Enigma

by Robert Harris

  ‘Left here,’ said Hester, and they swung away from the canal into a lane that was not much better than the forest track: just two strips of potholed, tarmaced road, extending ahead like tyre tracks, separated by a mound of grass that scraped the bottom of the car. Hester turned and knelt on her seat, staring out of the back window for any sign of the police, but the countryside had closed behind them like a jungle. Jericho drove on slowly for two miles. They passed through a tiny hamlet. A mile the other side of it a space had been dug out to allow cars – or, more likely, carts – to pass one another. He drove up into it and switched off the engine.

  They did not have much time.

  Jericho kept watch on the lane while she changed in the back seat of the Austin. According to the map, they were only about a mile due west of Shenley Brook End and she was insistent she could make it back to the cottage on foot across open country before dark. He marvelled at her nerve. To him, after the encounter with the police, everything had taken on a sinister aspect: the trees gesticulating at one another in the wind, the patches of dense shadow now gathering at the edges of the fields, the rooks that had erupted, cawing, from their nests and were now circling high above them.

  ‘Can’t we read them?’ Hester had asked, after they had parked. He had taken the cryptograms from his pocket so that they could decide what to do with them. ‘Come on, Tom. We can’t just burn them. If she thought she could read them, why can’t we?’

  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.

  5

  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 abou
t, 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, coming 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.’

  ‘Nobody can split a hair f-finer than F-Frank,’ said Pinker, admiringly.

  ‘“The presumption that the onus is on us to make a moral choice,”’ repeated Puck. He smiled across the table at Jericho. ‘How very Cambridge. Excuse me. I think I must visit the lavatory.’

  He made his way towards the back of the hut. Kingcome and Proudfoot returned to their chess game. Atwood picked up Herodas. Baxter fiddled with his cigarette-rolling machine. Pinker closed his eyes. Jericho leafed through the Short Signal Code Book and thought of Claire.

  Midnight came and went without a sound from the North Atlantic and the tension which had been building all evening began to slacken.

  The 2 a.m. offering from the cooks of the Bletchley Park canteen was enough to make even Mrs Armstrong blanch – boiled potatoes in cheese sauce with barracuda, followed by a pudding made from two slices of bread stuck together with jam and then deep-fried in batter – and by four, the digestive effects of this, combined with the dim light in Hut 8 and
the fumes from the paraffin heater, were casting a soporific pall over the naval cryptanalysts.

  Atwood was the first to succumb. His mouth dropped open and the top plate of his dentures came loose so that he made a curious clicking sound as he breathed. Pinker wrinkled his nose in disgust and went off to make a nest for himself in the corner, and soon afterwards Puck, too, fell asleep, his body bent forwards, his left cheek resting on his forearms on the table. Even Jericho, despite his determination to stand guard over the cryptograms, found himself slipping over the edge of unconsciousness. He pulled himself back a couple of times, aware of Baxter watching him, but finally he couldn’t fight it any longer and he slid into a turbulent dream of drowning men whose cries sounded in his ears like the wind in the aerial farm.

  SIX

  STRIP

  STRIP: to remove one layer of encipherment from a cryptogram which has been subjected to the process of super-encipherment (US, qv), i.e., a message which has been enciphered once, and then re-enciphered to provide double security.

  A Lexicon of Cryptography

  (‘Most Secret’, Bletchley Park, 1943)

  1

  LATER, IT WOULD transpire that Bletchley Park knew almost everything there was to know about U-653.