The Radio Gunner

by Alexander Forbes

Returning at length to Heringham’s room, they poked the smouldering coals into flame and returned to their talk of the European situation, and of Heringham’s availability for playing the part which had been suggested for him. Evans questioned him closely as to his knowledge of physics. Of radio he knew nothing in detail, but his knowledge of fundamental principles was good. Their talk engrossed them the best part of the evening.

Heringham then went with him to the gate to say the ‘open sesame’ whereby the night porter was induced to let him out into Trinity Street, dark, narrow, and deserted save for a lone man who passed on the opposite sidewalk as Evans came out and started for his hotel.

Returning next day to London, Evans sought Commander Barton and drew for him a picture of Heringham’s qualifications which filled that officer with enthusiasm for the plan of getting him impressed into service. He had already been in conference with several of the head men in the British Intelligence Service and was satisfied that there was a distinct need for just such a person in the heart of the enemy country. A number of able agents were already there, but they had gone in before the American Navy had entered the field and become the most important force for them to collaborate with; moreover, they had not at their disposal the radio experts who would be needed to find means of transmitting intelligence to sea. Barton, therefore, took very kindly to the idea of sending in a man like Heringham who could previously prepare a concerted plan of action and a system of codes with representatives of the American Navy, and who could then proceed, together with an experienced operator, to penetrate to enemy headquarters there to direct the leakage of information through whatever channel his ingenuity could discover or devise.

Three days later, Heringham received an urgent request from a certain high official to come at once to London for an interview. Proceeding to the street and number mentioned, he was taken in a taxicab to another part of the city where he was ushered through innumerable doors and corridors to a small room where an officer with penetrating eyes questioned him minutely about his life and activities, and especially his experience in the Near East. After a searching examination, this officer finally revealed his own status in the British Intelligence Service and asked Heringham if he would be willing to undertake secret service in enemy country, and the upshot of it was that then and there it was arranged that he should be sent on the hazardous and responsible mission.

Busy days followed in which Heringham, besides receiving instruction as to his duties and methods of procedure from those above him, was also in frequent conference with Evans and Barton, planning their general course of action and devising codes. They anticipated that their main reliance would be placed on smuggling operators into the crews of enemy transmitting stations and having them superimpose messages in secret code on the regular traffic of the stations. Therefore, two experienced radio operators were also selected and educated in the lore of spies that they might go to Constantinople and there act as technical advisers to Heringham.

In these conferences Evans came to realize how sharply his own point of view, as a physicist, differed from that of Barton, the trained Intelligence officer. Problems which he saw from a purely intellectual point of view took on a wholly new aspect when Barton’s ready and practical wits had been focused on them. Evans felt his own shortcomings in this strange world of secret service, a world in which deliberate scientific reasoning was replaced by intuition, dissembling, and juggling with the caprice of human nature. He felt as awkward as a country bumpkin in the midst of a group of experts at flashing repartee.

In addition to these conferences, Evans devoted all the spare time he could to instructing Heringham in the essentials of radio science and engineering, that he should understand more fully what kind of opportunities might present themselves for juggling with the radio business of the enemy.

Advices were sent through the mysterious channels best known to those who practice the art of secret service, to the agents already in Constantinople, apprising them of the plan to send Heringham to join them; in return, valuable suggestions were received from them concerning conditions in enemy country.

The adventurous nature of Heringham’s mission took such a hold on Evans’s imagination that he became absorbed in the planning of it with the eagerness of a boy building some new castle in the air. It was only with effort that he turned his attention to what was nominally his own mission, the consultation with British radio experts on technical matters. He managed, nevertheless, to confer with the best men in this field in England, and to compare notes with them on recent progress. He learned from them what improvements in British apparatus could, without lost motion, be advantageously incorporated into American gear, and arrived at an understanding with them on the standardization of apparatus wherever this was desirable.

One night, after a late conference with Heringham and Barton, Evans was walking back to his hotel in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square, when he met Lindsay. In the darkened street they might not have recognized each other had they not met close to one of the dim, blue street lights. It was the first time they had met since their arrival in England, Lindsay only just having come to London for a few days of leave.