Enigma (34 page)

Oh, a dozen reasons, Hester. A hundred. But here were three to
be going on with. First, they would need the Vulture settings that
were in use on the days the signals were sent.

“I can try to get those,” she had said. “They must be in Hut 6
somewhere.”

Very well, maybe she could. But even if she managed it, they
would still need several hours to themselves on a Type-X
machine—and not one of the Type-Xs in Hut 8, either, because naval
Enigmas were wired differently from Army ones.

She had made no answer to that.

And, third, they would need to find a place to hide the
cryptograms, because otherwise, if they were caught with them,
they’d both be on trial in camera at the Old Bailey.

No answer to that, either.

There was a movement in the hedge about thirty yards ahead of
him. A fox came nosing out of the undergrowth and stepped into the
lane. Halfway across it stopped and stared directly at him. It held
itself perfectly still and sniffed the air, then slouched off into
the opposite hedgerow. Jericho let out his breath.

And yet, and yet…Even as he had ticked off all the obvious
objections, he had known that she was right. They couldn’t simply
destroy the cryptograms now, not after all they had gone through to
get them. And once that was conceded then the only logical reason
for keeping them was to try to break them. Hester would have to
steal the settings somehow while he looked for a way of gaining
access to a Type-X machine. But it was dangerous—he prayed that she
could see that. Claire was the last person to steal the cryptograms
and there was no telling what had happened to her. And
somewhere—maybe looking for them now, for all they knew—was a man
who left large footprints in the frost; a man apparently armed with
a stolen pistol; a man who knew that Jericho had been in Claire’s
room and had taken away the signals.

I am no hero, he thought. He was scared half to death.

The car door opened and Hester emerged, dressed again in
trousers, sweater, jacket and boots. He took her bag and stowed it
in the Austin’s boot.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

“We’ve been over this. It’s safer if we split up.”

“For God’s sake then be careful.”

“You should worry about yourself.” The air was milky with the
approaching dusk—damp and cold. Her face was beginning to blur. She
said: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She swung herself easily over the gate and set off directly
across the field. He thought she might turn and wave but she never
looked back. He watched her for about two minutes, until she had
safely reached the far side. She searched briefly for a gap in the
hedge, then vanished like the fox.

§

The lane led him up over the Chase, past the big wireless masts
of the Bletchley Park out-station at Whaddon Hall, and down to the
Buckingham Road. He peered along it, cautiously.

According to the map, only five roads, including this one,
connected Bletchley with the outside world, and if the police were
still watching the traffic they would stop him, he was certain.
Short of flying a swastika the Austin could hardly have looked more
suspicious. Mud was spattered over the bodywork to the height of
the windows. Grass was wrapped tightly around the axles. The back
bumper was buckled where the tank transporter had struck it. And
the engine, after Stony Stratford, had acquired a kind of urgent
death rattle. He wondered what on earth he would say to Kramer.

The road was quiet in both directions. He passed a couple of
farmhouses and within five minutes he was entering the outskirts of
the town. He drove on past the suburban villas with their white
pebble-dashed frontages and their fake Tudor beams, then left up
the hill towards Bletchley Park. He turned into Wilton Avenue and
immediately braked. Parked at the end of the street beside the
guard post was a police car. An officer in a greatcoat and cap was
talking earnestly to the sentry.

Once again, Jericho had to use both hands to jam the gear lever
into reverse, then he backed out very slowly into Church Green
Road.

He had moved beyond panic now and was in some calm place at the
centre of the storm. “Act as normally as possible”, that had been
his advice to Hester when they had decided to keep the cryptograms.
“You’re not on duty until four tomorrow afternoon? Fine, then don’t
go in before that time.” The injunction must apply to him as well.
Normality. Routine. He was expected in Hut 8 for the night’s attack
on Shark? He would be there.

He drove on up the hill and parked the car in a street of
private houses about three hundred yards from St Mary’s Church.
Where to hide the cryptograms? The Austin? Too risky. Albion
Street? Too likely to be searched. A process of elimination brought
him to the answer. Where better to hide a tree than in a forest?
Where better to conceal a cryptogram than in a code-breaking
centre? He would take them into the Park.

He transferred the wad of paper from the inside pocket of his
overcoat to the hiding place he had made in the lining and locked
the car. Then he remembered Atwood’s atlas and unlocked it again.
Bending to retrieve the book he casually checked the road. A woman
in the house opposite was standing on her doorstep, in an oblong of
yellow light, calling her children in from play. A young couple
strolled past, arm in arm. A dog loped miserably along the gutter
and stopped to cock its leg against the Austin’s front tyre. An
ordinary, English provincial street at twilight. The world for
which we fight. He closed the door quietly. Head down, hands in
pockets, he set off at a brisk walk for the Park.

♦

It was a matter of pride with Hester Wallace that, when it came
to walking, she had the stamina of any man. But what had looked on
the map to be a straight and easy mile had turned into a crooked
ramble three times as long, across tiny fields enclosed by tangled
hedges and by ditches swollen wide as moats with brown meltwater,
so that it was almost dark by the time she reached the lane.

She thought she might be lost but after a minute or two the
narrow road began to seem familiar to her—a pair of elms grown too
close together, as if from the same root; a mossy and broken
stile—and soon she could smell the fires in the village. They were
burning green wood and the smoke was white and acrid.

She kept a look out for policemen, but saw none—not in the field
opposite the cottage, nor in the cottage itself, which had been
left unlocked. She bolted the front door behind her, stood at the
bottom of the stairs and called out a greeting.

Silence.

Slowly she climbed the stairs.

Claire’s room was in chaos. Desecrated was the word that came to
mind. The personality it had once reflected was disarranged,
destroyed. Her clothes had all been strewn about, the sheets
stripped off her bed, her jewellery scattered, her cosmetics opened
up and spilled by clumsy male hands. At first she thought the
surfaces were coated in talcum, but the fine white dust had no
smell, and she realised it must be fingerprint powder.

She made a start at clearing it up, but soon abandoned it and
sat on the edge of the naked mattress with her head in her hands
until a great wave of self-disgust made her leap to her feet. She
blew her nose angrily and went downstairs.

She lit a fire in the sitting room and set a kettle full of
water on the hearth. In the kitchen she riddled the stove and
managed to coax a glow from the pale ash, piled on some coal and
set a saucepan to boil. She carried in the tin bath from the
outhouse, bolting and locking the back door behind her.

She would stifle her terrors with routine. She would bathe. She
would eat the remains of last night’s carrot flan. She would retire
early and hope for sleep.

Because tomorrow—tomorrow—would be a frightening day.

♦

Inside Hut 8 there was a crowded, nervous atmosphere, like the
green room of a theatre on opening night.

Jericho found his usual place next to the window. To his left:
Atwood, leafing through Dilly Knox’s edition of the mimes of
Herodas. Pinker opposite, dressed as if for Covent Garden, his
black velvet jacket slightly too long in the sleeve, so that his
stubby fingers protruded like mole’s paws. Kingcome and Proudfoot
were playing with a pocket chess-set. Baxter was rolling a series
of spindly cigarettes with a little tin contraption that didn’t
work properly. Puck had his feet up on the desk. The Type-Xs
clacked sporadically in the background. Jericho nodded a general
good evening, gave Atwood back his atlas—“Thank you, dear boy. Good
trip?”—and draped his overcoat over the back of his slatted chair.
He was just in time.

“Gentlemen!” Logie appeared in the doorway and clapped twice to
draw their attention, then stepped aside to allow Skynner to
precede him into the room.

There was a general clatter and scraping of chair legs as they
all clambered to their feet. Someone stuck their head round the
door of the Decoding Room and the racket of the Type-Xs ceased.

“Easy, everybody,” said Skynner and waved them back into their
seats. Jericho found that by tucking his feet under his chair he
could rest his ankle against the stolen cryptograms. “Just stopped
by to wish you luck.” Skynner’s heavy body was swathed like a
Chicago gangster’s in half an acre of pre-war, double-breasted
pinstripe. “I’m sure you’re all aware of what’s at stake here as
well as I am.”

“Shut up, then,” whispered Atwood.

But Skynner didn’t hear him. This was what he loved. He stood
with his feet planted firmly apart, his hands clasped behind his
back. He was Nelson before Trafalgar. He was Churchill in the
Blitz. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this could be one
of the most decisive nights of the war.” His gaze sought out each
of them in turn, corning last of all to Jericho and sliding away
with a flicker of distaste. “A mighty battle—probably the greatest
convoy battle of the war—is about to start. Lieutenant Cave?”

“According to the Admiralty,” said Cave, “at nineteen hundred
hours this evening, convoys HX-229 and SC-122 were both warned they
had entered the presumed operational area of the U-boats.”

“There we are, then. “Out of this nettle, danger, may we pluck
this flower, safety.”” Skynner nodded abruptly. “Go to it.”

“Haven’t I heard that before somewhere?” said Baxter.

“Henry IV Part One.” Atwood yawned. “Chamberlain quoted it
before he went off to meet Herr Hitler.”

After Skynner had gone, Logie went round the room handing out
copies of the convoy contact section of the Short Signal Code Book.
To Jericho, as a mark of recognition, he gave the precious
original.

“We’re after convoy contact reports, gentlemen: as many of them
as possible in the twenty-four hours between midnight tonight and
midnight tomorrow—in other words, the maximum amount of crib
covering one day’s Enigma settings.”

The instant an E-bar signal was heard, the duty officer of the
receiving station would telephone to alert them. When the contact
report arrived by teleprinter a minute later, ten copies would be
made and distributed. No fewer than twelve bombes—Logie had the
personal guarantee of the Hut 6 bombe controller—would be placed at
their disposal the moment they had a worthwhile menu to run.

As he finished his speech, the blackout shutters began to be
fixed to the windows and the hut battened down for the night.

♦

“So, Tom,” said Puck pleasantly. “How many contact reports do
you think we will need for this scheme of yours to succeed?”

Jericho was leafing through the Short Signal Code Book. He
glanced up. “I tried to work it out yesterday. I’d say about
thirty.”

“Thirty?” repeated Pinker, his voice rising in horror. “But that
would m-m-mean a mmm-mmm-mmm—”

“Massacre?”

“Massacre. Yes.”

“How many U-boats would be needed to produce thirty signals?”
asked Puck.

Jericho said: “I don’t know. That would depend on the time
between the initial sighting and the start of the attack. Eight.
Perhaps nine.”

“Nine,” muttered Kingcome. “Christ! Your move, Jack.”

“Will someone tell me, then, please,” said Puck, “for what I am
supposed to be hoping? Am I hoping that the U-boats find these
convoys or not?”

“Not,” said Pinker, looking round the table for support.
“Obviously. We w-w-want the convoys to escape the U-boats. That’s
what this is all about.”

Kingcome and Proudfoot nodded but Baxter shook his head
violently. His cigarette disintegrated, sprinkling shreds of
tobacco down the front of his cardigan. “Damn it,” he said.

“You’d really s-s-sacrifice a c-c-convoy?” asked Pinker.

“Of course.” Baxter carefully brushed the loose tobacco into his
palm. “For the greater good. How many men has Stalin had to
sacrifice so far? Five million? Ten million? The only reason we’re
still in the war is the butcher’s bill on the eastern front. What’s
a convoy in comparison, if it gets us back into Shark?”

“What do you say, Tom?”

“I don’t have an answer. I’m a mathematician, not a moral
philosopher.”

“Bloody typical,” said Baxter.

“No, no, in terms of moral logic, Tom’s is actually the only
rational reply,” said Atwood. He had laid aside his Greek. This was
the sort of discussion he liked. “Consider. A madman seizes both
your children at knife-point and says to you: “One must die, make
your choice.” Towards whom do you direct your reproaches? Towards
yourself, for having to make a decision? No. Towards the madman,
surely?”

Jericho said, staring at Puck: “But that analogy doesn’t answer
Puck’s point about what one should hope for.”

“Oh, but I would argue that that is precisely what it does
answer, in that it rejects the premise of his question: the
presumption that the onus is on us to make a moral choice. Quod
erat demonstrandum.”