Between Silk and Cyanide

A Code Maker's War 1941-45

Leo Marks

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780750948357
• eBook ISBN: 9780752471600
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

In 1942, with a black-market chicken under his arm, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went to war. He was twenty-two and a cryptopgraher of genius. In Between Silk and Cyanide, his critically acclaimed account of his time in SOE, Marks tells how he revolutionised the code-making techniques of the Allies, trained some of the most famous agents dropped into France including Violette Szabo and 'the White Rabbit', and why he wrote haunting verse including his 'The Life that I have' poem. He reveals for the first time the disastrous dimensions of the code war between SOE and the Germans in Holland; how the Germans were fooled into thinking a Secret Army was operating in the Fatherland itself, and how and why he broke General de Gaulle's secret code. Both thrilling and poignant, Marks's book is truly one of the last great Second World War memoirs.

FIVE

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Hoping Ozanne had cancelled our appointment, I knocked on the door of his Norgeby House office and aged five minutes (the wartime equi-valent of as many years) when I was instructed to enter. He was seated behind a large desk covered with what I imagined were unread signals. The blackboard I’d asked for was a few feet away.

I imparted the good news that I’d come to show him how I believed the enemy would attack the poem-code, and he invited me to take all the time I needed; he had no ot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• One A Hard Man to Place
• Two The Pilot Light
• Three A Collector’s Item
• Four ‘Merde Alors!’
• Five All Things Bright and Beautiful
• Six The Fifth Grouse
• Seven SOE-minded
• Eight The Plumber and His Mate
• Nine The Godfather
• Ten The Sixth Sense
• Eleven The High-pitched Bleep
• Twelve A Shock Discovery
• Thirteen The Biter Bitten
• Fourteen The Last-chance Month
• Fifteen The Bolt-hole
• Sixteen A Question of Y
• Seventeen Arquebus, Gunnerside and Golf
• Eighteen The Coding Cabaret
• Nineteen Summit Meeting
• Twenty The Findings of the Court
• Twenty-one Repercussions
• Twenty-two The Launching of Plan Giskes
• Twenty-three special Devices
• Twenty-four Judgement Day
• Twenty-five Permission to Proceed
• Twenty-six Court Martial
• Twenty–seven Criminal Negligence
• Twenty-eight Green Ink
• Twenty-nine Best Read at Night
• Thirty The War Dance
• Thirty-one Accidents will Happen
• Thirty-two Pilgrim’s Progress
• Thirty-three The ‘Hard Men’
• Thirty-four Judicial Review
• Thirty-five The Masterstroke
• Thirty-six Desperate Measures
• Thirty-seven Punitive Expedition
• Thirty-eight The Secret Weapon
• Thirty-nine Appointment with Royalty
• Forty The Extended Briefing
• Forty-one Operation Gift-horse
• Forty-two A Terrible Gaffe
• Forty-three Operation Sidetrack
• Forty-four Beyond Belief
• Forty-five Parallel Action
• Forty-six The Club Rules
• Forty-seven Lake Como’s Bottom
• Forty-eight ‘I Hereby Bequeath …’
• Forty-nine A Treat for the Natives
• Fifty Homecoming
• Fifty-one Stranglehold
• Fifty-two Man with a Mission
• Fifty-three Breaking Point
• Fifty-four Who Stole Your Grace?
• Fifty-five The Forty-eight Mistakes
• Fifty-six Unique in Soe
• Fifty-seven The Major Development
• Fifty-eight ‘If I Should Die, Et Cetera’
• Fifty-nine The Invisible Presence
• Sixty Fumigated
• Sixty-one A Mere Squadron Leader
• Sixty-two Without Precedent
• Sixty-three Open Arrest
• Sixty-four Misgivings
• Sixty-five ‘The Life that I Have’
• Sixty-six April Fool’s Day
• Sixty-seven The New Boys
• Sixty-eight Inexcusable
• Sixty-nine For Your Ears Only
• Seventy Neptune’s Trident
• Seventy-one Staying Power
• Seventy-two ‘They also Serve …’
• Seventy-three Self-defence
• Seventy-four Taken for Granted
• Seventy-five The Day of Reckoning
• Seventy-six Pockets of Resistance
• Seventy-seven Operation Periwig
• Seventy-eight Serial Number 47685
• Seventy-nine For Services Rendered
• Eighty Exemplary Conduct
• Eighty-one The Last Mischief
• Epilogue
• Appendix One Fingerprinting WT Operators
• Appendix Two Minute of 2 November 1943 from L.S. Marks, HQ Security & Planning Office
• Plates
• About the Author
• Copyright