July began with the most disconcerting of all experiences: SOE behaving rationally.

  I was informed by Nick that no more Dutch agents were to be sent into the field for the next few months.

  Heffer was present at the meeting, which suggested that I’d been told the good news first and that Nick felt in need of support.

  He added that supply drops into Holland would continue, though the RAF had cancelled their July ops because of the losses they’d suffered in the last moon periods.

  He then announced that Gubbins had ordered an internal inquiry into Dutch agents’ security and that I was to take part in it.

  Better and better. So why was Heffer looking worried?

  Nick disclosed that the inquiry was to be conducted by a member of the security department named Harvey, who was anxious to know more about Kale’s indecipherable in which Prijs had been misspelt Preis. He then spelled out my part in the inquiry.

  I was to show Harvey how the poem-code worked, explain how the indecipherables had been broken and answer whatever questions he asked about coding procedures. But that was all that was required of me in the initial stages! Under no circumstances was I to refer to my Dutch reports, mention Plan Giskes or disclose any of my other suspicions. Harvey must have a chance to make up his own mind about Holland without undue influence from anyone in Signals. He stressed that these instructions had come from Gubbins and were irrevocable.

  He then asked if I had any questions.

  ‘Only one, sir. Is this to be a genuine inquiry or an in-house cover-up?’

  Heffer blew a number of smoke rings in my direction, which I suspected were the Apache equivalent of ‘You stupid little shit’, but it was Nick who scalped me.

  Speaking very quietly (his deadliest tomahawk), he said that if I couldn’t do my job without questioning Gubbins’s instructions or SOE’s policies then he might have to look for someone who could. As for the inquiry, if I wasn’t prepared to give Harvey a chance to make up his own mind without trying to influence him from the outset, then other arrangements would have to be made.

  I didn’t believe my job was seriously in jeopardy, because C or Bletchley might need a new office boy and there were one or two matters which SOE would prefer me not to discuss with them, but this wasn’t the moment to put it to the test. I assured Nick that I would answer Harvey’s questions as if he were a member of N section.

  ‘Which is how you answer mine,’ he said.

  He then instructed me to report back to his office in two hours’ time ‘in a suitable frame of mind’.

  The in-house inquiry took place on the bite of 11 a.m., and I arrived early carrying a bulging briefcase to show how seriously I’d prepared for it.

  Harvey was already there, and I realised that I’d met him before in unfortunate circumstances.

  I’d bumped into him (literally) in the security department’s corridor after being blasted by my godfather, Major O’Reilly, for being the worst NDO in the history of SOE.

  He shook hands as if taking my fingerprints and said he knew ‘next to nothing about codes’ and would be grateful if I’d explain the general principles before we got down to specifics at a later stage.

  There were two ways of dealing with this. I could either spend an hour teaching him properly, or I could give him the simplified version which I used on FANY candidates to test their potential. Deciding on the latter, I showed him how to use his name as a key phrase (which helped me to remember it) and explained the workings of the poemcode’s gearbox.

  At this point the good candidates asked questions about the areas which I’d deliberately omitted, but this FANY’s mind was focused elsewhere. ‘Is this the only code the Dutch agents are using?’

  I replied that at present it was, though they sometimes used Playfair to encode addresses, and I’d gladly show it to him but doubted if it could have much relevance to his enquiries.

  He brusquely informed me that anything to do with addresses was of the utmost importance, and he’d like me to explain Playfair at a later stage. Would I now show him the Dutch agents’ security checks?

  He absorbed them in silence, seemed surprised at their simplicity and asked if I had much faith in them.

  ‘None at all except
in special circumstances, which is why the whole system is being changed and silk codes introduced.’

  Frowning slightly, he said he’d want to discuss the security checks in detail. ‘But first I want you to tell me all you can about Kale’s indecipherable message when he spelled Prijs in the German way, Preis.’

  I wondered whether he were setting a trap and bumped into him again, this time verbally. ‘It wasn’t Kale who misspelt Prijs. The message was encoded by Cucumber in his reserve poem number three.’

  I could see that his surprise was genuine and produced a copy of Cucumber’s poem from my portable warehouse so that he could check it for himself. I also handed him Cucumber’s code groups, which I’d obtained from the station.

  He examined them carefully, then asked how long it had taken us to break the message.

  ‘Twelve hours.’

  ‘How many goes did you need?’

  ‘Five thousand, six hundred and eighty-one.’

  ‘Good God.’ He glanced at Nick and Heffer, who nodded confirmation.

  ‘Whatever made you think of spelling Prijs Preis?’ he finally asked with a hint of respect.

  ‘It was suggested by two very bright colleagues, Mrs Denman and Mrs Brewis. They’re very helpful with indecipherables.’

  He made a note of their names while I caught a twinkle from Nick, their favourite indecipherable.

  Harvey looked up in time to spot the three of us smiling and seemed to sense a conspiracy. A few seconds later I had nothing to smile about.

  ‘Do you get many indecipherables?’

  It was the question I’d been dreading but he’d phrased it carelessly. He should have said ‘from Holland’, and its omission was a godsend, as it enabled me to give him a generalised answer.

  ‘About fifteen a day. It depends on atmospheric conditions.’ I wondered what they were like in Giskes’s prisons.

  He then asked if I considered Cucumber a careless coder.

  I was about to say that no Dutch agent was allowed to be and that this was one of Giskes’s few mistakes, when Heffer puffed a warning in my direction.

  Heeding it in time, I said that Cucumber had sent five indecipherables since he’d first begun operating in October ’42. I then produced a list of the four thousand attempts it had cost us to break them but didn’t add that they’d all been caused by Morse-mutilated indicator groups and not by mistakes in coding.

  He studied the list as if it were a roll of honour, then emitted his second ‘Good God’. He was likely to need a third very shortly, as I’d prepared a major diversion for him.

  Opening my briefcase, I said that the best way to judge a coder like Cucumber was to examine the mistakes he’d made while he was still at training school. I then produced every practice message Cucumber had encoded and dumped them in front of him. ‘And there’s something else you should look at which may help you even more …’

  I then produced a nautical logbook in Cucumber’s handwriting which his instructor had retained after I’d warned him what would happen to his balls if he destroyed anything personal which might be of use to us. My briefcase was now far lighter than my conscience. I could have saved Harvey a great deal of work by summarising my own examination of the messages and the logbook, but this would have negated Oper-ation Sidetrack.

  He protested that he’d need a ‘bit of time’ to examine them properly. Could he take them to his office and keep them for the next few days?

  Ignoring Nick’s nod, I said I was very sorry but we had our own security rules, and under no circumstances could documents like these be allowed to leave the code department.

  I decided that Heffer’s new smoke ring meant ‘bloody good tactics but don’t go too far’, and asked Harvey if he spoke Dutch.

  He nodded abruptly and I realised that I’d insulted him. Switching on the brown melter, I suggested that he should read the logbook now and tackle the message later so that we could at least make a start at discussing Prijs/Preis.

  He accepted the bait, but said he’d prefer to examine the lot here and now if we didn’t mind giving him a ‘bit of time’.

  Nick told him to take as long as he needed and not to hesitate to ask any questions.

  The gurus then had a whispered conversation about Bodington (neither of them trusted him) while I thought about his admiration for the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, which I shared when he spelt them properly. I wondered what masterpiece of a horror story Poe would have written if he’d witnessed SOE masturbating at its own crucifixion and whether his prowess as a cryptographer would have earned him a place at Bletchley.

  Still thinking about Poe, I felt the nudge of a theme which would one day be known as ‘Peeping Tom’, but dismissed it as surplus to requirements, and felt the ditty-box beckoning:

  Little lady

  With a long needle

  Seldom threaded

  Where is she headed?

  Little lady

  With a small box

  Which she always locks

  Why is she dreaded?

  And why does she smile

  When she orders

  Cards with black borders?*

  Harvey’s bit of time turned out to be precisely that, and I wondered how thorough he’d been. Ten seconds later he left me in no doubt.

  Holding up a page of notes, he announced that he’d found eight spelling mistakes in the practice messages and four in the logbook, including a word which Cucumber had spelt with an ‘ij’ on one page and an ‘ei’ on another.

  He then declared that unless there was something he’d overlooked there couldn’t be much doubt that Prijs/Preis was no more than a mistake, and that Cucumber was an even worse speller than he was. There were in fact ten mistakes in the practice messages and six in the logbook, but it had taken me a lot longer than thirty minutes to find them and his concentration was to be envied.

  Without the slightest warning or change of expression he asked if I had any reason to suspect that Kale and Cucumber had been caught or that any other Dutch agents were blown.

  Making my last effort to bite back the truth, I heard myself telling him I’d found it impossible to reach any reliable conclusions about Kale and Cucumber from the Germanicised spelling of Preis, and that there was little else in their traffic to go on. As for the other agents, their security checks could be tortured out of them and weren’t reliable anyway, which was why we were introducing silk codes which could be destroyed after every message, plus security checks which—

  Nick interrupted what had begun to sound like patter. ‘I think our friend’s got the point,’ he interjected.

  Our friend agreed that he had and asked a few nebulous questions, which I answered in kind.

  He then said he’d absorbed as much as he could for one session, and thanked me for ‘all the stuff’ I’d prepared for him.

  I assured him that I’d help him in any way I could.

  He shook my hand before I could dry it, though he was probably used to slippery customers. He looked back at me apologetically as he reached the door. ‘I’d better warn you. I’ll be coming back very shortly.’

  So, I hoped, would my self-respect.

  A few days after the meeting Nick was made a member of the Executive Council, with the rank of brigadier. He was the first director of Signals to acquire Cabinet status.

  I didn’t hear from Harvey again.

  Note

  * Issued in March ’44 to a Belgium agent named Pandarus.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Beyond Belief

  Giskes peaked in July.

  Like all skilled fiction-writers from Graham Greene (whom SOE tried to headhunt) to chancellors of the Exchequer, he had the knack of keeping his readers in suspense till the last chapter, and his handling of Jambroes and Kale was an example of his art.

  Both were commanders-in-chief of the Dutch secret army. The former had agreed to return in November ’42 after months of procrastination, but had been ‘killed in a street fight’ on the day he was rea
dy to leave. The latter had been appointed his successor, and from February onwards London had been urging him to return. But his prevarications had been on a par with his predecessor’s and N section had finally lost patience with him.

  He was informed on 15 June that he must return in July and that details of his escape route would be sent to him via his operator, Broadbean.

  Kale received his instructions a week later, and they must have taken his breath away, if Giskes hadn’t already done so.

  He was to make his way to Paris, where his escort would introduce him to a group of French agents who would guide him across the French and Belgian escape lines until he reached the Swiss frontier, and as soon as he’d crossed it London’s contacts would do the rest.

  This was the first time that SOE’s escape lines had been put at the disposal of the Dutch, an achievement for which Giskes deserved an Iron Cross with N section nailed to it.

  Forty-eight hours later London received Kale’s reply. He accepted the plan in principle but continued to maintain that his commitments to the secret army prevented him from leaving himself and urged N section to allow Nicolas de Wilde, his second in command, to use the escape lines in his stead. He was also anxious for an important contact named Anton to be smuggled out of Holland, as he had information which would be a great help to the government-in-exile as well as to the British.

  In a rare display of security-mindedness N section insisted in knowing more about Anton before allowing him to use the escape lines and continued to insist that Kale must report in person; in the first week in July he finally agreed.

  I offered to wager Heffer a box of cigars against an early book on thimbles which his wife coveted (a pricey item, but 84 wouldn’t miss it) that Kale would find a last-minute excuse for staying in Holland. But the Guru wasn’t in a betting mood.

  On 9 July Kale sent a message via Broccoli suggesting that it would be much quicker if he made the journey in a seagoing lifeboat fitted with the latest security devices which some friends in Zeeland had put at his disposal. He added that Mangold would take command in his absence.