THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel Read online

  The boarding party must have set a record. They completed their job in 15 minutes, bringing back what was apparently some sort of coding machine, with a keyboard and miscellaneous wiring, together with several codebooks and arms full of papers.

  The U-33 settled slowly and evenly below the waves, and HMS Gleaner headed back to port. Shortly after it arrived, Lt.-Cmdr. Price was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for sinking the U-boat. In private, he was warmly congratulated, not only for getting German code materials, but for doing so without the prisoners knowing. They were all locked in the mess.

  Within a few months, Turing's new bombe, "Victory," came on line. With it, and with the wheels and other materials recovered from U-33, Turing and his associates were able to break Dolphin—the Enigma key used by U-boats—for several days in April, although there was a delay of several weeks in doing so. They were also able to break other German messages, including some German diplomatic traffic.

  They were beginning to succeed, and their triumphs continued even after the German Navy introduced three more wheels. With the new ones—numbers 6, 7, and 8—they added a nasty twist. These three wheels moved the next wheel two notches after each revolution, not just one.

  For the wizards of Bletchley Park, a nagging worry accompanied their successes. The Germans could be counted on to complicate Enigma even more.

  They had an even more immediate concern. A decrypted diplomatic message, from Germany's ambassador in Rome back to Berlin, contained a shock—verbatim quotations from Churchill's communications with Roosevelt. How could transatlantic traffic be so vulnerable? The hunt for the leak was on. The German message itself contained a clue. Since it originated in Rome, an Italian was somehow privy to the most secret of communications.

  The culprit, it turned out, was a cipher clerk in the U.S. Embassy in London. Concerned that Roosevelt was eagerly and treacherously drawing the United States into war, he was collecting messages between the two leaders; he intended to expose FDR's duplicity by leaking them to Congress. But he made the mistake of showing them to sympathetic friends in Britain. One gave them to an official in the Italian embassy in London; they were transmitted to Rome.

  In tracking down the clerk, the British searched his apartment—a violation of diplomatic norms. But the evidence they discovered was damning: not only stolen documents, but a duplicate key to the embassy's code room. The British police thereupon escorted him to Ambassador Joe Kennedy's residence. Kennedy had some sympathy with the clerk's views; he, too, resented the way Roosevelt was conniving to draw America into the war. But he could not abide the clerk's treacherous act. He waived diplomatic immunity and the clerk was on his way to Brixton Prison.

  Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway, in April 1940, marked the end of the Sitzkrieg—the Phony War. Although the Germans quickly occupied those two countries, the mood at BP reflected a degree of grim satisfaction. As the enemy moved north, they introduced a new Enigma key. Within five days, the gnomes of BP had broken it. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, eagerly devoured the intercepts. He had already made one intelligence blunder, disregarding the warning of his naval attaché in Copenhagen that German warships were headed for Norway. As a result, he had been taken by surprise when the Germans struck. He had no intention of repeating his mistake.

  He used the flood of information to raise the price paid by Hitler for his northern victory. British warships intercepted a German landing force near Narvik. Ten German destroyers, carrying a large fraction of the landing troops, were trapped and sunk in the Narvik fjords. In other actions near Norway, Hitler lost three cruisers, and the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were put out of action, at least temporarily, by British torpedoes.

  What BP did not know was that the German intelligence service—the Beobachtungs Dienst or B-Dienst—had even more reason for satisfaction. They had broken British naval codes. Their intercepts had eased Hitler's concerns over the risky thrust across the North Sea, and had thus opened the door for the successful invasion of Norway.

  With the end of the Norwegian campaign, Alastair, Anna, and others at BP had been half expecting the German radio traffic to ease off. But nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary, it intensified rapidly.

  With the heavy new traffic came a shock. In most traffic, the inscrutable six were cut down to three letters. German operators were no longer repeating the wheel settings; BP had lost the cornerstone of its operations. From now on, codebreakers would be dependent on the incompetence of the German operators—on the sillies and other cribs—and on powerful new machines.

  The following days were packed with history, particularly May 10, 1940. At dawn, German armor thrust westward through Belgium toward France. That evening, a troubled House of Commons replaced the ineffectual Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill. Although Churchill gave up his position as First Lord of the Admiralty, he signaled his intention to remain deeply involved in the daily details of the war. He retained the position of Defence Minister for himself.

  Alastair decided that the time had come for Anna to move; he wanted a British national in the office next to him. Yvonne Snow, an equally youthful math graduate of Cambridge, was his choice; she had been working with Welchman and others in Hut 6, poring over sillies and other cribs. The two young women switched jobs; Anna would now be in Hut 6.

  Although there was some gossip that this was a demotion for Anna, she took it in good grace, particularly as Alastair had warned her ahead of time that her position was temporary. She had no reason to be jealous of Yvonne; in fact the two became close friends, and had lunch together at least once a week.

  At their first lunch, just three days after the job switch, Yvonne seemed insecure; the flood of information was overwhelming. “How in the world were you able to keep your head above water?”

  Anna was reassuring. “The first week's always the worst; hang in there. Two main things. Try at least to glance at every paper that comes your way; don't let anything critical slip through your fingers. But then focus on the few issues that seem most important. Don't spread yourself too thin. Selectivity, selectivity. That will come with time; don't worry about it for the first few weeks. For the immediate future: try not to appear flustered, regardless of how you feel.”

  A few days later, Yvonne was already feeling more confident. “Great advice. Alastair has already referred to 'the cool Miss Snow.' Gave me something of a thrill, although I do hope he won't beat that phrase into the ground.... He seems like a great person to work for. Generous—willing to give others credit.”

  “An uncommon virtue, but the golden rule for any administrator. In return, people give their best.”

  Yvonne seemed eager for more information about her new boss; Anna obliged. “He's more than a bit absent-minded, but that's true of almost everyone here…. It's a natural result, thinking hard on a difficult, engrossing problem. You block out everything else.”

  “So I have to be careful. I can't assume he's heard, just because I've told him something?”

  “Exactly. It helps to make eye contact, to see if he's actually receiving. Really important things should be mentioned again, several hours later, to make sure he heard. He doesn't mind, even if he did hear the first time, but it does take a bit of tact.”

  “He has a lot of experience in codebreaking?”

  “Right back to the First World War. He worked with 'Blinker' Hall at the Admiralty's cryptography office. Alastair could see how important the work was, and kept the codebreaking operation alive during the lean years between the wars.”

  “Blinker Hall?”

  “Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, for the likes of us. 'Blinker' because he had a twitch that made one eye blink like a ship's signal lamp. His huge contributions in the First War are not well recognized. I only hope we can do as much this time.”

  “I'm embarrassed. I don't know hardly anything about codebreaking during the First War.”

  “It just got the Yanks in
on our side, that's all.”

  Yvonne wanted details.

  “The Zimmerman telegram. In early 1917, Zimmerman—the German foreign minister—sent a telegram to his ambassador in Washington, Count von Bernstorff, asking that it be forwarded to the German ambassador in Mexico. Hall's group decoded it. It urged Mexico to enter the war on Germany's side. Mexico was offered a huge reward. They would get back their lost territories of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Hall immediately recognized that he had a marvelous windfall—but one that would have to be handled with utmost care. The British couldn't let the secret out, that they had broken the German code. Also, they might have trouble convincing President Wilson it was genuine.”

  “Of course.” Yvonne was encouraging Anna to continue.

  “As luck would have it, Britain had an agent in the telegraph office in Mexico. He was able to get a copy of the incoming message from Bernstorff. Hall decided to use this one; it would look as if the message had fallen into American hands either in Washington or Mexico City.

  “He thereupon sent one of his agents over to the American embassy with a copy of the telegram and a codebook, and decoded the message in front of the American Ambassador. Incidentally, that allowed Wilson to assure Congress that the message had been decoded on American soil—a more-or-less true statement, at least by wartime standards. Anyhow, Wilson was cautious at first, not wanting to be suckered by a fake. His administration leaked the telegram to the New York Times.

  “But that, of course, was not the end of it. The German ambassador to Mexico flatly denied that he had received the message; so did the Mexican Government. Then came another enormous break. For reasons nobody will ever understand, Zimmerman admitted he had sent the telegram.

  “The Americans, of course, were enraged. Together with unrestricted submarine warfare, that brought them into the war.”

  “You're not making this up, are you?"

  “Oh, no. Never,” replied Anna. “On my honor.”

  Several weeks later, Yvonne's face was ashen white when they met for lunch. Her hand shook; she dropped her fork. “Not quite the cool Miss Snow,” thought Anna. Some minutes passed before Yvonne regained her composure enough to speak.

  “Sorry. But I just got a ride back to BP with Dilly Knox.”

  “And?”

  “You haven't driven with him?... All I can say is, don't. When he gets to an intersection, he speeds up.”

  “What?”

  “He has this crazy idea, the faster he goes, the less chance someone will hit him from the side.”

  “Sounds logical to me,” said Anna with a smirk.... “Provided he's more interested in his car than his life.”

  “My life, you mean.”

  Anna took the opening to mention something that had been bothering her.

  "Talking of strange behavior, I didn't meet Alan Turing 'til last week. Weird. I spoke, but he wouldn't even look at me; he stared away and edged his way sideways down the hall. When I saw him on the lawn a few days later, he looked away toward the duck pond. Yesterday, I was going down the hall. He came around a corner. The moment he saw me, he abruptly turned and disappeared around the corner again. Guess I'm losing my touch with men."

  "No need to be concerned.” Yvonne laughed. “They're looking for brilliant people around here, regardless of how odd.”

  The two young women thereupon exchanged stories of the bizarre goings-on at Bletchley Park.

  Somebody got the bright idea to set up a local unit of the Home Guard. The so-called parades were a joke—people shuffling around, not even walking in a straight line, much less keeping in step. They didn't understand the first rule of the military: always march smartly, acting as if you know exactly where you're going, even when you don't—particularly when you don't. Turing almost brought the farce to an abrupt end when he told the officer that, now he'd learned how to fire a rifle, he was quitting. Learning to shoot was the only reason he joined in the first place.

  The officer naturally objected. Turing had signed up and was committed. “Oh, no I'm not,” replied Alan. “I made out the form, but if you check, you'll find I didn't sign it.” Thereupon, the officer put in for a transfer.

  Turing also had bizarre, and famous, eccentricities. He kept his coffee mug chained to his radiator. He wore a gas mask when he bicycled to work. He wasn't afraid the Germans would use gas; he did it to filter out the pollen and prevent hay fever.

  He also had the idea—perhaps not so strange—that the war would destroy the value of the pound. To protect himself, he buried bars of silver. He had elaborate, encoded instructions, how to find them after the war.

  He had briefly been engaged. Then he had a dream. In it, he introduced his fiancée, Joan, to his mother. She didn't like Joan. End of engagement.

  And Dilly Knox—reckless driving was not his only oddity. He was notoriously absent-minded; couldn't tell the two doors in his office apart. He often walked into the closet when he meant to enter the hall. Occasionally, he would become so preoccupied during lunch that he would tamp pieces of bread into his pipe.

  Then there was the strange case of Alan Ross, taking his young son on the train. He was worried that the boy would cause trouble, so he gave him laudanum—a derivative of opium. When his son passed out, Ross casually stretched him out on the luggage rack.

  But, in spite of the stiff competition, Anna and Yvonne agreed: the odd bawd prize went to Josh Cooper.

  Cooper's most famous faux pas came when he participated in the interrogation of a captured German pilot. The pilot marched in smartly, clicked his heels, and snapped a sharp Nazi salute, shouting “Heil Hitler.” Apparently Josh had picked up the idea that when someone salutes you, you must return the salute. He jumped up as smartly as he could—which wasn't very smartly under the circumstances, as he kicked over his chair. He stuck out his hand in a Nazi salute, and loudly repeated “Heil Hitler.” Of course, he was immediately overcome with embarrassment and abruptly tried to sit down. But his chair wasn't there any more. He fell to the floor and disappeared under the table. The German looked down disdainfully, not even cracking a smile. Maybe he thought this was a normal event—what could be expected from the decadent Western democracies.

  Turing's new machine was a marvel. It not only led to the sporadic breaking of Dolphin, but also to continuous success in reading Luftwaffe traffic. In this, the codebreakers were much assisted by the sloppiness of Luftwaffe operators. Perhaps they were less well trained than their Army and Navy counterparts. Perhaps their minds were less focused. Their lives were not on the line; they were unlikely to find themselves in combat.

  The Enigma decryptions were useful in the Battle of Britain, but perhaps less than expected. True, the Enigma did provide some hints regarding targets. But usually the targets were simply numbered, or referred to by code names. Korn, for example, stood for Coventry. But BP didn't figure that out until after that city suffered a devastating bombing.

  Rather, it was in the naval war that Enigma decrypts made their most important early contributions.

  Anna felt as though she had a ringside seat on the struggle. As a worker in Hut 6, she had practically unlimited access to decryptions. Security had been persuaded to acquiesce. It was good for morale for people to be able to read the decoded messages, and, if any of the senior people at Bletchley Park decided to tip the Germans off, the game was over, anyhow.

  Anna had made a standing request for decrypts regarding Poland, but she could scarcely resist the deadly drama unfolding on the high seas.

  The opening act came when the new German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke through the Iceland Strait into the Atlantic, sinking the showpiece and pride of the British navy, HMS Hood. The thought of the two formidable German warships in the midst of a convoy was too terrible to contemplate. The order came directly from the Prime Minister: Sink the Bismarck!

  The trouble was, just where was B
ismarck? Harry Hinsley was monitoring German Naval traffic at Bletchley Park. He became convinced that the battleship was heading for the safety of a French port, even though there were no naval decryptions to back him up. His reasoning was straightforward: radio control of the Bismarck had been switched from Germany to Paris. He telephoned the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre. OIC was skeptical; they hadn't figured this out on their own and therefore dismissed it—the “not invented here” syndrome.

  Hinsley was furious. It was not the first time that OIC had spurned his ideas, including his conclusion, prior to the attack on Norway, that the unusual buildup of undeciphered naval messages foreshadowed German action. His advice ignored, Hinsley visited the Admiralty and the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow—in the Orkney Islands, all the way up at the Northern tip of Scotland—in an effort to mend fences, even acquiring something more presentable than his worn corduroys for the occasion. But his efforts apparently had gone for naught.

  “The pigheadedness of OIC,” he fumed. Anna wasn't so sure. The transfer of radio control to Paris didn't necessarily mean the Bismarck was headed for France; it might simply be a way of moving communications closer to the ship. And OIC had a great big ocean to worry about. Bismarck might materialize out of any fog bank to wreak havoc in shipping channels. But Anna kept her mouth shut. It really was none of her business, and Hinsley was in such a foul mood that she didn't want to raise any questions.

  Then, the vulnerability of the Luftwaffe's Enigma saved the day. Two decoded messages came into Hut 6, and Anna huddled around a table with the others to read them. The first was from Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, Jeschonnek, who was worried about a relative serving on the Bismarck. The response was reassuring: the battleship was steaming toward the safety of the French port, Brest. It needed refueling. In the rush to leave its Norwegian fjord, it had not taken time to top off its tanks. And, since the encounter with the Hood and Prince of Wales, it was trailing oil; one of its tanks had been ruptured by an incoming shell.