“I
4
TO OSS LONDON STATION. EYES ONLY BRUCE AMD STEVENS.
SUFFERING SEVERE INTESTINAL DISTRESS AND FEVER. PROBABLY
RECURRENCE OF MALARIA. HAVE MADE DARMSTADTER AWARE OP ALL
REPEAT ALL OPERATIONAL DETAILS IN CASE HIS ASSUMPTION
COMMAND NECESSARY. DO LAS LIEUTENANT COMMANDER, USNR.
When Darmstadter looked at him, Dolan shrugged “What the hell, kid,” the old sailor said.
“You didn’t really want to go back to flying Gooney Birds, did you?”
[TWO]
There is a three-hour time difference between Cairo and London. The message transmitted from the pool house of the villa in Cairo at 1405 Cairo time was acknowledged by London at 1110 London time. The second acknowledgment (confirming satisfactory decryption in London) was sent to Cairo at 1124, London time, and the second acknowledgment of Dolan’s message at 1141, London time.
Both encrypted messages had come out of the encryption/decryption device in Berkeley Square in the form of punched tape. It was necessary to feed the punched tape into another machine (a converted teletype machine), which then typed out a copy on paper. The messages were next entered in the Classified Documents Log, and finally they were put, separately, inside two cover sheets. The outer was the standard Top Secret cover sheet, and the inner one was stamped with both top secret and eyes only bruce and stevens.
It was by then 1158.
Rank hath its privileges, and the privilege the senior cryptographic officer of OSS London Station, twenty-six-year-old Captain Paul J. Harrison, Signal Corps, had claimed for himself was the day shift, 0800 to 1600. And just as soon as he could get the personnel section at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) off their ass to pin second lieutenants’ bars on two of his sergeants, he intended to take no shift at all. But now, with his perfectly qualified sergeants barred from acting as cryptographic duty officer by a bullshit directive from David Bruce, he had the duty.
As was his custom with Eyes Onlys–the forty-page SOP for classified documents made no specific reference to who should physically carry messages-Capt. Harrison personally took both messages up from the cryptographic room in the subbasement to the Station Chief’s office.
Capt. Helene Dancy told him that David Bruce had moments before left the building. He was to have lunch with Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s deputy at SHAEE “Beetle” Smith and David Bruce were friends as well as professional associates. Knowing this, in dealing with the OSS.
“Where’s the Colonel?” the cryptographic officer asked.
“Whithey House,” Helene Dancy replied.
“What have you got?”
“An Eyes Only Operational Immediate.. two of them ,.. for Bruce and the Colonel. From Canidy and Dolan.”
The SOP was very clear on the handling of Operational Immediate messages:
16. [b]. Operational immediate messages will be immediately delivered to the addressee, or in his absence,” to the senior officer present possessing the appropriate security clearance. In no circumstances will a delay of more than ten [101 minutes between decryption and delivery”,” be tolerated.
“Can I see it?” Helene Dancy asked.
“You’re not next on the list,” Captain Harrison said reluctantly, obviously uncomfortable.
“That’s right,” she said, just a little tartly. She picked up her telephone.
“Sergeant, do you know where Captain Fine is?” she asked a moment later, and then, when there had been a reply: “Send someone for him, please. Get him back here as soon as you can.”
“Well, who’s next on the list after Fine?” Harrison asked.
“Oddly enough, I am,” Capt. Dancy said, a little ice in her voice. She put out her hand for the documents.
“Hey, Dancy,” Capt. Harrison said as he handed them to her.
“I don’t make the rules. I just try to obey them.”
“I know,” Helene Dancy said.
“Damn, why does everybody have to be gone at once?” And then she quickly glanced at the first message: Canidy’s.
“Oh, Christ! “she said.
“My thought exactly,” Capt. Harrison said.
She nipped back the cover sheet on the second Eyes Only: Dolan’s.
“I think you’d better get both of these off, Operational Immediate, to Washington, Eyes Only, Donovan and Douglass,” Capt. Dancy said.
She saw the look on his face.
“Okay, I’ll make it official. As the senior officer present, I order you to transmit these messages to Washington, Eyes Only, Donovan and Douglass.”