I could call out to him, tell him to watch out… but for what?
I was last here in September. The dark brown three-piece demob suit felt very new and rough on my skin. It even smelled new. From at least six feet away it looked smart enough. And to be fair, nobody looked any better dressed. With my new trench-coat and hat, and a good pair of shoes, I felt life could restart.
All I wanted was some information about the last year. I thought the chaps in SOE would be able to help.
I’d phoned ahead from the hospital and arranged to see Major Cassells who ran agent selection and training. I recognised the security man at the door.
“Hello, Stan. How are you, then? Still got back problems?”
“It’s this weather. It always… why, Captain McRae, isn’t it? Good to see you back, sir. I trust you’re well?” He squinted at my face sympathetically.
“Better than I was, Stan, and that’s for sure. I’m here to see Major Cassells.
Can you bell him?”
“Certainly, sir. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll send a lad along to his office?”
I sat down and waited. The hallway and little reception area were unchanged: grey lino and camouflage-green walls. The chairs were government issue wooden jobs with slippery seats and a right-angled back. There was no position that was comfortable except ramrod straight and hands in lap. Designed by drill sergeants. I leafed through some well-pawed Reader’s Digests. None was more recent than June ’44. I suppose they thought they wouldn’t need any more after D Day and could economise.
About twenty minutes later I heard army shoes chewing up the lino and saw the Major heading my way. Cassells was immediately familiar to me, though he was greyer and more lined. He looked harassed. He was in civvies apart from the shoes. His hand was outstretched from about ten paces out.
“Hello, old chap. You look well. Better than I expected, actually, from the hospital reports.” He laughed.
“I’m still a bit shaky, sir, but coming along. Good of you to see me.”
“No, no. It’s all right. And the name’s Gerald. We can drop all that rank stuff now. Glad to do what I can for our agents. Lost enough of them. Good to see the ones who got back, don’t you know.”
We walked back along the hall to his office. It was piled high with boxes. His desk was under inches of paper. He lifted a couple of crates off his spare chair and got me to sit down. He sat back in his own and steepled his hands under his chin. He looked pensive.
“Sorry about the state of things here, Daniel. We’re closing up shop in a few months. Disbanding. Pity, really. We were getting quite good as this. But who needs chaps like us in peace time, eh? So, what can we do for you?”
“You know about my memory loss?” He nodded. “Well, I’m trying to fill in some of the gaps. Like how I ended up in Dachau.”
Cassells was nodding his head off. “Absolutely, dear boy. Quite understand. Do the same myself.” He reached over to his packed in-tray and dug out a thick pink folder. “Got your file, here. Took a quick squiz the other day, eh?” He opened it and held it up like a book so I couldn’t read it upside down. He stopped on one of the first pages. He read it and glanced at me, then flicked on. There seemed to be a couple of envelopes as well as carbons and other documents. I had the impression he was already pretty familiar with it; the dumb show was for my benefit. He closed the file and sat back.
“You had a rough time of it, no mistake. A rough time. Don’t remember a thing, eh? No bad thing. Lot of jolly nasty stuff went on in these camps. Best to forget, eh?”
“I’m sure you’re right, Gerald. It’s just… “
“Course. Course. Not very complicated. May ’44 it says. Picked up by Gestapo.
Probably some local did it for money. Happened a lot. Sent you to Dachau. Bad show that.” He frowned, as though someone had tossed a low ball at cricket. That was it? “I’d thought I’d hear a little more detail than that, Gerald. I don’t particularly want to relive my camp experiences, but I do want to know what happened in France. What about my old boss, Major Caldwell?”
Cassells looked even more uncomfortable. He began tapping my folder with his index finger. I noticed how stained it was with nicotine. I always use a pumice.
“Demobbed, d’you see?”
“Is there a way of contacting him? Where does he live? I’d just like to have a chat with him.”
He was shaking his head. “’Fraid not, old chap. No forwarding address. Once chaps are out, they’re out. And we’re closing up shop,” he reminded me.
This wasn’t what I expected. “But surely you have to be able to contact everyone? Sort out things like pensions? I can’t believe there isn’t a forwarding address. Can we get hold of his file?”
Cassells was beginning to look edgy and irritated. I didn’t care. This was my life. He leaned into his desk and placed his elbows on my file.
“Even if we had such details we wouldn’t give ’em out. Security, you know. The war’s over and our chaps and gels need to get on with their lives. In private. I suggest so do you. Some things are best left forgotten. Sleeping dogs and all that, eh?” With that he was standing. The interview was over.
I stood on the other side of the street, examining the building, looking for entry points. They were due to wind up by the end of this month, the papers said. Surely they wouldn’t be quite so hot on security? A sudden fear struck me; if they were winding up, what would they do with the files? Burn them? Keep them, but move them? What if they’d already been shifted? How would I find them?
That chilling thought convinced me; I’d try the front entrance today. What could I lose? At worst they’d just throw me out before I got past the front door. But I’d be better waiting till five. That’s when everyone shot out, heading for home. With luck I’d be able to slip through the crowds without raising an alarm.
I went home, rustled up some grub using the last of my spuds and a bit of stewing steak. After chewing through the best of it, I put aside the gristle for the moggy; her teeth were sharper. Then I went into my top drawer, pulled out a pair of old wool socks and unwrapped them. I took out my pride and joy, which was a funny way for an ex-copper to talk about the tools of a thief.
Part of our SOE training was in picking locks. The expert who spent a frustrating fortnight with me and five other rank amateurs had been let out of Dartmoor for the duration. His message was simple, if daunting: anyone could become a good lockpick with the right tools and 20 year’s practice. In the absence of such a Fagin apprenticeship the best he could do was provide us with the equipment and the rudiments of the trade and tell us to practise as much as possible. And if all else failed, carry a good jemmy.
A lock is made up of pins which sit at different heights inside a rotating plug.
The trick is to push up the pins to let the plug rotate and open the lock. A key has a variable profile – think of the Alps – which push up the individual pins in the right order. A pick mimics a key by pushing up the pins one by one and getting them to stick.
We started with bicycle spokes, a pair of strong pliers and a clamp. A pick has three parts: a handle, the body – or tang, to the professional – and the business end or tip. A bent angle will do for the handle, but the tang needs to be thin enough to get under the pins without being too pliant or you lose the feel. The tip is the vital bit and its shape and angles are crucial in dealing with the wide variety of pins. You need a handful of picks with different shaped tips if you want to get past most locks.
I made five, each with different angles on the front face of the tip and the rear face. For a Yale, I have a nicely bent and filed half diamond tip like a triangle pointing upwards. Its front face slopes gently, its rear sharply.
I added a pair of pliers and a screwdriver to my precious picks and rolled them together in a piece of cloth. My torch battery was in good shape; a layer of tape over most of the lens left only a small centre hole. With toolkit and torch in opposite pockets of my coat, I waited till it w
as getting dark, and headed back up to Baker Street.
It was a quarter to five when I walked past the building. Some people were already making for home. I guess there was little enough to do nowadays. I stopped at the corner and lit a fag, looking as though I was waiting for someone. I wished I was. Where was Val? The doors swung open and one or two secretaries bustled out, laughing and glad to be heading home to husband or family, or to hang round till the pubs opened at six.
Ten more minutes and the doors were flapping like sheets in a gale. It was now or never. I walked smartly over the road, waited till a new bunch of workers erupted, grabbed the door from them and shouted goodnight after them. The lobby was crowded with folk putting on their coats and nattering and shouting goodnights. My luck was in, old Stan was behind the counter.
I took my hat off so he could see my face and walked past him putting some girls between me and him, but not trying to hide myself.
“Night ladies,” I said. “Evening Stan. I’m just having a word with Major Cassells, OK?”
I headed through the internal swing doors and turned right as if I were heading to Cassells’ office. My heart was hammering. I don’t know what I would have done if Cassells had been out today. And now of course, the last thing I wanted was to bump into the man himself and have him ask me what I was up to. It also wouldn’t do if Cassells left on time this evening. Stan would notice and ask him if he’d met me all right. Then there’d be a hue and cry. If Cassells hung around as the senior staff used to, till seven or after, the chances were old Stan would have forgotten about me.
It was a lot of ifs.
People were still hurrying past me and I thought it was time to get off the main corridor. I pushed through the fire doors and found myself in the stairwell that runs from the ground floor up to the top. Some folk used it as a short cut between floors, so I couldn’t simply hang around here. I had to find somewhere to lie up. On every other floor were gents toilets. Possible, but still too risky. I was looking for a broom cupboard or the like. Or even an office that wasn’t in use, but that would mean venturing back into the main corridors again.
I took a peek through the fire doors on each floor. On every one of the levels there were boxes floor to ceiling against the walls. But most offices had lights on and people wandering about. I needed to buy time. I ducked into the gents on the third floor and took the end cubicle. I sat there and waited, feeling silly.
Five minutes later the toilet door crashed open and two men walked in, laughing.
“Quick, man, we can still catch them if you hurry up.”
“You can’t rush a pee, Freddy. And the bints’ll keep. You seen that Brenda the way she was looking? I reckon we’re in there.”
“Shhh,” said the first one. I think they spotted the closed cubicle door and my feet and trousers. They were silent apart from a suppressed guffaw. I could have been a senior officer for all they knew.
They ran the water in the sink and crashed out. I heard their laughter and wild talk as they dived down the stairs. If only I could be that carefree. I waited, and waited. At six o’clock I edged out of the toilet, listening for doors and footsteps. It had quieted down. Through the glass panel nobody was to be seen down either side of the corridor. There was one light on in an office half way down on the right. I had to risk it.
I opened the door, gritting my teeth as it creaked, and took a good look right and left. I eased the door closed and began to tiptoe to the left. The first office was locked. Same with the next. Suddenly there were voices behind me as the door of the lit office opened and two people began to emerge. I flattened myself between two head high piles of boxes and stopped breathing. The voices – a man and a woman – were walking this way.
“Stairs or lift, Miss Beacontree?”
“Exercise will do us good, sir.”
“It certainly keeps you trim, Juliette.”
“Shh, Cecil. Not here…”The fire door creaked open and their voices tailed away as they descended. I breathed again. I started my search again. Up ahead I saw it. An open door to a darkened room. I pulled out my torch and switched it on.
The slim beam picked out boxes on one side and a stack of chairs on the other.
Perfect. I shut the door behind me, lifted down a chair and switched off my torch. I made myself as comfortable as I could for the long wait that lay ahead.
TWELVE
I must have dozed. An old soldier trick. Grab a nap anywhere you can. I carefully switched on my torch. My watch said twenty to eight. The place should be deserted apart from the patrolling security guards. I began to pick my way down through the now quiet building, trying not to use the torch in case even its slender beam was detected. Moonlight came in through some of the windows that faced into the inner courtyard. I took a good look down into the well to see if I could spot an alternative escape route. There looked to be a wooden double door, about twelve feet high and scalable.
If memory served me right – not something I would have taken short odds on recently – the registry section occupied the whole basement area. I crept down and down until I was at the right level and began looking for the doors. Bingo!
A sign declared the room the Registry and that only registry staff were allowed inside. The dragon lady in charge enforced that rule with an iron stare and a leather tongue. A little window was cut in the wall alongside the door. This was where the rest of the world accessed the documents. You put your slip through and a registry clerk would deliver the file to your office and pick it up at day’s end. Tough work.
The heavy double doors were of course locked. So I took out my little packet of tools to see if my SOE training had been a waste of time. I shone my torch into the keyhole and squinted into it to see the make-up of the levers.
There are two basic techniques to opening locks: picking and scrubbing. Picking is more subtle and lets you probe and feel each pin and then apply force on the driver pin that’s giving the most fight. When you feel the plug give a little, the driver gets trapped and the lock opens. Scrubbing is for speed and when you don’t care if you leave evidence of your visit. I was a natural scrubber.
I selected a sinuous snake-tipped pick and slipped its double curves into the lock. I eased it backwards and forwards feeling pins move and displace. As I scrubbed, I twisted, hoping to feel movement. I’d forgotten how hard this was.
And I was rusty. I was sweating good and proper now. I put my hat down, took off my coat and jacket and started again. I put on more pressure hoping I wouldn’t bend or break the pick. My fingers were slipping and I took out my hanky and wrapped it round the handle. Suddenly the driver pin went, the others followed and the key turned. I gripped the wood handle, twisted and the door creaked open. I stood panting with nerves before picking up my clothes, slipping in and closing the door gently behind me.
I swung the torch round the long low room. There were floor to ceiling shelves stretching for yards in both directions. A large chunk of them were empty. Damn!
I should have done this weeks ago!
With ebbing hope I started walking down the shelving. Halfway along they began to be full again. I began checking what the files contained. It wasn’t till I’d inspected a dozen stacks of shelves that I ran into the personal files, the agent files.
Come on, please! I found the M series and then the Mc set. Nothing. Wait, wait.
Try Mac. Plenty, but no McRaes. I was panicking now. Cassells hadn’t put it back! It was somewhere in the mounds of loose papers in his chaotic office!
Calm, calm. Think.
A last long shot, the MR set. Thank god. There were three McRae files sandwiched between McRennies and McRackens. I pulled the first one down. Nope. The second was mine. I felt relief then nerves. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was in here. People should never see what other folk think of them, despite what Rabbie Burns says. But I’d come all this way for the truth.
I sank down on the floor, on top of my coat and jacket and opened the folder.
> There was a stack of papers, each with a neat hole punched in the top left corner through which a string tab ran to hold them in place. There was a covering sheet with the sparse details of my background and next of kin. My mum was shown, with her address. Then I got to the second page. It was simple and clear and was probably as far as Cassells got the other day.
Secret The sealed reports in this personal folder are for Executive Head Eyes Only Do not open without express authority.
Under no circumstances is any aspect of the work of the SOE or the personal details of the officers of the SOE to be communicated to Capt. Daniel McRae That set my heart going. What the hell was going on? What the hell was in this file? Maybe Cassells was right; there’s stuff better left forgotten. I turned to the next sheets; just some copies of my discharge papers and pension calculations. The numbers didn’t add up to a comfortable retirement. Then came the sealed envelopes, two of them, with holes in their corners to take the tags.
I carefully removed the sheets above them and examined the first envelope. It was gummed down and bore a blob of sealing wax on the join. But it had been re-sealed. I could see where the earlier wax had been eased off. It was initialled and dated 28 May 1944 in the bottom right corner. It had a big red stamp across the front classifying it Top Secret/Executive Head S.O.E Eyes Only.
I took a little knife from my toolkit, slid it into a corner and sliced along the top fold. I pulled out a single sheet:
MemorandumStaff in Strictest Confidence
To:Colonel Sir Collin Gubbins, Executive Head SOE From:Major P A Caldwell Date:14 May 1944 Subject:Captain Daniel McRae/Avignon incident
Sir,
It is my unwelcome duty to inform you that Captain Daniel McRae, our operative in Avignon, was captured by the Gestapo on 24 May. We have not seen or heard of him since, and it is believed, as with all captured agents, that he has been taken to Gestapo/Vichy headquarters in Rue Saline, Avignon. He will be interrogated there and executed or sent on to one of the concentration camps as happened to agents Hastings and Temple.
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