“Come on, Fred,” he urged, “come on, change over, that’s nearly three minutes.” But still the message was coming through, letter by letter, and Johnson’s simple face assumed an expression of alarm.
“What’s going on?” Leclerc demanded. “Why hasn’t he changed his frequency?”
But Johnson only said, “Get off the air, for Christ’s sake, Fred, get off the air.”
Leclerc touched him impatiently 6n the arm. Johnson raised one earphone.
“Why’s he not changed frequency? Why’s he still talking?”
“He must have forgotten! He never forgot on training. I know he’s slow, but Christ!” He was still writing automatically. “Five minutes,” he muttered. “Five bloody minutes. Change the bloody crystal!”
“Can’t you tell him?” Leclerc said.
“Of course I can’t. How can I? He can’t receive and send at the same time!”
They sat or stood in dreadful fascination. Johnson had turned to them, his voice beseeching. “I told him; if I told him once I told him a dozen times. It’s bloody suicide, what he’s doing!” He looked at his watch. “He’s been on damn near six minutes. Bloody, bloody, bloody fool.”
“What will they do?” said Haldane.
“If they pick up the signal? Call in another station, take a fix. Then it’s simple trigonometry when he’s on this long.” He banged his open hands helplessly on the table, indicated the set as if it were an affront. “A kid could do it. Do it with a pair of compasses. Christ Almighty! Come on, Fred, for Jesus’ sake, come on!” He wrote down a handful of letters, then threw his pencil aside. “It’s on tape, anyway,” he said.
Leclerc turned to Haldane. “Surely there’s something we can do!”
“Be quiet,” Haldane said.
The message stopped. Johnson tapped an acknowledgment fast, a stab of hatred. He wound back the tape recorder and began transcribing. Putting the coding sheet in front of him he worked without interruption for perhaps a quarter of an hour, occasionally making simple sums on the rough paper at his elbow. No one spoke. When he had finished he stood up, a half-forgotten gesture of respect. “Message reads: Area Kalkstadt closed three days mid-November when fifty unidentified Soviet troops seen in town. No special equipment. Rumors of Soviet maneuvers farther north. Troops believed moved to Rostock. Fritsche not repeat not known Kalkstadt railway station. No road check on Kalkstadt road.” He tossed the paper onto the desk. “There are fifteen groups after that which I can’t unbutton. I think he’s muddled his coding.”
The Vopo sergeant in Rostock picked up the telephone; he was an elderly man, graying and thoughtful. He listened for a moment, then began dialing on another line. “It must be a child,” he said, still dialing. “What frequency did you say?” He put the other telephone to his ear and spoke into it fast, repeating the frequency three times. He walked into the adjoining hut. “Witmar will be through in a minute,” he said. “They’re taking a fix. Are you still hearing him?” The corporal nodded. The sergeant held a spare headphone to his ear.
“It couldn’t be an amateur,” he muttered. “Breaking the regulations. But what is it? No agent in his right mind would put out a signal like that. What are the neighboring frequencies? Military or civilian?”
“It’s near the military. Very near.”
“That’s odd,” the sergeant said. “That would fit, wouldn’t it? That’s what they did in the war.”
The corporal was staring at the tapes slowly revolving on their spindles. “He’s still transmitting. Groups of four.”
“Four?” The sergeant was searching in his memory for something that had happened long ago.
“Let me hear again. Listen, listen to the fool! He’s as slow as a child.”
The sound struck some chord in his memory—the slurred gaps, the dots so short as to be little more than clicks. He could swear he knew that hand . . . from the war, in Norway . . . but not so slow: nothing had ever been as slow as this. Not Norway . . . France. Perhaps it was only imagination. Yes, it was imagination.
“Or an old man,” the corporal said.
The telephone rang. The sergeant listened for a moment, then ran, ran as fast as he could, through the hut to the officers’ mess across the tarmac path.