The Secret Generations (33 page)

There he found his chief deep in conversation with a grey-haired, astute-looking man, dressed in an almost dandified manner
– a grey suit with a white pique stripe in the waistcoat, mauve shirt, and a white butterfly collar holding a dark blue bow tie, white-spotted, and neatly in place.

‘
Commander Railton,’ the DID greeted him. ‘I want you to meet the Director of Naval Education, Sir Alfred Ewing. Alfred, this is the officer I told you about.’

‘
Glad to meet you, Railton.’ The voice betrayed Scottish origins, and Andrew had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being sized up by an intellectual of considerable authority. For a second or two, the smell of chalk and damp serge came back, a memory reaching into the nostrils, recalling classrooms and the dog days at school, all those years before.

‘
Understand you’ve been investigating the business of secret writing – codes and ciphers.’ Alfred Ewing smiled.

‘
Sir. With particular reference to military and naval messages, sent via wireless telegraphy.’

The DNE nodded.
‘Tell me all about it.’

Andrew launched into what could have been the basis for a lecture on the history of codes and ciphers: the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, eleventh century Chinese codes; mentioning, in passing, the
wu-ching
tsung-yau
(‘Essentials of Military Classics’) with its method of using code words within poems or letters.

‘
Then,’ getting into his stride, ‘there are the Biblical ciphers, sir…’

‘
Yes, yes.’ Ewing flapped a hand. ‘I know all about those. What about modern codes and ciphers? Do you know the source material? Can you lead me to it?’

Andrew told him yes. There was enough material in the British Museum to keep an intelligent man occupied for years, not to mention the collections at Lloyds, and the GPO.
‘They have a great deal – a lot of commercial ciphers. The War Office still uses the Playfair cipher, of course.’

‘
Of course.’ Ewing spoke firmly. ‘You see, Railton.’ the Scottish accent became more pronounced, ‘Admiral Oliver, here, feels, as I do, that there will be little call for Naval Education if the war goes on for more than a few months. I’ve always been interested in codes, ciphers, secret writing and all that kind of thing, so…’

‘
So,’ the DID chimed in, ‘Sir Alfred has kindly offered to organize a department, here at the Admiralty, dedicated to decoding and deciphering enemy W/T intercepts – the very things that seem to have been bothering you so much, Railton. Now, this has to be kept quiet, but I’d like you to show Sir Alfred where the information’s buried. You will be the direct link between this new department and myself.’

For the next days and we
eks, Andrew found himself spending more and more time with Sir Alfred Ewing who admitted, more than once, that – in spite of his knowledge – he was lamentably ill-equipped to lead any department dealing with the clear reading of ciphered or coded messages.

Together, they mulled over dusty books in the British Museum; went through pages of commercial ciphers at Lloyds, and the GPO; and examined recent cipher illustrations with the Marconi Company.

It quickly became clear that other minds would have to be brought in. So, with his particular contacts, Ewing called on a number of men then teaching at the naval schools in Dartmouth and Osborne. They came on a temporary basis, but, for some – in particular another Scot, the brilliant Alastair Denniston – this was a new turn in their careers. Soon the temporary duty had become a permanent vocation.

They also needed more space, and finally an office was set aside for this fledgling department
– Room 40 of the Admiralty Old Building. Eventually, Room 40(OB) became one of the most important assets in the secret war.

Andrew obeyed orders to the letter, acting as direct liaison with the DID. But, by mid-October, things were changing at the Admiralty, and it was no surprise when the DID called him in one morning to announce he was leaving to take over as Churchill
’s Naval Assistant. The new DID would be Captain Reggie ‘Blinker’ Hall – a man of some reputation, and not all of it good.

Throughout this time, Andrew viewed the progress of the war with a cold, professional eye. Many, including himself, had expected a clash between the two Grand Fleets to be inevitable, if not decisive, within the first few weeks, but the clash did not come.

*

Towards the end of October, Andrew became concerned for Rupert
’s safety. Even though his days were spent with the mathematical experts who toiled to unravel the codes, he was still privy to many of the signals leaving the Admiralty. So, he noted with some misgivings that Admiral Cradock’s force was now instructed to hunt down the German East Asiatic Squadron.

He did not share his fears with Charlotte who had enough to concern her, being totally distraught about Caspar
’s future, which she could only see as bleak beyond words. She continued to believe Rupert was as safe as his twin, Ramillies, settled into a regular routine at the Foreign Office, under his grandfather’s tutelage.

On Wednesday 5 November the bombshell burst.

Andrew, following his usual pattern, had walked over from the Old Building at lunch time, bringing with him the few intercepts which had been successfully decoded during the morning.

He was approaching the Naval Assistant to the First Lord
’s room, when Churchill, closely followed by Admiral Fisher, came out of an adjoining office. Both men looked unusually grave – Fisher even seemed to be grey-skinned with worry.

‘
I cannot understand why Cradock disobeyed orders,’ he heard Churchill say. ‘Under no circumstances should he have engaged an enemy force of that strength.’

‘
Unless he was somehow surprised,’ Lord Fisher replied, then looked up and saw Andrew. ‘It’s young Railton, isn’t it?’ his oddly oriental face creasing into a half smile.

‘
Yes, sir.’

‘
Winston, this is – what is the rank now? Commander?’ Andrew nodded. ‘Commander Railton. Used to be my gunnery officer in
Renown
.’ He stopped, suddenly, as though taken ill. ‘Oh, my dear fellow. You had a son in
Monmouth
? Yes?’

‘
Yes. Yes, sir. Why… What’s the…?’ Andrew felt his heart sink.

‘
I fear
Monmouth
is lost,’ Churchill began. ‘And
Good Hope
also. There are survivors, and we can but hope, Railton. Our prayers are with you.’ And he was off, shoulders stooped as though the responsibility weighed too heavily.

Andrew stood in the corridor, stunned, his eyes burning, wondering if, or how, Rupert
’s end had come.

The facts, as they emerged later, were that Admiral Cradock, who had been instructed to find and shadow the German Squadron, had sailed straight into a classic trap on the previous Sunday afternoon, off the coast of Chile.

Believing his force to have located the light cruiser Leipzig on her own, Cradock, in his flagship
Good Hope
– together with
Glasgow
,
Monmouth
, and the armed merchant cruiser
Ontario
– was lured, by constant wireless signals, towards the heavy guns of the armoured cruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
and their attendant cruisers.

Late on a grey, squall-swept afternoon, Admiral Cradock could not have foreseen the danger, and was forced to put up a gallant fight, which went on into the early evening with the loss of
Good Hope
and
Monmouth
.

Monmouth
– in no way fit for this kind of battle – had limped from the action under cover of darkness, her decks blazing and an eerie glow coming from the portholes below the quarterdeck. Later, though, with the fires under control, but listing badly, she had been sighted against the moon by the cruiser
Nurnberg
, then caught in her searchlights. It was the end. The already shell-torn
Monmouth
, though given the opportunity, refused to haul down her flag, and was dispatched with a hail of fire from
Nurnberg
’s 4-inch guns. It was nearly ten o’clock before
Monmouth
finally capsized, her flag flying to the end.

A full month passed before Andrew and Charlotte, by this time in deep distress, heard that Rupert was safe; though over a year went by before his whole story was pieced together by other survivors.

Rupert had been the only man left alive following a direct hit on the quarterdeck, early in the battle. He had helped to fight the fires raging all over the ship, and, in the end, was literally blown over one hundred feet into the sea, where, miraculously, he remained alive for over two hours before being picked up by
Glasgow
.

Rupert was back in London before Christmas, yet his state was even worse than that of his brother Caspar
– now doggedly determined to master the art of walking on his wooden leg. Rupert appeared a husk of the young man who had, so cheerfully, set off to fight at sea. It was obvious he would never live a normal life, and he had a gaunt haunted look, his eyes staring, as if blind, from their sockets, his expression one of almost permanent surprise. The once alert fine-looking young man walked, breathed and moved. But he did not seem to reflect life at all.

At first he would not speak to anyone, nor go near water, even to bathe. Then, when some semblance of life did return, the very worst became clear. Following the horror and shock of battle, Rupert
’s mind had taken refuge in childhood, so that he once more became like a little boy of six years.

‘
As yet we don’t know enough about this kind of problem: a naval doctor told Charlotte and Andrew. ‘Certain things are obvious, though. The mind has reverted to the comparative safety of childhood. Nobody but God can tell if it will ever return to normality.’

*

So, in the space of one year, two of the brilliant younger members of the Railton family had been struck down: one crippled physically, the other maimed mentally, so that Andrew and Charlotte had to employ the old family nanny – Nanny Briggs – to care for Rupert.

It was pitiful to watch the full-grown young man reduced to playing with long-forgotten
toys on the nursery floor; talking the scribble language of a young child; showing fear at small things; crying or flying into tantrums; and having to be taken for walks held tightly by the hand.

Charlotte began to look her age, and appeared to have lost the power to laugh; whil
e Andrew became moody and introspective, pondering for days on end at the futility of what appeared to be happening around them.

Andrew was in his room,
next door to Room 40, one morning – in a black and silent mood – when Alastair Denniston came off watch, perky and smiling, as his night’s work had been so successful.

Andrew looked blank, as the Scot greeted him with a cheery
‘good morning.’ For some odd reason, Andrew Railton was again, for a second, transported to the schoolroom. Maybe, he thought later, it was the Scottish accent, like Ewing’s. In his head he heard part of a far-off history lesson: a reading from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles regarding the terrible nineteen years Britain was supposed to have endured during the reign of King Stephen.

Automatically, he quoted aloud:

‘I neither know how nor can tell all the horrors they did to the unhappy people in this land…’ he began; and Denniston stopped, his face grave with sorrow; for he knew what must be going on within Andrew. ‘I know,’ Denniston said quietly.

Andrew continued to quote:
‘
And they said openly that Christ slept, and his saints.
’ He looked hard at the other man. ‘Does Christ sleep, Alastair? Does he really sleep?’

Denniston
’s usual dry humour evaporated completely, as he felt the compassion rise. ‘If Christ sleeps, Andrew, then He will surely wake again. Until He does, we have to look to ourselves.’

Slowly Andrew Railton nodded. His gloom and depression were to be echoed in thousands of homes and hearts over the next years. The old, somewhat arrogant, British way of life had gone for ever. Before new values could be found, there were horrors and betrayals to be faced all over the world.

Chapter Five

James Railton sat in the first-floor drawing room of the Kaiserhof, looking across the outskirts of Friedrichshafen. The coffee was good – almost as delicious as that he had drunk in Switzerland, two days before.

In this part of Germany, at least, morale was high. He would tell C that practically every German he heard talking about the war spoke of quick victory. There were exceptions. He thought of the casual conversation on the previous evening.

He had been taking brandy, after dinner, in this very drawing room, and the man who sat down nearby looked pale and under stress, though he was undoubtedly a member of the Officer Corps.

‘
You stay here before?’ The man asked.

‘
Once or twice. On business.’ James was wary and careful with his
Schweizerdeutsch
accent.

‘
Ach. You are not German.’ There was no implied criticism.

‘
Swiss.’

‘
So. You Swiss are best out of it.’

‘
Oh?’

‘
Well, what do you
really
think of the war?’

James was judicious.
‘Honour must always be satisfied.’

‘
You think so?’ The man leaned closer, ‘Maybe I’m foolish; possibly I speak treason, but this war should never have happened. I have good friends, and some relatives in England.’

‘
So?’

The German smiled,
‘You say you’re Swiss?’

‘
From Zurich.’

He shook his head.
‘I think not. Don’t ask me why, but some day – who knows? – I may be of assistance to you. Call on me. Feel free to do so at any time.’

James had the man
’s card in his wallet now;
Major Joseph Stoerkel
, with an address in Elisabethstrasse, Berlin. He had been most careful with the Herr Major, but got the distinct impression that he was anxious to speak with someone who had contacts in England.

James now waited for something new in modern warfare; something he would have preferred to be
doing
instead of simply observing.

He hoped it was going to happen, as planned, this morning, for this was his second visit to Friedrichshafen in less than ten days, and, while nobody appeared to be in the least bit suspicious, James did not wish to chance his luck.

Here at the Kaiserhof they knew him as Herr Grabben, who had something to do with money and engineering. It was assumed that he had connections with the Zeppelin base, less than a kilometre from the hotel. Oddly, in this morning’s light, the base could be seen so clearly that James considered you might almost be able to reach out and touch the sheds. There was probably rain about, for that was when the foreshortened optical illusion usually occurred.

At this moment, James stared straight out at the sheds and hydrogen plant. He hoped the aeroplanes would come within the next hour or so.

Whatever happened, he would have to leave later that day. It would be unwise to stay any longer than twenty-four hours in Germany. It was all very well to live as Herr Grabben here in the hotel; but if some nosey policeman decided to enquire into his documents, the discrepancies would soon be discovered. James had not entered Germany via any of the normal methods.

Across the lake, just inside neutral Switzerland
– at the Bahnhof-Post Hotel in Kreuzlingen – he was known as Herr Franke, a businessman from Berlin, speaking the precise
Hochdeutsch
of the Prussian upper and middle classes. Here in Friedrichshafen, they could hardly understand his sing-song
Schweizerdeutsch
, with its dropped final consonants and sentences larded with diminutives. C had given him only a fortnight to perfect the lyricisms of the Swiss dialect.

He looked out of the window again, eyes searching the sky, his mind drifting through the phases of the journey that had brought him to this place; through shell-strewn France into Switzerland, on diplomat
ic papers; then a planned disappearance – re-emerging on Lake Constanz as Herr Franke from Berlin, seeking a few days peace from his responsible job; a word to the Head Porter of the Bahnhof-Post, saying he would be away for a couple of nights, walking in the mountains; then the second part of the venture – the long dark night sail, in a tiny fishing boat, taking him across the lake, landing about a mile east of Friedrichshafen; from thence to the Kaiserhof.

Whether the aeroplanes came today, or not, he would begin the reverse journey that night.

There were only two other guests in the drawing room, but in another public room someone was playing a piano – Chopin, one of the sonatas; though he could not remember which. It was certainly a favourite of Margaret Mary’s; the one, he thought, which had the funereal passage in it.

Home, and his wife, came urgently into his mind. The man who declared that absence made the heart grow fonder was an idiot. Enforced absence was a deadly enemy, for, together with longing, it brought the occasional devils of doubt. Each time he returned home, usually arriving without warning, it took two days to rediscover his wife; then it was time to leave again. If they came through this with a happy marriage intact, they should be able to weather anything.

Recently he had noticed an odd phenomenon. In moments of crisis he experienced vivid moving pictures in his mind, often so real that he thought they verged on the hallucinatory. Now, Margaret Mary was seated at the piano, her bare shoulders and arms moving like those of a dancer. For a second he sensed the indescribable odour of her hair, which so roused him that he loved to bury his nose in it. The fragrance of her hair acted like a powerful aphrodisiac.

He sipped his coffee, and once more lifted his eyes towards the sky. If they were coming it had to be soon.

The plan had been well conceived and carefully prepared, originally at the suggestion of the British Air Attaché in Berne. Earlier that month, four aeroplanes were boxed and crated, then taken, together with pilots, mechanics and staff, from Southampton to Le Havre, and on to Belfort, in south-east France. The aeroplanes had then been reassembled.

Already there had been one false start; but, three days before, James was told of a new date
– the morning of 21 November. This morning.

Outside, about a mile away
, all was bustle around the Zeppelin sheds. He could see a squad of soldiers being marched towards the sheds, their mouths opening and closing in song. They would be singing, he presumed, the same words he had heard in Friedrichshafen on the last visit:
‘
Fly, Zeppelin

Help us win the war,

England shall be destroyed by fire,

Zeppelin, fly!
’

It was a distinct possibility; England being attacked, if not destroyed, by fire from the great dirigibles. There could be little doubt of the menace they presented.

He glanced up to be sure that the top of the high sash window was open, as usual. If they came, James wanted to be certain the glass would not be shattered by blast. As he raised his head the piano stopped, and the first explosion echoed, blasting towards the hotel – the dull thump of an anti-aircraft gun somewhere out on the perimeter of the field.

One of the other guests seated in the drawing room dropped his newspaper and half rose, as James spotted the first aeroplane
– an Avro 504, a machine not built to carry bombs, but chosen for its sturdy features.

He could hear the engine now, coupled with more gunfire. The other men in the room, anxious and alarmed, left their chairs, coming to stand beside James near the window.

The shape of the descending aeroplane became more visible with every second – the long wooden skid between the wheels, and the curved metal protective bumpers under the tips of its long lower wings.

Dirty black clouds exploded near the machine as it continued to lose height, and the guns began to open up around the whole area. The
’plane kept coming, and James could see others following. There should, he knew, be four of them. So far, only three were visible. Then, the first bombs crashed in a line between the Zeppelin sheds.

The second Avro was now overhead, jettisoning its bombs
– only three coming away, the fourth plainly stuck in the release mechanism under the wings. With a great double crunch, and a high crimson plume, one of the hydrogen tanks exploded to the left of the sheds. As it did so, a shell burst very close to the aeroplane, which bucked under the blast, its engine note changing, and the nose going down.

Now the third aeroplane skimmed in at about five hundred feet, the bombs dropping away like stones thrown in a cluster by a small boy. They exploded with four dull bumps rattling the windows, one of them taking away part of the Zeppelin shed, tearing it open like a knife ripping paper.

The second machine was in trouble, unable to gain height, but turning and setting its course for home. James doubted if it could even get as far as Belfort. The other two were already invisible in the murk of low cloud, leaving behind them at least some damage, a great deal of shock, and certainly much disbelief.

James had one more duty before returning to Switzerland
– to discover how much genuine damage had been inflicted. Already he knew it could not be very great: probably only one tank of hydrogen with, possibly, some damage to a Zeppelin, if there had been one inside the shed which had received a hit.

But damage to morale was considered a victory also. It was quite amazing, he thought, that at least three aeroplanes had managed to fly to the most highly-prized base in Germany
– for Friedrichshafen was not only the Zeppelin’s birthplace, but also the chief strategic testing centre. Over four thousand miles from England, the base was considered perfectly safe from any kind of attack. Yet they had done it – a first in warfare.

Outside, the cold air was filled with a strong smell of smoke drifting in from the base. People hurried everywhere, some occasionally glancing upwards, as though expecting the
Verdamnte Englischen Maschinen
to return.

In one of the bars, James drank schnapps with a man who had been on the base. He was intelligent; not the kind who would exaggerate. Several people had been killed, he said, though, God be thanked, there was no terrible damage done. A week would see things back to normal.
‘Oh, yes.’ He swallowed his second schnapps in one gulp. ‘There will be much trouble for the English pilots. One of the dead is a Swiss engineer.’

James made the usual s
hocked noises, but thought, callously, ‘Shouldn’t have been there in the first place, silly bugger. If a Swiss neutral was in the Zeppelin centre, maybe even helping, and got himself killed, it’s his own damned fault.’

By ten o
’clock that night, James Railton had made his rendezvous with the fishing boat, and lay half-dozing in the stern, perished with cold from the wind funnelling down the lake. He thought of Margaret Mary again, and of the odd incident which had occurred. When he left the hotel drawing room to go down into the street, James had passed through the room where he had heard the Chopin sonata being played just before the raid. Even in his haste he stopped for a moment, for the room did not appear to contain a piano.

He would tell Margaret when he saw her again; though heaven knew when that would be. At the moment, his orders were to leave Switzerland at the earliest opportunity and head for Calais to make contact with the nearest MI1(c) officer.

This probably meant a return to Belgium; a quiet sortie behind the German lines. Already, during the fighting around Antwerp, James had spent time behind the German advance, doing the uncertain work of recruiting agents who would report on troop movements – particularly those made by train. The idea was to form a network of local people, so that permanent intelligence could be brought out, and regular reports made to the Field Commanders. The network was coded
Frankignoul
, after its leading agent, and controlled by an officer, known as Evelyn, back in the English Channel port of Folkestone.

But, when James finally got back to the Bahnhof-Post, at Kreuzlingen, in the early hours of the following morning, a telegram awaited him.

It came from Berne, and was written in ‘clear’ cipher, requesting Herr Franke to call on Herr Gimmell at the Credit Suisse in Berne.

Herr Gimmell was C. An instruction call on him at any bank meant that James was to report, in person, to London as quickly as he could get there.

Even if the visit to London was brief, it at least meant he would see Margaret Mary soon.

*

Because James was now away for so much of the tune, Margaret Mary had found them a small house near Kensington Gardens and it was to this pleasant, three-storey home, set in a small square behind the bustle of the High Street, that James returned, three days after receiving the telegram.

It was late afternoon. Foggy, a hint of frost, and the dry characteristic autumnal smell of woodsmoke hanging in the nostrils as soon as you stepped into any London street. Margaret Mary had been sittin
g idly at the piano in the drawing room, waiting for Nanny to bring Donald down to say goodnight. The curtains were not yet drawn, and, as she paused at the end of a difficult line, she glanced down, giving an almost childish yelp of joy as she saw James’ silhouette walking slowly, carrying his heavy case, from a departing taxicab.