Sean Rayment - Tales from the Special Forces Club

‘As we chatted on the terrace, he asked me if we could spend Sunday together. I took a little persuading, just so that he didn’t get suspicious, but I knew of course that we couldn’t. I became a very accomplished liar, I lied to everyone – my family, my friends – I just lived a lie. But once he said that, I felt a real surge of adrenaline because that was my lead, it was wonderful feeling that I might be on to something. I said, “Yes, I’d love to meet up on Sunday. But what is going to happen afterwards? Am I just the sort of thing you pick up on one day and then off you disappear, or are you going to be around?”

‘He looked slightly crestfallen and told me he was going away, so I responded, “Oh, you’re going away. Well, where are you going? Could we write? Could we meet again? I don’t particularly want to get involved unless we could meet again.” This went on for a while as we chatted over coffee and perhaps a whisky or two. After a while he told me that he would be going back to Denmark, which at the time was still occupied by the Nazis – and the only people who did that sort of work were agents. It was almost like a bit of a confession or perhaps he just wanted to unload some of his concerns. He said, “I won’t be able to write, I won’t be here, I’m being repatriated back into my country.”’

The Danish agent had committed a cardinal sin. Although the trainee spy hadn’t actually admitted that he was a member of the SOE, he had provided a clue, and in the world of espionage that is often all that is needed. Had his admission been made in the field he could have jeopardised himself, his team and an entire network, leading to the deaths of hundreds of men and women.

‘I felt terrible when he said that, because I knew I was going to have to betray him. That was my job – it was the sort of job you hoped you would never succeed at. It was exciting up until the end, when you felt awful. But the reality was that I was helping to save the agent’s life and possibly the lives of many others. It was a horrible job but it had to be done.’

Noreen kept up the pretence all evening, which ended with a gentle kiss on the Dane’s cheek. The student spy returned to his quarters while Noreen headed straight to her house to write up her report. Once written, it was submitted that same evening to the debriefing officer, Colonel Woolrych, known to everyone as ‘Woolly Bags’, an intelligence specialist who had served in the First World War and later went on to become the commandant at Beaulieu.

‘Like many people in that world, Woolrych didn’t suffer fools gladly, but I found that he had a very compassionate side. All the reports from all the different spy schools were sent to Woolly Bags. He then made an assessment and sent the final report to the head of section. For French students it would have been Buck, and he would have the final say as to whether the student should be sent into the field. But if someone had spoken about their role, that was a very different matter.

‘The following morning I was called into an office, and sitting there was the Dane. I stopped in front of him and we both looked at each other and I think it slowly began to dawn on him what had happened. At first there was a look of confusion and then, when Woolly Bags said, “Do you know this woman?” the look on his face turned to complete hatred. On previous occasions when I had done this, I had found that most of the students took it well, even if it meant that their careers in the SOE were compromised. But the Dane was different.

‘He leapt to his feet with this infuriated look on his face and he said, “You bitch!” Well, no woman likes to be called a bitch. I was quite upset. I was then asked to leave the office and the two officers continued with the debriefing.

‘Afterwards I was called back into Woolly Bags’ office and in his very blunt way he said: “There’s no point being upset about it. If he can’t resist talking to a pretty face in Denmark he won’t last an hour. He more or less told you that he was going to be an agent after dinner and a few drinks. Imagine what you could get out of him if you had a week, or if he was threatened with torture or execution. And remember it’s not only his life he’s putting in danger, he could bring down an entire network.” I did realise that, of course, but Woolly Bags’ words were of little comfort to me. The poor chap had gone through six months of very tough training, and Beaulieu was by no means a holiday camp.

‘Beaulieu was known as the Finishing School for Spies – it was where everything they had learnt for the last six months was supposed to come together, so that the agents could deploy into the field and hopefully survive and carry out the tasks for which they had been trained. But it was also a very tough place, and if the students weren’t up to the task then they could be failed at any moment. Some students were failed on the last day because the instructors could not be sure that they would survive as an agent.

‘But Buck could be very generous – and even for those students who talked it didn’t always mean the end. Buck used to say, “They’ve learnt their lesson, they won’t do it again.” Of course Buck had to be absolutely sure about this, because it was his reputation on the line also. His attitude was that lots of agents made mistakes in training, and it was better to make the mistakes in training rather than on an actual live mission. But this attitude was always a risk and I’m not sure that the other section heads had such an enlightened approach as Buck.’

Noreen never saw the Danish student again and never discovered whether he actually became a spy.

* * *

The students at Beaulieu were also taught how to pick locks and enter buildings and factories without being heard or seen. The instructors were former spies, but some rehabilitated criminals, often ex-burglars, also served at Beaulieu and they were known as Method of Entry (MOE) men. One of the trainers was Johnny Childs, a lock-picker extraordinaire.

‘Johnny was always easy to recognise because he was always driving around in a truck and on the back of this truck was a huge door covered in locks – every conceivable type of lock you could imagine. His job was to teach the students how to pick the locks, so there were locks from every country, French, German, Dutch, Danish. As an agent you might have to enter a building to which you didn’t have a key – it might be in an emergency so this was a really vital art. Johnny had learnt his skills from a burglar. The story was that the burglar was serving a long stretch in Pentonville Prison.’

When the war broke out the SOE realised they needed help to enter buildings, and the experts of the trade were burglars. A senior SOE officer approached the authorities and asked for an expert burglar to be released into their care on the condition that he willingly passed on his skills – or so the story goes.

The lessons in ‘breaking and entering’ took place towards the end of the course when the students were preparing for the final exercise – a 96-hour test which all students had to pass. On one occasion Noreen was sent to accompany one of the students taking part in the exercise whose task was to travel to London and reconnoitre a certain address.

‘The student who asked me to accompany him was very dashing, a member of the Parachute Regiment, and very handsome. And so I was delighted to go along. I also thought it would be fun and a chance to be in London for a few hours. We got the train up to London and went to the address, which was in central London close to Westminster Cathedral. I thought we were just going to look at the building so that he could say he had been there, but he wanted to go up to the fourth floor, which was fine, but when we got to the door he began to pick the lock and then went inside the flat.