The Codebreakers: The True Story of the Secret Intelligence Team That Changed the Course of the First World War by James Wyllie, Michael McKinley Page B
Authors: James Wyllie, Michael McKinley
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privileges included being able to write one letter a day; a weekly visit to Würzburg, where he was allowed to buy food to supplement his meagre cabbage-based diet; and a wash in the public baths once a month.
In his spare time he played cards, chatted with his fellow inmates, attended Mass and worked on building up his strength. Aside from the bitter cold of winter, boredom was the main discomfort: ‘the misery of inactivity … the monotony, the aimless futility of existence … this is the real trial that makes prison intolerable’.
From day one of his captivity, he was looking for a way out. If he could convince the authorities that his injuries were serious enough to rule out any possibility of him fighting again, they might agree to release him. Though his medical certificate, ‘a most alarming piece of evidence as to my condition’, supported his case, he also appealed to the American ambassador in Berlin, and to a very well-connected family friend, Princess Blücher. She wrote to him on 29 January promising to ‘do my best to get you included among those for exchanges’. She handed his medical report to the American consul, who was staying at her hotel, and he agreed to do what he could to help.
Her timely intervention sealed his fate, and on 12 February 1915, his doctor told him he was going home. By the 16th, having travelled first class and been treated ‘with all possible kindness’, he was in Holland waiting for a boat back to England, his mood strangely muted; ‘not hilarious excitement or placid contentment but an exceeding weariness of mind and body’.
The whole experience left him convinced that Germany was in the grip of a virulent militaristic nationalism that threatened everything he held dear. Had Malcolm Hay’s captors known what a significant contribution he was going to make to the Allied war effort, they would never have let him go.
Tall and slim, with blue eyes, Malcolm Hay was born on 21 January 1881 into an aristocratic Scottish family with connections to medieval French nobility and a 1,000-acre estate at Seaton, near Aberdeen. His parents played only a minor role in his childhood: his father was an old man, while his mother tragically died of diabetes when Malcolm was 11.
At school, he showed a gift for languages and considerable sporting talent, playing golf, tennis and hockey. Aged 17, he was packed off to stay with relatives in France. Life at their country chateau was pleasant enough, but Malcolm professed not to have enjoyed his time there and resented missing out on higher education. In 1902, he married his first cousin, Florence de Thienne, and the couple had two children. In 1908, he returned to Scotland and assumed control of his ancestral lands. A conscientious and benign estate manager, he got to know every one of his tenants personally.
Though Hay sailed, fished and hunted, he did not conform to the stereotype of a country Lord: he was politically liberal and a Scottish nationalist. In 1900, just two years after it was founded, he joined the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), an extremely exclusive organisation given the sheer expense and novelty of owning a car. Membership of the RAC brought with it a host of perks: repairs done on the cheap by specially appointed mechanics, reduced rates at certain hotels, and a dispensation from the French government that allowed members to take their vehicles into the country without going through customs.
On the surface, Hay and Blinker Hall could not have been more different. Alice Ivy Hay, Malcolm’s second wife, wrote that Malcolm greatly admired Hall but thought ‘he could be entirely ruthless, especially in what he considered to be the execution of his duty’. By contrast, Hay was a thoughtful, compassionate man ‘with a genius for friendship’. Yet his gentleness concealed a hard inner core: ‘he could be fierce too, especially in his hatred of injustice’.
It was his mental and physical strength that got him through the
In his spare time he played cards, chatted with his fellow inmates, attended Mass and worked on building up his strength. Aside from the bitter cold of winter, boredom was the main discomfort: ‘the misery of inactivity … the monotony, the aimless futility of existence … this is the real trial that makes prison intolerable’.
From day one of his captivity, he was looking for a way out. If he could convince the authorities that his injuries were serious enough to rule out any possibility of him fighting again, they might agree to release him. Though his medical certificate, ‘a most alarming piece of evidence as to my condition’, supported his case, he also appealed to the American ambassador in Berlin, and to a very well-connected family friend, Princess Blücher. She wrote to him on 29 January promising to ‘do my best to get you included among those for exchanges’. She handed his medical report to the American consul, who was staying at her hotel, and he agreed to do what he could to help.
Her timely intervention sealed his fate, and on 12 February 1915, his doctor told him he was going home. By the 16th, having travelled first class and been treated ‘with all possible kindness’, he was in Holland waiting for a boat back to England, his mood strangely muted; ‘not hilarious excitement or placid contentment but an exceeding weariness of mind and body’.
The whole experience left him convinced that Germany was in the grip of a virulent militaristic nationalism that threatened everything he held dear. Had Malcolm Hay’s captors known what a significant contribution he was going to make to the Allied war effort, they would never have let him go.
Tall and slim, with blue eyes, Malcolm Hay was born on 21 January 1881 into an aristocratic Scottish family with connections to medieval French nobility and a 1,000-acre estate at Seaton, near Aberdeen. His parents played only a minor role in his childhood: his father was an old man, while his mother tragically died of diabetes when Malcolm was 11.
At school, he showed a gift for languages and considerable sporting talent, playing golf, tennis and hockey. Aged 17, he was packed off to stay with relatives in France. Life at their country chateau was pleasant enough, but Malcolm professed not to have enjoyed his time there and resented missing out on higher education. In 1902, he married his first cousin, Florence de Thienne, and the couple had two children. In 1908, he returned to Scotland and assumed control of his ancestral lands. A conscientious and benign estate manager, he got to know every one of his tenants personally.
Though Hay sailed, fished and hunted, he did not conform to the stereotype of a country Lord: he was politically liberal and a Scottish nationalist. In 1900, just two years after it was founded, he joined the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), an extremely exclusive organisation given the sheer expense and novelty of owning a car. Membership of the RAC brought with it a host of perks: repairs done on the cheap by specially appointed mechanics, reduced rates at certain hotels, and a dispensation from the French government that allowed members to take their vehicles into the country without going through customs.
On the surface, Hay and Blinker Hall could not have been more different. Alice Ivy Hay, Malcolm’s second wife, wrote that Malcolm greatly admired Hall but thought ‘he could be entirely ruthless, especially in what he considered to be the execution of his duty’. By contrast, Hay was a thoughtful, compassionate man ‘with a genius for friendship’. Yet his gentleness concealed a hard inner core: ‘he could be fierce too, especially in his hatred of injustice’.
It was his mental and physical strength that got him through the
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