by David Boyle
“Look,” she said. “I might be able to help you more if you could tell me what this is about. I’m sure Ralph, um… Mr Lancing-Price, could confirm what I say.”
The men exchanged glances and Fleming gave a little nod.
“No, you see,” said the superintendent. “That would be a bit difficult, because he’s in Berlin.”
3
London, June 1940
How do you get from one side of London to the other without being followed? It’s a useful trick and it is one that Xanthe decided she was increasingly proud to have been taught. She also learned it the hard way, between Paddington and Whitechapel, being followed and then following her fellow trainees, over and over again. It was hardly that she believed it would ever help her much in civilian life, if she managed to survive to take part in it. It appealed to her fondness for puzzles. It reminded her of the winter, snowbound evenings she spent with her father wrestling the latest crosswords and drinking cocoa.
But then it was a severely foreshortened training. She had been recruited to a branch of naval intelligence for one purpose alone, and it was apparently an urgent one, though she was not told why. There was no time to train her in unarmed combat or marksmanship or any of the skills the other recruits on her course were being taught in an old office in Gloucester Terrace. But she passed and she was proud of herself. There were two Canadian women, but she was the only other person from the USA. They were not encouraged to socialise and, in any case, there was very little time. She had to learn, not just the skill of being inconspicuous and how to use a dead letter box, but she also had a crash course in German. She had picked up some from her father, who had taught her when he had nothing better to do, but she needed a serious upgrade.
By the end of four weeks, Belgium and Holland had surrendered, the British Expeditionary Force had been rescued from the beaches and Winston Churchill – Ralph Lancing-Price’s erstwhile boss – had ascended to the top job. And Xanthe could get by in conversational German. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to people brought up in the north European atmosphere of the Midwest.
When those three men in Scotland Yard had asked her to help them, it seemed to Xanthe to solve two immediate problems simultaneously – it allowed her to escape Simonetta College and it enabled her to earn some money. If she was stuck on this side of the Atlantic then, sooner or later, she would have to support herself. But she realised later that she had given remarkably little thought to precisely what they would ask her to do, though they promised to tell her if she managed to progress on the course. She guessed that, if she had struggled in any way, she never would have heard from them again. But she didn’t sink – she had managed to escape those following her by the time she had reached Great Portland Street.
She had been told she would be attached to the Government Codes and Cipher School but, when she asked if she could meet some of her colleagues, she was told that the information was classified. When she complained to her extremely reticent instructor, she was told how unusual it was for a foreign national to be involved in the war effort in this way. “To be frank,” she said. “It might be a good deal easier if you would just tell me what it is you want me to do, so that I can go and do it.”
“May I advise you, Miss Schneider, that signs of impatience can be fatal and would lead to your expulsion from this course and from government service.”
Finally, there was a week in Scotland on the moors, and she had hoped for conversation with the older men and women who were being tested along with her. But the other trainees kept themselves to themselves. They didn’t seem to talk to anyone. They certainly didn’t want to know Xanthe.
*
At first, she had refused to accept that Ralph had gone over to the enemy. It was hard to believe. So when she was told later, in a more comprehensive meeting, that he had left behind an alternative explanation, she was quick to believe it.
Commander Fleming told her this in a small interview room in the Admiralty; strange because it seemed to have been fitted with a bath. Nobody mentioned this, so Xanthe pretended it was not there.
“Miss Schneider, sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “You have completed our foreshortened training course very successfully, I am told. So the moment has arrived for me to take you a little into our confidence. You must understand before I do so that you are now in His Majesty’s armed forces and are bound by the same laws and regulations that we are. Furthermore, any careless talk by yourself about anything you hear now from me would mean not just instant dismissal but probably also imprisonment. Do you understand?”
Xanthe nodded. She was feeling numb, unable to comprehend exactly what she was about to do and why, and aware that she was not thinking as clearly as she should.
“And if you’re wondering why there is a bath in here, then your guess is as good as mine – but I can tell you that it allowed our chief codebreaker in the last war to think more creatively. He used to spend his nights in it.”
“Well, I didn’t like to ask.”
“There’s a lesson here,” said Fleming, in a schoolmasterly tone. “Anything odd – you notice it. You don’t have to mention it, but you have to notice and file it away.”
“Thank you,” she said. More of the blasted obvious, she thought.
“Now when Ralph Lancing-Price went to Berlin, he did so via Switzerland, I understand, where he went as part of a small parliamentary delegation to talk to the Swiss codebreakers. But he left behind an explanation which would, if it were true, make him less culpable – brave and probably insane, but less culpable.”
She nodded nervously.
“He claimed that he was going to do a Zimmerman. Have you any understanding of what that meant?”
This time she shook her head.
“The Zimmerman Telegram brought your fellow countrymen into the war in 1917. It was from the German Foreign Minister, one Zimmerman, who wanted to carve up the USA with Mexico – I expect you’ve heard about it. Anyway, the point was that it was encoded with a range of different codes and, when you do that, it’s like the Rosetta Stone. It meant that we could then crack others too. Lancing-Price plans, or so he claims, to persuade the Nazis to send telegrams to their embassies and the army, and the navy, at the same time. We will intercept them all and it will – as the saying goes – provide us with an admirable clue. Now, does that ring any bells?”
It didn’t really ring anything to Xanthe, if she was honest, but she didn’t want to admit it. She was horrified that Ralph, who she had liked and trusted, would go over to the other side, and she was already nervous about meeting Fleming again.
“I know he was fascinated by codes.”
“Yes, but nothing else? Fine. Now, listen carefully, because this is the critical bit. He claims that he’ll find some opportunity to broadcast a message about opposition to the war in Britain, and in the navy in particular, which will have to be explained also to the Kriegsmarine, the navy that is.”
Her head was spinning a little. So Ralph’s plan was to create some kind of event, or campaign, that would allow the same signals to go out on different networks. It sounded clever but almost impossible.
“Now, as you might realise, this is a high-risk strategy, and not just for him. You’re aware of the Nazi radio broadcasts and their ‘P for Peace’ campaign. You may not know that somebody – and we don’t know who – painted out all the letters from the sign at Paddington Station last week, and they just left the ‘P’. We think that’s significant. There will come a moment when these forces that want peace will be urged to stand up here and be counted. Maybe in the next few weeks, given that the BEF is now home – most of them – and without weapons. Oh, by the way, would you like a cup of tea?”
This seemed to be either extraordinary egalitarianism on the part of Commander Fleming or they were about to tell her to do something difficult. It proved, pretty quickly, to be the second.
“So this is what we need you to do, if you agree of course. We have procured your
accreditation on the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who have been very helpful to us in the past. As an American citizen, you can come and go around Berlin. That means you will go there as a journalist, quite legally, find Lancing-Price, as if by accident, and work out for yourself whether his story is true and what his motivations really are. You will then let us know, and I’ll tell you how to do that if you agree to go.”
Xanthe realised suddenly that there was someone else behind the desk, and he looked a little familiar. She was unsure why she hadn’t noticed him before. He seemed painfully shy and still had not spoken.
“It’s a risky venture,” Fleming was saying, “but you are the perfect man, that is to say person, to do it. You’re not British and you will blend in perfectly with the American press corps in Berlin, of which there are rather a large number. I think you will do a brilliant job and we certainly need a brilliant job at this juncture in our history.”
She stared at Fleming’s companion, wondering why he seemed so familiar. As she did so, she was wondering vaguely whether Fleming was being jaunty, with a dry sense of humour, or whether humour was entirely alien to him.
“As I say, you’re not British. You’re under no obligation to go, but we would have the most enormous gratitude if you did. Ah, here’s the tea!” He rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Miss Schneider?”
Rather naively, she thought later, she had been congratulating herself on her good fortune. The war had begun in earnest. The beaches of Dunkirk had been a recent triumph, Italy had entered the war and a great silence seemed to have fallen across most of Europe. It seemed unlikely that she could safely sail home any time soon. More urgently, Simonetta College had closed for the duration, and she was staying temporarily in Moira’s flat. She badly needed to earn some money. This seemed a solution. One thing worried her more than the rest.
“Why do you trust me?”
“Well, the truth is, Miss Schneider, that we have taken the trouble to know a great deal about you…”
Xanthe felt a rush of fear and then an almost uncontrollable urge to giggle. She managed to prevent herself – it would hardly do to lose any kind of control at this crucial moment.
“We know about your parents, about your father at least. We know about your friends, here and back home. We know what you ate for lunch most days since the war began and where you buy your undergarments…” He snickered a little.
“In Marks and Spencer?”
“Quite so. We also know you speak a little German and are no friend to the Nazis.”
“And we know about the crosswords!” said the other man, with a note of triumph. Xanthe had forgotten him again. “I say, I have a feeling that we know each other. Do you perhaps have some connection with King’s?”
Fleming looked daggers at him.
“Turing, I don’t think this is the right moment.”
“I thought you knew all about me!” she said with a little laugh. Then she remembered who he was – Dr Turing, the man who had given up his seat to her in that strange philosophy lecture. “Oh yes, you saved my life once. In Dr Wittgenstein’s room!”
“Of course! I remember. Good to see you again – glad we’ll be working together. If you are in agreement?”
“I look forward to it,” she said, but the news was disconcerting. She could not imagine herself working very closely with anyone quite so philosophical. Also, as she realised, walking to Strand station to get the underground back to Moira’s flat, that they appeared to have employed her on the basis of her very short career as a crosswords enthusiast. It is strange where the most mundane details will redirect you, she said to herself, watching the balloons hanging in the sky. Even more worrying what it said about their confidence in other facts they clearly only half understood.
4
Berlin, June 1940
Some weeks later, Xanthe filed into the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin for her first press conference as an accredited foreign correspondent. “Just come along and listen. I’ll handle the news bit for now. Just get your feel of it, ok?” said Sigrid, the head of the Chicago Tribune office in Berlin. But, however friendly they were – and they all seemed friendly and pleased to have another woman – she felt a fraud. As she sat on the leather upholstered chairs and waited, she realised this was because it was exactly what she was. She had been trained to avoid being followed and about dead letter drops and conversational German. She had been told how to make contact in Berlin – simply by going into the American embassy and saying the words “Uncle Sam” at the front desk, then heading to the bench opposite the elephant house at the zoo. But she had been told nothing at all about how to actually be a journalist. One of the peculiarities of the English, as she discovered, is that they think professional skills magically emerge just with a bit of practice. But where was the magic?
She had asked about this, but was told that “journalists are never trained in this country. They just pick it up”.
“Hello,” said a burly man next to her in English. “So where have you wafted in from?”
“Chicago Tribune,” she said, without much conviction. She felt unhappy and doubly homesick, part for England and part for Ohio.
“Great!… What happened to Frank?”
Xanthe had a cover story for this one. “Frank got ill on the crossing and had to go back home. I’m a last-minute replacement, I’m afraid. I’m a bit of a beginner.”
A big smile seemed to cover his face. “Don’t you worry, kid. Just stick with me and I’ll show you the ropes. Big morning: their chief is addressing the foreign press. Hans Fritzsche. I expect he’ll go big on the French. How’s your German?”
“A bit threadbare, to be honest.”
“Same here. But we get by don’t we… What I usually do is ask Bill at the end – where is he, now?” He searched the faces around the room.
“Bill?”
“William Shirer from CBS. There he is at the front.”
There were not that many of them in the big conference room with comfy chairs and a large platform like a stage. It looked like it was designed for a good harangue. There were now none of the belligerent press there – the British and French had gone. TASS was there from the Soviet Union: she could see a dull little man in the corner. There were a few excitable men at the back whom she took to be the Italian reporters. Otherwise, it was mainly Americans, a little like her. And sitting draped across two chairs was a balding man with a high forehead and a small moustache. In his wire-framed spectacles, he looked like a bank manager. That must be Bill.
“My name’s Bob, by the way. Yup, we Midwesterners must stick together – what was your name again?”
“Xanthe. How did you know where I was from?”
“Oh, you can always tell. Listen, I’ll introduce you to Bill at the end. Great guy – great name, by the way!”
Fritzsche came in quietly, looking shorter than Xanthe had expected, and then produced a monumental rant against the British and French, how they were both finished. The word “heroic” was bandied about generously, applied exclusively to the German forces. The word “cowardly” was applied to the British, who had apparently sacked Louvain and burned the library. Even to Xanthe, a novice and without experience, this seemed extremely unlikely.
She had been in Berlin only a few days. She had arrived via a journey by ship to Lisbon and then a train to Italy, and with every mile south she went, the terrible sense of loneliness gripped her further. She felt utterly alone and utterly unprepared for what she was about to do. What had she been thinking when she agreed to go to Berlin? Why on earth had she volunteered to go, friendless, unsure of her purpose, of the language, with no knowledge even of her adopted cover profession? How stupid, she thought – just to get a little excitement? Had she been feeling left out? By the time she had landed by plane in Lisbon and taken the ferry to Italy, she began to feel seriously frightened. But there was no turning back now, and somehow the fear was crystallised when she had been met at the station by Sigrid, who seemed
to disapprove of her youth.
“Listen, the editor suggests you get into the life of ordinary Germans at war, women, rations and so on,” said Sigrid. “Stick to the facts. Look out for a guy called Bob, who will guide you around. You’ll meet him at the first press conference. And trust nobody. Not even me. And definitely not Bob,” she added with a meaningful look.
The sunshine was bright outside in the street. There were fewer cars than there were in London, but there were the distinctive yellow-and-white trams, and their bells, which zipped past her ringing their excited notes. The office girls were out to enjoy the heat at lunchtime as Xanthe went to her tiny office. Sigrid had arranged a press pass, a ration card of bizarre complexity – clothing, food, washing stuff and so on. There was a pass that allowed her to live in Berlin and a key to the lodgings to which she had been assigned and a letter to the landlady Frau Menschler. There was a very great deal to take in. She could hardly believe she had been, within a few short weeks, living in the capital cities of both warring powers, but then this was the reality for foreign correspondents. The fear remained but, as she got busier, she also found herself thanking the fates that she had, entirely by accident and not attributable to any skills of her own, found herself in a profession she had actually aspired to join.
Bob also directed her to the Hotel Adlon, a luxurious dive past its prime, with strange curved ceilings and plasterwork, where so many foreign correspondents spent their evenings and, in some cases, much of their nights. These were mainly Americans, so much of their conversation was in English, around the strange dark, Germanic wooden chairs and over-ornate marble pillars. It smelled of pipe tobacco.
Xanthe was determined at least to start work before making any attempt to find Ralph, though she had been told he often drank in Adlon and spent time also in the Rundfunk offices where the wireless broadcasters were based. She realised she needed to master something of her new profession, even for a few days, before she pretended to run into him.