2020-02-23 02:36:31.691470 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-EIGHT

The Secret Weapon

Country sections approved of poem-codes because they couldn't be detected if agents were searched. The fact that they could be tortured out of them and were easy to break were secondary considerations. If they opposed the introduction of silks and we had to ask Gubbins to over-rule them (as he'd assured Nick he would), we'd get their reluctant co-operation but forfeit their goodwill.

Knowing this, on 2 June Nick took the unprecedented step of sending a memo to all country section heads requesting them to see me in the presence of their respective signals officers, so that I could explain on MS/A's behalf why a radically new system of agents' codes would shortly be introduced. We agreed that there was no point in mentioning LOPs: if WOKs didn't convince them of the value of tangible codes, nothing would.

On 3 June I embarked on the sales campaign, knowing that Frank Doel would make a far better job of it.

Maurice Buckmaster was the first country section head to be shown a WOK. Normally responsive to everything which would enhance the welfare of his agents, he was facing the collapse of his two principal circuits, and suggesting new codes to him was like taking a drowning man's hand and offering to manicure it.

He gave a cursory glance at the WOK which I put in front of him, and muttered that he didn't want his agents to carry another damn thing, and left the rest to Captain Noble, his signals officer. He couldn't have submitted the code to a better qualified judge. Noble (real name George Bégué) was a self-effacing Frenchman with the added distinction of being the first SOE agent to parachute into the field. He'd been dropped blind into France in May '41, taking with him a rudimentary wireless set and a poem-code. He transmitted more than forty vital messages but had such contempt for his security checks that he'd ignored them altogether, and relied on prearranged questions and answers. He'd been arrested by the Vichy police in October '41, and F section didn't expect to hear from him again. But in July '42 he'd escaped from a Vichy-run prison in the heart of the Dordogne, taking nine of his fellow-agents with him. He made his way to Lyons, crossed the frontier into Spain, and was taken on to Buckmaster's HQ staff as soon as he returned to London.

He'd be a major asset to the Signals directorate as a briefing officer. But at this moment he could also be an insuperable obstacle. I explained the advantages of silk codes to him but didn't mention their security checks. I wanted to see if he'd refer to them himself, and with a cynical little smile he eventually did.

Although he grasped the principle at once, I gave him a detailed exposition in case Maurice was tuning in. Noble waited impatiently till I'd finished, then copied out a pair of WOK-keys, rapidly encoded a message, and changed the indicator by secret numbers known only to him.

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