I’ve
just read an adapted article by Damien Lewis about his latest book, The Nazi Hunters: The Ultra Secret SAS Unit
and the Quest for Hitler’s War Criminals (Quercus), and, despite the long
title, I’ve concluded it certainly seems worth reading the book itself.
Lewis
has had access to a lot of material that was not available last century.
There’s
a fascinating passage that had me intrigued too.
At
the war’s close, SAS Colonel Brian Franks and SAS Major Bill Barkworth wanted
to hunt down those responsible for murdering a ‘few dozen’ of his unit’s men
who were captured. They even had to fight their own top brass and the
politicians, particularly as the SAS was officially disbanded. In fact, Franks retained an ‘investigation
team’ under the dark aegis of the investigation branch of the War Office, and
effectively dodged official scrutiny. They still had to find eighteen bodies…
They
were dogged in their search and at one point even set up a Ouija board. An
upturned glass was placed in the middle of alphabet cards. The ‘message’
disclosed an airman’s name, where he and a crew member were shot down, captured
and made to dig their own grave before being shot. The following day the team
went to the defined area. Locals guided them to the unmarked grave site and they
unearthed two bodies. The Ouija session
identified the German responsible for the shootings – a Gestapo man, who was
subsequently arrested.
Needless
to say, when the War Office learned about this occult detection, they were not
pleased.
My
spy novel The Prague Papers concerns psychic
Tana Standish who works for a secret adjunct of MI6, Interprises. It’s set in
1975 and a section of the book also deals with a Ouija board:
Oxfordshire, England
Keith Tyson’s
finger trembled but he was unaware of it. He’d heard that some scientists
believed the Ouija glass is affected by the subconscious exerting subtle
pressure on the sitter’s motor muscles without that person knowing. He didn’t
know what to think. Tana reckoned he had psychic leanings, if only he let them
out, but he wasn’t convinced.
“Bloody hell, it’s
working!” young Wilf Ashley exclaimed, freckled face gaping.
“You’re not moving
it, are you, laddie?” Jock McTaggart asked Tyson.
Keith Tyson
shook his head. “No.”
“It’s uncanny,” said
Alan Swann, the session’s fourth member.
Zigzagging, the
glass seemed to be spelling out answers to their questions while Tyson
faithfully jotted down the letters selected by the glass.
Then everything
changed. The letters were gibberish and the glass didn’t answer any more of
their questions.
Yet it was
familiar. Tyson had come across that grouping recently.
“Well, that’s
our lot for tonight, I reckon,” Alan remarked and took his hand away.
“No, wait!” Tyson
snapped. Q-13-ZTL: Tana’s message-coded name. My God, it’s all in code! “Keep
at it, for God’s sake!”
Though Tyson was
senior to Alan both in age and rank in K-Section, he rarely bothered with such
things. The urgency of his voice alone instilled immediate obedience.
Alan replaced
his finger on the tumbler.
Again the glass
slid over the table.
Tyson could
hardly keep track of the letters so mysteriously indicated by the glass.
The tension mounted
palpably.
Eventually, the
glass slowed.
Finally, it
stopped.
Releasing a long
sigh, Tyson took his finger away and leaned back on the swivel chair. He threw
down the pad. The wrist of his writing-hand ached. He rubbed his brow wearily,
leaden eyes leveling on his three associates. “I think we’ve just received a
message in our latest code.”
Wilf jumped up
from his seat. “You can’t be serious!” Agitatedly, the twenty-four-year-old
technician ran a hand through his red hair. “It’s just a lark, a game, isn’t
it?” Nobody answered him.
Calmly, his cold
blue eyes quite steady, Alan asked in his mellifluous voice, “Are you sure?”
“I’ll just check
the ciphers.” Tyson crossed the room, opened the safe and pulled out a thick
book. Scanning the plastic pages, Tyson began decoding the Ouija message.
He worked in
total silence.
The telex
clattered once then was still; nobody moved to consult it.
Their normally
tedious weekend duty stint in the Fenner House Communications Centre had
suddenly taken on a very weird aspect.
***
Alan Swann was twenty-nine last month and
had been a Royal Navy rating and then a field agent for Interprises almost from
the beginning and believed he’d seen it all.
As a young
communications rating Swann was as reckless as any other able seaman. However,
he quickly learned he had a facility for foreign languages. He picked up
Malaysian and Indonesian while stationed in HMS Terror in the Far East.
Then the sheer
chance of sharing a Mercedes taxi with Keith Tyson, all the way back from a
Sembawang village brothel, changed his life. He got chatting with Tyson and
they found they both had a strong interest in languages.
Tyson took him
under his wing and they spent several evenings out on the town, down Bugis
street, tasting the exotic foods on the street stalls and frequenting the
girlie bars while avoiding the attentions of the convincing catamites and
transvestites. A place with a heady atmosphere, spicy aromas and Tiger beer.
Some years
later, Swann was interviewed by Admiral Sands who worked for the Director of
Naval Security (DNSy); his responses and observations actually impressed the
Admiral a great deal. And one of the referees he tendered was Keith Tyson.
At the end of
his time in the Andrew, Swann was head-hunted by Sir Gerald Hazzard, a friend
of Admiral Sands.
Obviously, there
were still surprises to be had, Swann thought as he scoured the Comcen room’s
shadows. At the opposite end stood the formidable network console, its various
indicator-lights flashing routinely, keeping track of their agents throughout
the globe. He forced an amused ironic grin.
When Keith
invited them in to relieve the boredom, he’d been struck by the absurdity of
holding a Ouija session right here in the heart of the Interprises Comcen.
To start with,
they’d self-consciously asked questions. What was his grandfather’s middle
name? Where were Jock’s brother and sister born? That sort of thing. And,
alarmingly, the glass had spelled out some answers correctly. Then the
gibberish started.
But, in the
final analysis, it didn’t seem to be gibberish.
***
By the time Keith Tyson deciphered the
first paragraph, he felt sick inside. It was about eight years since they’d
been lovers, but they were still close, passion replaced by respect,
comradeship and something indefinable. He wondered if that quality had anything
to do with his receiving Tana’s message.
He wasn’t sure
how Alan would handle the news, either. Only a few in the Section had noticed
that Alan Swann was hopelessly in love with Tana and had been since their
assignment in Elba. Hopelessly, because she didn’t want that kind of
commitment. Keith understood that, but Alan wouldn’t or couldn’t.
Unsmiling narrow
mouth beneath a salt-and-pepper moustache, Jock stubbed out half-smoked
cigarettes repeatedly. He was a bag of nerves since his last mission. It was
plain on his face that he knew this astral message was very bad.
At last Tyson
put down the pencil and raised his grey eyes. His expression was solemn. “It’s
from Tana,” he said. “They’ve got her.”
Alan Swann’s
face lost most of its colour as he leaned forward. He queried softly, “Where?”
“Czechoslovakia.”
*
The Prague
Papers
–an e-book from Crooked Cat Publishing.
From Amazon UK here
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