Johann and Daniel
by Charles Lacey
Chapter 4
Christopher.
After the Battle of Britain, things got a bit quieter, though there were often bombing raids, especially on moonlit nights, and we could be scrambled at a moment's notice to try to shoot down the German bombers before they could do any damage. Until later in the war, when Chain Home, the series of Radar stations around the south coast, was operational, we often had little notice of raids. But when that bell started to ring, we would sprint to our aircraft, often finding the ground crews already in position to get us started and off the ground, and be airborne in very short order. We drank heavily when off duty, though generally only beer as spirits were all but unavailable, but despite this we were superbly fit.
Later in the war Mr Churchill said of the RAF, "Never in the whole history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." Charlie Barnes, a chap in the same squadron as me, remarked drily, "That must refer to the Mess bills". But I will admit that we did get dog-tired. The Wingco tried his best to allocate leave fairly, but there just weren't enough aircrew to keep everything going, so although they were training new chaps as fast as they could, the old stagers had to keep the show on the road. Old stagers, I've said, but I don't think any of us were more than twenty-five, and most a good bit younger.
Then one day came a notice: would any fluent German speakers report to the Wing Commander's office. I did so, and was surprised to be given a railway warrant and orders to report to an address in South London. To my further surprise, it was a private house, not far from Wimbledon Common. I rang the doorbell, which was answered by a middle-aged woman. Greatly puzzled, I was shown into a large room on the ground floor which contained a table and some armchairs, two of which were occupied by men. One was a uniformed Army officer, the other a civilian, though with something of a military air. I couldn't place him at all, but they sat me down and offered me a cigarette, and the civilian suddenly shot a question at me in German. I answered in the same language, and we conversed for a few minutes.
Then the Army type took over. He questioned me about my family, my service in the RAF and my education. Eventually he seemed satisfied, and said to me, "I'm going to send you to another address shortly. For now, return to your duties and don't say anything to anyone, not even your parents or your closest friends, about this interview. You will be hearing from us again within a few days."
Obviously, I was very puzzled, but it had become second nature to obey orders from officers, so I got the train back to the RAF station and continued my tour of duty. A few days later the Wingco sent for me. He had some papers in front of him on his desk, and a worried expression. "I don't know what's going on, Woodward, but you are to report to an address which even I don't know. I have sealed orders here for you. When I leave the office, you are to open them, read them and then put them on the fire. Don't tell me or anyone else what they say."
He stood up and we exchanged salutes, then he went out. I slit open the envelope. It told me to report to a particular place on King's Cross station at a specified time two days later. As instructed, I memorized the instructions, and then burned them. Obviously I connected this with my mysterious interview in Wimbledon, but beyond this had no idea what was happening.
I was met at King's Cross by one of the most ordinary-looking chaps you ever saw, wearing the inevitable brown raincoat and trilby hat. He was of average height and build and had an instantly forgettable face. But he put me onto a train and got into the carriage with me. We left the train at a station which I am still not allowed to name, and were picked up by a taxi and taken to a big country house.
I was ushered in, given a cup of tea and a sandwich, and told to wait in a small room furnished with a few chairs and a desk. In a few minutes a man came in and sat behind the desk. He looked and sounded like an officer, but was in mufti. I later discovered him to be a Colonel in the Intelligence Service. He spoke to me at some length, but the gist of it was that they wanted me to do a particular job which could be of very great value to the war effort. He couldn't tell me anything more about it, except that it would be dangerous, and could conceivably end in my death. Further than that he could not say, unless I signed the Official Secrets Act.
Well, I thought, the job I'm doing now is pretty dangerous, so what the hell? So I signed the documents, and he told me that if I now revealed anything about this place and its work I would probably be shot as a traitor. But they wanted to give me some specialist training, and then send me into occupied Austria as – well, in effect as a secret agent. A spy, in other words.
Well, by now I was thoroughly intrigued and, if I am honest, quite excited. I guess I had a lot of Boy's Own Paper notions about spying (though when my training began my actual experiences were nothing like I had ever expected). But I agreed. I had no ties at home other than my parents, no wife or fiancé, so I sent to the RAF station for my civilian clothes, returned my uniform, wrote to my parents – a letter which one of the staff at The Hotel, as they called it, scrutinized carefully before I was allowed to send it - and started my training.
Well, if my RAF training had been high pressure, it was nothing to what I went through now. I learned a good many very nasty ways of silently causing sudden death, and discovered how to assemble and operate secret wireless equipment. I learned techniques of self-defence, and how to fade into the background when needed. My RAF training had, of course, included parachute drill, but now I also learned how to dispose of a parachute quickly and discreetly once I had landed. For most of my training I spoke only German, and I learned to respond with apparent disinterest or puzzlement if suddenly spoken to in English. My German was polished to a high gloss by an Austrian refugee, a charming elderly gentleman from Vienna called Eulenberg. Before the war, I believe, he had been a professor at the University, but had been sacked on the orders of the new pro-Nazi Rektor because he was half Jewish, and had come to England to see what he could do to help the Allied cause.
I was instructed in all that was known about conditions both in Germany and In Austria and in only eight weeks I was considered ready to be dropped in occupied country. I was outfitted with a complete set of clothes, even underwear and shoes with a well known Austrian label, given forged identity documents, and taken to an RAF station in Lincolnshire.
Two days later, on a moonless night, we took off. I don't mind admitting I was in a fearsome state of nerves. I had nothing but my own resources to rely upon and knew that if I were discovered to be a secret agent I should be liable to be tortured and then shot. I had been issued with a "last resort" capsule in case the worst should happen. It was considered better that I should take a cyanide capsule than submit to torture and possibly reveal secrets which could help the enemy. I could see the point of that. Well, they had warned me, and I had agreed. I was a volunteer, not a conscript. And at least in Austria I would be less likely to be regarded as suspicious than if I were in Germany.
Well, I dropped neatly enough in some woodland not far from Linz. I disposed of the parachute as I had been instructed, and walked into the city. I found an inexpensive hotel, being careful to approach it from the direction of the railway station, and booked a room for a week in the name of Christoph Waldmann. I'd been provided with a good bundle of Reichsmarks, some of which I parted with, though I had another lot concealed in a metal tube hidden – well, let's just say, within my person. The hotel receptionist surveyed my identity documents without much interest, and gave me a key.
Linz in wartime was a very different place from the Austria I remembered from my holidays there. Nazi soldiers were posted at every street corner, ostentatiously fingering their guns. There was a real feeling of nervousness and suspicion; people went about their business quietly and almost furtively. I had been instructed to make contact with a woman at an address I had memorized. I was posing as her nephew who had lived most of his life in Switzerland, and had just returned.
So I went to the address I had been given, and met Alicia. I'd been given a couple of gongs from my RAF service, but they were awarded for a mixture of recklessness and good luck. Alicia deserved a gold medal the size of a soup plate. Day by day, she helped people to escape; it will probably never be known how many Jewish people she managed to hide and eventually smuggle out of the country. She gathered information which she passed on to other agents such as myself, and kept a finger upon Resistance activities, so that if help were needed it could hopefully be found. Amazingly, she survived the War, only to be killed in 1947. I am as certain as I am of my own name, that she was killed by a surviving Nazi as an act of revenge. Be that as it may, she was a heroine of no small order.
I had an account already opened at the Österreiches Bank, and went to meet the Manager. He was a small, neatly if slightly shabbily dressed man named Otto Stresemann; like everyone else in occupied territories at the time he was nervous and uncertain, but he made me welcome and dealt competently with my business. The most important thing was to be seen doing commonplace, everyday activities; going to work, visiting the bank, eating lunch or having coffee at a small cafe; the sort of things that ordinary, honest citizens did as a matter of course. Alicia had arranged a flat for me – I greatly fear it was one that had been commandeered from Jewish tenants, but that was not her fault – and I arranged for the rent to be paid monthly through the bank. I was working as a commercial traveller, which both explained absences and made it easier to move around, and I had two lists, a written one of companies and individuals to visit, and one, again memorized, of people to visit if I really needed some support.
I was surprised to learn just how wide a network of agents there was throughout occupied territory. We were discouraged from meeting as far as possible as obviously if the cover of one of us was blown, it could expose others. In the meantime, I gathered information of many kinds, about the behaviour of the Nazis, how the civilian population was faring, about industry and business, in fact, almost anything. We had been told that nothing was too small or trivial to report; that a tiny fact reported by one agent might throw light upon something sent in by another, even perhaps one from a different city. But the people back home would be able to collate all the gen they were sent and build up a surprisingly accurate picture, as I learned when I returned to the training school.
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