by Larry Loftis
To begin, all messages had to be at least two hundred letters long. And since SOE expected captured operatives to be tortured for their codes, each agent had to have a unique platform, or all messages to all agents would be broken.
During training, radio operators and circuit leaders were asked to provide a favorite poem or quotation that would be their coding framework. Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson, Poe, and the Bible were among the favorites. Once in the field, the agent would code messages by choosing at random five words from the poem. Each letter of the words would be assigned a number and the group of numbers jumbled to conceal the intended text. The rub, however, was human error. If the agent made a mistake in the Morse, or misspelled a word, the code collapsed to gibberish. These flawed messages—often up to 20 percent of traffic—were identified as “indecipherables” and given to FANY women at the Grendon Underwood wireless station to try to unscramble. Few jobs in intelligence were more secret, more important, or more stressful. And the average age at Grendon was twenty.
To prepare the women for the weighty task, chief cryptographer Leo Marks broke them in gently. They were herded into a Norgeby House14 basement with no heating or chairs and told that someone in Codes would be with them shortly. For an hour the girls were kept waiting, freezing. What they didn’t know was that the room was bugged, and that they were being recorded.
When Leo finally arrived, he started the meeting by broadcasting what had been secretly taped. Where was their instructor? a voice asked. Why was he so late? The girls debated the issue for some time before reaching a consensus: Marks was late because he had been “having it off” with one of the FANY girls—in a variety of specified positions—although they were undecided whether she had kept on her brigadier’s hat. They would decide when they saw him, one of the girls said, whether the transpositions had been single or double.
The discussion moved on to why there were no chairs. Apparently, said one, it was because Marks didn’t realize that FANYs had fannies.
Leo turned off the recorder. All eyes were averted.
“You’ve been kept waiting in a cold room,” he began, “to make you tired and irritable because when you’re tired and irritable you grow careless, and when you’re careless you’re talkative. Next time you feel like talking, remember that the Germans have recorders too.
“You’re going to be told about things you shouldn’t know,” he said, “but we can’t help ourselves, we have to trust you. Every department has its secrets—you in Codes will read all the secrets of all the departments. If you talk about any of them, a man will die. It’s as simple as that.
“You think you’re tired, don’t you? Then imagine how tired an agent feels who’s had no sleep for three nights and has to encode a message. The Germans are all around her so-called safe-house. She has no supervisor to check her coding. All she has is a vital message which she must transmit. Now, I’m going to put a question to this house. Hasn’t that agent a right to make a mistake in her coding? And, if she does, must she pay for it with her life? Must she come on the air again to repeat her message, whilst German direction-finding15 cars get her bearings?
“There’s an indecipherable down there with your names on it. It’s from a Belgian agent who’s completely blown. He’s sent us a message telling us coordinates—that is, where he can be picked up. A Lysander is standing by to get him out. The message won’t budge. At ten o’clock this evening he’s due to come on the air and repeat it. If he does, those cars will close in. We will lose that man—just as a few weeks ago we lost a young Norwegian agent named Arne Vaerum, code-named ‘Penguin.’ The SS shot him while he was retransmitting an indecipherable message.”
Marks had made his point. Security. Gravity. Urgency.
On some occasions, an indecipherable was so difficult that the Grendon girls couldn’t crack it. Those rocks were passed on to Marks himself, the last best hope of unscrambling the inscrutable.
In mid-November 1942 the Grendon girls had been tasked to unscramble eight indecipherables. They managed to solve seven and reluctantly passed the Gordian knot to Marks.
The culprit was Peter Churchill.
His poem-code was fairly simple:
I danced two waltzes
One fox-trot
And one polka
With no partner
That they could see
And hope I did not tire you.
I glided round
The other ballroom
The one called life
Just as alone
And have to thank you
For giving me
The sprinkling of moments
Which are my place at the table
In a winner’s world.
Keep a space for me
On your card
If you are dancing still.
Marks recalled that during Churchill’s training, Peter had a habit of transposing columns in the wrong order. Unscrambling Peter’s message would require mathematical surgery, Leo knew, and he sharpened his scalpel. Starting with the assumption that Peter had “hatted”—misaligned—some columns, Leo made a few calculations.
His guesses were right. He excised the coding cancer, and Peter’s message to Buckmaster floated up. It was a complaint about Carte; the man’s incompetence and lack of security, Peter said, were causing significant difficulties for SPINDLE, and something had to be done.
Without knowing the details, Baker Street had to decide if it was merely a personality clash, or if Carte had to be cut off and his work reassigned. What they were soon to learn was that it wasn’t just Peter; Carte’s own men were fed up with him. Carte’s number two, Henri Frager—code-named “Paul” or “Louba”—had come to Peter and Odette asking if he and his colleagues could work with them; they were finished with Carte. And after being on the job for only a few weeks, Odette had also made it clear that she wouldn’t work with Carte because his security was nonexistent.
Buckmaster decided to settle the matter by bringing Peter and Carte to London to sort it out. London notified Peter that he needed to set up a flare-path landing for a soon-arriving Hudson. The plane would be picking up Carte and him, as well as four French generals, they said. Peter notified Carte, who said that he would find an appropriate field.
The location one of Carte’s men found was ideal in the sense that it was remote: the Luberon Regional Nature Park, fifteen miles northeast of Aix-en-Provence. The actual landing area, however—a small farm on the banks of the Durance—was the size of a postage stamp. The field markings would have to be perfect or the pilot would land in water or crash into a foothill. Per the SOE standards for night drops and landings, the site would have been rejected outright.
When Peter asked to inspect the field beforehand, Carte rebuffed him. “My dear Raoul,” he said, “there is no need whatsoever for you personally to inspect the field. My subordinates—all of whom are distinguished aviators, have already satisfied themselves that it is in every way suitable for the reception of a bomber.”
Peter didn’t want to create an unnecessary rift, but he didn’t want to trust hearsay, either. “How long is the field?” he asked.
Sixteen hundred meters, Carte replied.
Peter asked how wide and Carte said eight hundred to nine hundred meters.
And the surface?
“The surface, my dear Raoul, has been examined by my aeronautical subordinates. It is flat, as flat as a grilled sole, and as hard as the heart of a well-bred Englishwoman.”
With Carte’s assurance, Peter concentrated on other details. The petrol that Odette had purchased from Gontrand during her mission to Marseille would be used for two cars on the drive from Marseille to the field: one with Peter, Odette, and Gontrand, the other with Marsac and his men. Carte and the generals would meet them there, the Frenchman had said; everything was ready, and Peter need only arrange the lights upon arrival.
Before they left Peter had Odette pack extra flashlights and two bottles of Armagnac, which would help t
o offset the bitter cold. The landing window, London had said, was between ten at night and two in the morning. The parties met in Marseille and then set out for the short drive.
After a few minutes they saw lights ahead and everyone grew quiet.
Odette’s scalp crawled. To be caught without papers or permits after curfew—particularly at a Control stop—was almost a death sentence.16
Gontrand pulled over.
“Your papers!”
Gontrand handed him his driver’s license.
“I don’t mean that, I want your permit for this journey.”
Gontrand said he didn’t have one.
The gendarme looked at Peter and Odette. “In that case I want to see all of your identity cards. And I shall require you to come along with me to the station.”
“Oh, officer, this is a perfectly innocent journey,” Gontrand said. “I’m only obliging this young couple by driving them to Manosque for private reasons. You know how long it takes to get these permits. I told them I’d take them at my own responsibility. You’ll see us coming back presently. You simply must trust me.”
As the gendarme mulled the feeble excuse, Peter steamed: an entire operation in jeopardy because Gontrand had failed to get a permit beforehand.
Inexplicably, the officer consented and let them pass.
* * *
AT THE FARM ADJACENT to the field, Peter and Odette met Carte and the generals, along with Marsac and his flare-path crew: Jacques Riquet, courier Jacques Langlois, a man named Bernard, a pilot, a farmer, and a museum curator. With Peter and Odette, they would make up the nine lights directing the Hudson. Carte, as Peter had anticipated, had forgotten flashlights.
Peter distributed his set and assigned each person to a spot along the L formation. There was to be no smoking or flashing of lamps, he said, and no noise. At nine thirty they began setting up.
While counting off the meter intervals between lights, Peter stopped. Here, running diagonally across the field, was a five-foot-high ridge—a hazard which would destroy a heavy bomber hitting it at ninety miles per hour.
“Where are the 1,600 meters of length and 800 meters of width which I explained were the minimum essentials and that you promised were here?” he asked Carte.
Carte pointed to the airman who had selected the field and Peter asked what planes he had flown. Potez 43s, the man said.
Peter grimaced. The ancient French utility plane—which had a top speed of 103—was so small and light that it could land about anywhere. As he blistered the pilot, they heard the Hudson approaching. It was ten fifteen.
Peter had no choice: he couldn’t signal the landing. The plane came low and circled, waiting for lights, but none came. As they left the field and headed back, everyone stopped in shock. Before them lay an abandoned airfield two thousand meters long. How Carte’s pilot could have missed it was beyond belief.
Peter, Odette, and Gontrand stayed at the Pascal Hôtel in Manosque that night, and Odette called Suzanne to get in touch with Arnaud. The landing would be rescheduled for the following night, he was to tell London.
The rendezvous was confirmed, and the landing party repeated the drill. With everyone in place at ten o’clock, they waited. The temperature dropped below zero, but they couldn’t move. For four hours, everyone shivered in darkness.
No Hudson.
At 2:15 A.M. Peter called it off and they returned to the Pascal. It was a drill he and Odette would repeat often.
The following day London cabled and said that the operation would be rescheduled for “December Moon” in Chanoines, Arles, forty miles west of Aix. Since each month had five or six days on either side of the full moon, they had a window of thirteen days. Per SOE procedure, once a date was given the reception committee would have to stay in the area up to five nights if the aircraft could not be sent or encountered problems.
Peter gave the reconnaissance job to Odette, telling her to take Jacques Latour to Arles the following day to lay out the field. Gontrand, he said, would take care of the travel permit.
Over dinner that night Peter did his best to break the chain of command and have a personal, informal conversation. “You’re an odd one, Lise,” he said, only half joking, “you don’t smoke, you don’t drink, and you don’t swear. All that’ll have to change, you know. You can’t belong to this crazy racket without even biting your nails.”
“None of these things will ever change, Michel. I simply don’t like alcohol or tobacco and the word zut17 has served me well for many years.”
Peter asked her to tell him about herself and she said there was nothing to tell.
“Come off it, Lise. Let your hair down.”
Odette said that she was the mother of three little girls and Peter’s jaw dropped. “Good God! How on earth could you have left them?”
Odette pondered how to answer. How does one explain to a commanding officer—one to whom you have an undeniable attraction—that you are unhappily married and heartbroken over leaving your children, a decision that you struggle with every day, every hour, every minute?
“It’s a long story,” she finally said.
“Lise, it’s going to be a long war, so get weaving with the first installment.”
Odette explained the London raids, Somerset, and how easy it would have been to spend the war shielded by motherhood while others suffered under occupation. Peter asked about the girls and Odette explained that they were in a convent in Brentwood and were looked after by two aunts and an uncle. She intentionally didn’t mention Roy.
And their ages?
“Marianne’s seven, Lily nine, and Francoise ten.”
“And where is their father?”
“He’s in the Army. But don’t imagine he could have stopped me in doing this job. I’m inclined to arrange these things on my own.”
Peter said he wasn’t surprised, but now here she was under the command of a complete stranger.
Stranger, Odette thought. If only she could keep it that way. She and Peter seemed to be drawing toward each other like magnets. Was it the danger, the espionage? Peter’s charm and commanding presence? Or was it her failed marriage? A combination of all three, perhaps?
“No one’s a complete stranger who’s doing this job,” she replied.
* * *
ODETTE LEFT FOR ARLES the next day and got off in Marseille to stop by the Resistance headquarters in the rue St. Bazil. There a Frenchman introduced himself as a member of the team. Odette thought he looked like a ruffian but kept it to herself.
His name was Kiki.
While Odette was gone Peter returned to Cannes to try to ameliorate the growing rift between Carte and Arnaud. The radioman was livid when he heard that Carte had botched the Hudson landing; if Peter had asked him to strangle the Frenchman in a dark alley, it would have been done before dinner.
Peter settled into a safe house at 20 Quai St. Pierre, and it was fortuitous. That afternoon Antoine called with some disturbing news: two police inspectors had come by his villa, he said, asking if a Pierre Chauvet lived there. He confirmed that Pierre did live there, and the officers asked to see him. Pierre was in Paris, Antoine told them, but would be back in four days.
Peter told Antoine to contact Suzanne and to be ready for his move to another flat.
That night Peter’s doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
Peering through the peephole, he saw that it was Suzanne and opened the door.
“Michel,” she whispered, “I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here any longer. Two inspectors from the prefecture called at the Augusta only half an hour ago. They asked a lot of awkward questions about the purposes for which the flat was used. I played the injured innocent role quite easily and they pretended to swallow it; however, my intuition tells me there may be some tie-up in their minds between the two places. There’s something very queer in the air.”
Arles
PERMIT PLEASE.
Odette looked at the sergeant and drew a brea
th. She and Peter had just dodged a bullet with Gontrand days before, but she didn’t have the luxury of a “lovers’ trip” ruse now. To beat a Control check, she knew, you had to maintain complete composure, stick to the cover, summon all your wits, and hope for a little luck.
She wasn’t traveling during business hours, however, which brought scores of travelers to process, but during the forbidden curfew. What alibi would be credible in the middle of the night?
She told the sergeant she didn’t have a permit.
Wait here.
Odette’s heart pounded. The end of the road.
The guard summoned the duty officer.
* * *
14. 83 Baker Street, next to SOE’s main offices at 64 Baker Street.
15. The Germans inserted “direction-finding” vehicles—which could trace the location of SOE wireless transmissions—in the unoccupied zone in July 1942.
16. Of the thirty-eight female SOE agents sent to France, sixteen were caught and executed, or died in captivity—a 42 percent fatality rate. On the Allied side, only Bomber Command had a higher death rate—45 percent.
17. Zut is the French equivalent of “heck.”
CHAPTER 6
THE KISS
The inspector’s questions at the Augusta flat were the tail of an investigation trail, Peter realized, and the SOE handbook was clear: in the event a hideout came under suspicion, a second should be ready, complete with underlying cover. He had neither.
He tossed his things on his bicycle and set off for a safe house owned by a woman named Catherine. She wouldn’t mind a temporary boarder, he thought; she was quartering Odette and a Hungarian refugee, and was accustomed to agents being washed up by the night. Since Lise was in Arles, Catherine placed him in her room and he went to bed early. Morning came and Peter cracked his eyes to see Odette staring back at him.