Read Online Secret Breakers: The Power of Three by H. L. Dennis - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: H. L. Dennis
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desperately to make the necessary work on primary factors and function machines seem interesting, and every now and then, when she felt the group was flagging, she bought them mini chocolate bars to boost their sugar levels, something Hunter was particularly grateful for but which Tusia refused in favour of yogurt-covered raisins.
Smithies and Ingham split the sessions on code-cracking while doubling as curators at the museum. Brodie couldn’t believe there was so much to learn. They covered hidden messages written in lemon juice and revealed by heat; substitution ciphers and some crazy thing called the pigpen cipher. They even talked about ‘disinformation’ which could be added to codes to confuse those trying to crack them. Everything confused Brodie to begin with. And everything, it seemed, could be used to hide a secret message just as long as you knew where to look.
‘But why d’you need code at all?’ moaned Hunter after a particularly frustrating session on the Caesar Cipher.
Brodie saw a spark behind Ingham’s eye. A fire growing. ‘Power,’ he said.
‘You what?’
‘Codes give power. They let me tell other people things I can keep secret from you. That gives me power over you.’ He lifted his coffee mug to his lips and the chain attaching it to the radiator rattled. The children hadn’t asked about the chain. It seemed rude.
‘So if I use a code, that controls who knows what?’ pressed Hunter.
Ingham put the mug down. He widened his hands in agreement. ‘At this very place during World War Two, code-crackers, chosen just like you, intercepted codes sent by the enemy. Messages sent from generals to submarines or soldiers on the front line. The messages were sent over the radios and people here heard those messages. And they broke the codes they were written in.’ He pulled himself up tall. ‘People here at Station X knew what the enemy were saying to each other. They knew their secrets and because of that, they took their power. Churchill reckoned the Black Chamber here shortened the war by at least two years.’ Ingham seemed to glow. Excitement blazed behind his eyes. ‘Breaking codes is all about looking beyond what’s written. The surface stuff isn’t important. It’s what’s under the surface.
Brodie was going along with what he said but there were so many codes to learn about. So many ways to hide a secret. ‘How do we know, though, what code something’s written in? How d’you do that “breaking” thing in the first place?’
Ingham searched for the best ways to explain. ‘Codes are like people,’ he said. ‘There’s different types and different kinds. We see the outside of the person and we may think we know them. But it’s looking from another angle, seeing things differently, that helps us really understand. What we see on the surface isn’t what’s inside.’ He hesitated. ‘Reading codes is like reading people. First impressions aren’t important. They’re just for fools.’ His voice cracked a little. ‘If you want to read codes you just have to learn to look carefully.’
His eyes sparkled even more brightly. Brodie no longer saw a man in pyjamas, irritated by having to work with children. She saw a man in love with the code. It was contagious.
Smithies kept up with how the group were doing via the internal mail system which had been used when Bletchley Park was a Black Chamber in the war. A series of overhead vacuum pipes carried messages contained in plastic screwtop containers that were passed into the pipe system at conveniently placed holes around the buildings. The noise of a container’s arrival sounded very much like a sock being pulled down a plug hole, and it was this noise and the subsequent arrival of a message that announced the prospect of a test.
‘Smithies says the time has come,’ sniffed Ingham, rubbing his left knee which he’d earlier told them was causing him a fair degree of tendon pain. ‘Personally I’m not sure you’re
Smithies and Ingham split the sessions on code-cracking while doubling as curators at the museum. Brodie couldn’t believe there was so much to learn. They covered hidden messages written in lemon juice and revealed by heat; substitution ciphers and some crazy thing called the pigpen cipher. They even talked about ‘disinformation’ which could be added to codes to confuse those trying to crack them. Everything confused Brodie to begin with. And everything, it seemed, could be used to hide a secret message just as long as you knew where to look.
‘But why d’you need code at all?’ moaned Hunter after a particularly frustrating session on the Caesar Cipher.
Brodie saw a spark behind Ingham’s eye. A fire growing. ‘Power,’ he said.
‘You what?’
‘Codes give power. They let me tell other people things I can keep secret from you. That gives me power over you.’ He lifted his coffee mug to his lips and the chain attaching it to the radiator rattled. The children hadn’t asked about the chain. It seemed rude.
‘So if I use a code, that controls who knows what?’ pressed Hunter.
Ingham put the mug down. He widened his hands in agreement. ‘At this very place during World War Two, code-crackers, chosen just like you, intercepted codes sent by the enemy. Messages sent from generals to submarines or soldiers on the front line. The messages were sent over the radios and people here heard those messages. And they broke the codes they were written in.’ He pulled himself up tall. ‘People here at Station X knew what the enemy were saying to each other. They knew their secrets and because of that, they took their power. Churchill reckoned the Black Chamber here shortened the war by at least two years.’ Ingham seemed to glow. Excitement blazed behind his eyes. ‘Breaking codes is all about looking beyond what’s written. The surface stuff isn’t important. It’s what’s under the surface.
Brodie was going along with what he said but there were so many codes to learn about. So many ways to hide a secret. ‘How do we know, though, what code something’s written in? How d’you do that “breaking” thing in the first place?’
Ingham searched for the best ways to explain. ‘Codes are like people,’ he said. ‘There’s different types and different kinds. We see the outside of the person and we may think we know them. But it’s looking from another angle, seeing things differently, that helps us really understand. What we see on the surface isn’t what’s inside.’ He hesitated. ‘Reading codes is like reading people. First impressions aren’t important. They’re just for fools.’ His voice cracked a little. ‘If you want to read codes you just have to learn to look carefully.’
His eyes sparkled even more brightly. Brodie no longer saw a man in pyjamas, irritated by having to work with children. She saw a man in love with the code. It was contagious.
Smithies kept up with how the group were doing via the internal mail system which had been used when Bletchley Park was a Black Chamber in the war. A series of overhead vacuum pipes carried messages contained in plastic screwtop containers that were passed into the pipe system at conveniently placed holes around the buildings. The noise of a container’s arrival sounded very much like a sock being pulled down a plug hole, and it was this noise and the subsequent arrival of a message that announced the prospect of a test.
‘Smithies says the time has come,’ sniffed Ingham, rubbing his left knee which he’d earlier told them was causing him a fair degree of tendon pain. ‘Personally I’m not sure you’re
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