by Leo Marks
Which left only the Dutch.
Bingham and his signals officer, Killick, had coffee waiting but were kind enough not to offer me a Dutch cigar. Bingham congratulated me on breaking Kale’s indecipherable and asked if I’d come to any further conclusions about Preis/Prijs.
I told him that I hadn’t and plunged into the briefing.
They listened to my recitative as if it were a personal message from Queen Wilhelmina, and Bingham asked his few questions with a hint of apology.
I still didn’t trust the man, but he’d done a good job since he’d become head of N section, abandoning reception committees and insisting that new Dutch agents should be dropped blind.
I enquired how many WOKs they were likely to need over the next few months.
They exchanged glances. Bingham then explained that the loss of Boni had forced them to rethink their plans and they’d be sending in very few agents during the next two moon periods. He added that he and Killick were confident that full-scale operations would be resumed in August.
Without any warning Killick asked if I thought that the Germans were reading any of their messages.
I was still under instructions not to disclose my suspicions and Killick’s timing warned me to treat him with respect. I replied that the poem-code wasn’t secure enough for the level of traffic SOE was passing, but we had no evidence that the Germans had cracked it or were reading Dutch or any other country section’s messages.
Refilling my cup, which I’d made the supreme sacrifice of emptying, Bingham asked if I were suspicious of any Dutch agent’s security checks.
I admitted that I was suspicious of all security checks in the poemcode except for prearranged questions and answers and that this applied to all country sections. I then assured them that WOK checks would enable agents to alert London the moment they were caught and offered to run through the system again.
They declined politely. ‘What we really want to know’, said Bingham, ‘is whether you suspect any particular agent’s security checks.’
The atmosphere was as fraught as a gynaecologist’s anteroom.
‘I’ve told you what I think of security checks,’ I said, sinking to the occasion. ‘I distrust the lot of ’em. But can’t we pinpoint this? Are there any agents you’re especially worried about?’
Bingham transfixed me with a stare, then shook his head.
I was wondering whether history would ever credit our follies, let alone learn from them, and whether Ebenezer would ever stip, step and stap us in the balls, when I realised that Bingham was holding out his hand.
He thanked me for coming, apologised for taking up so much time and said that silks would be a great help to Dutch agents.
I didn’t tell him that one reason they were having them was that Giskes would be suspicious if they didn’t.
I gave Nick and Heffer a verbatim account of each meeting, stressing that the Dutch were worried about their traffic and that they’d tried hard to get me to confirm their suspicions. I didn’t mention how close they’d come to succeeding.
Nick patted my shoulder as if conferring a knighthood and said that I’d handled their questions very tactfully.
‘But why’s tact necessary? Surely it’s time we talked to them openly?’ Perhaps I’d done one sales pitch too many and my voice was inaudible, because he didn’t seem to hear me. I raised it an octave and asked if we could discuss Boni’s capture with them.
It was clear from his expression that a mutiny was about to be crushed. Rising like a cathedral in the course of construction, he reminded me that the general’s orders hadn’t changed, that it wasn’t my business to question them and that having won the battle for silks I should concentrate on producing them.
I realised that the internal Dutch game was completely beyond me, thanked him for his clarification and turned to go.
Looking at me suspiciously, Heffer said he was certain I’d been up to something which I hadn’t disclosed, that the experience had shaken me in a way that nothing else had and he’d like to know what it was.
I told him that I would too, and that I’d let him know if I ever found out, and left it at that.
But he was right.
There’d been reports in the press, which didn’t necessarily mean they were without foundation, that a Whitehall department was investigating rumours that Hitler had finally given in to his mystical impulses and was trying to use telepathy as a secret weapon. In which case, the Führer and I had something in common.
Lacking his resources, I’d developed a home-made technique for which the patent was pending. It consisted of a switching-off process with a tuning-in appendage, and I’d tried it on the country-section heads.
Although I couldn’t sustain it for more than a minute at a time, I was convinced that it had enabled me to pick up some vital signals from them. I was then appalled to discover that I couldn’t decipher a single one. It was as if their unspoken thoughts had been transmitted in LOPs. The harder I tried to understand what I knew I knew, the more remote it became.
Exhausted by my efforts to dabble in unconscious communication, I went home early, and awoke with such heightened awareness that I heard the sun come out.
It was then that I realised the nature of the special traffic which had passed between us. Without knowing it, the section heads had made a present to me which I’d been slow to unwrap. It was an unsolicited gift of a kind which I had never expected to receive from them, but it couldn’t have arrived at a more inopportune moment.
They’d given me a wholly new idea for agents’ codes.
THIRTY-NINE
Appointment with Royalty
‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ caused forty-eight hours of purgatory when an F-section agent spelt hell with three ‘l’s. But that was a year ago, which meant it was ancient history, and I’d long since discovered a quicker road to hell.
It led from my black-market flat to the abattoir which employed me, and every inch of it was paved with discarded ideas for winning the code war. But last night’s arrival reached Baker Street intact. It was far more than just another coding system. It was a wholly new approach to the job.
Credit for it (an important consideration even in wartime) belonged to the country-section heads.
The experience of seeing six of them in situ at a time when nothing was going right for them had been as great a revelation to me as WOKs had been to them. The bloody-minded resilience with which they responded to disasters, especially those of their own making, and their determination to liberate their territories no matter what, had been my first glimpse of what would one day be known as the ‘spirit of resistance’.
I’d made another discovery about them which came as an even bigger surprise, if only because it was obvious.
Aggression was their common denominator, and each of them had as much in his make-up as a saint’s unconscious. They taught me (without knowing it) that I was only half-doing my job. It wasn’t enough to give agents safe codes and reliable security checks. These were defensive measures.
We must mount a deception scheme to convince the enemy that they were confronting poem-codes, when in fact they were dealing with WOKs. LOPs would be harder to counterfeit but could be thought about later. I christened the offensive ‘Operation Gift-Horse’, and decided to forget it for a week to give its flaws a chance to emerge.
But Gift-Horse refused to canter away, and I spent several hours jotting down the clues which would most attract the enemy.
Late that night someone knocked on the door, so I knew it couldn’t be Tommy.
Maurice Buckmaster apologised for disturbing me, slumped into a chair and was silent for thirty seconds, which may well have set a record.
I expected bad news about Peter and Odette.
‘I wish that damn canteen was open,’ he finally said.
That at least I could remedy.
Between mouthfuls of Mother’s sandwiches, he again apologised for disturbing me, then blurted out a name.
‘Noor Inayat Khan!’
Getting no response, he explained that she was a WT operator who’d finished her course at Beaulieu and was due to be dropped into France in ten days’ time.
He stressed that although Beaulieu hadn’t had to teach her a damn thing about operating a set, as she’d previously been trained by the RAF (‘who were damn sorry to lose her’), the problem was that ‘that bastard Spooner’ (Beaulieu’s CO) had ‘taken against her’, and had written a report saying that she was ‘temperamentally unsuitable’ to be an agent and would be a major security risk if she were sent to the field. ‘Which is absolute balls,’ said Buckmaster, returning somewhat to normal. He admitted that all her instructors agreed with Spooner’s reservations.
‘What else could one expect from that mob of second-raters?’
He then confided that ‘that damn busybody’ had sent a copy of his report to Baker Street, and the question of whether Noor would be allowed to go to France was now in the balance.
Restoring his own equilibrium with the help of Mother’s cakes, he conceded that Noor’s character needed more understanding than Spooner and Co. could possibly provide.
His face betraying a hint of tenderness, he described her as a ‘sensitive, somewhat dreamy girl’, who’d spent her childhood in Paris and thought that her bilingual French would be far more useful to the Resistance in France than it could ever be to the RAF.
After a moment’s pause, he said he thought I should know she’d been given a ‘mystical upbringing’ by her father, an Indian prince! But despite his influence, she could be practical when necessary and could think a damn sight more quickly than Spooner. He added with paternalistic pride that she’d even had a book published.
I asked him for its title and he thought it was ‘The Tales of Jakarta’, but couldn’t remember its publishers.*
A blob of cream gave his face its only hint of colour.
Unaware of his moustache, he reminded me that she’d been given a ‘stinking report’ by her coding instructor, but had an appointment with me on 7 June for her final briefing.
He then looked at me with Gubbins-like penetration. ‘I’m going to ask a favour of you,’ he said, an unusual approach from Maurice, even at his most exhausted.
When I learned what the favour was I was disappointed that he considered it one. He wanted me to give Noor one of my ‘extended briefings’. In his opinion, nothing less would ensure that she not only understood her code conventions but wouldn’t forget them when she arrived in France. But under no circumstances must I give her one of the new silk codes. It might thoroughly confuse her and she’d be just as likely to leave it lying around. ‘I must admit’, he said, ‘that Noor has a tendency to be absent-minded.’
‘Haven’t we all?’ I replied, wondering if I should tell him about the cream on his nose. (He was always delighted when his rival de Gaulle had egg on his face, which was most of the time.)
He then reminded me that I’d given Roger (Cammaerts) an extended briefing and that he’d turned out to be an excellent coder. ‘And look at the rubbish they wrote about him,’ he said. ‘Now he’s one of the best men I’ve got.’ (‘Plodder’ Cammaerts, written off by his instructors, was now one of F section’s most reliable organisers, though the competition was decreasing daily.)
Having vented his indignation, Maurice tried the effect of a whisper. ‘Will you do the same for Noor? And can you spare the time to send me a written report on her?’
I didn’t answer him immediately because of what he’d withheld. I knew that Spooner had sent adverse reports on her to the controller of the French, Belgian and Dutch directorates (Robin Brook) and to SOE’s liaison officer with the Chiefs of Staff (Brigadier Mockler-Ferryman), hoping that the latter would refer the dispute to Gubbins, with whom Maurice was temporarily out of favour.
I also knew that an attempt had been made to drop Noor in May, but her plane had had to turn back as there was no reception committee waiting. (I hadn’t given her a final code briefing because F section had failed to notify us she was leaving.)
Nor had Maurice admitted that because of recent losses in the field he was desperate to send another WT operator to France and that Noor was the only one available.
It was tempting to tell him that the Signals directorate picked up more gossip than the country sections did agents, and that he shouldn’t try to involve us in high-level battles without a proper briefing. ‘I’ll spend as long with her as it takes,’ I said.
‘And send me a written report afterwards?’ He was obviously counting on it being favourable. He might also be afraid that Noor had forgotten how to code.
‘Certainly, Maurice.’
He said something in French which I took to be thanks, shook my hand and de Gaulled out of the office.
I looked up 7 June in my diary. Muriel had pencilled in an hour-long appointment with Noor Inayat Khan. I extended it to three. Any longer than that and I might emerge as an Indian mystic.
On the morning of the 6th I contacted Noor’s publishers, introduced myself as the son of 84, and asked if they had a copy of The Jataka Tales.
Astonished to be asked for one, the manager agreed to make it available at once and allowed me a trade discount. I sent a WOK-maker to pick it up and reread Noor’s ‘stinking report’.
Her instructor, a virile young lieutenant, had summarised her coding as ‘completely unpredictable’ but may have had something else on his mind, as he’d spelt it ‘unpredicktable’. My suspicions were confirmed when he was happy to spend his lunch hour discussing her on the telephone.
According to young virile, the ‘potty princess’ had caused more dissension than any pupil in the history of Beaulieu. No two instructors could agree on quite how bad an agent she’d be. Yet none of them could deny that she was an excellent WT operator, though she tended to stay on the air as if she were part of it. They were also unanimous that her ‘crackpot father’ was responsible for her ‘eccentric behaviour’.
I pressed him for details of Daddy and a formidable picture emerged. The ‘crackpot’ was head of a mystical sect (the Sufi), and had founded the ‘House of Blessing’ in Paris, where Noor had spent her childhood. He’d also founded Sufi lodges in most European capitals in order to spread the doctrine of love and forgiveness, but his ‘Houses of Blessing’ were a curse to Beaulieu.
‘Do you know what the bastards taught her? That the worst sin she could commit was to lie about anything.’
As a result of this disastrous programming, she was unable to observe even the most elementary precautions. He was happy to provide a few examples.
Beaulieu had sent her on a WT exercise, and she was cycling towards her ‘safe house’ to practise transmitting when a policeman stopped her and asked what she was doing.
‘I’m training to be an agent,’ she said; ‘here’s my radio – want me to show it to you?’ She then removed it from its hiding place and invited him to try it.
Like all Beaulieu trainees, she was given a mock interrogation by the Bristol police, after which the superintendent in charge told Spooner not to waste his time with her ‘because if this girl’s an agent I’m Winston Churchill’.
She’d been so startled by an unexpected pistol shot that she’d gone into a Sufi-like trance for several hours and finally emerged from it to consult a Bible.
He hoped this would be a help to me and rang off to have his lunch.
I’d lost my appetite for food, crackpots and extended briefings.
On the morning of the 7th (the ordeal was at noon), I received a call from tiny Kay Moore to thank me for Valois’s prefixes and to solicit twenty more. As a contra-account, she gave me the latest news of Tommy.
Our mutual friend was in nearly as much trouble as he caused. On 19 May he’d been awarded the Croix de Guerre (with palm) for his services to France (which made him the first Englishman to be decorated by de Gaulle, other than with acid), but the Air Ministry refused to allow him to wear it on the grounds that no
British officer can accept foreign decorations without official permission. Nor did the Air Ministry accept that de Gaulle had the right to bestow it, and it had taken several onslaughts by Hutchison to persuade ‘the cretins’ to allow Tommy to wear his Croix de Guerre. But this was only the start of his problems.
He’d also been awarded the Military Cross by the British, and his delighted French friends had given a party in his honour at Duke Street. He was then informed (without any reason being given) that the Air Ministry had refused to sanction his MC and that he must stop wearing it at once. This time even the combined wrath of Hutchison, CD and Gubbins couldn’t persuade the Air Ministry to reverse its decision.
It was one insult too many for Tommy. Angry at having to find excuses to explain to his friends at Duke Street why it had taken him so long to wear his Croix de Guerre (his usual pretext was that it was on his other uniform), he was determined not to let them know that he was having even greater problems with his MC. His solution was vintage Tommy.
Whenever he was in Dorset Square he wore a tunic with only the Croix de Guerre on it. Whenever he visited Duke Street (which was several times a day) he changed into a spare tunic, on which Barbara had sewn both decorations. It was a delicate operation because if Hutchison caught him in flagrante delicto, he would have no alternative but to order him to remove the MC.
Tommy had repeatedly told Kay that he couldn’t wait to return to the peace and quiet of occupied France.*
I thanked Kay for her contra-account, and was reading the last few pages of The Jataka Tales in a desperate attempt to become Noor-minded when I heard my favourite footsteps. Tommy hurried in wearing a tunic with the Croix de Guerre on it. He was carrying a briefcase and a parcel.
Stripping off his authorised tunic, he removed his Duke Street version from the parcel and quickly put it on. ‘Malpractice makes perfect,’ he muttered, followed by a string of French imprecations. He said that his normal changing room, the bog in Dorset Square, was occupied, probably by Hutch, to judge from the noises, and that his next best safe house was my office. Could he leave his tunic with me for the next few hours?