Courtney's War

by Wilbur Smith

  “A square meal . . . what’s that?”

  Gerhard grinned. “A quaint old tradition. You might enjoy it.”

  “Then how can I refuse? Thank you, von Meerbach. Damn kind of you.”

  Pitomnik was the point from which seriously wounded men were flown out of Stalingrad. It was no surprise when they came upon an army doctor on the way to the officers’ mess, who introduced himself as Staff Physician Klaus Preuss. His rank was equivalent to that of an army or Luftwaffe captain, which made him their junior in military terms. But a doctor always has a certain status, and Preuss seemed in greater need of sustenance than Werth. Gerhard added him to the party.

  The meal for the day consisted of a stew of some indefinable meat, most of which appeared to be fat, bone or gristle, accompanied by mashed turnips and black bread. The two army men wolfed this unappetizing dish down as if it were the finest gourmet cuisine. When Gerhard offered them each a bottle of proper German beer with which to wash their meal down, they almost wept in gratitude.

  “My God, you Luftwaffe boys do well for yourselves,” Werth declared, having cleared his plate and emptied his bottle.

  “It helps to oversee the supply planes,” Gerhard observed.

  “That’s for sure. I must visit this establishment again.”

  “Monsieur is always welcome.”

  “Ahh . . .” Werth sighed. “Don’t remind me of France. Easy fighting, sunny weather, glorious food and welcoming women . . . Those were the days.”

  Before either of them could say another word a fanfare came over the loudspeaker system and a voice announced: “Achtung! Achtung! The Führer is about to speak.”

  A hush fell. The only sound in the room was the voice of Adolf Hitler.

  Gerhard paid only the barest attention until, around halfway through the oration, he heard the words: “I wanted to come to the Volga, to a definite place, to a definite city.” Now he, along with every other man in Pitomnik, in the Stalingrad salient, and across the vast expanse of the Eastern Front, leaned a little closer to the loudspeakers as, their Führer continued in a casual, offhand tone, “It accidentally bears the name of Stalin himself, but do not think that I went after it on that account. Indeed, it could have an altogether different name.

  “A gigantic terminal was there; I wanted to take it. And do you know, we have it; there are only a couple of very small places left.” Hitler gave a casual chuckle as he added, “I will take them with a few small shock units. I don’t want to make a second Verdun!”

  The contrast between the bantering tone of the speech and the bitter reality of the battle for Stalingrad was grotesque. Gerhard glanced across to Werth, who had raised his eyes to the ceiling and was biting his lip as he fought the urge to shout back at the radio.

  Werth caught Gerhard’s eye and shook his head in silent disbelief. Then he moved closer to Gerhard and whispered, “Do you think he knows? Does he have the first idea?”

  Gerhard looked back and said, “Tell me, out of ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ which do you think would be the worst answer?”

  •••

  At the end of the speech, Gerhard turned to his two guests. “Can I get you gentlemen a drink?” he asked.

  Both accepted. Gerhard was about to ask them what they wanted when he saw the figure of Berti Schrumpp walking toward them with a bottle of vodka in one hand and four glasses clasped in the fingers of the other.

  Gerhard grinned. “Ah, it appears that one of the waiters has anticipated our needs.”

  “You looked thirsty,” Schrumpp explained, handing out glasses, then filling each to the brim with vodka. “An excellent speech, I thought,” he said. “I particularly enjoyed the reference to using, what was it, ‘small shock units’? I dare say you’ll know all about that, eh, Herr Major?”

  A silence fell as Werth considered his response. The politically appropriate reply would have been to agree that, as always, the Führer had judged the strategic situation perfectly and that victory was sure to follow. Instead, however, Werth replied, “Funnily enough, I was leading that sort of shock unit a couple of days ago, making another assault on that damned Red October factory. It was a compact group, about thirty-five men, all told. It used to be a full Engineer Battalion of eight hundred men, but if the Führer calls for smaller units, we’re happy to oblige.”

  Nicely done, Gerhard thought. It would be difficult for anyone to prove that there was anything treacherous in those words. But they all knew what Werth meant.

  He felt honor-bound to reply in kind. “I’ll have you know that we ‘fly-boys,’ as you call us, are doing our part, too. Our squadrons each used to have a dozen planes. Now they have six at most, sometimes as few as two or three, and we find they are considerably more nimble. Wouldn’t you agree, Schrumpp?”

  “I do. Though I won’t feel we have achieved our peak potential until we are each flying individual missions, one plane at a time.”

  Preuss shook his head with such a sorrowful expression that for a moment Gerhard feared he might be about to object to the tone in which they had been talking. But then the doctor said, “I am sorry, and somewhat ashamed to confess that the Führer’s message hasn’t got through to the field hospitals.

  “Our units keep getting bigger and bigger. More men are arriving all the time. We’re having to dig caves into the sides of ravines to make space for new arrivals. I fear our leaders would have a very poor impression of us.”

  “Don’t worry,” Schrumpp assured him. “We won’t tell anyone. Here, have another drink.”

  “What’s it like down there on the front line?” Gerhard asked Werth. “I can see it from the air, of course, but . . .”

  Werth took a swig, then said, “Yesterday morning, we had some food to eat, and a swallow of water while it was still dark. Then we attacked at dawn. We were in the remains of one factory building. The Ivans were in another hollowed-out shell about thirty meters away.

  “It took all morning to cross the ground to the Russian position. They had us pinned down with a pair of heavy machine guns. When we got there, there were only about ten of them, so we managed to drive them away, and we took their guns and ammunition. But before we could secure the position they counter-attacked in greater strength. By the time night fell we were back where we had started. Only now we were down to less than twenty men, an even smaller shock unit. I lost nine killed. Three were so badly wounded that we couldn’t get them back to our starting point.”

  “Did the Russians get them?” Gerhard asked, and then felt like an idiot as Werth looked at him with cold, emotionless eyes and said, “We never let the Russians take one of our wounded.”

  No one had to ask what that meant. Werth was the kind of officer who would insist on doing the worst jobs himself, so the odds were he’d been the one to shoot them.

  “Anyway,” he said, pulling his eyes away from Gerhard’s, “five more men were wounded badly enough to be unfit for battle, but we managed to carry them out. We’re not in action today, thank Christ, so I came down here to make sure that they got on a plane. No luck yet.”

  “The fog has almost lifted,” Gerhard said. “We should be flying soon. If you point your men out to me, I’ll do what I can to make sure they’re looked after.”

  Werth nodded and did his best to muster a smile. “Thank you, Major, I would greatly appreciate your help.”

  “Meanwhile,” Schrumpp interjected, “we had a weather report this morning from the Luftwaffe meteorologists. There’s a cold front moving in from the Arctic. It should arrive within the next two or three days. It won’t be a week before the Volga’s completely iced over.”

  “And we begin another Russian winter,” said Werth.

  “Indeed,” agreed Scrumpp. “And how many of us will still be here to see the spring?” He looked around at the other three men. “More vodka, anyone?”

  Saffron was at Norgeby House, typing up her latest report on the activities and opinions of the Belgian government in exile, when Margaret Jackson a
ppeared beside her desk.

  “The Brigadier wants to see you.”

  “Me?” Saffron wracked her brain in search of any offense she might have committed that was serious enough to require the intervention of the Head of Operations. “Oh dear, have I offended the Belgians in some way?”

  “No, nothing like that, it’s . . .” Margaret paused as she tried to find a compromise between her natural desire to tell a friend what was going on, and the overriding need for security that was drilled into every inhabitant of Baker Street. As they stepped onto the staircase up to the top floor, where Gubbins and the other senior officers were situated, she added, “It’s an operational matter. Something to do with, you know, that thing we talked about . . . at your flat.”

  It took a second for the penny to drop. Then Saffron recalled their conversation over Sunday lunch about something that might have gone wrong with Baker Street’s operations: something so serious that it could mean the end of the SOE itself.

  “Ah, yes,” she said.

  Margaret still hadn’t told Saffron the precise nature of the problems. But she had a strong suspicion that she was about to find out. A minute later they were at the door of Brigadier Gubbins’s office. Margaret knocked.

  “Come!” barked from within.

  She led Saffron in and said, “Ensign Courtney’s here, sir, as you requested.”

  Standing behind Margaret, Saffron’s view was partially obscured, so it wasn’t until her friend had departed that she had a chance to get a good look at Brigadier Gubbins, who was peering from a document on his desk and fixing her with eyes that glared at her from beneath two thick, bushy eyebrows. She knew at once that this was a man who would see through any lie, any excuse, any poorly considered idea in an instant.

  Saffron snapped to attention, for standing at ease was not an option in this man’s company, unless he permitted it. She had a habit, ingrained in her by her African childhood, of judging men in animal terms, dividing the few dominant males from the many subservient members of the herd; the powerful from the vulnerable; the fit and strong from the weak and unhealthy. Even though he was seated, she could tell Gubbins was not a large man. She felt sure she would be three or four inches taller than him in stockinged feet, and tower over him in heels. But that lack of size was irrelevant, because he exuded an air of energy, mental toughness, overpowering will and natural leadership.

  No wonder Margaret’s so dazzled by him, she thought. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hardy Amies sitting on a plain wooden office chair, with a younger man—Saffron realized it was Leo Marks—next to him. Like her, they were waiting for Gubbins to begin the conversation.

  He kept looking at Saffron, drumming the table with his fingertips as he did so. She was accustomed to men giving her the once-over, but there was nothing sexual about Gubbins’s examination; he was assessing her on different grounds.

  He pointed to a third wooden chair and said, “Sit.”

  Saffron did as she was told.

  Gubbins spoke. “Good afternoon, Courtney.”

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she replied.

  “Before we go any further, let me make one thing clear. We shall be discussing an extremely secret and highly dangerous mission. I am therefore ordering you not to discuss anything said at this meeting with anyone who was not here, unless specifically ordered to do so. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good . . . Now, while it is in my power to demand your discretion, I do not have the right, as an army officer, to order you, as a civilian, to undertake hazardous operations on enemy soil, or anywhere else, come to that. What’s more, many decent people would think it wrong for a man such as myself to knowingly and deliberately place a young woman in danger of losing her life. I cannot therefore oblige you to agree to undertake this operation, nor will it be held against you if you refuse it.”

  “I won’t, sir,” Saffron said. “I knew what I was letting myself in for when I came to Baker Street. I’ve been trained to do a job and I’m keen for an opportunity to put that training to good use.”

  Gubbins nodded. “Very well then, let me explain our purpose here today. We are trying to answer a question that may have serious implications for our work in the Low Countries, and, by extension, throughout Occupied Europe. We fear—we cannot be certain, but we fear—that we may be facing a serious breach of security in the Netherlands. It is possible, though this is speculation, that a similar situation may apply in Belgium. You will notice that neither the head of the Belgian nor of the Dutch section is with us today. I am, reluctantly, operating behind the backs of the officers most affected by this crisis. This is for their protection. I can envisage circumstances in which it would be good for them to be able to deny knowledge of the operation I am about to describe, and to be telling the truth when they do so.”

  Gubbins paused, as if giving Saffron time to take in what he had said before he continued. “To cut a long story short, our fear is that the Germans have broken our radio codes. If so, they may have been aware of all our operations this year. They may have captured many of our agents. And it is possible that they may have turned at least one of them and used him as a double against us.”

  Saffron now understood why Margaret had been so upset. If the Germans had been acting as puppeteers, using British agents as weapons against London, then that was a disaster. And if MI6 wanted to get SOE closed down, this would provide them with justification.

  “I’m sure you know Marks,” Gubbins said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Saffron glanced across at Leo Marks, who flashed a mischievous grin. He, like Gubbins, was a small, sharp-eyed man bursting with a big man’s energy. Marks, however, was younger than Saffron, just past his twenty-second birthday, and his was a boyish, almost madcap genius. He was an intuitive expert at decoding barely audible signal and turning it into meaningful English text.

  His uncanny ability with codes was regarded with awe by the Baker Street operatives, who knew what Marks did, without having the first idea how. Even more remarkably, he worked his miracles with the assistance of a team of women who were mostly younger than him. Virtually none had any of the formal mathematical training that was regarded as essential for high-level cryptography. Yet he had successfully trained them to go over messages again and again, trying one possible cipher after another, until the scrambled letters revealed their hidden meaning.

  “You’d better explain your theory to Ensign Courtney,” Gubbins said.

  Perhaps because his mind was on higher things, or because it worked so fast that he found it hard to respect lesser intellects, Marks found it difficult to adopt a deferential manner when in the company of senior officers.

  “I could explain the facts, sir, certainly. And, of course, what I deduce from them. So, Saffron—may I call you that?”

  “If Brigadier Gubbins does not mind . . .” she replied, looking at the grim-faced man behind the desk.

  “Call her whatever you like, man. Just give her the gen.”

  “Very well. I take it you’ve had the full agent training . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know how we have always used a code that combines text from a particular poem, with a numerical formula, to convert text into code. Both the agent, and the person decrypting their message, know the poem and the numbers. No one else does. And every agent works from a different poem to generate his or her specific code, so that even if one agent is broken, the others are not.”

  “I understand the principle,” Saffron said, “and I’ve been taught how to do it.”

  “Then you may or may not be aware that this code has one glaring weakness. It works well up to the moment when someone like, say, an officer in the Gestapo or Abwehr discovers what poem an agent is using. If that person possesses a grasp of cryptography themselves, or has access to trained code breakers, then the code can be broken with relative ease. Worse, once it’s broken, the enemy can use it to transmit messages back to us.”
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br />   Saffron frowned. “But that shouldn’t be possible. We were taught how to use security checks—at the start of messages and in the text itself—specifically to prevent anyone passing themselves off as one of us.”

  “Yes, you were. But far too many agents don’t use them. And even when they do use them, or try to send us warnings by entering their checks wrongly, those warnings are ignored by fools who aren’t paying attention, or don’t want to believe what’s in front of their eyes.”

  Gubbins glowered. “That’s enough, Marks. You can’t be certain that’s what’s happening.”

  “On the contrary, sir, I’m as certain as I could possibly be. In any case, we now have what I consider to be proof. As you know, all agents operate on ‘skeds’: their scheduled times for making and receiving messages. Well, there’s one agent whose skeds have all, in my view, been under German control. We are here now because those suspicions are becoming shared more widely.”

  “And suspicions are all they are,” Gubbins said. “Stick to the facts.”

  “Very well, sir. The fact is that the chief signal master, Howells, was on duty for this agent’s last sked. He had a sense, indeed a suspicion, that something was not quite right.”

  “What made him think that?” Saffron asked.

  “Because the coding was perfect, not a mistake anywhere. You see, Saffron, the thing about agents is that they operate in conditions of extreme anxiety, fearing discovery at any time. They’re bound to make mistakes. Unless, that is, they’re not anxious, because they’re not in danger . . . because they’re German. As the sked was ending, Howells had an idea. The Germans habitually close all signals with the two letters ‘HH,’ which stands for ‘Heil Hitler.’ And as soon as one Jerry says ‘Heil,’ the chap he’s just Heiled—the Heilee, as it were—is obliged to respond in kind. Howells signed off with ‘HH’ and the next thing he knew, the reply came back an instant later ‘HH.’ It wasn’t the agent operating the wireless. It was a German.”

  “Oh . . .” Saffron said.