Enigma

your problems, it might be helpful for us now to set out the operational situation.' His chair scraped on the bare floor as he rose to his feet. His tone was insultingly polite. 'The position at twenty-one hundred'
    Jericho passed his hand over his unshaven chin. He couldn't make up his mind whether to keep his overcoat on or take it off. On, he decided—the room was cold, despite the number of people in it. He undid the buttons and loosened his scarf. As he did so, he noticed the admiral watching him. They couldn't believe it, these senior officers, whenever they came up to visit—the lack of discipline, the scarves and cardigans, the first-name terms. There was a story about Churchill, who'd visited the Park in 1941 and given a speech to the cryptanalysts on the lawn. Afterwards, as he was being driven away, he'd said to the director: 'When I told you to leave no stone unturned recruiting for this place, I didn't expect you to take me literally.' Jericho smiled at the memory. The admiral glowered and flicked cigarette ash on the floor.
    The one-eyed naval officer had picked up a pointer and was standing in front of the Atlantic chart, holding a sheaf of notes.
    'It must be said, unfortunately, that the news you've given us couldn't have come at a worse moment. No fewer than three convoys have left the United States in the past week and are presently at sea. Convoy SC-122.' He rapped it once with the pointer, hard, as if he had a grudge against it, and read out his notes. 'Departed New York last Friday. Carrying fuel oil, iron ore, steel, wheat, bauxite, sugar, refrigerated meat, zinc, tobacco and tanks. Fifty merchant ships.'
    Cave spoke in a clipped, metallic voice, without looking at his audience. His one good eye was fixed on the map.
    'Convoy HX-229.' He tapped it. 'Departed New York Monday. Forty merchant vessels. Carrying meat, explosives, lubricating oil, refrigerated dairy produce, manganese, lead, timber, phosphate, diesel oil, aviation spirit, sugar and powdered milk.' He turned to them for the first time. The whole of the left side of his face was a mass of purple scar tissue. 'That, I might say, is two weeks' supply of powdered milk for the entire British Isles.'
    There was some nervous laughter. 'Better not lose that,' joked Skynner. The laughter stopped at once. He looked so forlorn in the silence Jericho almost felt sorry for him.
    Again, the pointer crashed down.
    'And Convoy HX-229A. Left New York Tuesday. Twenty-seven ships. Similar cargoes to the others. Fuel oil, aviation spirit, timber, steel, naval diesel, meat, sugar, wheat, explosives. Three convoys. A total of one hundred and seventeen merchant ships, with a gross registered tonnage of just under one million tons, plus cargo of another million.'
    One of the Americans—it was the senior one, Hammerbeck—raised his hand. 'How many men involved?'
    'Nine thousand merchant seamen. One thousand passengers.'
    'Who are the passengers?'
    'Mainly servicemen. Some ladies from the American Red Cross. Quite a lot of children. A party of Catholic missionaries, curiously enough.'
    'Jesus Christ.'
    Cave permitted himself a crimped smile. 'Quite.'
    'And whereabouts are the U-boats?'
    'Perhaps I might let my colleague answer that.'
    Cave sat down and the other British officer, Villiers, took the floor. He flourished the pointer.
    'Submarine Tracking Room had three U-boat packs operational as of zero-zero-hundred Thursday—heah, heah, and heah.' His accent barely qualified as recognisable English, it was the sort that pronounced 'cloth' as 'clawth' and 'really' as 'rarely', and when he spoke his lips hardly moved, as if it were somehow ungentlemanly—a betrayal of the amateur ethos—to put too much effort into talking. 'Gruppe Raubgraf heah, two hundred miles off the coast of Greenland. Gruppe Neuland, heah, almost precisely mid-ocean. And Gruppe Westmark heah, due south of Iceland.'
    'Zero-zero Thursday! You mean more than thirty hours ago?' Hammerbeck's hair was the colour and thickness of steel wool, close-cropped to his scalp. It glinted in the fluorescent light as he leaned forwards. 'Where the hell are they now?'
    I'm afraid I've no idea. I thought that was why we were heah. They've blipped awf the screen.'
    Admiral Trowbridge lit another cigarette from the tip of his old one. He had transferred his attention from Jericho and now he was staring at Hammerbeck through small, rheumy eyes.
    Again, the American raised his hand. 'How many subs are we