Enigma

was out of sight, he counted himself down then launched himself across the path and through the entrance into the hut.
    He did his best to look as if he had a right to be there. He pulled out a pen and set off down the central corridor, thrusting past airmen and Army officers, glancing officiously from side to side into the busy rooms. It was much more overcrowded even than Hut 8. The racket of typewriters and telephones was amplified by the membrane of wooden walls to create a bedlam of activity.
    He had barely gone halfway down the passage when a colonel with a large moustache stepped smartly out of a doorway and blocked his path. Jericho nodded and tried to edge past him, but the colonel moved deftly to one side.
    'Hold on, stranger. Who are you?'
    On impulse Jericho stuck out his hand. 'Tom Jericho,' he said. 'Who are you?'
    'Never mind who the hell I am.' The colonel had jug ears and thick black hair with a wide, straight parting that stood out like a firebreak. He ignored the proffered hand. 'What's your section?'
    'Naval. Hut 8.'
    'Hut 8? State your business here.'
    'I'm looking for Dr Weitzman.'
    An inspired lie. He knew Weitzman from the Chess Society: a German Jew, naturalised British, who always played Queen's Gambit Declined.
    'Are you, by God?' said the colonel. 'Haven't you Navy people ever heard of the telephone?' He stroked his moustache and looked Jericho up and down. 'Well, you'd better come with me.'
    Jericho followed the colonel's broad back along the passage and into a large room. Two groups of about a dozen men sat at tables arranged in a pair of semicircles, working their way through wire baskets stacked high with decrypts. Walter Weitzman was perched on a stool in a glass booth behind them.
    'I say, Weitzman, d'you know this chap?'
    Weitzman's large head was bent over a pile of German weapons manuals. He looked up, vague and distracted, but when he recognised Jericho his melancholy face brightened into a smile. 'Hello, Tom. Yes, of course I know him.'
    '“Kriegsnachrichten Fur Seefahrer,'” said Jericho, a fraction too quickly. 'You said you might have something by now.'
    For a moment, Weitzman didn't react and Jericho thought he was done for, but then the old man said slowly, 'Yes. I believe I have that information for you.' He lowered himself carefully from his stool. 'You have a problem, colonel?'
    The colonel thrust his chin forward. 'Yes, actually, Weitzman, I do, now you mention it. “Inter-hut communication, unless otherwise authorised, must be conducted by telephone or written memorandum.” Standard procedure.' He glared at Weitzman and Weitzman stared back, with exquisite politeness. The belligerence seemed to leak out of the colonel. 'Right,' he muttered. 'Yes. Remember that in future.'
    'Arsehole,' hissed Weitzman, as the colonel moved away. 'Well, well. You'd better come over here.'
    He led Jericho to a rack of card-index files, selected a drawer, pulled it out and began riffling through it. Every time the translators came across a term they couldn't understand, they consulted Weitzman and his famous index-system. He'd been a philologist at Heidelberg until the Nazis forced him to emigrate. The Foreign Office, in a rare moment of inspiration, had dispatched him to Bletchley in 1940. Very few phrases defeated him.
    ' “Kriegsnachrichten Fur Seefahrer,” “War notices for Marines. ”First intercepted and catalogued, November ninth last year. As you knew perfectly well already.' He held the card within an inch of his nose and studied it through his thick spectacles. Tell me, is the good colonel still looking at us?'
    'I don't know. I think so.' The colonel had bent down to read something one of the translators had written, but his gaze kept returning to Jericho and Weitzman. 'Is he always like that?'
    'Our Colonel Coker? Yes, but worse today, for some reason.' Weitzman spoke softly, without looking at Jericho. He tugged open another drawer and pulled out a card, apparently absorbed. 'I suggest we stay here until he leaves the room. Now here's a U-boat term we picked up in January: “Fluchttiefe.”'
    '“Evasion depth,”' replied Jericho. He could play this game for hours. Vorhalt-Rechner was a deflection-angle computer. A cold-soldered joint was a kalte Lotstelle. Cracks in a U-boat's bulkheads were Stirnwandrisse. . .
    '“Evasion depth,”' Weitzman nodded. 'Quite right.'
    Jericho risked another look at the colonel. 'He's going out of the door . . . now. It's all right.