Enigma

others, maybe, but not you.'
    'Oh, Christ. Well, since you put it so nicely.'
    Jericho swallowed the pill with a mouthful of tea. It left a foul taste and he drained his mug to try and swill it away. Logie regarded him fondly.
    'That's my boy.' He put the box back in his desk drawer and locked it. 'I've been protecting your bloody back again, incidentally. I had to tell him you were much too important to be disturbed.'
    Tell who? Skynner?'
    'No. Not Skynner. Wigram.'
    'What does he want?'
    'You, old cock. I'd say he wants you. Skinned, stuffed and mounted on a pole somewhere. Really, I don't know, for such a quiet bloke, you don't half make some enemies. I told him to come back at midnight. All right by you?'
    Before Jericho could reply the telephone rang and Logie grabbed it.
    'Yes? Speaking.' He grunted and stretched across his desk for a pencil. 'Time of origin 19.02, 52.1 degrees north, 37.2 degrees west. Thanks, Bill. Keep the faith.'
    He replaced the receiver.
    'And then there were seven ..."
    It was dark again and the lights were on in the Big Room. The sentries outside were banging the blackout shutters into place, like prison warders locking up their charges for the night.
    Jericho hadn't set foot out of the hut for twenty-four hours, hadn't even looked out of the window. As he slipped back into his seat and checked his coat to make sure the cryptograms were still there, he wondered vaguely what kind of day it had been and what Hester was doing.
    Don't think about that now.
    Already, he could feel the Benzedrine beginning to take effect. The muscles of his heart seemed feathery, his body charged. When he glanced across his notes, what had seemed inert and impenetrable a half-hour ago was suddenly fluid and full of possibility.
    The new cryptogram was already on his desk: YALB DKYF.
    'Naval grid square BD 2742,' called Cave. 'Course 055 degrees. Convoy speed nine and a half knots.'
    Logie said: 'A message from Mr Skynner. A bottle of Scotch for the first man with a menu for the bombes.'
    Twenty-three signals received. Seven U-boats in contact. Two hours to go till nightfall in the North Atlantic.
    20.00: nine U-boats in contact.
    20.46: ten.
    The Control Room girls took a table near the serving hatch for their evening meal. Celia Davenport showed them all some pictures of her fiance, who was fighting in the desert, while Anthea Leigh-Delamere brayed endlessly about a meet of the Bicester Hunt. Hester passed on the photographs without looking at them. Her eyes were fixed on Donald Cordingley, queuing to collect his lump of coelacanth, or whatever other obscure example of God's aquatic creatures they were now required to eat.
    She was cleverer than he, and he knew it.
    She intimidated him.
    Hello, Donald, she thought. Hello, Donald. . . Oh, nothing much, just this new back-break section, coming along with bucket and shovel after the Lord Mayor's parade ... Now, listen, Donald, there's this funny little wireless net, Konotop-Prihiki-Poltava, in the southern Ukraine. Nothing vital, but we've never quite broken it and Archie—you must know Archie?—Archie has a theory it may be a variant on Vulture. . . Traffic runs through February and the first few days in March. . . That's right...
    She watched him as he sat alone and picked at his lonely supper. She watched him, indeed, as if she were a vulture. And when, after fifteen minutes, he rose and scraped the leftovers from his plate into the swill bins, she rose as well, and followed him.
    She was vaguely aware of the other girls staring after her in astonishment. She ignored them.
    She tracked him all the way back to Hut 6, gave him five minutes to settle down, then went in after him.
    The Machine Room was shaded and somnolent, like a library at dusk. She tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
    'Hello, Donald.'
    He turned round and blinked up at her in surprise. 'Oh, hello.' The effort of memory was heroic. 'Hello, Hester.'
    'It's almost dark out there,' said Cave, looking at his watch. 'Not long now. How many have you had?'
    'Twenty-nine,' said Baxter.
    'I believe you said that would be enough, Mr Jericho?'
    'Weather,' said Jericho, without looking up. 'We need a weather report from the convoy. Barometric pressure, cloud cover, cloud type, wind speed, temperature. Before it gets too dark.'
    "They've got ten U-boats on their backs and you want them to tell you the weather?
    'Yes, please. Fast as they can.'
    The weather report arrived at 21.31.
    There were no more