‘… No sir,’ Price conceded eventually, ‘I think you have covered everything and I am sure Walsh will do admirably.’ The words stuck in his throat as he pronounced them. But that was far from the end of it. Price belatedly realised he was in for a lecture.
‘I’m going to give Walsh a free hand on this one,’ – a free hand thought Price, but I’m his commanding officer – ‘I don’t want him subjected to the usual supervision. The normal rules cannot apply on this assignment for reasons of security.’ Price was being sidelined and he knew it. Just when he thought his humiliation could grow no deeper, Gubbins stuck the knife between his ribs, ‘I am sorry I cannot permit you to know the details but you of all people must understand why.’
But Price did not understand. Far from being a favoured acolyte of the great Gubbins, a status he had craved till now with every fibre of his being, it appeared he was little more than a very small cog in a large and unforgiving wheel, a cog that represented a security risk to boot.
What had Walsh been saying to the CD during their cosy little chat over lunch? It must have been truly damning for Gubbins to feel the need to march into Price’s office, his own office, damn it, and warn him to keep his nose out of Walsh’s business. Oh, that was what Gubbins meant sure enough. He reckons I can’t be trusted, concluded Price as his paranoia and resentment grew. Gubbins thinks I’m windy, not good enough for his little cabal. Don’t think I haven’t seen them sipping whiskeys down at Whites or the Berkeley while I get barely a nod as I pass by, let alone an invitation to join the gang. It was just the same at school, thought Price bitterly and the familiar feeling of exclusion settled over him like a dark cloud. Well, it’s not good enough, he decided, not near good enough.
The remainder of this insultingly short meeting was largely concerned with the need to let Harry Walsh do just as he damn well pleased, probably right up to the point where he personally strangles Adolf Hitler, or carries out some other Herculean task Gubbins has so cavalierly set him. So, Price is not allowed to know eh? Then he will damn well make it his business to find out. Gubbins would see. He’d learn. There was something not quite right about Harry Walsh. Price had detected it early, could almost smell it in fact. It would all come crashing down around them eventually and Price would be there to pick up the pieces when it did. Then Gubbins would know who was of real value to his organisation. Walsh would live to rue the day he tried to stall Robert Price’s career. He hadn’t become a major by allowing men like that to get in his way. And he’d show Gubbins as well. He’d show the CD just what a big mistake he made the day he put all of his trust in Harry Bloody Walsh.
10
‘Is the last word said? Has all hope gone? Is the defeat definitive? No.
Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not die and will not die.’
Charles de Gaulle, 18 June 1940, on BBC Radio
It was a pleasure to take the Norton through the countryside instead of sitting on the morning train with a carriage full of those too old or infirm to fight. The day was bright, autumnal, and the roads were dry. Walsh opened up the bike and it responded eagerly, the engine purring as he sped along the country roads. The bushes flashed by, blurring into green borders either side of him
The rare sense of freedom couldn’t last but at least he wouldn’t have to contend with Price today. It wasn’t just the Major’s open dislike of Walsh the younger man found irksome, for he had never been popular with his superiors. Nor was it Price’s unfounded belief in Harry’s ability to comfortably moonlight as a diamond smuggler, based on evidence no more damning than his instinct and the word of a former conman. No, Walsh disliked his regular appointments with the Deputy Section Head because he realised it would never matter what he said or did. The Major was never going to accept him or his continued presence in ‘F’ Section. Walsh was simply not ‘the right sort’ and knew Price would never rest until he had been thrown out of SOE for good.
The area Walsh sped through was still ostensibly rural, its banks of fields broken by market towns that dispensed produce from the farms nearby. This rustic appearance belied the location’s importance to the war effort. Walsh was at the geographical centre of Britain’s struggle against Germany. Housed within thirty square miles of Bedfordshire countryside was a plethora of locations variously described as ‘secret’, ‘top secret’ and even sometimes ‘ultra-secret’. The British SOE and SIS and the American OSS used these bases between them and Bedford now thronged with off-duty American soldiers. Walsh was in a position of privilege working with SOE. He knew more than most what was likely to be going on behind the lace curtains in these isolated country houses or within the barbed wire perimeters of the tiny airfields, but some locations remained a mystery even to him.
Woburn Abbey housed the British government’s propaganda unit, the Political Warfare Executive, and at nearby Chicksands Priory the RAF had built a listening post to intercept enemy radio traffic. Enquiries about their work would be fobbed off with a terse reply from the men or women stationed there, some in uniform, some in civilian clothes. They were with the Foreign Office they’d say with no further elaboration.
There was an even bigger secret in a little town not twenty miles from Bedford, judging by the number of civilian workers that had been bussed into the surrounding area. The locals referred to them as ‘guinea pigs’ because landladies got a guinea a week towards the cost of housing them. They were an unlikely lot. Instead of spies or battle-hardened commandos the tenants were linguists, scholars and mathematicians but even Harry Walsh was not privy to the immense secret that lay behind Station X. Whatever was going on at Bletchley Park was classified too high even for him.
Walsh was more familiar with the area’s secret airfields, thanks to his regular missions into occupied France. Cheddington and Chelveston were within easy reach and both used to drop agents, supplies or propaganda leaflets but today his destination was RAF Tempsford though he would not be flying anywhere.
Walsh pulled up by the front gate and handed over his identification papers for scrutiny. Just as he began to wonder if there was a problem with his documents, the sentry saluted Walsh and the barrier was raised.
Walsh rode the Norton along the approach road. All around him there was activity; voices raised in urgency, diverting lorries here and there to unload a precious cargo. Tempsford was the base for the Royal Air Force Special Duty Service, the airfield a supply base for the French resistance, dropping men, women and equipment into occupied territory. Canisters containing arms, ammunition and provisions were driven in from the nearby depot at Holme, to be dropped later by parachute. Lorries came and went and equipment was offloaded at an impressive rate. He found a quiet corner in which to safely leave the Norton and walked briskly into the main building.
Colonel Maurice Buckmaster was already on the base having seen off an agent the night before. Now he was deep in conversation with two other men. Buckmaster was a tall figure with a long nose, a small thatch of remaining hair and a perpetual frown. He resembled an accountant more than a senior army officer. Some questioned if he was too gentle to be head of ‘F’ Section but Walsh was not among the dissenters. Price jealously guarded access to the Colonel and Buckmaster could appear a distant, unapproachable figure sometimes but Walsh knew the man’s work rate. Every day Buckmaster would put in an ample day at the office before cycling across London to his Chelsea home. There he would have an evening meal before returning once more to Baker Street and carrying on, usually well into the early hours. The whereabouts and welfare of some one hundred and twenty agents were always the Colonel’s prime concern and that fact alone was enough to earn him the respect of Harry Walsh.
One of Buckmaster’s companions wore the uniform of a US army officer.
‘Captain Walsh,’ said Buckmaster when he saw Harry, ‘allow me to introduce Captain Sam Cooper from the Office of Strategic Services.’
The OSS man leaned forward
to shake Walsh’s hand. Cooper had a powerful soldier’s frame and his light brown hair was parted neatly down one side. He looked a shade older than his twenty-five years, thought Walsh, but doesn’t everybody these days?
‘We’ve met,’ said Walsh dryly.
‘Harry, good to see you,’ Cooper smiled broadly, ‘so glad you made it out of Yugoslavia.’
‘No thanks to you, Sam.’
‘I never doubted you would.’ Cooper was from well-heeled, Boston-Irish stock and family money had bought him into the Ivy League. He was smiling now, as if they were the very best of friends.
‘Really? I did, on more than one occasion.’
Buckmaster coughed. ‘I see you are already acquainted.’ The Colonel was beginning to wonder if he was about to have an incident on his hands but he continued doggedly. ‘And this is Monsieur Christophe Valvert of the Free French.’ Until then Walsh had barely noticed the nondescript little man in civilian clothes who completed the group.
‘I am a delight to make your acquaintance,’ Valvert spoke in heavily accented, broken English. The fellow must have stood no taller than five feet four inches in his stocking feet observed Walsh.
Buckmaster gave them all a short speech on the importance of their undertaking. And Walsh waited impatiently for the exact nature of the mission to be revealed.
‘To begin with you will team up with a specially selected band of the Maquis,’ Buckmaster continued. ‘They have been asking us for equipment and are prepared to accept you into their group,’ I’ll bet they are thought Walsh, if they’ve not got a Sten gun between them, ‘and they are committed to assisting you with operations in their area.’
‘And what is their area?’ asked Valvert.
‘Normandy,’ answered Buckmaster and Walsh inwardly shuddered at the prospect of an early return to the territory in which he recently risked his life.
‘You will train the Maquis to assist you in a mission that is vital to the outcome of the war.’ Buckmaster pulled a cover from a draftsman’s easel behind him, to reveal a charcoal sketch of what appeared to be some form of alien flying machine.
‘What on earth is that?’ asked Walsh who had certainly never seen the like before.
‘Something out of Buck Rogers,’ observed Cooper.
‘It looks like a toy,’ said Valvert staring at its sleek lines and glass-fronted canopy, ‘where are the propellers?’
‘It doesn’t need any,’ answered Buckmaster, ‘that is the Messerschmitt Me 163, a rocket-powered, fighter plane with a flying speed in excess of 600mph.’
Cooper whistled then leaned closer to the picture, frowning as he peered at it suspiciously.
Valvert reacted to the American’s awe, ‘That’s fast? Really quick?’ he asked uncertainly.
‘It’s fast,’ confirmed Walsh, ‘a Spitfire can do what? 360mph, maximum?’ He glanced at Buckmaster who nodded his agreement. ‘This thing is almost twice as quick but the real question is how near it is to full development? Is this a prototype we are looking at or a production model?’
‘It’s a prototype but production models are not far behind. We have a very well-placed source. He tells us the intention is to conduct battlefield tests on the fighter. There have been problems with it, thankfully. For starters it’s too heavy, almost a tonne over its anticipated flying weight. Then there’s the engine; a liquid-fuelled rocket-powered unit that is currently proving unstable.’
‘Meaning what exactly?’ asked Cooper.
‘Meaning I would not want to be the first to fly it,’ answered Walsh.
‘The plane’s excess weight makes it prone to crash landings and the liquid fuel has a nasty habit of igniting both the plane and its pilot. However, the engine is being rebuilt by this man,’ and Buckmaster pointed to a faded, black and white photograph pinned to the board, of a middle-aged man with the unmistakeable look of academia about him. An emotionless face peered out at them from the photograph through dark rimmed glasses. ‘This is Professor Gaerte, the scientist tasked with bringing on the development of Germany’s latest miracle weapon, the Me 163 fighter interceptor, also known as the Komet. He must find a way to reduce the weight of the plane and make the unstable engine work before the first batch of some eighty odd production models is completed. If he succeeds the Germans will manufacture hundreds of Me 163s in the new year.’
‘Meaning no prospect of a second front,’ observed Walsh.
Buckmaster nodded, ‘Exactly, any invasion of Europe must be based on complete air superiority or our ground forces will be annihilated before they have even left the beaches.’
‘And if they have hundreds of jet fighters flying at that speed they can knock our planes out of the skies before they know what’s hit them,’ said Cooper.
‘Indeed,’ answered the Colonel.
Valvert peered at the odd-looking aircraft, ‘But it looks so little and puny.’
‘Imagine that same small and insignificant plane fitted with twin 30mm cannon,’ continued Buckmaster, ‘coming at one of our fighters at twice his speed. He would have no chance of outrunning it, let alone shooting it down.’
‘So, what are we to do? Destroy this toy?’ asked the French man.
Buckmaster did not answer at first. Instead he straightened and walked slowly away from the drawings.
‘Why do I get the impression that wouldn’t do the job?’ asked Cooper. ‘If you know where it is, the RAF could drop everything they had on it.’
Buckmaster’s tone became appeasing, almost apologetic. ‘First, we do not know exactly where it is, only where it is going to be. Eight weeks from now the battlefield trial will commence from an airfield in Normandy. The Me 163 prototype will leave Germany for the first time, to join up with a squadron of Luftwaffe fighter planes. It will go on patrols and have its effectiveness evaluated by scientists attempting to eradicate its remaining faults. Second, destroying the plane would be a setback for the Germans but one that could be measured in weeks not months.’
‘So what are we expected to do if not destroy it?’ questioned Valvert.
‘I think I can guess,’ answered Walsh, ‘if I am right the Colonel has already shown us our target.’
11
‘I think that the dropping of men dressed in civilian clothes for the purpose of attempting to kill members of the opposing forces is not an operation with which the Royal Air Force should be associated.’
Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal on the SOE
The three men who would make up the first Jedburgh team all turned their gaze back on to the unknowing face in the picture.
‘Exactly, Walsh,’ Buckmaster was nodding, ‘remove Gaerte and the delay becomes months.’
‘Remove?’ asked Valvert.
‘He is Germany’s foremost expert in liquid-fuelled jet propulsion and will accompany the plane to France,’ explained Buckmaster, ‘kill the professor and his expertise dies with him.’
‘So, it’s an assassination, as simple as that,’ said Cooper.
‘I wouldn’t exactly describe it as simple,’ admitted the Colonel, ‘there are a number of obstacles but we will go through the fine detail in due course.’
A number of obstacles thought Walsh, between them and a scientist who holds the future of the Third Reich in his hands; try half the German army for starters. For now though, he thought it best to keep his own counsel.
Valvert was not so reticent, ‘Colonel, how do you get all this information about Germany’s top-secret plane?’
Walsh snorted, ‘He’s hardly going to tell you.’
‘Quite,’ answered Buckmaster and Valvert felt like a schoolboy whose question has been ridiculed by the rest of his class. ‘Let’s just say our source has proved reliable in the past.’ Though Buckmaster would not admit it, he did not know the identity of the source either. Shegel’s information had first been processed by MI6 and rep
orted to Churchill personally by Menzies in one of their weekly briefings. Neither man would accept anything less than the unconditional surrender of Germany but it could do no harm to encourage destabilising forces within the Third Reich, especially when they provided priceless nuggets of intelligence to court favour with the allies. A dialogue with the plotters was worth it, even if they ultimately proved to be little more than a stone in Hitler’s boot.
Churchill gave the job of killing Gaerte to Gubbins without telling MI6. In one of life’s ironies, Six, as they always did, would now try to undermine an SOE operation they knew nothing about that was based on intelligence they themselves had provided.
‘Who will command this operation, sir?’ asked Walsh.
‘This morning I agreed with Captain Cooper that you will be in nominal operational command, Walsh, based purely on field experience.’ Walsh gave Cooper a small nod to acknowledge his concession of command. ‘However, we expect each of you to use your respective skills and work together as a team.’
‘Of course,’ replied Walsh.
‘We are still new to this game,’ admitted Cooper, ‘and we have something to learn about clandestine operations in France.’
Buckmaster turned to Walsh, ‘Captain, can you devise a training program for Monsieur Valvert and Captain Cooper before you leave?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ answered Walsh and Cooper was perturbed to see a slight smile cross the Englishman’s face.
‘Good, now let’s go over this in detail,’ commanded Buckmaster, ‘naturally you’ll have questions.’
Indeed, thought Walsh, as he stared into the dull bespectacled eyes on the photograph, chief among them how am I going to get close enough to kill you?
They were leaving the building a little over two hours later when Cooper caught up with Walsh. ‘This business in Yugoslavia, answer me truthfully, Harry, what would you have done in my position?’
Ungentlemanly Warfare Page 6
