by Alex Gerlis
He refilled his pipe and took a while to light it, giving him time to think about what he was saying. ‘However… the fact that journalism is, as I’ve described, a simple business masks its complexities. Telling a difficult story in say just a couple of hundred words is, you’ll find, considerably harder than doing so in a couple of thousand words. It’s hard because it’s simple, if that doesn’t sound too paradoxical. But that’s life, isn’t it? Experts making difficult tasks appear straightforward. This is what we will be talking about over the next few days. Once you’ve mastered those I expect you will be ready.’
For the remainder of that Monday and all day Tuesday and well into the Wednesday, Martin Mason taught Michael Doyle everything he could about journalism. He explained the centrality of the story to the process, how it was important to find the right story, which meant developing a high degree of curiosity and not being afraid to ask questions, sometimes quite difficult ones, often very simple ones. They did countless writing exercises, Mason briefing him on a story and Prince going over to the dining-room table and bashing away at the typewriter.
They role-played, the older man assuming different personas as he was interviewed by Prince. Or they would look at the day’s newspapers and choose stories from there, Prince writing his own versions of them to include some new facts and detail as suggested by Mason.
Martin Mason was encouraging, telling him he perceived an obvious ability along with a natural instinct.
‘You’re curious, Michael, you ask me searching questions and you can write. Remember, ask the questions people don’t necessarily want to answer. I suspect in another life you may have used some of these skills.’
He avoided the temptation to tell him he’d been a police officer and there were some apparent similarities: asking awkward questions of people who may be reluctant to answer them, developing the case against them in a manner not dissimilar to pulling a story together.
Martin Mason was quite hard on the stories – which he referred to as copy – Michael Doyle wrote up. He’d read through them, pulling hard on his pipe, his spectacles perched high on his head and making an occasional ‘tut’ as he scrawled something on the copy.
‘The hook Michael – the hook! Remember how I told you to get something into that first paragraph to grab the reader’s attention? Don’t forget it. This piece here is rather bland. You write “the boatman was worried there may be a storm”… not as good as say… “the boatman had a worried look about him – we would soon find out why.” That way, the reader is intrigued to know why the boatman was worried, eh?
‘Adjectives, Michael, adjectives! You use far too many adjectives, I keep telling you. You can always spot a non-journalist by their overuse of adjectives. This story here, the one about the murder of the child in Scotland, you write “…the tragic murder of six-year-old…” Michael, it is axiomatic that the murder of a child is tragic, so why tell the reader how to think rather than allow them to do it themselves? What is this here, Michael? “…it was literally like climbing the Alps…”? That’s nonsense, Michael, in fact it’s literally not the case. You’re describing walking up a steep road in Paris. Come on, choose your words carefully, I keep telling you.’
He was demanding and at times very critical, but it was not done in an unpleasant manner and always with the glint in his eye followed by a smile. It was evident Martin Mason had a real passion for journalism and an enthusiasm for passing it on to someone he gave every impression of regarding as a talented student.
‘What is this Michael? “…like putting all his eggs in one basket…”? I’ve told you, avoid jargon and cliché. Although I am instinctively opposed to the idea of governments interfering in journalism – you’d expect nothing less with my background – I’d be prepared to make an exception in the case of their banning jargon and clichés. Avoid them like the plague.’
He also explained the different types of journalist. ‘Broadly speaking, Michael, there are two types of journalist, though a number of sub-species too. There are news journalists and feature journalists. You’re going to be a feature journalist. News journalism is more high profile so would bring more attention to yourself.
‘This is one reason why you’re a feature journalist. In fact, many such journalists would prefer to describe themselves as writers. It is longer-form journalism, more considered.’
By the Wednesday, it was clear he saw much improvement in his pupil. They’d now moved on to longer articles, features rather than news stories, more like the articles he’d be submitting to Travelling and Travellers. Mason had brought with him a pile of books and magazines.
‘I understand you speak German, Michael? Take this book, then, read it and use the new notebook I gave you to make notes in it. Here… it’s a Baedeker guide to Turkey, well to Constantinople, as they called it then, and the area around it – Istanbul to you and me. It is very good, of course. It was published when… here we are, 1914. It will give you excellent background information on the famous old sights of Istanbul. Here are some more guidebooks on Turkey and these magazines here… copies of Travelling and Travellers. It’s published every month – you’ll find three years’ worth of editions here. Read as much as you can. I’ll be back on Monday.’
That evening Christine turned up with a ring binder containing Michael Doyle’s biography.
‘This will keep you busy. I propose leaving you alone until Monday so you have plenty of time to absorb its contents. I understand Mr Mason has given you some homework too?’
He pointed to the dining room table, strewn with papers, books and magazines along with the typewriter.
‘He says you’re a good pupil – he thinks you could even pass as a journalist.’
Chapter 10
London
July 1943
By Monday morning Richard Prince had begun to think of himself as Michael Eugene Doyle – not Mike – and Gene to his late mother. During the Saturday night he’d had a complicated dream in which he was running along a never-ending railway station platform, the steam from the trains obscuring the ground beneath him. In the dream, Henry cried out to him from a window on the rear carriage as the train disappeared and he turned round to find two police officers had been following him. When they arrested him they addressed him as Michael Eugene Doyle and told him they knew what his type were like and one of them called him a ‘fucking Fenian’.
On the Sunday, he’d read his biography with renewed enthusiasm. He quite liked the idea of being Michael Doyle, the loner, the man with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, the man who didn’t much like the English and who didn’t appreciate people getting too close to him. Whereas Richard Prince was a personable and even a charismatic type, Michael Doyle was the opposite. He began to see that by immersing himself in his new character he could even escape the reality of his current situation.
He went for a long walk in nearby Holland Park that Sunday morning, Anthony trailing behind him. He empathised with Michael Doyle’s sense of rootlessness as he’d moved from Dublin to Birmingham, then to London, back to Ireland, then to the United States and from job to job, city to city, a brief marriage no doubt some source of enduring bitterness.
He found the walk so productive he insisted on returning to the park later that afternoon; an exhausted Anthony trailing even further behind him. He realised Michael Doyle was an easier identity for him to assume than the ones he’d had in Denmark and Germany. There he’d made a decent enough job of knowing their backstories and the relevant facts, but now he felt more able to adopt the persona of his new identity.
Tom Gilbey turned up early on the Monday morning along with Christine and Martin Mason. Gilbey explained they’d planned his journey to Istanbul. He talked through it in some detail.
‘It’s a credible route to Istanbul for a writer on something like Travelling and Travellers but we’ll need to get a move on. We need you to be finished by this Friday in order to start your journey the next day. Christine has been doing some work
with Martin on how you communicate with us. Let me just say this at the outset though – you’re to keep communications to the minimum. All communications between agents in the field and London carry a degree of risk – you’re advertising your presence, so to speak. Because of security concerns, you’ll be what we call flying solo. None of our chaps in Istanbul or Ankara will know you’re there and precious few people will at this end either. We want you to go in, gather the evidence and come out as soon as possible. It shouldn’t take more than a month at the most, excluding your journeys there and back.’
‘You mentioned “security concerns”, sir – what do you mean by that?’
‘Another chap was sent in a few months ago on a very similar mission. He disappeared after a couple of weeks and we believe he was killed. I should emphasise though that he was nowhere near as well prepared as you will be. Corners were cut and I think he may well have behaved rashly in Istanbul. Suffice it to say he was not being run by the Service, he was working for another branch of intelligence. Christine, perhaps you can start on the communications?’
‘Mr Gilbey’s point about any form of communication between an agent and their base being bound to have an element of risk is very well made. We seek to minimise that risk, but one can think of very few missions when communication is not essential. In your case, we’ve come up with a rather clever plan, which Martin has helped devise.’
Martin Mason pulled his chair forward and began to talk enthusiastically. ‘What we have done, Michael, is exploit the fact that as a journalist on an assignment you’d be expected to communicate with an office outside Turkey – in fact, it would be suspicious if you didn’t communicate. Do you know anything about secret codes, Michael?’
‘Not really, apart from the very obvious, that is.’
‘It can be complicated, so let me explain. For a start, there’s a difference between a code and cipher. Cipher is a process that replaces one character at a time with another to encrypt a message. You need a common key – or setting – and the same machine, like the Hagelin. These machines can be put into either encrypt or decrypt mode, depending on whether you’re sending or receiving. Coding is whereby words or phrases are replaced with arbitrary characters, using them as a way of conveying secret information. Communicating by both cipher and code requires special equipment – we often use Morse code and… you look worried, Michael?’
‘Well, I suppose I am – this sounds complicated. When Martin asked me last week if I was any good at English at school I should have added that maths was my worst subject. This sounds rather mathematical.’
‘But this is the point I’m coming to, Michael. You won’t be using cipher, though the system Martin and I have devised is a form of code. You won’t be taking in any equipment with you. You will be communicating in the way a journalist would be expected to communicate. Martin, perhaps you can explain.’
‘You will be sending your copy – the articles you write – to the Travelling and Travellers bureau in Zurich. To do this you will take the copy to the Grand Post Office in Eminönü, where there is an international wiring service. This is how most of the journalists based in Istanbul send their dispatches. We must assume that all these communications are read. So we’ve come up with something we hope is both innocuous and fits in with what they’d expect to read from a journalist.’
‘I ought to add,’ said Christine, ‘that we’ve discussed this with some of the chaps at GC&CS – that’s the Government Code and Cypher School up at Bletchley. They’re the experts on secret communication. They think the system we’ve come up with has some merits but it would be wrong not to acknowledge they also have some reservations. They especially have concerns over what they call FAR, which stands for frequency and regularity. Evidently what counter-espionage types look out for is how often particular words and letters are used – how often they crop up. I’m told this is known as frequency analysis. They are worried that if we use this system too often then the Turks could pick something up.’
‘Depends on whether they suspect you in the first place of course,’ said Tom Gilbey. ‘If they assume you’re just another run-of-the-mill journalist then the most they’ll do is read your copy and there’ll be no need for someone to refer it up. So don’t lose sight of how important it is to make sure you’re clean, by which I mean you’re not being followed. You take all the right precautions, you stick to your cover. Because if they do suspect you and look at your messages in more detail then a more trained eye may well spot something. But then, if they’ve cause to suspect you in the first place there’s a problem anyway. Martin…’
Martin Mason removed some sheets of paper from a folder and handed one to each of the other people in the room. ‘This is the format you will use for your communications. In this example we’re assuming you’re sending an article on Wednesday, 11th August. So the first two lines read:
DOYLE/ISTANBUL/11AUG
TOPKAPI
Within those two lines there is already quite a lot of information for us. Starting with the second line – the slug, or one-word title of the article. Topkapi refers to a famous palace in Istanbul, exactly the kind of place you’d be writing about for Travelling and Travellers. There’s quite a lot on it in that Baedeker. But the fact you’ve chosen a slug beginning with a consonant is a signal to us that there’s a secret message within your article. If you have a slug beginning with a vowel then we know there’s no message there. Try to send at least as many articles that don’t contain a secret message as ones which do. Are you with me?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Good. Bear with me, Michael… the next clue is in the date, the 11th of August is a Wednesday. What we have done is created our own random numbering system for the days of the week, Tuesday being day one, Wednesday day two and so on. If you are sending an article on a Wednesday then that tells us to look out for the second words in certain sentences – I’ll come to those in a moment. If you sent the article on a Monday it would be the seventh words.’
‘You start with the third sentence in your article and insert the words of your message as the second word in every third sentence – that’s how you build up the message.’ Christine was leaning forward, trying to engage his attention, but he was staring at the sheet of paper in his hands. ‘Are you following me, Michael? Don’t worry, within two or three days this will come as second nature to you.
‘There are a number of rules and shortcuts. Keep your message as short as possible, it could be tricky to sustain this method using more than – say – a dozen words. For chromium use the word fish as a shortcut, for evidence or proof, use taxi, start will mean ends, indicating the message is complete. We’ll devise more over the next few days. But you’ll need to put some thought into how you compose your message – it won’t be straightforward.’
‘It will be rather like doing The Times crossword,’ said Tom Gilbey, ‘probably a bit of fun.’
Christine shot him a look. His intervention had not been helpful. ‘Here’s another article, Michael. See if you can work out its message – take this pencil and a few minutes. I’ll ask Mary to get us all some tea.’
By the time he’d finished his second cup of tea he said he’d finished with the message. He felt like he’d been sitting a school exam.
‘Well… it’s sent on a Friday, so I’m looking for the fourth word of every third sentence. The third sentence reads “…when the worshippers arrive they first remove their shoes…” so the first word would be “arrive”. The sixth sentence reads “…the city feels safe in the afternoon when…” so the second word in the message is “safe”.’
‘Michael, there’s really no need to read every sentence, just highlight the words making up the message, please.’
‘Very well, so then as we continue next I have “nothing”, then “report” followed by “fish”, “plan”, “visit” then “port”, “Saturday”, “night” and then in the third sentence after that there’s the word “start” which indicates it’s
the end of the message.’
‘So the full message, if you will, Michael?’
‘“…arrive safe nothing report chromium plan visit port Saturday night.”’
‘And we would know from that you’ve arrived safely and have nothing to report regarding chromium but plan to visit the port on Saturday night. We obviously have to learn to interpret your messages. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for us to practise. You need to get a feel for inserting the words into the sentences so that they look natural and don’t stand out, which won’t be easy. And we need to get a sense of how you phrase your messages so that we know what to look out for and how to interpret them – nuance will be terribly important here.’
‘It feels quite complicated.’
‘Only to an extent.’ Christine had assumed the role of a schoolteacher slightly exasperated with a difficult student. ‘Your cover story gives you a perfect excuse to communicate at length. Very few of our agents have this opportunity, which is why they have to use other methods, many of which are far more complicated, I can assure you. You should be most grateful you’re not being expected to use cipher. This is also a more credible mode of communication than sending a postcard, for example, where there’s little scope for containing messages of much substance.’
‘And what happens when the articles arrive?’
‘You don’t need to trouble yourself with that too much, but the bureau in Zurich will forward them to us. Martin and I will be able to decode your message. If all goes well we ought to have your message within twenty-four hours of you sending it.’