And yet we brought in more equipment and more operators. Finally, when we reached six radios, Abing said, ‘That’s more like it.’ He was now surrounded by radio equipment and technicians: the broadcasts and static flowed into one another and a cacophonous buzz encircled him. But he barely moved a muscle. He sat on the sofa quietly smoking away on his cigarettes, his ears listening in all directions, a calm, composed look upon his face. One minute after nine he suddenly stood up, turned round and spoke to the operator sitting behind him.

‘You’ve found it! Did you hear? This person transmits “0” especially strong and hard. It’s the thirty-third operator. Unmistakable. That’s the one.’

The operator made a note of it.

He began to copy down the transmission. Although it was only the later bit, it would be enough for the cryptographers to pass judgement on it: without a doubt, this was a high-level enemy frequency.

Without verification from the cryptographers, however, no one would have been willing to believe that this could be one of the enemy stations we were searching for – it sounded much too antiquated. Anyone who listened to it would say that the equipment used for this broadcast was ancient, perhaps even from the previous century. That kind of machine had been phased out long ago; no country, not even the poorest, would still be using such outdated communications equipment. Who or what organization would possibly use it? Perhaps a ham radio enthusiast, perhaps some private organization from a desperately poor country – a deep sea salvage operator communicating with its home base onshore, for instance; or perhaps a fisheries processing plant, a forest protection group, a zoo out in the wilds, a travel agency – something of that nature. Most audio surveillance agents would therefore pay little attention to this type of broadcast before switching the dial. Now, though, it was exactly this type of station that was being used for high-level military communications: a truly crafty move whose purpose was clear – to paralyse their adversaries. It’s like the thief who, intent on stealing your belongings, sidles up close to you while you look off into the distance for possible threats – you never see what’s right next to you. It’s a daring strategy, cunning and brave; devilish, you might say.

Still, such a devil was no match for Abing!

With their strategy broken, it was only a matter of time before we succeeded in identifying the remaining radio stations.

Three days later, all fifteen high-level covert enemy stations (we added three to the list) had been identified.

Ten days later, our enemy’s entire covert communications system was known to us, in total one hundred and seventy stations, using 1,861 frequencies. All thanks to the tenacious efforts of Unit 701.

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