Enigma

It was neck-high, but although he was short he was just about able to peer over the top.
    A row of windows was set into the side of the building. Over these, from the outside, blackout shutters were fastened every day at dusk. All that was visible was the ghosts of squares, where the light seeped around the edges of the frames. The floor of Hut 3, like Hut 8's, was made of wood, suspended above a concrete base, and he could hear the muffled clumps and thuds of people moving about.
    She must be on duty. She must be working the midnight shift. She might be three feet from where he stood.
    He was on tiptoe.
    He had never been inside Hut 3. For reasons of security, workers in one section of the Park were not encouraged to stray into another, not unless they had good reason. From time to time his work had taken him over the threshold of Hut 6, but Hut 3 was a mystery to him. He had no idea of what she did. She'd tried to tell him once, but he'd said gently that it was best he didn't know. From odd remarks he gathered it was something to do with filing and was 'deadly dull, darling'.
    He stretched out as far as he could, until his fingertips were brushing the asbestos cladding of the hut.
    What are you doing, darling Claire? Are you busy with your boring filing, or are you flirting with one of the night-duty officers, or gossiping with the other girls, or puzzling over that crossword you can never do?
    Suddenly, about fifteen yards to his left, a door opened. From the oblong of dim light a uniformed man emerged, yawning. Jericho slid silently to the ground until he was kneeling in the wet earth and pressed his chest against the wall. The door closed and the man began to walk towards him. He stopped about ten feet away, breathing hard. He seemed to be listening. Jericho closed his eyes and shortly afterwards he heard a pattering and then a drilling noise and when he opened them he saw the faint silhouette of the man pissing against the wall, very hard. It went on for a wondrously long time and Jericho was close enough to get a whiff of pungent, beery urine. A fine spray was being borne downwind on the breeze. He had to put his hand to his nose and mouth to stop himself gagging. Eventually, the man gave a deep sigh—a groan, almost—of satisfaction, and fumbled with the buttons of his fly. He moved away. The door opened and closed again and Jericho was alone.
    There was a certain humour in the situation, and later even he was to see it. But at the time he was on the edge of panic. What, in the name of reason, did he think he was doing? If he were to be caught, kneeling in the darkness, with his ear pressed to a hut in which he had no business, he would have—to put it mildly -a hard time explaining himself. For a moment he considered simply marching inside and demanding to see her. But his imagination recoiled at the prospect. He might be thrown out. Or she might appear in fury and create a scene. Or she might appear and be the soul of sweetness, in which case what did he say? 'Oh, hello, darling. I just happened to be passing. You look in good form. By the way, I've been meaning to ask you, why did you wreck my life?'
    He used the wall to help him scramble to his feet. The quickest way back to the road was straight head, but that would take him past the door of the hut. He decided that the safest course would be to go back the way he had come.
    He was more cautious after his scare. Each time he took a step he planted his foot carefully and on every fifth pace he paused to make sure that no one else was moving around in the blackout. Two minutes later he was back outside the entrance to Hut 8.
    He felt as if he had been on a cross-country run. He was out of breath. There was a small hole in his left shoe and his sock was wet. Bits of damp grass were sticking to the bottoms of his trouser legs. His knees were sodden. And where he had rubbed against the concrete wall the front of his overcoat was streaked luminously white. He took out his handkerchief and tried to clean himself up.
    He had just about finished when he heard the others coming back from the canteen. Atwood's voice carried in the night: 'A dark horse, that one. Very dark. I recruited him, you know,' to which someone else chimed in: 'Yes, but he was once very good, wasn't he?'
    Jericho didn't stop to hear the rest. He pushed open the door and almost ran down the passage, so that by the time the cryptanaiysts appeared in the Big Room he was already seated at his