Between Silk and Cyanide

by Leo Marks

  He at once changed the subject and shot a series of questions at Nick which seemed so unrelated to signals problems that I indulged in an iodoform brood.

  He wanted to know why British instructors placed so much emphasis on the cutting of telephone wires. Surely it was equally important to destroy bridges and railway lines, attack ammunition dumps and make roads impassable? So why was absolute priority given to telephone wires?

  I could tell from the silence which followed that he’d asked a key question and Nick’s answer was the biggest compliment I’d heard him pay anyone. He told us that the explanation was known to very few people but he was prepared to give it on the understanding that it mustn’t be discussed outside this room.

  I stood up to leave, partly to save Nick from having to ask me to but mainly because I still couldn’t see the relevance of Gravy’s question.

  Nick waved me back and took a deep breath. He then told Gravy that twelve months ago ‘someone highly placed’ (it turned out to be Tiltman the Great) had asked Gubbins to continue to ensure that agents gave absolute priority to cutting telephone lines because it forced the Germans to communicate by radio and gave Bletchley an opportunity to break their codes. He then explained to the now silent commander and the open-mouthed small boy seated beside him that the Germans didn’t realise the extent to which Bletchley had penetrated their traffic – ‘God forbid they ever do because they’d change their codes at once, which would be a major setback for the entire war effort.’

  Without going into details, he added that the contributions made by Bletchley and Y (the interception service) towards shortening the war would one day be recognised, but at this crucial stage they were known only to Churchill and his trusted advisers. And so it must remain.

  The commander shook Nick’s hand and promised that what he’d just learned wouldn’t be repeated.

  The small boy tried to look as if he’d known it all the time.

  Seventy

  Neptune’s Trident

  Despite intense competition from air raids, the ugliest sounds in June were the voices of the BBC announcers.

  They stopped reading ‘stand by’ messages on the 4th and began broadcasting ‘action’ messages on the 5th. The prearranged phrases lasted for eight hours, and I learned that it was possible to grow hoarse through listening. The significance of at least fifty iodoforms had been conveyed in poem-codes.

  The D-Day uprisings were timed to take place simultaneously right across France to conceal where the Allies intended to land and above all to divert attention from Neptune. The purpose of this key operation was to land sea and airborne forces near the mouth of the Seine, and the Resistance was to act as Neptune’s trident by attacking enemy troops, disrupting communications and blocking reinforcements.

  Nick warned us that Neptune’s traffic would be ‘somewhere between heavy and crippling’, and squads of coders stood by to deal with the holocaust of coding mistakes which the ‘action’ calls seemed certain to engender. But on D-Day only one indecipherable was received from the whole of France, and that was the result of Morse mutilation. ‘Decipherability-Day’ (as 6 June was henceforth known) had other surprises.

  The traffic was far lighter than expected, there were no queries from the country sections and my phone didn’t ring until one o’clock. The signalmaster at 53a wanted me to listen to a message from France which had been transmitted en clair over the Butler circuit.

  The message was addressed to Colonel Buckmaster, and was similar to Giskes’s on April Fool’s Day:

  WE THANK YOU FOR THE LARGE DELIVERIES OF ARMS AND AMMUNITIONS WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN KIND ENOUGH TO SEND US. WE ALSO APPRECIATE THE MANY TIPS YOU HAVE GIVEN US REGARDING YOUR PLANS AND INTENTIONS WHICH WE HAVE CAREFULLY NOTED. IN CASE YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE HEALTH OF SOME OF THE VISITORS YOU HAVE SENT US YOU MAY REST ASSURED THEY WILL BE TREATED WITH THE CONSIDERATION THEY DESERVE.

  I telephoned Maurice at once, hoping that I’d be in time to cushion the shock.

  I received one when he chuckled. ‘They’re trying to shake our confidence,’ he said, and rang off to draft a reply.

  Noble and I suspected that he’d never completely shared our conviction that his Butler circuits were blown, and he’d continued to drop stores, explosives and money to them, ostensibly to deceive the Gestapo. But he’d dropped agents as well, and I wondered what his true feelings were.

  I also wondered if I were about to receive a similar communication:

  WE THANK YOU FOR THE LARGE QUANTITIES OF WOKS AND LOPS YOU HAVE SENT US WHICH WE HAVE HAD MUCH PLEASURE IN BREAKING. WE MUST ALSO THANK YOU FOR YOUR R. TOMMEE TRAFFIC WHICH HAS GIVEN US HOURS OF AMUSEMENT. HOWEVER, WE HAVE LEARNED FROM A RELIABLE SOURCE THAT YOUR FATHER REFUSES TO STOCK MEIN KAMPF, AND REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT HIS SHOP WILL BE TARGETED AT OUR EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY.

  Expecting an influx of visitors on D-Day (not one of whom had appeared), the only appointment I’d made was with Valois. He’d never seen my workshop and I’d invited him to call in for a tête-à-tête, confident his tete would be clearer than mine.

  But it wasn’t the Valois I’d learned to like and respect who stood in the doorway. His hostility was even more apparent than in the days of our mutual antagonism over de Gaulle’s secret code, and I grabbed his hand as there seemed a distinct possibility that he was about to return to Duke Street.

  Refusing the refreshments I’d prepared in readiness for the invasion which hadn’t taken place, he sat glumly at my desk and looked sharply away when he spotted a copy of the FFI code book. But he couldn’t resist examining its next-door neighbour: a code book on silk which was being widely used in guerrilla warfare against the Japanese (the Far Eastern conflict was of great concern to Duke Street). He looked closely at the code groups, which minimised the effects of Morse mutilation, and gave a curt nod of approval.

  I then showed him the only item which might break his silence: the cigar I was keeping for Tommy (he was still in Fresnes prison).

  Leaving his own cell for a moment, Valois told me that the Free French had arranged for groups of cyclists to call out the latest BBC bulletins as they rode past the prison courtyard and that some of them shouted out messages from Barbara. He then returned to his solitary confinement.

  Wondering if the Free French had heard bad news which I knew nothing about, I finally asked what had happened to upset him.

  He looked at me reproachfully as if convinced I knew the answer. It was only when I told him that I regarded us as friends and would repeat nothing he said to me that he began speaking in rapid French; to my astonishment I understood every word of it.

  The Free French were outraged at the way France’s allies (‘particulièrement les Anglais’) had treated de Gaulle. He hadn’t been allowed to return from Algiers until 3 June and had been excluded from all discussions about Overlord. He hadn’t even been told the date of the invasion until Churchill sent for him on the night of the 4th. But the greatest of all insults was that his troops in the 3rd SAS regiment had received their orders before he’d been allowed to know what they were.

  I nodded sympathetically (the best exercise I’d had in months) and was about to ask why he thought I was one of the Anglais responsible for such disgraceful behaviour when he spat out the subject of communications.

  The general was anxious to exchange messages with his followers in France and North Africa but had been forbidden to use his own codes. He even had to communicate with his committees in codes which the British had provided. Valois hastened to add that our ‘systèmes de codage’ were safe and excellent, but the British could read them and I must understand that this was no longer acceptable, as the committees had proclaimed themselves the provisional government of France.

  I explained that the provisional governor of SOE’s code room wasn’t consulted on such matters and that what he’d said was complete news to me. I added that as far as I knew SHAEF (the Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force) had decided that only the British, Americans and Russians coul
d use their own codes while the invasion was in progress and that General de Gaulle hadn’t been singled out for special treatment. I then assured him that not even Nick could reverse shaef’s decision, much as he’d want to.

  The little wizard nodded his head. He then looked at me sadly and said that the war leaders, ‘especially Mr Churchill’, had treated General de Gaulle as if he were … He struggled for the word.

  I didn’t know the French for ‘outsider’ and nearly said ‘Juif’, but that might have been too great an insult.

  ‘Il est tout seul’ (He is quite alone), he said finally.

  He then began to do justice to a bottle of Father’s wine and a plate of Mother’s finest.

  At this point Gerry Parker (head of Signal-Planning) waddled in and was astonished to see his Free French opposite number seated beside me toasting the success of the invasion. They immediately began a discussion in English, French and Signalese, and left shortly afterwards for Gerry’s office.

  General de Marks was left tout seul with his thoughts.

  Shortly before midnight the Signals Office supervisor read me Buckmaster’s reply to the Germans’ message, which he’d instructed the station to transmit en clair:

  SORRY TO SEE YOUR PATIENCE IS EXHAUSTED AND YOUR NERVES NOT AS GOOD AS OURS BUT IF IT IS ANY CONSOLATION YOU WILL BE PUT OUT OF YOUR MISERY IN THE NEAR FUTURE. PLEASE GIVE US DROPPING GROUNDS NEAR BERLIN FOR RECEPTION ORGANISER AND WT OPERATOR BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO UPSET OUR RUSSIAN FRIENDS WHO TAKE OFFENCE MORE QUICKLY THAN WE DO. WE SHALL DELIVER FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS PERSONALLY.

  I thought about all the agents who were in no position to share the joke. One in particular.

  I then thought about Tommy’s idol, Winston Churchill, who’d emerged from his wilderness to lead us out of ours. Was the person yet born who could replace him if we needed his like again?

  For the first time on D-Day I found my pen in my hand:

  Are you tomorrow’s Winnie

  Though still in your pinny?

  Tomorrow’s war-leader

  Though still a breast-feeder?

  Tomorrow’s saviour

  Learning potty behaviour?

  Little one

  Little one

  All snot-and-spittle one

  Is our D-Day

  Your three times a pee day?

  And when you’re a giant

  On whom the free world is reliant

  As well as a gallon of whisky man

  Whom lesser mortals

  Call a House of Commons risky man

  Will you please spare a nod

  For every poor sod

  Who today met his God

  And make sure that Overlord

  Really is over, Lord.

  A few minutes later it was D-Day plus one.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Staying Power

  ‘If Christ were alive today they wouldn’t crucify him. They’d make him a member of the Signals directorate.’

  Nick to author, D-Day plus four

  Why the ‘if’?

  I hadn’t the slightest doubt that He was alive, as our codes and coders were withstanding the strain of the invasion traffic and there was no sign that the enemy had penetrated the BBC’s iodoforms.

  But there was every sign that Nick, whose religion was signals, was carrying the heaviest Morse-cross of his long career. He was answerable to the High Command for the security of SOE’s traffic, and as if that weren’t burden enough the War Office had asked him to supply the codes for all Special Forces. His confidence that we’d delivered the ‘right goods’ was greater than mine, as we’d had little experience of paramilitary traffic and the SAS were the main recipients of our first venture into it. We would soon know if they regretted zooming along Baker Street for ‘a spot of advice’.

  One op which the SAS mounted on D-Day required such audacity – even by their standards – that Gubbins had found time to monitor its progress.

  Two three-man teams from the 1st SAS Regiment were dropped near the Cherbourg peninsula to convince the Germans that the Normandy landings were only a diversion and that the main assault was taking place in the Pas-de-Calais.

  They were cogs in Fortitude, a deception scheme to persuade the enemy to send reinforcements to the wrong beachheads. But even six members of the SAS couldn’t be mistaken for an army of invaders, and hundreds of dummies had been dropped with them to give the impression of a major landing. To heighten the illusion, each team had been issued with gramophones, Very pistols and an assortment of flares. The gramophones played records of intensive small-arms fire with soldiers’ voices in the background, and the Very pistols and flares turned the skies into an illuminated manuscript with an unmistakable text.

  The Germans immediately rushed troops to the area to repel the invaders, and partisans harassed them en route to add verisimilitude to their journey. One SAS operator sent a message to base, ‘The buggers have fallen for it,’ but as no such phrase was included in his code book’s vocabulary he’d had to spell it out on his one-time pad.

  Gubbins wanted the Resistance to take a far greater part in Fortitude but the Deception Committee didn’t trust SOE’s competence. Nor did they have much faith in the SAS’s, and three of their deception drops were cancelled without notice, a rejection which they took in their inexhaustible stride.

  The SAS rarely sought help from other organisations; they preferred to be left alone ‘to do things their way’ (an attitude which only the enemy had cause to regret), but they’d allowed me to brief a group of their instructors and to meet some of their troops. They regarded the invasion as a night out on the town, especially if it were in enemy hands. Two thousand of them were now standing by to cause their special brand of havoc, and three advance parties had been dropped behind enemy lines to demolish fortifications and link up with the Resistance.

  The Jedburghs were also in action, but wouldn’t be for long if their luck didn’t change. The three-man teams had made a disastrous start.

  Quinine and Ammonia (some humorist in authority had decided to code-name Jedburghs after patent medicines) were the first teams to be launched from Algiers. They set off for France on 5 June, but missed D-Day altogether as their pilots couldn’t find the dropping grounds and had to return to base. The ops were remounted; Quinine and Veganin were landed on the 9th and Ammonia on the 10th. But one member of the Veganin team was killed whilst jumping as he hadn’t hooked up the static line of his parachute, which so upset his team-leader that he had to be withdrawn from the field. Half the Quinine and Ammonia teams were also out of action due to appalling stomach cramps, diarrhoea and raging fever, maladies which were reported to London in the Lord’s Prayer as the WT operator had mislaid his silk codes. (He’d used ‘hallowed be Thy name’ as his key phrase but spelt ‘hallowed’ with three ‘l’s, and it took four thousand attempts to decipher his message.)

  By 11 June fever of another kind (no less insidious because it was psychological) had infected the Jedburghs at Milton Hall who’d been waiting for weeks (and in some instances, months) to go into action. They’d been promised a key role on D-Day and were angry at their exclusion. They were even angrier that they still hadn’t been given a firm departure date, and according to their coding instructress had lost confidence in their briefing officers, felt neglected and deceived, and were in a state of near mutiny.

  Choosing her words carefully, which was rare amongst FANY sergeants, she advised me to stay away from Milton Hall.

  I’d arranged with Colonel Musgrove (the station’s CO) to go there on the 14th but he phoned me on the 11th and urged me not to come, as the last two lecturers had been given a ‘very rough reception’ and had had to leave the platform in a hurry. He added that the Jedburghs ‘knew their bloody codes backwards’ as he’d made them practise them for hours ‘to help pass the time’, and I’d no need to brief them: ‘Marks, I must say this to you frankly. The last thing they want is another lecture, least of all on codes, and if you insist on coming down her
e I shan’t be answerable for the consequences.’

  He clearly feared that a know-it-all civilian of unmistakably Semitic origin would start a riot of unquantifiable proportions.

  Nick and Heffer also urged me to stay away as the timing was wrong. But it wasn’t for me.

  I hadn’t faced a lynch mob since admitting to the Free French that I’d broken de Gaulle’s secret code, and badly needed the illusion of courage. I also wanted to inspect Milton Hall’s library, most of which had come from 84.

  I decided to arrive on the 14th wearing a bulletproof vest, and returned to the lesser heroics of the invasion.

  The traffic made clear that the extent of SOE’s contribution to Overlord had come to the attention of the British as well as the Germans. Although the High Command still had reservations about the Resistance movement’s staying power and SOE’s competence, shaef headquarters in France sent a telegram to Gubbins confirming that the landings in Normandy and Brittany owed much of their success to the widespread uprisings and even more to the number of troop-carrying trains derailed and sabotaged by the Pimento organisation.

  This remarkable group consisted entirely of railway workers, and was controlled by an express train of an agent named Tony Brooks (code name Alphonse), who’d been dropped into France in June ’42 when he was a locomotive of twenty – the youngest agent Buckmaster had yet despatched to the field.

  Knowing little about trains but a great deal about passengers, he spent the next two years preparing Pimento for D-Day, and his efforts achieved the historic result of surpassing Buckmaster’s expectations. Since receiving their first ‘action’ messages, Pimento had derailed over a thousand trains, and the crack Das Reich Division, which had been ordered to rush to Normandy to repel the invasion, was forced to travel by road, giving the Allies the time they needed to consolidate their beachheads. Pimento had also paralysed scores of railway yards, brought all the traffic in the Rhône valley to a standstill and ensured that every train leaving Marseilles for Lyons was derailed at least once in the course of its journey. Of the dozens of messages reporting Pimento’s progress only three had themselves been derailed, but the mishaps had been caused by Morse mutilation and not by mistakes in coding.