The young man who let me in and conducted my initiation was an untidy-looking Signals lieutenant with a spotty face, and an engaging grin. Handshake.
‘Andrew de Whitt. Andy.’
‘Charlie Bassett.’
‘We were expecting you yesterday, weren’t we, lads?’
There was a series of grunts – not all of them enthusiastic, I thought. As we walked into the centre of the space he continued, ‘The room’s broken up into churches and chapels.’ At least I’d got that right from the word go. ‘And each chapel is a listening post, manned by one, two or three bodies depending on the level of traffic.’
‘Who’s listening to whom, Andy – and where do you want me to sit?’
‘I’ll come to that. The two guys here are monitoring the Communist Bloc – we call them the Russian Orthodoxies. Those three over there are doing the Israelis . . . their spot is known as the synagogue, and the guy in the small cell has the Greeks . . . and Makarios and Grivas. To his right Tom, Dick and Harry over there have all the Arab states except one. The big empty space is for eavesdropping on our allies – some goons come in from time to time, but we don’t know who they work for, and they never speak to us anyway.’ That left one small cell containing what looked like two new RX 108s. It was backed onto the aerial room.
‘Tom, Dick and Harry?’
‘Sheer coincidence, but I placed them together myself – couldn’t resist it.’
‘And you said they listen to all the Arab countries except one?’
‘Yes. Saudi Arabia – that’s where you come in, Charlie. The Saudis have bang up-to-date comms, and they’re leading us a merry dance. We asked HQ to come up with more experienced operators who could chase their signal, and not lose it. You’re the latest.’
‘I haven’t met any others yet.’
It was the first time he hadn’t met my eye.
‘I know. Some went for a walk, and didn’t come back . . . and your immediate predecessor shot himself.’ He had seen me check my weapon at the door. ‘I’m surprised they let you have a gun.’
At least he hadn’t ducked the issue.
‘What happened to the ones who didn’t come back?’
‘Probably EOKA – they were a sloppy bunch – but there’s a rumour they stole a fishing boat, and got clear across to Turkey in it. Can I check you out on your sets? It’s going to be a busy morning.’
I will be honest, and tell you that I’ve had more demanding jobs than that. I had a comfortable chair, as much iced water as I could drink, and sat in an air-conditioned room, whilst the PBI outside were sweating their bollocks off in the sun, chasing teenaged terrorists around the island. At midday an orderly brought round lunches for us.
Prince or King – I wasn’t sure which – Ibn Saud had three radio stations, and we listened into every bloody word. Not many people know that. The call sign for his Jedda office was HZJ, Riyadh HZN, and the tricky one, which is why I was there, was on his personal train which criss-crossed the country like a taxi driver on double time – HZAC. It was the one they were having particular difficulty keeping up with.
In the RAF in 1944 I monitored individual aircraft that could move at 250 knots, and change height and elevation at the same time. If I couldn’t hang on to a signal from a bloody train it was time I got out the pipe and slippers. But the train was also why they’d stuck me next to the aerial room. The aerial array for our radios was in a big guarded aerial field out on the plain miles away, and the knack was, as soon as the Saudi signals began to fade or break up, to nip next door to the aerial room – which looked like a sophisticated telephone switchboard – and get the operators to switch my sets from aerial to aerial until I had him again. Cat-and-mouse stuff. His people were very good, but from my memory the Jerry night-fighter operators were better. At the end of the shift I was tired and stiff; good chair or no good chair. As I stretched, yawned and handed my first record flimsies to de Whitt I asked him, ‘Where are they read?’
‘Downstairs, I think – maybe some are sent through to the intelligence team at Wayne’s Keep. Ours not to reason why. You can’t decode them, I suppose? Sight-read them, or something freakish like that?’
‘Of course not. Gobbledegook. They’ll eventually break it down to strategic Arabic. I don’t even know which are the coughs, and which are the spits. Why?’
‘If you could, I’d probably have to lock you up at night.’ He was grinning, but I think he meant it. One of the spots on his face had come to a livid yellow head during the day, and was ready to erupt. It hypnotized me.
Pat was waiting for me outside. I told him, ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy in there mentioned something about “downstairs”.’
‘HQ Comms. Twice the size of your place. Two floors down an’ cut into solid rock round the back. People like you and me don’t get invited.’ Maybe that was where the obsession with burying offices began. ‘OK, was it?’ he demanded. ‘The boss is bound to ask me.’
‘Fine. No problems so far. Why doesn’t he ask me himself ?’
‘I don’t think ’e wants
