Enigma

big jaw out heroically. In his mind's eye he was sreering his ship manfully into the face of the typhoon. 'Yes, I think we may be able to do it.'
    You're mad, thought Jericho.
    'And you all believe that?' The admiral stared hard in their direction. He had eyes like a bloodhound's, red-lidded and watery.
    Logie was the first to break the silence. He looked at Skynner and winced and scratched the back of his head with the stem of his pipe. 'I suppose we do have the advantage of knowing more about Shark than we did before.'
    Atwood jumped in: 'If Guy thinks we can do it, I certainly respect his opinion. I'd go along with whatever he estimates.' Baxter nodded judiciously. Jericho inspected his watch.
    'And you?' said the admiral. 'What do you think?'
    In Cambridge, they would just about be finishing breakfast. Kite would be steaming open the mail. Mrs Sax would be rattling round with her brushes and pails. In Hall on Saturday they served vegetable pie with potatoes for lunch . . .
    He was aware that the room had gone quiet and he looked up to find all eyes were on him. The fair-haired man in the suit was slating at him with particular curiosity. He felt his face begin to colour.
    And then he felt a spasm of irritation.
    Afterwards Jericho was to think about this moment many times. What made him act as he did? Was it tiredness? Was he simply disoriented, plucked out of Cambridge and set down in the middle of this nightmare? Was he still ill? Illness would certainly help explain what happened later. Or was he so distracted by the thought of Claire that he wasn't thinking straight? All he remembered for certain was an overwhelming feeling of annoyance. 'You 're only here for show, old love.' You're only here to make up the numbers, so Skynner can put on a good act for the Yanks. You're only here to do as you're told, so keep your views to yourself, and don't ask questions. He was suddenly sick of it all, sick of everything—sick ot the blackout, sick of the cold, sick of the chummy first-name terms and the lime smell and the damp and the whale meat -whale meat—at four o'clock in the morning . . .
    'Actually, I'm not sure I am as optimistic as my colleagues.'
    Skynner interrupted him at once. You could almost hear the klaxons going off in his mind, see the airmen sprinting across the deck and the big guns swivelling skywards as HMS Skynner came under threat. 'Tom's been ill, sir, I'm afraid. He's been away from us for the best part of a month
    'Why not?' The admiral's tone was dangerously friendly. 'Why aren't you optimistic?'
    '. . . so I'm not sure he's altogether fully aut fait with the situation. Wouldn't you admit that, Tom?'
    'Well, I'm certainly au fait with Enigma, ah, Leonard.' Jericho could hardly believe his own words. He plunged on. 'Enigma is a very sophisticated cipher system. And Shark is its ultimate refinement. I've spent the past eight hours reviewing the Shark material and, ah, forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn, but it seems to me we are in a very serious situation.'
    'But you were breaking it successfully?'
    'Yes, but we'd been given a key. The weather code was the key that unlocked the door. The Germans have now changed the weather code. That means we've lost our key. Unless there's been some development I'm not aware of, I don't understand how we're going to . . .' Jericho searched for a metaphor. '. . . pick the lock.'
    The other American naval officer, the one who hadn't spoken so far—Jericho had momentarily forgotten his name—said: 'And you still haven't gotten those four-wheel bombes you promised us, Frank.'
    'That's a separate issue,' muttered Skynner. He gave Jericho a murderous look.
    'Is it?' Kramer—that was it. He was called Kramer. 'Surely if we had a few four-wheel bombes right now we wouldn't need the weather cribs?'
    'Just stop there for a moment,' said the admiral, who had been following this conversation with increasing impatience. 'I'm a sailor, and an old sailor at that. I don't understand all this—talk—about keys and cribs and bombs with wheels. We're trying to keep the sea-lanes open from America and if we can't do that we're going to lose this war.'
    'Hear, hear,' said Hammerbeck. 'Well said, Jack.'
    'Now will somebody please give me a straight answer to a straight question? Will this blackout definitely be over in four days' time or won't it? Yes or no?
    Skynner's shoulders sagged. 'No,' he said wearily. 'If you put it like that, sir, I can't say definitely it will