Donovan read them carefully as the Princess limousine, trailed by the Ford, headed down narrow county blacktop roads toward Kent and Whitbey House. Stevens read over Donovan’s shoulder, taking the messages back from him and often making notes of Donovan’s reactions to them.
“Curiosity practically overwhelms me about that one,” Stevens said when Donovan came to one brief message. It was only classified “priority,” which, because most of the other messages were “operational immediate” and “urgent, ” made it apparently of low import:
PRIORITY
SECRET
NAVAL COMMCENTER WASH DC I800 HOURS 2 DEC 1942
STATION CHIEF LONDON FOR DONOVAN
REGRET TO INFORM YOU FOOTBALL STADIUM CHAINS CRACKING STOP
LT COMMANDER HUDSON USNR STOP
END
"Jesus! ” Donovan said, and exhaled audibly.
“Bad news?” Stevens asked, surprised at the out-of-character blasphemy.
Donovan looked at him almost as if he didn’t know who he was, and then shook his head. He folded the message carefully and put it in his breast pocket.
“You don’t want to give that back to me?” Stevens said.
“I—uh—Ed, I’m keeping sort of a personal file of significant messages,” Donovan said, then leaned forward to crank down the glass partition.
“Sergeant,” he ordered, “the first chance you get, pull off the road and stop, would you, please?”
Then he pushed himself back against the seat. Lt. Colonel Stevens knew this was not the time to press him with questions.
A moment later, the Princess pulled onto the shoulder of the road and stopped. The WRAC sergeant twisted around to see what else was expected of her.
“Let’s take a walk, Ed,” Donovan said, and opened the curbside door.
As Stevens got out, he saw the Ford pull in behind them.
“Just stay where you are, please,” Donovan called, as Canidy stepped out of the passenger seat in the front, followed a moment later by Fine. There was a “just do what you’re told” tone in his voice.
He led Stevens fifty yards down the road, seemingly oblivious to the rain, which was now falling steadily. Then he stopped, looked around to make sure there was no chance of their being overheard.
“Lieutenant Commander Hudson is the President,” Donovan began. “I guess he got the name from the Hudson River.”
“And?” Stevens asked, confused.
“Ed,” Donovan said. “The time has come for you to be brought in on this. It’s—I don’t know how else to put this—the big secret of this war. I am not bringing Dave Bruce in on this. I don’t want to burden him with it. But one man here has to be told. And I’ve decided—actually President Roosevelt decided—that’s you.”
“Bill, knowing something that Dave Bruce doesn’t puts me on a hell of a spot,” Stevens protested. “He’s the station chief.”
“That can’t be helped,” Donovan said, so sharply that Stevens looked at him in surprise.
“I’ll be as concise as I can,” Donovan said. “In the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein sent a letter to Roosevelt through a man named Alexander Sachs. In the letter he said that he and others believed that if an atom of an element called uranium could be split under the right conditions, the splitting of this atom would send out particles which would knock into and then split other atoms. Those would split others, which in turn would split others. A chain reaction, in other words. Do you follow me?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Stevens said.
“Bear with me,” Donovan said. “The thing about splitting atoms is that energy is released. If we can cause a chain reaction of atoms, a tremendous amount of energy would be released. The formula is ‘energy equals the mass times the square of the speed of light,’ which is one hell of a lot of energy. In other words, a bomb with a power that boggles the mind could be built. One bomb would have the explosive power of thousands of tons of explosives. ”
Stevens couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he said nothing.
“Roosevelt took a chance and authorized a program to see if the atom could indeed be split. A couple of thousand dollars at first, God alone knows how many millions so far. An Italian physicist named Enrico Fermi has been working on the project ever since. At the University of Chicago, in a laboratory under the stands of the football stadium. Taking an even greater chance, Roosevelt put Leslie Groves— You know him?”
“Only by reputation,” Stevens said. “Army Engineer colonel?”
“Buck General,” Donovan said, nodding. “Groves is now building a facility in the hills of Tennessee to refine enough uranium 235 to make such a bomb. Construction began before they knew for sure they could cause a chain reaction.”
“And now they know?”
“That’s what that message is all about,” Donovan said.
“How does the OSS get involved?” Stevens asked, then paused. “I guess I’m wondering why you’re telling me.”
“The OSS has already been involved,” Donovan said.
Stevens’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
“In the presumption that the people at the University of Chicago would succeed in making a chain reaction, we’ve started to build the bomb,” Donovan said. “Let me make it clear: We’re years away from having one. But now we know we can eventually make one. To make one, we need one hundred highly refined pounds of a uranium isotope called uranium 235. At the moment, the total supply of uranium 235 in the world, including that in the hands of the Germans—who are investigating ‘nuclear energy’ themselves— is one-millionth of a pound.”
“I’m lost again, Bill,” Stevens said. “I don’t mean to sound so dense.”
“Uranium 235 can be refined from uraninite,” Donovan said. “There are two known sources of uraninite. One is in Pomerania, a state of Germany, and the other is in Kolwezi, in the Katanga Province of the Belgian Congo.”
“Oh!” Stevens said, catching on.
Donovan nodded.
“It was not known for sure whether the uraninite in the Belgian Congo was (a) in fact uraninite or (b) if it was, whether it could be refined to produce uranium 235. But we had to try.”
“That’s what Canidy and Fine brought out,” Stevens said. It was not a question.
“There was no way the ore could have been shipped out by sea, or by truck to South Africa. The only way to take it out was by air.”
“I thought the Kolwezi Operation had something to do with the Norden bombsight,” Stevens said.
“So does the Chief of Naval Operations,” Donovan said. “He doesn’t have the need to know. The President, alone, makes that decision.”
“And the President wanted me brought in on this? Why?”
“Getting that bomb built before the Germans build one is the nation’s highest priority,” Donovan said. “Which can be looked at another way: Keeping the Germans from building one before Groves and his people can is OSS’s highest priority.”
“I’m confused again, Bill,” Stevens said. “What’s that got to do with my knowing about this?”
Donovan didn’t seem at first to respond directly:“The OSS’s second priority is to keep the Germans from even suspecting we’re experimenting with an atomic bomb. God alone knows what they would do if they were to find out Fermi has actually caused a chain reaction.”
“It is impossible to keep a secret,” Stevens said, thinking out loud.
“This is going to have to be the exception to that rule,” Donovan said.
“How many people know?”
“Maybe a dozen physicists under Groves. J. Edgar Hoover had to be told. A lot of his assets are to be diverted to keeping the secret. Marshall knows, of course. Pete Douglass knows. And now you do.”
“That brings us back to ‘Why me?’”
“You’re privy to everything that will go on here,” Donovan said. “It will explain to you certain things that I may do, or ask to be done,” Don
ovan said. “And you will be able, now that you know the priorities, to stop anything that shouldn’t be done.”
“That authority belongs to the station chief,” Stevens said.
“That’s what I told the President,” Donovan said. “He said Dave has enough on his mind as it is.”
“What about the brass? What about Ike?” Stevens asked. “Certainly Ike must know.”
“Three Army officers know. Groves, me, and you. And for the time being, that’s it. I’ll tell Dave Bruce that you are privy to a project of the highest priority, and that it has been decided in the interests of security that he not be made aware of the details.”
“That puts me on a hell of a spot, Bill,” Stevens said, again, without thinking.
“Your ‘spot,’ Ed, however uncomfortable you may feel,” Donovan said coldly,“is not quite like mine. I’m charged with keeping the Germans from either finding out about our bomb, or building one of their own.”
"Sorry,” Stevens said. “I’m a little off balance.”
Donovan laughed. Stevens looked at him in surprise.
“Your WRAC sergeant,” Donovan said,“is studiously looking out the rear window. She obviously thinks we came out here to take a leak.”
Stevens looked. As he did, the WRAC sergeant stole a quick look to see what they were up to, then quickly turned her head again.
“She must think we have the bladders of a whale,” he said.
Donovan laughed heartily, then took Lt. Colonel Stevens’s arm and prodded him back down the road toward the car.
Chapter TWO
Whitbey House, Kent
6 December 1942
Whitbey House, the ancestral seat of the Duchy of Stanfield, consisted of some 26,000 acres: Whitbey House itself—84 rooms and outbuildings; the village of Whitbey on Naer (pop. 607); the ruins of the Abbey of St. William the Martyr (Roman Catholic); St. Timothy’s church (Anglican); a 4,600-foot gravel aircraft runway (built in 1931 by the father of the present Duke); an open aircraft hangar; as well as other real property that had come into the hands of the first Duke of Stanfield circa 1213.
As everyone expected, it was requisitioned for the duration of the war by His Majesty’s Government. Few “stately homes” escaped requisitioning. His Majesty’s Government’s need for space was virtually insatiable. The situation became worse when the United States entered the war and began to ship air, ground, and naval forces (and their supply depots) to the British Isles. It was generally believed that the ducal airstrip would be expanded into an aerodrome for use by the United States Army Air Corps.
At every fifty feet around the perimeter of the lands of Whitbey House signs were mounted bearing the seal of the Crown and the legend “Government Establishment—Entry Prohibited.”
Some of the signs were nailed to trees or affixed to stone fences, and some were mounted on stakes driven into the ground. The signs were cardboard. Already, after four months in place, they were growing ragged and illegible. A requisition for more-durable signs had been submitted, but it was a question of priority, and there was no telling when they would be made available.
Around the twelve-acre area that converged upon Whitbey House itself, out of sight of the roads outside the estate, was another barrier, coils of barbed wire called “concertina.” Hanging from the concertina at fifty-foot intervals, more signs were painted on oblongs of twenty-four- by eighteen-inch plywood. On these signs was a representation of a skull and crossbones with a simple legend beneath it: “Persons Trespassing Beyond This Line Will Be Shot on Sight.”
Once requisitioned, Whitbey House had passed from the control of H.M. Office of Properties to the War Office, and from the War Office to the Special Operations Executive, and from SOE to a little-known American organization, the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS.
The mission of the OSS was known in full to no more than a handful of people. Even Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff to SHAEF Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not fully privy to the exact mission of the OSS, nor was Eisenhower’s Intelligence Chief, although they both believed that they were.
What most senior brass did know was that Colonel William J. Donovan answered to the President by way of General George Catlett Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, though sometimes Colonel William J. Donovan answered to the President through no intermediary at all. That was enough to convince them that Donovan was the most powerful colonel the Army had ever known. But it did not endear Donovan to them.
The skull and crossbones and rolls of concertina were American. Just outside the barbed wire was a tent and hut encampment housing an American infantry battalion. On rotation, one of the four companies of the battalion provided a guard force between the concertina and a third barrier, enclosing just over three acres around Whitbey House itself.
The other three companies of the battalion carried on routine training but were of course available should there be a need.
The third barrier consisted of an eight-foot fence of barbed wire, with concertina laid on either side of the fence. There were in addition flood lamps, three to a pole, every hundred feet.
A constable of the Kent Constabulary was stationed in the gatehouse of Whitbey House. His function was to turn away casual visitors to the estate, but he was also equipped with a U.S. Army EE-8 field telephone. When the Princess and the Ford passed onto the estate, he cranked the telephone and told the sergeant of the U.S. Army Guard at the first barrier that he had just passed two authorized vehicles, one of them carrying an American colonel.
The limousine and the Ford rolled for almost a mile through a manicured forest on a road laid out centuries before. The road had been designed then to provide as level as possible a route for the heavy carriages of the aristocracy rather than the shortest distance between the gate and the house.
When they emerged from the forest, Whitbey House itself came into sight at the end of a wide, curving entrance drive. The House was a brick and sandstone structure three floors high. As they approached, it grew ever more impressive; and by the time they reached the final U.S. Army guard post, it was impossible to see all of it without moving the head.
The sergeant of the guard passed the two-car convoy inside his barrier, and the officer of the guard was waiting at the inner gate to check identification cards against a list of authorized personnel. Like the other officers of the infantry battalion, he had been told that Whitbey House housed a highly classified organization whose mission was to select bombardment targets for the Eighth Air Force. He had no reason to doubt what he was told, but he frequently questioned the necessity of guarding the establishment so closely.
When the two cars rolled up before the front door of Whitbey House, two officers were standing outside waiting for them. One was an American lieutenant, a pleasant, red-haired young man named Jamison. The other was a WRAC Captain named Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Stanfield.
Both saluted as Donovan got out of the car, and Lt. Colonel Stevens made the introductions.
Donovan found Captain Stanfield rather interesting. She was in her early middle thirties, a pale-skinned, lithe, sandy-haired woman whose tunic bore the insignia of the Imperial General Staff. Captain Stanfield had been assigned as liaison officer between the Imperial General Staff and OSS Whitbey House Station. Donovan knew that meant she had been sent to spy on the OSS—a job she was ideally suited for. For one thing, she knew Whitbey House intimately. Her identity card read “Captain the Duchess Stanfield.”
Donovan was aware too that her husband, Wing Commander the Duke Stanfield, RAF, had been shot down and was carried as “missing in action” on RAF rolls. And he knew that Captain Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, the Duchess Stanfield, of the Imperial General Staff had crossed swords with Richard Canidy of the OSS almost immediately after she had reported to "liaise” with the new occupants of her ancestral home. Donovan wasn’t privy to all the details of the encounter, except that it had ended with Canidy telling Her Grace that she acted as if she h
ad a corncob up her ass.
However accurate Canidy’s description might have been (and Donovan thought it was right on the mark, for the Duchess struck him as very aloof), voicing it was going a bit far, even for Canidy.
Interestingly, after Canidy had made his point, Her Grace blithely turned the other cheek rather than work herself into a ducal rage. If proof was needed, this served as confirmation that Her Grace’s job was to report back to the Imperial General Staff and SOE anything they might find interesting. There was no other explanation for why the encounter had not resulted in a demand from His Majesty’s government for a formal apology for the insult to an officer of the IGS who was not only a peer of the realm but whose god-mother was the Queen Mother.
“I’m going to have a bath,” Donovan said. “And then I’m going to write my wife a letter. Which Colonel Stevens will graciously carry back to London and place in tonight’s pouch.”
“Certainly, sir,” Stevens said.
“In the morning, I would like the grand tour, but not tonight,” Donovan said. “Could I have a sandwich sent to my room?”
“How about a New York Strip?” Canidy asked. “Lieutenant Jamison stole one especially for you.”
“That would be fine,” Donovan said, smiling at Jamison.
Jamison led Donovan up the wide main staircase to the second floor.
“I could use a drink,” Canidy said after Donovan had disappeared. “By the authority vested in me as commander of this establishment, I declare the bar is now open.”
Stevens chuckled.
“Your whisky or ours?” he asked. He correctly suspected that Canidy and Jamison had stolen four cases of whisky from the London Station.
“Now, Colonel,” Canidy said. “I thought you’d given up on that.”
“I’ll have a drink, Dick,” Stevens said. “Stolen or not.”
“What about Your Gracefulness,” Canidy said to the Duchess. “Will you have a wee nip with the peasants?”
The Soldier Spies Page 5