The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish (21 page)

I often performed this rigmarole in cafés and restaurants. A favourite place was the tea-room above the Gaumont Cinema, where I would order morning coffee and a bath bun, or, should it be
after three o’clock, tea and toast and occasionally a poached egg, if my ‘victim’ didn’t immediately loom into view, thereby stringing the operation out until I was
absolutely sure I had spotted my man. Any mistake on my part – murmuring a message out of the corner of my mouth giving a rendezvous, or dropping a note onto the lap of a total stranger
indicating when and where we were to meet – could not only be embarrassing, but could even lead me into serious trouble with the police for soliciting.

But I think the most ‘James Bond’ exercise – hardly surprising since James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, worked for Naval Intelligence during the war, and his brother
Peter was an SOE agent – took place in hotels, without anyone even suspecting the drama being enacted before their very eyes.

There were two very pleasant hotels in Bournemouth, the Royal Bath and the Lincoln. I preferred to operate at the Royal Bath, because adjoining the dining room was a large terrace overlooking
the sea which, on a warm, moonlit evening, lent itself to a very romantic scenario, making my task much easier. The Lincoln unfortunately didn’t possess such a commodity. Very often, on a
student’s last night of the course before being returned to his Section in London, where his fate would be decided, his conducting officer would invite him out for dinner to celebrate. The
conducting officers sat in on many of the classes and watched the students closely, studying their different reactions to situations, their relationship with other students, whether they were
level-headed, practical, gossips, volatile or knew how to ‘hold their drink’ or ‘keep their cool’. Every student wasn’t favoured with an invitation to dinner, so I can
only think that the officers chose those whom they suspected might ‘talk’.

Beforehand a little one-act play was worked out between the officer and myself. When he and the future agent were in the hotel lounge having a drink before dinner I would stroll in, and the
officer would exclaim in surprise, ‘Noreen, how lovely to see you. What are you doing in Bournemouth? Come and have a drink. Meet my friend.’ Or he might say to the agent when they
linked up, ‘An extraordinary thing happened this afternoon. I bumped into a girl I hadn’t seen since the beginning of the war. I was at school with her brother.’ My little brother
was still at school at the time, so that was stretching it a bit far. But the bod wasn’t to know that. ‘She’s staying in Bournemouth for a few days, and I’ve asked her to
join us for a drink. You don’t mind, do you?’

If the future agent were a Brit he usually minded very much. He’d been looking forward to a boozy evening with the boys, and here was this wretched woman coming to put a damper on things.
But the foreigners were often very pleased, since they didn’t have that many opportunities to meet English girls. When the second glass of sherry arrived the officer, as planned, would ask me
to join them for dinner, and after a few blushing protestations I would gracefully accept his invitation. But when it was time to put down our glasses and stroll across to the dining room, there
would be a telephone call for the officer. He would return, apologizing profusely: something had happened which had to be dealt with immediately. ‘But you two go ahead and start dinner.
I’ll join you as soon as I can.’ Of course, he never did, or only when the meal was over. Then it was up to me. This is where the Royal Bath’s superior facilities came into play.
If it was a warm, moonlit night, and I could edge my victim out onto the terrace overlooking the sea, there was more of a chance that he would relax, possibly become sentimental . . . and talk.

The Brits mostly remained mute, saying, ‘Oh, I’m on some boring old course for the War Box,’ and smilingly refuse to elaborate, putting a finger to their lips if ever I
insisted, whispering ‘careless talk costs lives’, a slogan written up on posters all over the walls. One man said he was a salesman for toothpaste, which was ridiculous. We didn’t
have any toothpaste: we cleaned our teeth with soot or salt. But it was his story, and he stuck to it. With a foreigner it was often easier, and some of them talked, especially the young ones. I
understood them. They were lonely and must have often felt isolated, far from their families and their countries, not knowing whether their friends and relatives were alive or dead, or whether they
would have a home or family or even a country to return to when the war was finally over.

I remember one student in particular. I don’t think I shall ever forget him. His reaction on learning he’d been betrayed affected me deeply. I think it was then that I realized that
my life in SOE was based on deception, on lies. I lied to my mother. I lied to my friends. I lied to everyone I met outside of F Section. It was inevitable. I was unable to tell them the truth,
reveal what I was doing. This particular student was a Dane, a gorgeous blond Adonis, not unlike the Norwegian I had found so attractive in the BBC canteen. We met at the Royal Bath Hotel on a warm
spring evening with a full moon, and I managed to persuade him to wander out onto the terrace. To be honest, he didn’t need an awful lot of persuading. I think he was rather attracted to me.
At the time I weighed twelve kilos less, didn’t have white hair and didn’t need glasses to read the small print! Once propped against the balustrade, gazing at the sea, he became
sentimental. They often did. It was to be expected. On a glorious moonlit evening, with the silver-tinted sea lapping gently against the shore below, the scene was set for it. He asked me whether
we could spend the following Sunday together, and I accepted his invitation, knowing full well that there was not the slightest chance of my being able to keep my promise. But his invitation gave
me my lead, my chance to probe further, enquire about his next move, his activities, his final destination . . . and his intentions. In the end he talked: he told me what he was doing and where he
was going.

Before their departure the following day, Colonel Woolrych received every student in his office. All the reports from the various schools they had attended were in front of him on his desk, and,
having thoroughly studied them, it was up to him to give his opinion as to whether the prospective agent should be infiltrated or not. The final decision did not rest with Woolybags, but was the
prerogative of the head of his country section. For those leaving for France, it was Buck who decided their fate: but Woolybags’ report carried a lot of weight.

If the student had ‘talked’ during our dinner together, at one point during the interview the door would open and I would walk in. ‘Do you know this woman?’ Woolybags
would ask. Mostly they took it well, shrugged and realized that they had been fools and made a stupid mistake, thereby putting in jeopardy their chances of leaving and carrying out their mission,
the mission for which they had undergone such a long and arduous training. But this Dane was different. I shall never forget his face. He looked at me, stunned, then disappointment, I would almost
say pain, clouded his eyes, to be quickly replaced by a terrible anger. He half rose from his chair and spat: ‘You bitch!’

No woman likes to be called a bitch. I didn’t. And I was upset. But it was then that I discovered Woolybags’ compassionate side beneath his stern exterior. ‘It’s no good
your upsetting yourself,’ he said kindly to me afterwards. ‘If he can’t resist talking to a pretty face over here, he most certainly won’t once he’s over there. And it
won’t be only his life he’ll be risking, but the lives of many others as well.’ I knew he was right, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor young man. He had
survived six months’ strenuous training, eight or nine months if he were destined to be a radio operator, learning escape tactics, how to rid himself of handcuffs, react under torture and
during an interrogation, handle explosives, make bombs, live off the land, shoot at a moving target. And Beaulieu was far from being a holiday camp. This young Dane had survived all that yet,
because of one stupid slip on a moonlit evening, he might not be allowed to carry out his mission, that mission he had worked so hard to achieve.

When confronted with this dilemma, Buck, taking into account all the other reports on the student’s capabilities from the different schools he had attended, sometimes said:
‘They’ve learned their lesson. They won’t make the same mistake again.’ And he allowed them to go. But I don’t know whether the other section heads were so
understanding.

After leaving Beaulieu every agent had to go on an exercise lasting ninety-six hours simulating a situation similar to those he would probably encounter once behind the lines. He would be given
a temporary English ‘cover story’ – as opposed to his real cover story, to be used when he was in the field – and told to go to a certain place and carry out different
tasks. Harry Rée had to clock on’ at a factory for a few days and glean as much information as he could from the conversations going on around him while he worked. Another had to spend
a couple of days in a hotel with some mission or other to accomplish, without being told that a beautiful young woman, sent for the purpose, would do her best to pick him up on the first evening
and try to discover what he was up to. His task was to resist her charms, which were apparently considerable. He said he did!

Yet another agent faced with the same temptation reported on his return that on the evening he arrived in the town he’d been sent to he had wandered into the bar of the hotel where he was
staying to be greeted by a beautiful woman who had turned round on her bar stool as he approached, smiled and addressed him by his real name. He had affected not to hear, but she had pursued him,
whereupon he had explained that she must be mistaken and introduced himself using the false name with which he had signed the hotel register. They had spent that evening, and perhaps even that
night, together. In fact, they were inseparable during the few days he was in the town on his mission. But on his last afternoon, during a passionate embrace in a wood where they had gone for a
romantic meander, he had pretended to strangle her. When she was in extremis, her eyes bulging and her face blue, he had released her. Once she had regained her breath he told her to be sure to
mention in her report to Colonel Buckmaster that she’d been murdered in an isolated wood by an unknown man! Realizing that her ruse was up, she had confessed that she had been sent to trap
him and that she was, in fact, the sister of the commandant of one of the schools where he had trained. In spite of her close shave with death, they parted friends. But, all the same, she must have
denounced him to the police because, as he was leaving the hotel later that afternoon to return to London, the police were waiting for him. He was apprehended and taken into custody. Seeing the
black Maria waiting outside, a group of middle-aged housewives had gathered at the hotel entrance. When he was led, in handcuffs, to the waiting police van the unfortunate student was obliged to
submit to their jeers and abuse. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ they cried. ‘Why aren’t you in uniform? Our brave boys your age are risking their lives to keep
criminals like you safe.’ The jeers rang in his ears as he was bundled inside the black Maria. Proof that one shouldn’t always judge by appearances!

One Saturday afternoon I accompanied a young major, a future agent, to London. The major’s false address, where he was supposed to have a flat, was in Ashley Gardens,
near Westminster Cathedral. Since he wanted to be sure he could answer any questions about his ‘home’ accurately, off to Ashley Gardens we went. It was there that I think I lived the
most terrifying half-hour of my life. The Blitz was peanuts in comparison. I had imagined we were going to stand on the pavement and gaze at the flat from the outside, or perhaps venture up to the
fourth floor in the lift and take note of the front door. We had no authority to do anything else, to go any further. And even doing that could have looked suspicious had a neighbour happened to
pass by. But these details didn’t appear to worry him. Once we left the lift, he walked boldly to the door with ‘his’ number on it and picked the lock, then strolled inside and
looked around, gazing admiringly at the elegant furnishings. Had we been caught inside the flat, SOE would no doubt have denied all knowledge of us and, temporarily at least, left us to our fate.
We would have been accused of illicitly entering with intent to commit a burglary, and taken into custody.

Hoping against hope that the owners wouldn’t suddenly appear from the bathroom or come up in the lift, I stood trembling on the landing outside the door, ready to bolt in a cowardly
fashion, and wait for him outside on the pavement, should such an eventuality arise. But he turned round and waved his arm in my direction. ‘Don’t stand there dithering,’ he said.
‘Come on in.’

‘But. . .’ I stammered.

‘No buts,’ he said firmly. ‘Just come in and shut the door.’ So I did! It was terrible. Instead of a quick peep, he bounced on the beds, opened kitchen cupboards, turned
on the bathroom taps, examined the lining of the curtains and the chintz covers to find out where they came from. ‘Ah . . . Sanderson’s,’ he said, turning to smile knowingly at
me. ‘I thought so.’ I didn’t care if they’d originated in the flea market, I just wanted to get out. In the sumptuous drawing room, while the perspiration poured down my
back in torrents, he played a chord or two on the beautiful baby grand piano cluttered with photos in silver frames of exotic people wearing trailing ball gowns and tiaras, clutching fans made of
feathers, and military gentlemen with twirling moustaches, their chests bristling with medals, lethal-looking swords hanging at their sides. Every time the lift rose I shut my eyes and prayed,
convinced that we were both headed for Wormwood Scrubs.