Chapter 235
The Avro York that the SOE used as the institutional runaround had been waiting for them at an airfield east of Tripoli. It was far more spacious than the late Blenheim, considering it was based on a Lancaster. The take-off had been at night and the aircraft had been well away by dawn. Ian had left Felix behind at the station and was now escorting the defectors back to Britain. He knew that they were probably much less valuable to the Allies than they themselves thought, given that Bletchley was already providing a lot of Intelligence – but at the very least Canaris would be able to name any German sources that MI5 might have missed and what the Abwehr was up to that was never communicated via Enigma. Ian was not going to do the debriefing, he left that to experts from the SIS, but it was an opportunity visit a certain backery in London, and that was what he was going to do come hell or high water. When they crossed the British coast Ian looked out of a window, and he could see constant flashes from bombs and anti-aircraft fire from the direction of Portsmouth, so evidently the enemy still hadn't given up the 'baby blitz' against the southern ports that was more annoying than damaging considering the abundance of RDF equipped Night Fighters and anti-air Artillery that was ringed around those strategic locations.
The SOE Avro York 'Black Shadow' over the Bay of Biscay, photographed from an escorting Mosquito
Flying in at night was a risky business at best, but Ian had overruled the RAF Officer in command of the plane on the grounds that secrecy was essential, it was bad enough that they had to refuel at a French Airfield outside Casablanca. The York was inbound for a small airfield in Buckinghamshire that was during the day used as a dispersal location for Bomber Command. Not only was this close to the location where the debriefing would be conducted but it was also convenient because the arrival of big, multi-engined aircraft in the middle of the night was something that happened regularly there. It was almost dawn already when the plane touched down at it's final destination, and Ian was the first off the plane. He knew that he was most likely not here for more than a few days at best, but being back in Blighty was always nice. Ian simply liked this damp, foggy little Island to bits.
Canaris and Oster were hustled into a car so that no one saw their German uniforms, with their baggage being loaded onto a lorry. Ian was aware where they were going, even though he hadn't been there yet. It was a manor in the countryside a few dozen miles from the base, and it would take the better part of two hours to get there. Stonor House had been in the possession of a Catholic Family up until recently when it had been taken over first by the Ministry of Defence as a recuperation home for wounded Officers and later by the SOE as a safehouse where turned agents and high-value Prisoners of war were interrogated before they moved on. Situated in the Chiltern Hills it was far enough off from everything to be perfect in that regard, the villagers were studiously unaware of what was going on at the mansion.
When the cars reached the perimeter of the property, they were stopped by RMP men, and the vehicles were searched. When they reached the front entrance and stepped out to get inside, Ian was relieved of his weapon as standard operating procedure.
Once inside, he excused himself and asked for the way to the communications room.
The comms room was a room crammed full with Telephones and wireless sets and manned by a Lieutenant and several NCOs from the Royal Corps of Signals. The Lieutenant saluted and Ian asked for a secure line to London. He was lead into a small cupboard and closed the door.
“London 679 please.”
The number was a cover contact number for the SOE.
“The boss please.” were his next words.
“You have delivered the defectors to the safehouse?”
“Yes, Sir. I wonder if you had any orders for me.”
Ian could almost see Mountbatten smiling in that instant.
“I promise you can visit your family before you go back to Italy, but for the moment we want you to represent the Special Operations Executive at the debriefing.”
Great, that was just what he wanted (NOT). Sitting here with the boffins and the pipe smoking people from five and six, while his wife and his son didn't even know that he was in the country.
“Am I that obvious, Admiral?” he asked, knowing that it was useless to discuss anything with Mountbatten over the phone.
“No, but I'd be the same.”
Mountbatten paused.
“I want you there because you probably know them best, and because at the moment you are the only ULTRA cleared SOE officer on hand. I need you there to verify that they are not lying to us. These buggers could have the cheek to lie to us to keep their head if they decided to go back.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Mountbatten sighed and then Ian could hear someone come into the Admiral's Office.
“The deputy MinDef just arrived, so I must end this call. Do your best, Captain.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Ian bit back the sigh and turned back from a family man into a Naval Officer.
“Anything specific we want to know, Sir?”
Shuffling of papers and a hushed conversation could be heard.
“Let me see.....” more shuffling “Ah yes, yes. We'd like you to find out how much, if anything the Germans know about the Countryside manor,” meaning Bletchley Park and ULTRA “and of course without them finding out that it exists if they don't. You think you can do that, Captain Fleming?”
“I will find that out for you, Sir. Anything else? That RCS bloke outside is getting rather annoyed.”
“Oh yes. Try to avoid telling them about ULTRA.”
With that Mountbatten hung up and Ian then stepped out of the cupboard.
He ignored the pointed glance from the lower ranked Officer and decided to join the group of SIS Officers and defectors in the drawing room. When he opened the door he stopped for a moment to take in the utter surreality of the situation. The former headn of the German Military Intelligence Service was sitting in the chair in the drawing room of an English Country House, smoking Cigarettes made with Tabacco from India or Persia, wearing his parade Uniform as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Glad you could join us, Captain.”
“Glad I could come, Sir.”
The man who had spoken was M, the head of MI6 and Ian's old boss.
“Now that we're all here, perhaps we can begin.”
M took a sip from a cup of tea in front of him.
“Now, firstly, C has told me to tell you that he will be delayed, apparently London has something to say to him before he comes here.”
“That will not be a problem, Maxwell.” Canaris said.
Ian raised both his eyebrows at this familiarity between the two, not knowing that they had met before the war, both coming from Naval Intelligence.
“Now, since you are a guest here, would you like to begin, Captain Fleming?”
Ian nodded and quickly scolded himself for almost asking a question that could easily wait until much later.
“I've been told that you have been rather high inside a group of dissenting German Officers, is that true?”
Canaris nodded.
“It is, Captain. And before you ask, it was the main reason why Hans and I decided to defect even during a war. You see, we formed the Kreisau Circle, and unfortunately we weren't as good at concealing our efforts as we thought.”
“We as in.....” said M, clearly intent on coaxing a list out of his prize.
For the next five minutes Canaris had to be persuaded to do so, but in the end he dictated a list. Even though an MI6 man was acting as secretary, he was taking his own notes, and more than once he had to force himself to go on because the list was reading like a who's who of the lower and mid-level leadership of the Wehrmacht. It were fewer than he had expected and it reinforced his belief that short of the Union Flag flying over Berlin nothing would happen, but it was nice to know which Officers were reasonable and could be talked to if need be. The last on the list was the most surprising to Ian.
“Him?” he asked.
“Oh yes. The
Feldmarschall is probably the least likely candidate and not active, but it was his patronage that allowed us to escape from France.”
“Oh really?”
Canaris nodded.
“Yes. We flew south under the guise of an unannounced inspection of Abwehr Operations at his Headquarters, and and he was even the one who told the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt that we where here, so that his own head was saved, and that on my express wish.”
Among the names of those that knew or at least were suspected of being sympathetic were also illustrious names such as that of one of Germany's top scoring Panzer Aces and several Officers from what remained of the KM, in fact the latter were among the largest group. When Ian asked about this, Canaris replied:
“That's due to your colleagues that fly from your Carriers. The Kriegsmarine has fallen from favour, and being defeated even in port time and again without appropriate means to fight back...”
“Then why was the Luftwaffe reaction to these attacks so feeble? The Admiral in charge expected to be jumped by a cloud of Stukas at every corner.”
This time Oster was the one to reply in his former position as Canaris' Right hand man with the Armed Forces.
“That was a mix of your Air Forces tying down most of our bomber Force in Italy and due to the Corporal wanting to attack Eng...Britain.”
He paused.
“You see, the
Fettsack in charge of the Luftwaffe was unwilling to even try and convince the Corporal to let up the attacks against this Island. I'm no flyer myself, but I've written more than one estimation of your Air defences, and they are very strong, even without my usual exaggeration.”
Ian smiled and then promised to forward this praise to Fighter Command.
“Something else that I want to give you is in this box.” Canaris said.
For the next hours the interrogation turned to everything from diplomatic codes to ongoing operations and more than once Ian asked for a small recess to telephone to London.
“It's...thought to have been destroyed during one of your carrier raids, and records at Wilhelmshafen, written by one of Göring's people to boot will show that it was.”
Ian knew what it was even before Canaris opened the lid and everyone else in the room who was ULTRA cleared knew too. Not wanting to reveal that particular programme just yet, having been allowed to at least make the Admiral aware of it if it couldn't be helped, no one said anything.
“This, Gentlemen, is the backbone of German military and Government Communications, the encryption/decryption machine we call Enigma.”
The machine at the Government Cryptography and Communications museum Wing of the IWM after the war.
He went on to explain the basics of the machine to the assembled British who already knew the machine better than he did.
“There are two main variants, the Army version with three rotors, the Navy version with four. There is one variant with eight, but that's not used by us. With that you will perhaps be able to read much of ou---their mail.”
Ian couldn't help himself and looked over at the head of MI5. Receiving just a grinning nod in return Ian said:
“We know that. In fact, we have been doing so since before the war. You see, the Polish Cypher Bureau cracked the Army version of the Enigma back in 1938, and when Warsaw fell, they came here. Since then we've also broken the Naval Enigma, twice in fact if you count the time they changed the Navy Weather Code after the Battle of Kristianssand. There's a delay of a day or two in that, but we probably know better where the U-Boats are than anyone outside the U-Boat Headquarters in Brest. It's not that we're not grateful for the four rotor version, it should ease the situation the boffins are in somewhat.”
Another affirmative nod came when Ian silently asked if he should go on.
“We knew when you were going to sortie the fleet, we knew that Sicily had been stripped of most defences, we knew of your losses in the Battle of Britain and of your change in tactics before your field commanders.”
Seeing the flabergasted expression on Canaris' face, he wished for a photograph Camera, for the man looked like someone whose entire worldview had just collapsed.
“And as a result of you knowing that we will make sure that you can't leave Britain again until we want you to. If you refuse to abide by the Official Secrets Act, we will treat you as high-value PoWs and send you to the Isle of Man into a solitary room for the remainder of the war. Welcome to the services of the British Empire.”
It was good to be British.
[Notes: It's probably unrealistic to tell them at all about ULTRA, but I couldn't resist writing that scene.]