Enigma

all this time, he had only two visitors: Logie and Wigram.
    Logie must have come to see him some time at the beginning of April. It was early evening, but still quite light, with shadows dividing the little room—the bed of tubular metal, painted white and scratched; the trolley with its jug of water and metal basin; the chair. Jericho was dressed in blue-striped pyjamas, very faded; his wrists on the counterpane were frail. After the nurse had gone, Logie perched uneasily on the edge of the bed and told him that everyone sent their best.
    'Even Baxter?'
    'Even Baxter.':
    'Even Skynner?'
    'Well, no, maybe not Skynner. But then I haven't seen much of Skynner to be honest. He's got other things on his mind.'
    Logie talked for a bit about what everyone was doing, then started telling him about the convoy battle, which had gone on for most of the week, just as Cave had predicted. Twenty-two merchantmen sunk by the time the convoys reached air-cover and the U-boats could be driven off. 150,000 tons of Allied shipping destroyed and 160,000 tons of cargo lost—including the two weeks' supply of powdered milk that Skynner had made that disastrous joke about, remember? Apparently, when the ship went down, the sea had turned white. 'Diegrosste Geleitzugschlacht aller Zeiten,' German radio had called it, and for once the buggers weren't lying. The greatest convoy battle of all time.
    'How many dead?'
    'About four hundred. Mostly Americans.'
    Jericho grunted. 'Any U-boats sunk?'
    'Only one. We think.'
    'And Shark?'
    'Hanging in there, old love.' He patted Jericho's knee through the bedclothes. 'You see, it was worth it in the end, thanks to you.'
    It had taken the bombes forty hours to solve the settings, from midnight on Tuesday until late on the Thursday afternoon. But by the weekend the Crib Room had made a partial recovery of the Weather Code Book—or enough of it to give them a toehold -and now they were breaking Shark six days out of seven, although sometimes the breaks came in quite late. But it would do. It would do until they got the first of the Cobra bombes in June.
    A plane passed low overhead—a Spitfire, to judge by the crack of its engine.
    After a while, Logie said quietly: 'Skynner's had to hand over the plans for the four-wheel bombes to the Americans.'
    'Ah.'
    'Well, of course' said Logie, folding his arms, 'it's all dressed up as cooperation. But nobody's fooled. Leastways, I'm not. From now on, we're to teleprinter a copy of all Atlantic U-boat traffic to Washington the moment we receive it, then it's two teams working in friendly consultation. Blah, blah, blah. What bloody have you. But it'll come down to brute force in the end. It always does. And when they've got ten times the bombes we have—which won't take very long, I reckon, six months at the outside—what chance do we stand? We'll just do the interception and they'll do all the breaking.'
    'We can hardly complain.'
    'No, no. I know we can't. It's just. . . Well, we've seen the best days, you and I.' He sighed and stretched out his legs, contemplating his vast feet. 'Still, there is one bright side, I suppose.'
    'What's that?' Jericho looked at him, then saw what he meant, and they both said 'Skynner!' simultaneously, and laughed.
    'He is bloody upset,' said Logie contentedly. 'Sorry about your girl, by the way.'
    'Well . . .' Jericho made a feeble gesture with his hand and winced.
    There was a difficult silence, mercifully ended by the nurse coming in and telling Logie his time was up. He got to his feet with relief and shook Jericho's hand.
    'Now you get well, old love, d'you hear what I'm saying, and I'll come and see you again soon.'
    'Do that, Guy. Thank you.'
    But that was the last time he saw him.
    Miss Monk approached the pulpit to give the first reading: 'Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth' by Arthur Hugh Clough, a poem she declaimed with great determination, glaring at the congregation from time to time, as if defying them to contradict her. It was a good choice, thought Jericho. Defiantly optimistic. Claire would have enjoyed it:
    "And not by eastern windows only,
    When daylight comes, comes in the light,
    In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
    But westward, look, the land is bright.'
    'Let us pray,' said the vicar.
    Jericho lowered himself carefully to his knees. He covered his eyes and moved his lips like all the others, but he had no faith in any of it. Faith in mathematics, yes; faith in logic, of course; faith in the