including one young man sitting bold as you please in the seat which had once been reserved for Jericho. The tables were stacked with cryptograms, like ballot papers at an election count.
Puck was muttering something about back-breaks but Jericho, fascinated by the sight of someone else in his place, lost track and had to interrupt him. 'I'm sorry, Puck. What was that?'
'I was saying that from twenty minutes ago we are up to date. Shark is now fully read to the point of the code change. So that there is nothing left to us. Except history.' He gave a weak smile and patted Jericho's shoulder. 'Come. I'll show you.'
When a cryptanalyst believed he'd glimpsed a possible break into a message, his guess was sent out of the hut to be tested on a bombe. And if he'd been skilful enough, or lucky enough, then in an hour, or a day, the bombe would churn through a million permutations and reveal how the Enigma machine had been set up. That information was relayed back from the bombe bays to the Decoding Room.
Because of its noise, the Decoding Room was tucked away at the far end of the hut. Personally, Jericho liked the clatter. It was the sound of success. His worst memories were of the nights when the building was silent. A dozen British Type-X enciphering machines had been modified to mimic the actions of the German Enigma. They were big, cumbersome devices -typewriters with rotors, a plugboard and a cylinder—at which sat young and well-groomed debutantes.
Baxter, who was the hut's resident Marxist, had a theory that Bletchley's workforce (which was mainly female) was arranged in what he called 'a paradigm of the English class system'. The wireless interceptors, shivering in their coastal radio stations, were generally working-class and laboured in ignorance of the Enigma secret. The bombe operators, who worked in the grounds of some nearby country houses and in a big new installation just outside London, were petit-bourgeois and had a vague idea. And the Decoding Room girls, in the heart of the Park, were mostly upper-middle-class, even aristocratic, and they saw it all—the secrets literally passed through their fingers. They typed out the letters of the original cryptogram, and from the cylinder on the right of the Type-X a strip of sticky-backed paper, the sort you saw gummed down on telegram forms, slowly emerged, bearing the decrypted plaintext.
'Those three are doing Dolphin,' said Puck, pointing across the room, 'and the two by the door are just starting on Porpoise. And this charming young lady here, I believe'—he bowed to her—'has Shark. May we?'
She was young, about eighteen, with curly red hair and wide hazel eyes. She looked up and smiled at him, a dazzling Tatler smile, and he leaned across her and began uncoiling the strip of tape from the cylinder. Jericho noticed as he did so that he left one hand resting casually on her shoulder, just as simply as that, and he thought how much he envied Puck the ease of that gesture. It would have taken him a week to pluck up the nerve. Puck beckoned him down to read the decrypt.
VONSCHULZEQU8 8521DAMPFER1TANKERWAHRSCHEINLICHAM6 3TANKERFACKEL ...
Jericho ran his finger along it, separating the words and translating it in his mind: U-boat commander von Schulze was in grid square 8852 and had sunk one steamship (for certain) and one tanker (probably) and had set one other tanker on fire . . .
'What date is this?'
'You can see it there,' said Puck. 'Sechs drei. The sixth of March. We've broken everything from this week up to the code change on Wednesday night, so now we go back and pick up the intercepts we missed earlier in the month. This is—what?—six days old. Herr Kapitan von Schulze may be five hundred miles away by now. It is of academic interest only, I fear.'
'Poor devils,' said Jericho, passing his finger along the tape for a second time. IDAMPFERITANKER ... What freezing and drowning and burning were concentrated in that one line! What were the ships
Puck was muttering something about back-breaks but Jericho, fascinated by the sight of someone else in his place, lost track and had to interrupt him. 'I'm sorry, Puck. What was that?'
'I was saying that from twenty minutes ago we are up to date. Shark is now fully read to the point of the code change. So that there is nothing left to us. Except history.' He gave a weak smile and patted Jericho's shoulder. 'Come. I'll show you.'
When a cryptanalyst believed he'd glimpsed a possible break into a message, his guess was sent out of the hut to be tested on a bombe. And if he'd been skilful enough, or lucky enough, then in an hour, or a day, the bombe would churn through a million permutations and reveal how the Enigma machine had been set up. That information was relayed back from the bombe bays to the Decoding Room.
Because of its noise, the Decoding Room was tucked away at the far end of the hut. Personally, Jericho liked the clatter. It was the sound of success. His worst memories were of the nights when the building was silent. A dozen British Type-X enciphering machines had been modified to mimic the actions of the German Enigma. They were big, cumbersome devices -typewriters with rotors, a plugboard and a cylinder—at which sat young and well-groomed debutantes.
Baxter, who was the hut's resident Marxist, had a theory that Bletchley's workforce (which was mainly female) was arranged in what he called 'a paradigm of the English class system'. The wireless interceptors, shivering in their coastal radio stations, were generally working-class and laboured in ignorance of the Enigma secret. The bombe operators, who worked in the grounds of some nearby country houses and in a big new installation just outside London, were petit-bourgeois and had a vague idea. And the Decoding Room girls, in the heart of the Park, were mostly upper-middle-class, even aristocratic, and they saw it all—the secrets literally passed through their fingers. They typed out the letters of the original cryptogram, and from the cylinder on the right of the Type-X a strip of sticky-backed paper, the sort you saw gummed down on telegram forms, slowly emerged, bearing the decrypted plaintext.
'Those three are doing Dolphin,' said Puck, pointing across the room, 'and the two by the door are just starting on Porpoise. And this charming young lady here, I believe'—he bowed to her—'has Shark. May we?'
She was young, about eighteen, with curly red hair and wide hazel eyes. She looked up and smiled at him, a dazzling Tatler smile, and he leaned across her and began uncoiling the strip of tape from the cylinder. Jericho noticed as he did so that he left one hand resting casually on her shoulder, just as simply as that, and he thought how much he envied Puck the ease of that gesture. It would have taken him a week to pluck up the nerve. Puck beckoned him down to read the decrypt.
VONSCHULZEQU8 8521DAMPFER1TANKERWAHRSCHEINLICHAM6 3TANKERFACKEL ...
Jericho ran his finger along it, separating the words and translating it in his mind: U-boat commander von Schulze was in grid square 8852 and had sunk one steamship (for certain) and one tanker (probably) and had set one other tanker on fire . . .
'What date is this?'
'You can see it there,' said Puck. 'Sechs drei. The sixth of March. We've broken everything from this week up to the code change on Wednesday night, so now we go back and pick up the intercepts we missed earlier in the month. This is—what?—six days old. Herr Kapitan von Schulze may be five hundred miles away by now. It is of academic interest only, I fear.'
'Poor devils,' said Jericho, passing his finger along the tape for a second time. IDAMPFERITANKER ... What freezing and drowning and burning were concentrated in that one line! What were the ships
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