Thus, a telegram handed in at Lowestoft worded as follows:
"Sent your housemaid Sarah Jones to Felixstowe 4 o'clock this afternoon,"
on being coded would read:
"Five submarines passed Lowestoft at 4 o'clock this afternoon steaming south."
Any reference to an illness meant that damage had been done, or that a vessel had been adversely affected to some extent. Any reference to a marriage or engagement meant that a combat or battle had taken place. "In bed" conveyed the news that a ship or ships had been sunk. "Put to bed" meant sunk, annihilation, or defeat, according to the context; mention of "delirium or head sickness" conveyed suspicions, or suspicious circumstances; "doctor called in" that the enemy (or others, as the context might convey) had retired, or been put to flight, whilst any direct, or indirect, reference to "remaining here, or at some named place," that the object or objects in question were still there or likely to remain.
The above-mentioned outline should be sufficient to convey to the reader an idea of how the stunt worked out in practice.
That these messages were often tapped and became the subject of racking headaches to the code decipherers who attempted to unravel them, was quite probable. When we could we tried on the same thing ourselves; such was considered only fair in love as well as in war. Lady telegraph and telephone operators are sometimes amenable to flattery and judiciously administered attentions. It is also within the bounds of possibility that an occasional one might be met with who might not object to test a communication with a semblance of reason; whilst one of the most interesting enemy codes we managed to intercept during our rambles was confined to the limits of a postage-stamp. It meant not only intercepting the letter or postcard but having to unstick the stamp and test it before the message could be copied.
It is not at all necessary, however, to pursue this subject further, but once upon a time during the continuance of this war a certain message was handed in at a certain telegraph office in Holland to cable to a certain address in the U.S.A., which ran as follows: