DEATH ON WINTER'S EVE

by Doug Dollard

  “There are nearly nine thousand military and civilian personnel working as cryptanalysts, intercepting, deciphering and decoding German signal intelligence.”

  Whitley stroked his cheek, apparently perplexed by the depth of my knowledge though he must have anticipated seventy years from now the successes of Bletchley Park’s code breakers would be well documented. Perhaps he remained understandably reluctant to accept the reality of my extraordinary circumstances. It was at that moment his features changed and his hand dropped away from his face.

  “I have assumed you have no knowledge of who our mole might be. Or have I been mistaken?”

  “You are not mistaken Sir James. Whomever gave Ultra product to the Russians, he was never identified,” I answered truthfully.

  “Alright then. Do I presume correctly we have an accommodation?”

  “I have one request Sir James.”

  “Which is?” the wing commander inquired cautiously.

  “I’d like to see Wellington before she leaves.”

  “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Lieutenant Wellington has already departed the premises and will not be returning.”

  Whitley must have recognized my disappointment for he immediately added; “I assure you the lieutenant will be kept safe and treated with the dignity and respect due her rank. I have given my word unless you have some reason to question it?” He added indignantly.

  “No reason whatsoever Sir James. I am grateful for your accommodating the lieutenant as she has been ill served by events not of her choosing these past few months.”

  “And then there is the issue of the two deceased SIS operatives,” Whitley interjected.

  “Yes, there is that,” I confirmed, deferring mention of the second pair I had dropped into the cistern in Cornwall.

  “Let us save that discussion for another day then, shall we.”

  “Fine by me commander,” I agreed, satisfied to leave this to for another time. The commander had a reason for everything he did and it wasn’t likely he mentioned the deaths of two of Chandler’s men without purpose. He was impressing upon me the importance of my cooperation. Otherwise Wellington would be implicated in their deaths. I didn’t like being in so weak a bargaining position but I couldn’t see another way out given Wellington’s condition. I’d just have to make the most of it until I found a better way out for us both.

  Sir James spent the next four hours detailing his strategy for identifying the mole in MI6. It was a complex plan with several potential pitfalls but all in all well constructed. I knew that no one at MI6 had ever been identified as having leaked Enigma secrets to the Russians. So whoever our leaker was he remained a mystery to history.

  We agreed I’d begin in the following day by attending the morning briefing at Bletchley Park. Commander Whitley had wrangled a commission for me as a captain in the United States Army. I also had documents identifying me as an American OSS operative allowing me access to Bletchley Park. Sir James had obviously been planning this for some time and, his assertions not with standing I wondered why he had decided I would be his best bet for uncovering a mole in MI6. Whatever his reasons he wasn’t likely to share them with me. I decided I had no choice but to follow along.

  Chapter 62

  MOLE HUNT

  The next morning dressed in my new captain’s uniform I was driven by staff car to Bletchley Mansion located on a five hundred eighty acre estate in Buckinghamshire. The sky was still overcast and the wind was gusting strongly but the rain had stopped at least for the moment.

  Bletchley Mansion was a two story structure constructed in a mixture of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles. The ground floor of the mansion was designated for the telephone exchange, teleprinter room, kitchen and staff dining room. The top floor was reserved entirely for MI6 officials.

  I displayed my pass and surrendered my credentials for the third time that day to the guard at the entrance to the mansion. Nearly all four thousand analysts, code breakers, radio intercept operators and support staff lived on the estate in barracks so anyone arriving by staff car was a subject of curiosity. Once my credentials were verified I was ushered upstairs to meet MI6’s liaison Peter Tripp. Tripp appeared to be one of the younger members of the team at Bletchley. Five ten, a slender one hundred forty pounds, angular jaw, long dark hair and intelligent light brown eyes.

  “If you’d like I’ll take you on tour sir. But no introductions I’m afraid. We keep things compartmentalized here and on a need to know basis,” Tripp informed me. Tripp smiled easily, his demeanor openly friendly and ingratiating. He was an obvious choice to liaise with government officials and allied military personnel. The upper floor was dedicated to MI6 officers and built out with offices and a communications center filled with an assortment of teletype machines and a switchboard for telephone communications. Though any member of the staff could have been the source of the leak I doubted our man would be among them.

  Tripp next took me downstairs to the hub of the entire covert operation. More teletype machines and rows of desks staffed with mathematicians, physicists, poets and linguists all dedicated to breaking the ever changing key settings. The actual Enigma machines were electro-mechanical encoding devices comprised of a keyboard and several rotating discs that created millions of permutations of letters and numbers. Without an exact copy of the machine and knowledge of the rotor settings breaking the encryption was impossible. The staff ensconced on the first floor of the mansion labored each day to identify the exact rotor settings to be used for that day’s coded radio transmissions.

  Donning raincoats we transitioned outside where dozens of wooden huts served as the work stations for various analysts and cryptographers. In the short time I’d been inside the weather had greatly deteriorated. A heavy fog had blanketed the ground while slashing rain punished all of southern England. Out in the channel choppy seas delayed indefinitely the allied invasion plans.

  Tripp escorted me to wooden hut number eight where German Enigma radio transmissions were decrypted. Each day thousands of coded messages arrived at Bletchley Park from radio receiving units scattered throughout England. Sorted into groups based on their point of origin these were transmitted to Bletchley’s huts for actual decryption. I spent the rest of the morning visiting other huts where specialists struggled mightily attempting to decrypt German Army, Navy, Air Force and U-Boat traffic.

  Though the effort to intercept and decipher German radio communications was impressive it seemed unlikely any of Bletchley’s facilities provided the distilled intelligence or analysis our spy would covet. Having determined Bletchley was a dead end I decided to spend the afternoon at SOE headquarters in London.

  Distribution of Enigma intercepts to Allied commanders and units in the field involved considerable risk of discovery by the Germans. Great care was taken to control both the information and knowledge of how it was obtained. Maintaining secrecy lest the Germans learn their operational code had been broken was so crucial that all Enigma traffic was routed through specially designated SOE agents in London. Each service branch had its own designee. At Bletchley I learned that five British SOE agents were responsible for this function.

  The youthful Mister Tripp agreed to accompany me to London and make the appropriate introductions. After a quick lunch of spam, beans and potatoes a driver was summoned and we made the drive into London through a drizzling rain and a persistent low hanging mist.

  SOE headquarters was located in a five story building on Baker Street near Regents Park in west London. Bomb damage had been severe in this part of the city and many of the surrounding buildings were hollowed out shells while others showed signs of significant structural damage. The building in which the Special Operations Executive was housed appeared to have escaped the bombing unscathed, or maybe whatever damage it sustained had already been repaired. Sandbags were piled high around the entrance and I was surprised to see several British Soldiers standing guard just outside. Despite the rain soldiers and
civilian workers crowded the sidewalks while the street hosted a continuous flow of traffic.

  Our driver dropped us in front of the building where Tripp flashed his credentials at the sergeant in charge. The lift was out of order so we climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. There were several offices on either sie of a long corridor. Tripp took us to the third door on the right which lead into a large room filled with SOE agents dressed impeccably in suits from Savile Row. Moving down a narrow isle between neatly aligned desks we made our way to a glass enclosed office at the back of the room. Our presence seemed to arouse little interest among the crowd of agents who were occupied with paperwork or engaged on telephones that sat on every desk.

  Tripp knocked twice on the office door before entering. Inside were five more desks and an equal number of SOE operatives. Tripp moved directly to the man seated at the first desk on our right.

  “Captain Riley I’d like to introduce you to Elbert Ellingham,” he said with great deference. Ellingham stood immediately and reached out his hand to grasp mine, his face breaking out in a warm smile. The hand stretched out to mine was alabaster white with long, elegant fingers ending in neatly manicured nails. His grip was strong and genuinely warm.

  “Bertie if you please Captain Riley,” he insisted. Tall, handsome, urbane and charming Ellingham shined the brightest among his peers.

  “I’ll take it from here Tripp,” Ellingham commanded the young SOE liaison. Tripp smiled broadly, basking in the warmth of Ellingham’s gaze, happy to be recognized by a man for whom he obviously held immense regard.

  “You are representing the American Office of Strategic Services?” Ellingham asked, immediately assuming I must be a member of America’s security services.

  “I am here only as an observer for my government,” I answered evasively. No need in giving up specific information before it was necessary. I knew from my briefing with Commander Whitley Ellingham was the Secret Intelligence Service’s link to the Prime Minister’s Office on all matters concerning Enigma and its product, Ultra. A graduate of Trinity College at Cambridge Ellingham was a member of the privileged nobility, wealthy, pampered, groomed for leadership. Membership in the Special Operations Executive was by invitation only. As such its members were the elite among British society.

  At thirty-three Ellingham was well on his way to a senior level position within the security services. Ellingham smiled easily, deciding not to press for additional clarity on my mission.

  “Allow me to introduce you to my colleagues,” he said, indicating his fellow office mates and Cambridge University alumnae.

  “Harold Liston,” he indicated the man nearest us seated at his desk.

  “Hal is responsible for German Naval and U-Boat operational orders.” Hal rose to shake my hand but did not smile or otherwise acknowledge my presence. I could have easily taken his aloofness for indifference but the way his eyes only briefly met mine before quickly darting away suggested a deep seated shyness rather than apathy.

  Wilfred Carrington was next in line. Wilfred held responsibility for intercepted Luftwaffe communications. Of the group Carrington was the least agreeable. His handshake was cool and brief as if he viewed Americans as a class beneath his station.

  George Harrington was in charge of communiqués for the German Wehrmacht. He was short, squat and prematurely balding. His clothes fit poorly and the cuffs of his sleeves were badly frayed. He gave the appearance of a man whose fortunes had been on the decline for some time. Despite this his greeting was affable, his eyes bright and intelligent.

  Freddy Barton, the most enigmatic of the five rounded out the group. Freddy’s exact duties were ill-defined but he appeared to serve at Ellingham’s behest as he showed the greatest deference to the younger, more self-assured man. During our brief introduction his eyes kept darting back to Ellingham as if he were seeking signals on how best to deport himself.

  Ellingham was clearly the leader of this group though no formal hierarchy existed. Either by class or merit he compelled their allegiance and I doubted any would have taken on a task without first securing Ellingham’s counsel.

  “Are you stationed locally Captain Riley?” Ellingham inquired.

  “I have quarters at Camp Griffiss in Bushy Park.”

  “Then I would invite you to be my guest at the Athenaeum Club this evening for dinner if you are not otherwise engaged.”

  “I would be honored,” I told him. It was an opportunity to learn more about the group and also gain insight into the chain of custody for the intelligence originating at Bletchley Park. I didn’t think the men I had just met were likely to be the suspected leaker. But Baker Street was the nexus from which Enigma product was distributed. Somewhere between Baker Street and the Allied field commanders there was a traitor. I just needed to trace the compromised intelligence back to its point of origin.

  Our driver dropped me at Camp Griffiss where Commander Whitley had arranged for me to be quartered in the BOQ as part of my cover. I wasn’t under guard there or for that matter even close supervision as far as I could tell. Apparently Sir James felt my motivation for keeping Wellington from a courts martial was incentive enough.

  At twenty-one hundred hours a car came to collect me and brought me to the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall near Saint James Square. The club had been founded a century before as a meeting place for men who enjoyed intellectual discourse. The club’s edifice was all stone done in a neoclassical design. The main entrance had a Doric portico with paired columns. There was a continuous balustrade on the main floor with a wonderful frieze overhead copied from the Parthenon. Above the porch stood a life-sized statue of the Greek goddess Pallas Athena.

  A uniformed doorman greeted me inside and checked my name against the registry of guests before announcing my presence. The club’s facilities included a dining room, a smoking room and a suite of bedrooms for those in need of a night’s respite from the vicissitudes of their complex lives. Membership in the Athenaeum was limited to the most notable among British society including cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, Peers of the Realm and senior members of the Church of England.

  Ellingham greeted me in reception and guided me cheerfully to the club’s expansive library for pre-dinner martinis. Like Ian Fleming’s character James Bond a decade from now he ordered his stirred but not shaken. Over drinks Ellingham asked me polite questions about myself but nothing suspiciously intrusive. I told him the truth with the exception of altering the context to fit the era. He even volunteered information about himself. He was the only son of a senior diplomat in the foreign service. Born in India he was later educated at Trinity College in Cambridge. After graduation he had worked as a reporter for the London Times in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Wounded in a bomb blast he was repatriated home for a brief convalescence. Recognized for his insightful bylines in the Times he was recruited by MI6 in 1938. Judging from the posts he held his rise within the organization had been swift and highly visible.

  Despite my inherent suspicions I grew to admire Ellingham’s wit and felt myself drawn to his shy and self-effacing charm. He was one of those rare individuals possessed of a natural grace that was both engaging and genuinely likeable. By the time we had finished dinner I wondered if it were possible he could be so naïve or capricious enough to betray his country.

  Back in the library after dinner for brandy and the warmth of a gas fire he spoke openly of his for antipathy for Hitler and his brutal regime. At one point Ellingham grew quite serious and posed a curious question.

  “You know Michael, I have often wondered how the west could have so long ignored the spread of fascism. Had we grown so comfortable in our self-indulgence we could blithely ignore so great a threat to the natural evolution of society?”

  It seemed odd Ellingham would suppose western society was evolving to some higher social order. I thought better to ignore that aspect and direct myself to addressing the West’s reluctance to confront these pernicious ideologies.

&nbs
p; “The Great War saw the slaughter of millions in a senseless dispute over abstract ideologies and antiquated alliances. Few wanted to see that mistake repeated on an even greater scale. The fascists had the advantage of valuing the state above the individual and did not share our abhorrence of another war.”

  If that satisfied Ellingham’s desire for a rationale to explain the west’s post war isolationism I could not tell. But he spoke no more about it.

  Instead we spoke at length about the causes of the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles that effectively laid the groundwork for the resurgence of Germany. It was nearly midnight when we finally ended our evening.

  On my way out Ellingham stopped me.

  “I’d like you to join me tomorrow for our morning briefing if you’re free?” He asked.

  “Will that be alright with the others?” I inquired, surprised by his invitation to join a group that obviously had long established allegiances.

  “Are you certain that won’t create difficulties for you?” I asked pointedly.

  Ellingham smiled warmly and placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

  “I’ll introduce you as my American liaison to Washington,” he answered firmly. “No one will question the interest of America given your indispensible contribution to the war effort.” I accepted Ellingham’s offer, curious to learn more about this enigmatic group of Britain’s top spies.

  Instead of returning to my quarters I went directly to the White House at Wilton Park where Commander Whitley was still in his office awaiting my initial report. The commander had set up a cot in his office where he intended to make himself available day or night until the mole was identified and eliminated.