Chapter 4

The police seemed very embarrassed at having to take me into the police station. They put me in a room on my own. My family and many of our neighbours were all waiting outside and making their presence felt. They were harassing the police who were nearly all members of the local community and the police seemed to quite openly sympathise with their protest. I could hear a constable trying to explain that I had been arrested on orders of the Military Police and not their own authority...

However about half an hour after I had been arrested the door opened, and a very stout army major entered the room, together with a young attractive female second lieutenant. I could see from their insignia and the red caps that they were military police.

"Stand up when I enter the room." He shouted at me. I just laughed, I could not help myself, and the young second lieutenant could not help but give a little smile of sympathy.

"You impudent young pup." The major shouted at me as he sat down.

I just ignored him, and kept a smile on my face. I could imagine that a normal sixteen year old boy would probably have been utterly fazed by this mans arrogance, and demeanor, but I had a thirty year old mind and experience inside my head...

I am Major Stamp and this is Lieutenant Rhodes, we are the duty intelligence officers at the war office.

"First of all what do you mean by retaining items that you removed from a prisoner of war?"

"What items?" I asked quietly.

"Sir — you address me as sir."

"I am not in the army, and I only addressed my teachers as sir when I was at school." I told him firmly but quietly.

"The map case."

"Where were you at ten minutes past three yesterday afternoon?" I asked.

"What's that got to do with you?"

"Yesterday afternoon at ten minutes past three, I was facing a very frightened Luftwaffe Pilot with one foot stuck down a loo and waving a loaded pistol. I took the loaded pistol off him, and then the Home Guard, the police and the Press arrived. All hell broke loose, and I forgot about the case but I gave the pistol to the Home Guard and the case to the duty sergeant this morning. But I expect at that time you were snoring off your lunch"

"Don't be bloody impudent you..." as he spoke he raised his fist as though to hit me.

"Don't sir." Lieutenant Rhodes said as she grabbed his arm.

"She threw me a pleading look as though asking me to cool it a bit."

At that point the Superintendent of police came in the room. I think that you had better go. I have heard enough and I will be making my report to your superiors Major; this young man is here in police custody. You lay one finger on him, and I will arrest you. He did a good job yesterday, and he deserves more respect, than a desk bound yob like you are prepared to give him"...

Turning to me." You go on home Alan and enjoy your Christmas, pop back in here in the morning if you would please. The major was very clearly upset and realising he had lost this round, pushed his way out the door and stomped to his waiting car, obviously in a foul mood.

When we got outside Lt Forbes asked "With your permission Superintendent I would like to ask Alan where he learnt his German."

"I learned French and German myself from books, and listening to radio broadcasts I told her' I always had an interest in languages."

"Thank you Alan I am sorry about the Majors attitude. I will probable be seeing you again."

She shook hands with me, and I left to join my waiting family and press outside.

The next morning I reported to the Police Station and the Sergeant said. There are two people from the War office coming to see you, but meanwhile, I have been asked to ask you to give an official statement on what actually happened on Christmas day for the record. He was very nice, and sat with me as together we wrote the report.

We had just finished when Lt Forbes arrived with a civilian, who said immediately "Guten Morgen Herr Nash. Wie geht es ihnen". I replied as I assumed he expected " Sehr Gut Danke mein Herren."

He laughed and we sat down in an interview room. He did not waste any time." I gather that you work for the Post Office Alan, which means that you are already a member of the Civil service. Now to put it bluntly we have a big problem — we have a big shortage of people who are fluent in German French and other European languages and we wondered whether you would like to come and work for us as part of government intelligence."

I said. "Provisionally I am very interested. What would I be doing?"

"At first I am afraid nothing very exciting, but we deal mainly in low level intelligence, you see we analyse everything we get in writing from Europe and we have people who listen to every short wave broadcast from European countries that we can pick up. All this information although initially it may seem mundane and routine, helps us build a picture on what is happening in Europe. You would obviously be taken on for a trial period, and the future would depend very much on where your skills and interests lie. The pay is not stupendous, but it would be a lot better than you are getting now."

I told him that I thought I would be very interested and he said. "Well we must contact the Post Office first, and arrange the formal transfer and I will send you details in the next few days."

Department X

It was about a week later when I had my transfer completed. The office of department X was based in central London not far from the Admiralty Arch. The boss was an ex professor from Oxford who was a language expert, and who had been seconded from the university for the war period. At first he seemed very embarrassed to have a mere teenager working in the department, but he soon realised that I had the skills that they so badly needed. It was strange at first for me working in an office, without computers and video screens and calculators and all the other instruments which I had became accustomed to in my previous life. The typewriters we used were very much objects of curiosity in the year 2000 and I had seen them in museums.

The staff was mostly female but we had a few older men who were too old for military service. I was very much the junior by about ten years, but also increasingly very much pampered by the men starved ladies, many of whom came from European countries such as Holland and Belgium. We also had two ladies from Austria and one from Switzerland. For which of course German was a native language. The one thing we all had in common was the ability to speak and or read and write German and other European languages.

We seemed to gel into quite a good social group, and there was very little conflict or jealousy in the office. We frequently would go to a local café run by a lady called Carol, for a coffee and a chat when work permitted or during lunch hours. The section I worked with dealt very much with prisoners of war mail and newspaper cuttings that may have been included in the post. The German censors were variable in quality and sometimes real snippets of information was missed and fell into our hands...

I was paired up with a very slim glamorous blonde lady of about 32 whose name was Heidi and who originally came from Austria. Her family was still in Austria, but her husband was British and was serving in the British Army. He had as far as she knew, been taken prisoner at Dunkirk and was posted as missing presumed killed. She was a darling, and had a lovely personality, and had been a model working for a London fashion house until the outbreak of war

At first Heidi was a bit shy with me, but I soon became aware that not unusually she was missing her husband and male company. At first it was just the occasional glance and a smile, then a little touching and then she started doing little things for me like fetching coffee and giving, me some of her sweet ration, and soon we became quite close, and I became very fond of her.

The only problem for me with this new job was that I had to travel daily to the office from the east side of London. I was allowed some travel concession plus free lunches because of my age. I was issued with a little blue ticket that I could take to a local restaurant and exchange for a meal up to a certain pre determined value of 2/6d.