Between Silk and Cyanide

by Leo Marks

  He started with some minor secrets and slowly grew franker. He had a handful of assistants, some of whom had had very little training, who had been given the responsibility of providing codes for the Free French to use on and after D-Day. The function of these codes would be to provide internal communications with the Free French forces and to maintain contact with the Allied High Command.

  The problem was that General de Gaulle very much doubted if the Free French would be allowed to use their own codes.

  Careful not to sound as if he were complaining, he said that Churchill’s relationship with de Gaulle hadn’t improved, that the Americans continued to support Giraud and that the High Command had excluded the Free French from any discussions about the D-Day landings. But the general was determined to make a major contribution to the liberation of France, and one way in which he might achieve it was so dependent on communications that it was essential that I knew what it was.

  He then studied the ceiling as if asking someone far beyond it to strike him dumb if it were in the interests of France. Having apparently received the divine all-clear, he said that shortly before D-Day the Committee of National Liberation in Algiers would announce the formation of a new organisation which would unite all French freedom fighters under one command and make them members of the new French army. The organisation would be known as the FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) and would need codes which were suitable for a unique mixture of military, paramilitary and agents’ messages. He confided that even if Churchill and the Americans allowed the Free French to use their own codes, they had no facilities for making them. But this was only part of the problem. His superiors didn’t realise how long it took to prepare codes and to train instructors, especially those who had to do their teaching in the field.

  I realised that he was having as hard a time in Algiers as I’d had in Baker Street and asked what codes he had in mind for the FFI.

  Clearly relieved to be asked, he said he’d decided on code books and figure one-time pads, as many army signallers knew how to use them. But he now realised that letter one-time pads might be even better! He’d think it over when he returned to Algiers.

  He then hesitated, and I was completely unprepared for what he’d been leading up to. ‘If I send to you our code book, could you make for us copies on silk? And could you also send to us the one-time pads we would need? I would the quantities estimate when I can so do so …’ Before I could reply he stressed that he hadn’t discussed this with any of his superiors and was asking me informally if such a thing would be possible.

  I should have pressed the buzzer there and then because this was a policy matter and I was well and truly out of my depth. Instead I stared at the ceiling for divine guidance and noticed a crack which hadn’t been there before. ‘I’ll be glad to help you in every way I can,’ I said.

  ‘Will your superiors agree?’

  ‘I’ve just consulted them. They say I’ll need as much time as possible and that it would be a great help if you’d make a formal request.’

  This clearly troubled him, and he explained with an apologetic smile which I wished I could add to my armoury that some of his superiors might not like the idea of the British providing their codes. But if everything depended on it, he would do whatever he could.

  Giving what I hoped was a Gallic shrug, I said that one way or another the codes would be ready when the Free French needed them, even if it meant we both had to take a risk.

  He thanked me in the best way a cryptographer can – by becoming technical: ‘You have found a way to protect letter-pad code groups from Morse mutilation. Is there a similar way to protect figure-pad code groups?’

  I replied that I hadn’t thought about it but didn’t see why not, and we did some homework together (he was far quicker than I was).

  Twenty minutes later we were able to reduce figure-pad mutilation by 40 per cent, and I promised to incorporate the idea if we hadn’t improved on it by the time we started production.

  He then did some homework on my face before addressing me quietly without appearing to lower his voice. ‘We have an understanding?’ he asked.

  ‘More than that,’ I said. ‘We have an agreement.’

  We shook hands on it, and I regarded Tommy as our witness.

  We spent our last hour together discussing cryptography, and he proved to have something else in common with Tiltman: a healthy appreciation of Mother’s black-market sandwiches.

  I didn’t tell him that I was twenty-three today and that he was the only present I wanted.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Who Stole Your Grace?

  Two days after my visitor had returned to Algiers, Duke Street confirmed to SOE that they were abandoning the use of the secret French code. No reasons were given but thanks were expressed for the co-operation Commandant Cassis had received from the chef de codage.

  I’d told no one about our private arrangement, which had begun to worry me, as I’d entered into it before doing my homework. A glance at the monthly figures (which I’d neglected to examine since returning from Cairo) showed that code production had fallen by almost 50 per cent, and I immediately contacted our printers and photographers.

  The two elderly brothers who printed WOKs on silk brusquely informed me that they’d fallen behind with their other commitments, that they were suffering from shortage of staff and defective machinery and that they saw no prospect of the situation improving. It was clear that I’d taken them for granted for far too long and allowed it to become ‘just another job’ to them.

  But an even worse situation had arisen with the RAF unit which photographed one-time pads on to silk. A newly appointed wing commander had discovered that most of his staff were working for the Inter Services Research Bureau at the request of two senior officers named Heffer and Marks. He’d also discovered that the squadron leader who’d accepted the commitment six months ago ‘to help us out of trouble’ had been doing so ever since and had exceeded his budget without authority. The wing commander allowed us until the end of November to make other arrangements.

  Unless I could do so quickly we’d have to start dipping into the reserves we were building up for D-Day, but I had no idea where to start looking.

  The situation (like so many others) needed a Gubbins to resolve it, but I’d left it too late to approach him. Within a few days of becoming CD the Mighty Atom had taken off on an extended tour of Massingham and Cairo, and his deputy, Colonel Sporborg, was now in temporary (we hoped) command.

  I decided to seek Heffer’s advice without disclosing my undertaking to Cassis.

  The Guru wasn’t surprised by the production problems, which he’d been anticipating for weeks, and advised me to consult the ‘hard men’ (Messrs Courtauld and Davies), who were continuing to supply all our silk. But he warned me not to approach them immediately, as they were inundated with requests for help and mightn’t take kindly to a new one.

  He then looked at me keenly. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’

  Relieved that he was on form, I blurted out my undertaking to Cassis, which I regarded as binding but saw little chance of fulfilling.

  He was used to my confessions by now, but this one produced more astonishment than all the rest combined. ‘You’ve committed us to supplying them with unspecified quantities of code books and one-time pads by an unknown date for traffic we know nothing about?’

  I nodded miserably.

  Lowering his eyes to heaven, he enquired why I’d left it until now to disclose the arrangement.

  ‘Because SOE’s so unpredictable. They’d either react prematurely and blow Cassis’s cover or refuse to sanction it – I’m not sure which.’

  He looked at me pityingly. ‘The trouble with villains like you is that you never know when you’ve done the right thing.’

  He then explained as if to a cretin (an assessment I couldn’t question) that supplying the Free French with code books and onetime pads at their request woul
d enable Gubbins to show the High Command how much confidence they had in his Signals directorate! It would also enable us to read their traffic and strengthen Nick’s hand on the Executive Council.

  ‘It might even help the Free French,’ I said.

  Ignoring irrelevancies, he said that it couldn’t possibly have happened at a better time. He then stared out of the window, a sure sign that he was considering a confidence of his own.

  ‘Go on, Heff,’ I urged, ‘reward me.’

  Warning me that if I repeated a word of what he said we’d both be in trouble, he confided that SOE had recently obtained sight (possibly legitimately) of a Top Secret document from de Gaulle to Duke Street which had so astonished Gubbins and the Executive Council that they’d sent a copy to COSSAC.

  ‘I don’t think I know him …’

  Another pitying look, this time tinged with exasperation. ‘cossac stands for Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander.’

  ‘Who’s the supremo going to be, Heff – an American?’

  His tone ensured that this would be my last interruption. ‘The post of supreme commander is still being considered by Churchill and Roosevelt,’ he said, ‘and I very much doubt if you’re in the running for it.’

  He then disclosed that de Gaulle’s document dealt at great length with Overlord, which he’d correctly guessed was being planned for next summer. ‘In case there’s no limit to your ignorance,’ he said, ‘Overlord is the code name for the invasion of France.’

  Glancing at his watch, he quickly explained that the extraordinary part of de Gaulle’s document was that his plans for Overlord were almost identical with the Allied High Command’s. He’d even worked out what the tides would be and had selected the same beaches as the High Command. COSSAC was convinced that someone in SOE had broken the strict injunction not to discuss Overlord with the Free French under any circumstances, and de Gaulle’s document was now being studied at Cabinet level. He added that nothing could do more to enhance SOE’s reputation than the ability to read de Gaulle’s post-D-Day traffic.

  Escorting me from the office, he said he was off to tell the good news to Nick. He’d also try to explain why I’d kept it to myself.

  I didn’t point out how easy it would be for Cassis to reassemble the one-time pads and make it a merde of a job to decipher a single message.

  Nick sent for me the next morning, and I knew at once he had something unpleasant to convey.

  He referred briefly to my arrangement with Cassis, which he’d reported to the Executive Council, and then said he had two ‘comparatively minor matters to discuss’. But they weren’t minor to me, and he knew it.

  Impaling me with his eyebrows, he imparted the glad tidings that while I’d been in Cairo, Gubbins, Sporborg and several of his colleagues on the Executive Council had complained to him about the number of young women they’d seen parading up and down Baker Street at all hours, window-shopping and making bloody nuisances of themselves. The miscreants had all been identified as members of my department (coders, briefing officers and WOK-makers), and he’d decided that a supervisor must be appointed to put a stop to their chronic indiscipline.

  Before I could protest, he added that he’d already interviewed someone whom he considered ideal for the post. Her name was Audrey Saunders, and she’d be starting her duties within the next few days.

  At the risk of rupturing a blood vessel, preferably his, I jumped up and protested that the girls’ conduct wasn’t indiscipline but an unwinding process essential to their jobs and that what they needed was a ‘mad room’, where they could relax between spells of duty without risk of interruption. The problem was that suitable accommodation wasn’t available unless they could use Gubbins’s office while he was away.

  Sharply instructing me to resume my seat, he said that there was no point in discussing the matter further as his decision was final, and he expected me to give Miss Saunders a fair chance to do her job however she saw fit.

  ‘And there’s something else you’ll have to get used to …’ He then disclosed that a Mr M. P. Murray had joined the Finance directorate as an assistant to D/FIN and would shortly visit every department head in Baker Street, including myself, to determine our future requirements. Since my demands were increasing daily, he would spend at least a week in my office, and I must provide a desk for him, let him sit in on any meetings he might wish to attend and answer all the questions he would undoubtedly ask on D/FIN’s behalf. ‘And I advise you not to even consider misleading him.’

  He then indicated that that would be all for now and lifted the receiver to speak to Sporborg.

  The last thing I wanted was to be incarcerated for a week with a D/FIN investigator (ten seconds would be nine too many), and I was equally reluctant to spend any time at all with the disciplinarian Nick had appointed before I’d even met the cow. I resolved to give both intruders a lesson in garbage disposal they were unlikely to forget.

  Murray came first, and I was disconcerted to find that I liked him on sight, a phenomenon which I attributed to the attraction of opposites.

  He was unpretentious, had an orderly mind and didn’t need artificial techniques to be a good listener. Nor did he try to flaunt his intelligence.

  I was convinced within minutes that he was the answer to our production problems and that his closeness to D/FIN was a gift from on high. My first step in turning him into a coding ambassador must be to win his confidence, and I could only do this by being completely frank with him – a risk I was prepared to take. I welcomed His Excellency to the code department and began work on him at once.

  He said nothing about his background, but I learned that he’d been in SOE for less than a month and was still ‘feeling his way’. We quickly established that he’d had no experience of codes, and I asked if he’d like to take a crash course. He readily accepted, and I handed him over to a briefing officer who privately reported that he was the easiest agent she’d ever had to teach.

  He looked a few years older when he returned (I placed him at forty when he left), and he said that ‘instructresses of her calibre must take a bit of finding’.

  ‘I’m glad you say that, Mr Murray. She’s one of six I took on without your department’s authority.’

  From this admission onwards we were on Christian-name terms and I put him to work breaking indecipherables as part of his higher education. He seemed relieved to find himself gainfully employed and worked methodically through the long list of keys which I put in front of him, quickly falling into the rhythm which suited him best.

  I knew that he’d broken his first indecipherable when he sat back and exclaimed, ‘Good God.’ (New coders frequently said, ‘Well fuck me,’ which to the best of my knowledge occurred outside the code room.)

  ‘Well done, Michael – I’ll inform the station that they can cross it off their list.’

  He listened to my conversation with the supervisor as if it were the most important he’d ever heard, and for all I knew it was.

  I immediately informed him that there were six girls in Norgeby House who broke indecipherables the stations couldn’t cope with, but I’d been forced to pretend to D/FIN that they were WOK-makers as I’d exceeded my quota of coders. ‘I’ve given up submitting honest estimates, Michael, because by the time they’ve been cut in half so has an agent’s life expectancy.’ I anxiously awaited his response.

  ‘What are WOK-makers? – or did I mishear you?’

  Delighted by his priorities, I immediately showed him a WOK and a LOP, stressing that amongst their other assets they’d put a stop to indecipherables. Supply problems came next, and Plan Murray was in sight of its first target.

  Watching for signs of inattention (of which there were none), I informed him that LOP production was on the point of collapse due to a bloody-minded wing commander who’d given us till the end of November to take our business elsewhere. ‘But I’d better admit it’s not altogether his fault.’

  I explained that the arrangement f
or his unit of work for ISRB had been ‘somewhat irregular’, though I wouldn’t worry him with the details now, that he hadn’t been told what ISRB did or why his photography was indispensable, and it was high time that someone put him in the picture.

  Pausing for the smile that never came, I said that the ideal person to change his or anyone else’s mind would be Gubbins, but in his absence the best spokesmen would be senior RAF officers who outranked him such as Air Commodore Boyle or Group Captain Venner (D/FIN). ‘The problem is, I’m the wrong person to approach them.’

  I then admitted that they’d both caught me out in one or two misdemeanours, though I wouldn’t worry him with the details now, and I was wondering whether he’d consider talking to Venner himself. It would flatter D/FIN to be asked and show him how quickly he’d got on top of his job.

  He thanked me for the opportunity I was giving him, but added that he thought he should know a little more about the code department before making recommendations to D/FIN. His training as an ambassador then began in earnest.

  Despite his reluctance to attend a final code briefing in case his presence proved intrusive, I insisted he come along as my assistant, and the quality of his silence gave the agent more confidence than anything I said.

  He also sat in as my assistant when I interviewed six prospective briefing officers. I wrote down the names of the ones I’d selected and asked him to do the same. We then compared notes. Our choices were identical, and I went up in my estimation.

  By the end of the fourth day he knew what I thought of every countrysection head in Baker Street and of most members of the hierarchy. He also knew the code department’s every trick and subterfuge.

  By the end of the fifth day I missed him whenever he was called away to a meeting. I had no idea where he went, but he seemed as glad to return to his desk as I was to see him there. His absences became more frequent and usually lasted an hour.