It’s a fun and clever thing to be able to openly say and do things which are perfectly plain and understandable to those who are properly indoctrinated, but which are really hidden messages, and are meaningless or nonsense to the untrained and unaware.

For example, in grade school I was told about a man named Noble who was captured by the Russians and who was secretly imprisoned.  No one knew what had happened to him, and the Russians denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.

Noble was a prisoner with some other men who were sometimes allowed to send short, censured letters to their families back in the United States.  One of the men agreed to let Noble use his letter-writing privilege, and to send it to one of Noble’s acquaintances.  The letter was only several lines long, said nothing that would catch the attention of the censors who would read the letter before it was mailed, but ended with the words, “Your noble son awaits you.”

To the jailers it looked like a normal statement, but to the recipient it was confirmatory evidence that the Russians were holding Mr. Noble.  Pressure was brought to bear on the Soviet government, and Noble was released.

I’ve wondered what sort of code I could use that would similarly identify me if I was the one being held incommunicado.  I’d have to do a takeoff on my penchant for what I call “significant numbers.”

For instance, in the temple last week I glanced at the clock.  The temple clocks have all sorts of information.  I was thrilled by all the significant numbers that had simultaneously occurred together.  The date said 3/21.  The time was 3:45, and the space indicating the time remaining in endowment room number two said 2:22.  Who else would have noticed that?  If some similar report ended up in someone’s hands who is familiar with me, they’d immediately know who it was from.

I recently read about calypso music.  Calypso music originated on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean Sea.  In the World Book Encyclopedia I read:  “The words of calypso songs are more important than the music.  Cleverness in choosing words and in making up rhymes on the spot marks the champion calypso singer.”

Calypso music was born out of a need for African slaves to communicate with one another while working on the plantations.  They were forbidden to talk to one another, so they sang.  They sang in a French-Creole dialect that their task-masters couldn’t understand.  The task-masters thought they were just singing as they worked, but they were actually communicating their feelings and information with one another.

A story that I really like concerns the LDS missionaries in Germany just prior to World War II.  In August 1939 the mission president received instructions from President Heber J. Grant that all missionaries were to be evacuated from Germany.  Telegrams were sent to all the missionaries telling them to evacuate to Rotterdam, Holland.  However, when the missionaries reached the border, they found it closed.  They were also penniless.  They were trapped inside Germany as it rapidly mobilized for war.

The mission president gave one of his elders, Norman Siebold, a farm boy from Idaho, the assignment to find the missionaries, give them money for train tickets, and instruct them to get to the Danish border without delay.  The assignment seemed an impossible task.  How was he to find these scattered missionaries in a sea of confused and frightened people?

Elder Siebold prayed, and then boarded a train headed to the Dutch border.  At each stop he prayed again.  If he felt nothing, he stayed aboard the train, and continued to the next town.  At other towns he felt the Spirit’s prompting to get off the train and look for missionaries.  In those huge, cavernous stations he would climb up on loaded baggage cars and whistle the first four notes of the hymn “Do What Is Right.”  A pair of missionaries would appear, baggage in hand.

Together, Elder Siebold and his new companions continued on to the next stop.  When he had gathered all that he could, they made a difficult trip to the Danish border which all but Elder Siebold safely crossed.  Elder Siebold had still not found another set of elders.  He went back into Germany, repeated his routine, and successfully found and evacuated all the missionaries.  He found every one!

This story is a brilliant combination of ingenuity, faith, and dependence upon the Holy Ghost.  The beautiful thing to me is the clever method that Elder Siebold used to get the missionaries’ attention.  Everyone else in those packed train stations only heard whistling, but to the missionaries it was a summons.

Whistling is a wonderful talent to possess.  I’ve spent my life whistling, and can see where my talent could be used in place of speaking.  If I should ever lose my voice box, as did President Spencer W. Kimball, I would be able to express my feelings, my thoughts, and my needs and wants by simply whistling appropriate lines from the hundreds of songs that I know.  My wife, at least, and anyone familiar with the songs, would know exactly what I was saying.

I could see myself using this same code to pass messages to my fellow prisoners in the foreign prison camp where Mr. Noble was held.  Other Americans would understand the message, while the guards would just hear whistling.

It’s fun to openly do hidden things.  The foregoing are examples that needed to be brought together in one place.