How I Became a Spy
Page 17
“ ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ is definitely the best Sherlock Holmes short story,” Will was saying.
“No way,” David argued. “I read that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself liked ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ best.”
“Forget the stories. The best is his novel The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Jeffrey proclaimed.
Eleanor added her opinion. She had recently decided to read the Holmes stories from beginning to end in chronological order. “I know which one should be Bertie’s favorite: ‘The Red-Headed League.’ ”
“Very funny,” I told her. “You’re lucky I don’t pour this lemonade on your head.”
When I walked past Violette and George, I heard him ask, “So I hear you love to dance. Would you…would you consider…”
Violette smiled. “I’d love to go to a dance with you sometime, George.”
The most surprising new friendship, however, wasn’t between Violette and George. Mr. Humphrey, no worse for wear after his ordeal, was planning to move in to the extra flat in Eleanor’s grandmother’s house once Eleanor and Dr. Shea returned to America.
“My daughter, Lydia, wants to keep me penned up in the countryside like some sort of old nag. Too many chickens! Too noisy. Give me London any day,” the old man declared. “I was here for the invasion. Next is the victory parade. And thanks to Bertie and one small, brave dog, I’ll be around to see it.”
Little Roo didn’t bark. She was too busy eating her apple pie.
Spy Practice Number Four
MIXED-ALPHABET CIPHER USING A KEY WORD OR PHRASE
This is the type of cipher Violette used for her last message. In this kind of substitution cipher, a key word or phrase is used to generate the cipher alphabet. The key word comes first, at the beginning of the alphabet. After that, the rest of the letters are listed in alphabetical order, excluding those already used in the key.
Each letter in the key word is used only once. So if your key word is ZOO, A becomes Z and B becomes O. Then you run out of letters in the key word, and the whole rest of the alphabet doesn’t change—so ZOO is obviously not a strong key word. Longer key words and phrases, especially ones that include letters from the end of the alphabet, work better.
Hint: The key word to unlock this message is the five-letter word used to describe the German bombings of London and other English cities during World War II.
ANSWERS TO CIPHER MESSAGES
Spy Practice Number One
SUBSTITUTION CIPHER
The supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force was Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower. Since his nickname was Ike, this cipher alphabet begins with the letter I.
There are several online resources that can help you encrypt plain text and decode encrypted text. Of course, these tools weren’t available in 1944. Here is a website you can explore: practicalcryptography.com/ciphers.
Spy Practice Number Two
CAESAR (SHIFT) CIPHER
Operation Neptune (the code name for the assault on Normandy) took place on June 6, 1944. In this type of substitution cipher, the shift equals the number of the month plus the date. That means we shift a total of twelve letters: six for June, the sixth month, plus six for the day of the month. So the first letter of the cipher alphabet is M.
Spy Practice Number Three
ATBASH CIPHER
In this cipher, the alphabet is reversed.
Spy Practice Number Four
MIXED-ALPHABET CIPHER USING A KEY WORD OR PHRASE
The German bombing campaign against Britain in 1940–1941 was known as the Blitz. So the key word for cracking this message is BLITZ.
Here is the key:
SOURCE NOTES
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a World War II British organization that recruited ordinary men and women to conduct espionage and sabotage in Nazi-occupied countries. Its headquarters were located on Baker Street in London. SOE training lectures have been collectively published as Special Operations Executive Manual: How to Be an Agent in Occupied Europe (London: William Collins, 2014), abbreviated here as SOE Manual. Excerpts are used by permission of the National Archives, London, England, under the terms of the Open Government License.
Sherlock Holmes quotations from the novels and short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle have been accessed online through Project Gutenberg: gutenberg.org.
***
Part One. “The agent, unlike the soldier…”: SOE Manual, 13.
Chapter One. “You see, but you do not observe…”: Doyle, Arthur Conan. “A Scandal in Bohemia,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
Chapter Two. “Never trust to general impressions…”: Doyle, A. C. “A Case of Identity,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
Chapter Three. “[The agent] should not only…”: SOE Manual, 15.
Chapter Four. “The agent…has only…”: ibid., 13.
Chapter Five. “If you follow conscientiously…”: ibid., 13.
Chapter Six. “I may be on the trail…”: Doyle, A. C. “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
Chapter Seven. “Do not walk or hang about…”: SOE Manual, 49.
Chapter Eight. “If you suspect that you…”: ibid., 49.
Chapter Nine. “The watcher should always…”: ibid., 48.
Part Two. “Come, Watson, come!…”: Doyle, A. C. “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,” The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1904.
Chapter Ten. “It seemed to me…”: Roosevelt, Eleanor. “My Day”: www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1942&_f=md056326.
Chapter Eleven. “The agent should merge…”: SOE Manual, 15.
Chapter Twelve. “Undaunted by smouldering debris…”: PDSA Dickin Medal, pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/animal-awards-programme/pdsa-dickin-medal.
Chapter Thirteen. “The agent should not…”: SOE Manual, 15.
Chapter Fourteen. “Surveillance is the keeping…”: ibid., 45.
Chapter Fifteen. “A cipher is a method…”: ibid., 122.
Part Three. “To the question why…”: Kramer, Rita. Flames in the Field: The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 247.
Chapter Sixteen. “You should always…”: SOE Manual, 48.
Chapter Eighteen. “Good cryptographists are rare indeed.”: Poe, Edgar Allan. “A Few Words on Secret Writing,” Graham’s Magazine, July 1841, 19:33–38. eapoe.org/works/essays/fwsw0741.htm.
Chapter Nineteen. “The agent must not leave about…”: SOE Manual, 16.
Chapter Twenty. “Never relax your precautions…”: ibid., 13.
Chapter Twenty-One. “The introduction of an agreed name…”: ibid., 124.
Part Four. “When you have eliminated the impossible…”: Doyle, A. C. The Sign of the Four, 1890.
Chapter Twenty-Three. “I thought that I could…”: Cornioley, Pearl Witherington. Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013, 2015), 33.
Chapter Twenty-Four. “The world is full of obvious things…”: Doyle, A. C. The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1902.
Chapter Twenty-Five. “Each student is given…”: SOE Manual, 121.
Chapter Twenty-Six. “Shortly after the sirens wailed…”: Pyle, Ernie. Ernie Pyle in England (New York, R.M. McBride & Company, 1945), 22. Print on demand reissue.
Chapter Twenty-Seven. “It is a capital mistake…”: Doyle, A. C. “A Scandal in Bohemia,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
Chapter Twenty-Eight. “Some curious facts…”: Doyle, A. C. “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, 1923.
Chapter Twenty-Nine. “Great care is needed…”: SOE Manual, 122.
&nb
sp; Chapter Thirty. “It is a hobby of mine…”: Doyle, A. C. “The Red-Headed League,” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
Chapter Thirty-One. “Combined with alertness of mind…”: SOE Manual, 15.
Chapter Thirty-Two. “The main question was…”: Marks, Leo. Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941–1945 (New York: Free Press, 1998), 124–125.
Chapter Thirty-Three. “Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen…”: Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Order of the Day.” National Archives. archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606.
Author’s Note. “The people of the world…”: Ekpenyon, E. Ita. Some Experiences of an African Air-Raid Warden. westendatwar.org.uk/documents/E._Ita_Ekpenyon_download_version_.pdf.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“The people of the world are divided into two camps, one camp trying to enslave the world, the other camp fighting to have peace and freedom in the world.”
—E. Ita Ekpenyon, in Some Experiences of an African Air-Raid Warden
How I Became a Spy is a fictional story inspired by events during World War II. While some actual historical figures do appear in the book, all their actions and dialogue are entirely invented and should be considered fiction, with no relation to real people.
Historical Background
The world was at war. Hitler’s Nazi Germany had invaded other nations, inflicting terror, torture, and death on innocent people, especially Jews. Great Britain had been at war with Germany since September 3, 1939. Londoners had endured food rationing, blackouts, and bombing raids collectively known as the Blitz in 1940 and 1941. Attacks began again in 1944, in a series of operations that has come to be known as the Little Blitz.
The United States had entered the worldwide conflict in 1941 as an ally of Great Britain. As the future of free democratic societies hung in the balance, Britain and America joined forces to begin secret preparations for the largest military operation in history: Operation Overlord. Its goal was to invade Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” and defeat Germany at last.
Much would depend on the success of the first day of that battle, when 156,000 Allied troops would cross the English Channel and fight for a toehold in France. The code name for the landings was Operation Neptune. It was one of the most crucial secrets of World War II. The Nazis must not find out when it would take place, or exactly where troops would land.
The Special Operations Executive
Thousands of ordinary people took part in the fight against Nazi Germany. In England, an organization called the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, was formed. Its agents were known as the Baker Street Irregulars, after the street urchins who assisted the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. The SOE main office was at 64 Baker Street, marked by a sign that read INTER-SERVICES RESEARCH BUREAU. Visitors can find a plaque there today.
The SOE trained men and women with no previous experience to become secret agents. After training, many were dropped by parachute into countries occupied by Nazi Germany, including France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. There they undertook dangerous acts of sabotage and resistance.
Unfortunately, as in our story, several networks were compromised when the Nazis captured agents and radio operators but continued to send radio messages. Yet even when messages arrived without the proper security check codes, the London office of the SOE assumed that these were simple coding mistakes made by agents in the field. As a result, a number of British agents were captured and killed. Leo Marks, an SOE code maker, is credited with discovering this pattern in the Netherlands. While no double agent was uncovered, controversy over this tragic situation continued long after the war.
AUTHOR QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
What inspired you to write this book?
I love mysteries, spy stories, history, and anything to do with London. I’m also interested in World War II and have written several nonfiction books about it, including one about D-Day and one about the SOE in Denmark.
I was able to visit London while writing another historical fiction book, The Great Trouble, which takes place on Broad Street (later Broadwick Street) in 1854. I wanted Bertie’s father to be a policeman. When I discovered that Trenchard House, a police apartment building, was located on Broadwick Street in the 1940s, I knew exactly where Bertie should live.
What did an air-raid siren sound like?
You can hear a WWII British air-raid siren and the all-clear signal that followed on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=erMO3m0oLvs.
Was there really a Little Blitz in the winter of 1944?
Yes. Although the most intensive period of bombings in London occurred primarily in 1940 and 1941, attacks began again in January of 1944. However, while I’ve followed the general timeline of raids during this time, I have fictionalized the command post, as well as the actual bombing incidents and their locations that appear in the story.
Do you have a dog named Little Roo?
Not exactly! But I do have a brown-and-black cocker spaniel named Rue, after a character in The Hunger Games. We often call her Little Rue. Rue is also the French word for “street.” For this story, I decided to change the spelling of her name to Roo, as in Winnie-the-Pooh. Bertie thinks a dog named Little Roo is a bit silly, so he calls her LR for short.
Did agents really use codes?
Yes, but the codes used by actual SOE agents were much more complex than the ones that appear here. Some used key words from original poems. The real Leo Marks, who was in charge of the coding department, sometimes wrote poems for agents.
Are any of the characters based on or inspired by real people?
Yes. Although Bertie, Eleanor, and David are entirely fictional, other characters—such as Warden Ita, Harry Butcher, Leo Marks, and General Eisenhower (and, of course, his Scottish terrier Telek)—are inspired by actual historical figures. You can find the names of the real people who appear in the story in the roster that follows. But in all cases, their actions and dialogue have been fictionalized. (Although I must add that the real Telek did indeed have a reputation for being very hard to housebreak!)
ROSTER OF TERMS, EVENTS & HISTORICAL FIGURES
Harry Butcher—Harry Butcher was the chief aide to General Eisenhower. He wrote a book about his experiences that included several anecdotes about Telek.
D-Day—D-Day is a military planning term that stands simply for the day a battle is to begin (similarly, H-Hour is used to designate the hour an operation will begin). The most famous D-Day in history—and what most people mean when they refer to D-Day—took place on June 6, 1944, when 156,000 Allied troops landed by parachute and by boat on five beaches on the coast of Normandy, France.
Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower—General Eisenhower arrived in London in January of 1944 to lead Operation Overlord as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. After World War II, Eisenhower would go on to become the thirty-fourth president of the United States.
E. Ita Ekpenyon—Ita in the story was inspired by a real person. Born in Nigeria, E. Ita Ekpenyon moved to London, volunteered as an air-raid warden, and wrote a short memoir about his WWII experiences.
Leo Marks—Leo Marks, the son of an antiquarian bookseller, became fascinated with codes after reading Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Gold-Bug.” Marks became the head of coding and code deciphering at the SOE. His father’s bookstore, Marks & Co, became famous in a book and film entitled 84 Charing Cross Road.
Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—The OSS, an American organization, was the forerunner of today’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Several college professors from the United States were posted to London to work for the OSS and lived near Grosvenor Square.
Operation Overlord—This was the code name for the Allied plan to invade Europe and ultimately defeat Germany to win the war.
Special Operations Executive (SOE)—With its headquarters on
Baker Street, this British organization recruited secret agents to send to countries under German occupation to form and lead sabotage and resistance efforts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to editor (and fellow Oregonian) Katherine Harrison for embracing this story and helping bring it to life. Thanks to Katrina Damkoehler, Trish Parcell, and Greg Stadnyk for a great cover and interior design. Also, I wish to thank Nancy Hinkel, Jenny Brown, and the entire team at Knopf and Random House, especially Anne Schwartz, Lee Wade, Barbara Marcus, Adrienne Waintraub, Lisa Nadel, Artie Bennett, Stephanie Engel, Diana Varvara, and Emily Bamford. I am grateful to my brilliant and dedicated agent, Steven Malk, and the entire team at Writers House, especially Hannah Mann and Andrea Morrison, for all their help and support.
This story is historical fiction set during World War II. Whenever I research this conflict, I feel indebted to those who served the Allied cause, whether as soldiers, sailors, civilians, or—like Violette and many other brave women and men who risked their lives—members of the resistance.
As always, I’m grateful for the love and support of family and friends. I’d like to say a special thanks to my dear friend Vicki Hemphill and to her beloved family: Steve, Keelia, Blaine, Eliot, Meghan, Drew, and Aili. Thanks also to my sisters, Janice Fairbrother and Bonnie Johnson, my wonderful and accomplished nieces, and to Ellie Thomas and Nick Toth. I’m grateful to Debbie Wiles and Jim Pearce, Lisa Ann Sandell, Elisa Johnston, Katie Morrison, Maya Abels and Stewart Holmes, Cyndi Howard, Sheridan Mosher, Teresa Vast and Michael Kieran, Kristin Hill and Bill Carrick, Deniz Conger, Deborah Correa, Sara Wright, Judy Sierra and Bob Kaminski, Rachael and Joseph Cusick, Becky and Greg Smith, Kathy and Jim Park, and many more.