THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel Read online

  The second was more encouraging. After several hours of swearing and tinkering, technical services figured out what had happened to the misbehaving machine. When the staff had put it back together, they had accidentally changed the order of the wheels. When technical services switched them back to the right order, the machine again duplicated the results of the first one.

  "And that," announced Henryk when the group of four met again, "means we face a far more complicated situation. The wheels can be installed in any order—six different ways. Instead of 17,000 possible encodings, we may have to slog through six times as many—over 100,000.

  “But the misbehaving machine may have been simple, blind luck—one of those well disguised blessings. It's possible that our problem of the past five months began when the Germans reordered the wheels. And we have a place to start. We can go back over the intercepts to see if, with brute force, we can decipher a message by putting the wheels in different order. That means we'll need bigger and stronger gorillas; they'll have to go through all possible orderings of the wheels until they find the one the Germans used.”

  It worked. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the sixth and last try that they got the right ordering of wheels for April. After all that work, they felt they were back on track.

  But Henryk was furious. “How could we have been such idiots—such cretin idiots—not to think of something so simple as a reordering of the wheels?”

  Their success was not to last. In January of 1938, they faced an indecipherable mess, no matter how the wheels were ordered. They struggled for several months. Then Henryk, in a stage whisper, asked if anyone had a burglar in the family. A few days later, he disappeared.

  While he was gone, Jerzy went over to the gorillas, to help with the machine Rejewski was working on. Anna was left behind as the only idiot, struggling without success to make sense of the pile of indecipherable messages. She found herself leafing through them again and again, hoping for an inspiration.

  But it didn't come. Day after day, she pored over the intercepts, looking for some sort of pattern where none existed. She was becoming demoralized. At the weekly staff meetings, she found herself saying less and less.

  After one of the meetings, Marian invited her to drop by his office. When she did, she noticed, in the uneven lighting of his room, just how worn his face had become in the past several months. But he wanted to talk about her, not himself.

  “I'm concerned. We may be demanding too much of you.”

  “Not at all. But I'll admit, it's tough.” Anna didn't want to let him know how tired she really was.

  “It's not the hard work; it's the frustration,” Marian commiserated. He suspected she wasn't being honest, that she was nearing exhaustion. “The others have been working very hard too, but work on the new machine is coming along splendidly. I'm afraid that we've left you alone with the most frustrating job.”

  “Somebody's got to do it. Sooner or later, we'll make a breakthrough. It may be something very simple. It makes sense for someone to sift through the rubbish for clues. It makes sense for me to do it. I don't have the skills to help with the machine. I've been trying a new system—start off each morning with a list of possible tricks the Germans may be using. It gives my day some structure. It also gives me an illusion of progress.” Anna smiled wryly—“most evenings I've succeeded in my task for the day, working through the whole list. Unfortunately, everything on it is crossed out.”

  “I think the time has come for us to take a long-run view.”

  Anna was surprised. They needed results. Hitler had seized Austria; the threat to Poland was growing. Marian paused. Anna waited for him to finish. After a few moments, he continued.

  “I think—we think—that it might be a good idea for you to take an extended vacation, say six weeks.”

  “Six weeks?” Anna was astonished.

  “You've been slaving away, almost nonstop, for more than a year.” True, thought Anna; she had taken only the one vacation, over Christmas. “Anybody can get overtired and stale. Spend two weeks relaxing, sleeping ‘til noon. Then have fun for a month; you're young. When you come back, you'll be refreshed. That's when you get new ideas.”

  Anna couldn't help but smile. It was good advice, but, from what she had heard, Marian was careless in following it himself. Just before he left on his last vacation, one of his historian friends had given him an encoded letter written in 1904 by Pilsudski, who was trying to rally support for an independent Poland. The letter was addressed to the Japanese, who were at the time embroiled in a conflict with Russia—one of the powers occupying Poland. Marian said he was too busy, but made the mistake of taking the letter with him. It wasn't much of a vacation. He behaved oddly, pacing back and forth in an upstairs bedroom. When he got home, he presented his friend with the deciphered message. He also gave his friend gentle, but firm, instructions: no more encoded letters.

  Marian continued. “Keep a note pad with you; you never know when your subconscious may throw up an inspiration. But make your notes obscure—if anyone sees the notebook, they shouldn't be able to figure out that you're working on a decoding project. Throw in a few distracters—equations on the velocity of weather balloons, and stuff like that, which makes it look as though you really are working on meteorology.”

  It was an offer Anna couldn't refuse. She realized just how exhausted she was—and how marvelous it would be to have a social life again. In retrospect, even Zbig seemed attractive. But that was an illusion. Whenever she had begun to feel the least bit serious about him, she couldn't help but think back to her earlier boyfriend, Ryk. He was so much more fun—that secret plane ride and all. She wondered what he was doing. Odd. She was sure that they'd both been in love, but never at the same time. Perhaps she should get in touch with him during her six weeks off. Some day, their timing might be right.

  Now that Marian offered her a holiday, she couldn't wait to escape the social wasteland known as the “Meteorology Project.” Social gatherings were rare; people were completely consumed by the Enigma puzzle. The few eligible men seemed to shy away because of her senior position. And the demands of her job had cut her off from her college friends. Oh, well, she sighed. She didn't have many illusions when she took the job. Or did she?

  She spent the first week at her family home, west of Warsaw. Marian was right; she did sleep in every day ‘til noon. Then she was ready for the fun part. She was off to visit her first cousin, Krystyna, who was also in her late teens and attended the University of Warsaw, where the fall term was just beginning.

  After a few days, Anna began to realize what the last years of the Roman Empire must have been like. A frantic round of parties had begun, each vying to be the best of the year, on the assumption—obvious, but under no circumstances to be uttered—that it might be the last.

  The tempo intensified at the end of September, after the Munich conference ceded Czechoslovakia's heavily defended borderlands to Hitler. The sense of impending doom was heightened by the growing number of uniforms around the university; the undergraduate men were increasingly distracted by the demands of the army reserve training program.

  In keeping up with the parties, Anna had an advantage. She wasn't taking any classes. She was staying with Krystyna's parents, who had a comfortable apartment only a few blocks from the university. She still had the luxury of sleeping until noon.

  One evening—the third evening in a row of partying—Anna went alone; Krystyna would join her at the party with her boyfriend, Pawel, and one of his friends. Quite early, only a little after 10, Anna felt drowsy, and slipped away to an alcove to rest for a few moments on a sofa. Soon she drifted off into a soft, untroubled sleep.

  Vaguely, she felt someone sit down on the sofa beside her, and heard Krystyna in the distance, “... my cousin, Anna.”

  “Ah, a real sleeping beauty,” responded a voice on the sofa beside her.

  She opened her eyes the slightest crack, barely enough to see the hazy outline of a young man i
n uniform. She could see him just well enough to realize that he was staring at her face. She stirred, fluttering her eyes as she opened them.

  They were not the ice blue that he had expected, to match her blond hair. Rather, he was gazing into warm hazel eyes.

  He abruptly looked away, toward Krystyna and Pawel on the sofa opposite. He rose quickly to his feet as Krystyna repeated the introduction.

  “Anna, this is Kaz Jankowski. As I mentioned, he's an old friend of Pawel.”

  Anna held out her hand. Kaz took it, and bowed with the slightest click of his heels. She motioned for him to sit down again. Handsome, she thought. She asked what unit he was in; the Seventh Cavalry, he answered.

  “So you love horses, too?”

  “Particularly Tiber, my stallion. We all look after our own horses ourselves; it builds a bond. You ride?”

  “When I was younger.”

  She paused, but then continued; he seemed interested.

  “Quite a bit younger. My father put me up on a pony when I was only 18 months old.... I'm afraid I screamed and cried when they took me down.”

  “What's the matter with that?” he asked, grinning.

  “They almost had to pry me off; I made quite a scene.”

  “As I said, what's the matter with that?” Kaz repeated, with an even broader grin. “So you've been riding ever since?”

  “Mostly when I was young. I guess you've got a point—there was nothing wrong. In fact, I was rewarded. On my fourth birthday, they gave me a pony. 'Lightning' I called her. Not very appropriate. She was barrel-like—as wide as she was tall. With small legs that stuck down like sticks at the corners. Gave me a bumpy ride. But how I loved her—my best friend when I was growing up.”

  “Sounds idyllic.” Kaz imagined a slim young figure on her pony, the sun flashing through the highlights of her windblown, flaxen hair.

  “It was.” Anna suddenly looked sad. “But then it came to an end. One day, when I was 12, my father took me for a walk in the woods. Slowly and softly, he got me to recognize the truth: the pony was so old, and in so much pain that the only humane thing was to have her put down. The vet would be coming the next morning, after I left for school. I spent rest of the afternoon and evening brushing and hugging my four-legged friend. It was a bittersweet parting.”

  After all these years, it still brought tears to Anna's eyes.

  Kaz responded with tales of how he was training Tiber. Anna thought it was sad, to train horses for the battlefield. Because of their size, they would be the first to be killed. Kaz wanted to agree, but thought it might be unsoldierly to do so. He offered a consolation: within the coming decade, most horses would be replaced by tanks as the main weapon for thrusts through the enemy's lines.

  Anna was surprised to find herself asking about tanks, a topic in which she had absolutely no interest. The Germans and French had the best new ones, Kaz said. The difficulty was that Poland did not have the heavy industry to produce tanks, and were unable to buy new models from the French or even the British. Those two countries had begun a feverish buildup of their own. He then turned the conversation to a more interesting subject, Anna.

  “I understand you're a student at Poznan University.”

  “Well, yes and no.”

  Kaz raised an eyebrow.

  “I was a student. I gave up my course work when I became involved in a research project—on weather forecasting.”

  “Ah, then that would explain how you could get away to Warsaw at this time of the year.”

  “Yes, we've had a very intense summer. I needed a break.”

  “Intense? Weather forecasting? I would have thought it was a timeless topic—to be approached in a methodical, unhurried way.” Kaz wanted to bite his tongue. He wished it hadn't come out quite that way; he hoped she wouldn't be offended.

  “Actually, it is urgent. The Air Force needs better forecasts. Short-range planes can get stuck up in the air, unable to land because of thunderstorms. Running out of gas.”

  “I see your point. That would be dangerous.”

  “Not to speak of embarrassing.” Anna smirked.

  “And you've been working on...?”

  “Studying weather balloons. We fill them with hydrogen so they rise rapidly. Above 4,000 meters, they often change direction as they encounter upper-atmosphere winds. Those currents help us predict the movements of weather fronts.”

  “You've been...?”

  Anna took a deep breath; she normally hid her interest in calculus when talking to young men. Or men of any age, for that matter.

  “I've been working on a mathematical model of upper-atmosphere air currents.”

  “Really?”

  Anna was even more surprised; he seemed interested in the details. Now, she appreciated Jerzy's enthusiasm for his hobby. She also was grateful for the equations she had scribbled in her notebook, following Marian's recent instructions to disguise any notes she might make on Enigma.

  She reached over the coffee table for a napkin, and scratched down an equation of the vertical velocity of balloons, how they slowed down as the air got thinner, and how the upward velocity depended on the elasticity of the balloon.

  He still seemed interested. Apparently, he had at least a smattering of calculus. She wrote down a second equation—the horizontal acceleration of balloons as they hit upper-air currents.

  “Impressive. You're really comfortable with calculus.”

  “And I'm pleased—a cavalry officer is interested.”

  He put his hand on the sofa. Near Anna's, but not quite touching.

  “Well, actually, my interest doesn't come from the cavalry.”

  Anna waited, hoping he would elaborate.

  “When I was in high school, I loved math. In fact, I wanted to go to university to study engineering.... But things didn't work out.”

  Again she was curious, hoping he would provide details. He did.

  “My family—my father—wouldn't hear of it. I come from a line of military officers. My grandfather was a general, my father a colonel. His heart was set on my continuing the family tradition.... I'm afraid we had a few, ah, mmm... disagreements. But then we compromised....” His voice trailed off.

  “Compromised?” Anna didn't want to state the obvious: some compromise, off to the military academy. But then, of course, the father did have a hold over his son. He was the one who would pay for university.

  “I would go to the academy for one year. If my heart were still set on math, I could transfer to the university. He would no longer object.”

  “So you liked the academy when you got there?”

  “Well, yes and no. I started out with a concentration on artillery; that seemed the closest to mathematics. In a sense, it was. But if you have a knack for math, you quickly get bored with parabolic trajectories of shells. And in combat, the artillery works from tables; they don't do their own calculations.”

  “Sounds as though you were disappointed. Why didn't you switch to the university after the first year?”

  “I had a lot of friends. In the military, the sense of comradeship is remarkable. You know that some day your life may depend on your friends. And I became very interested in the cavalry; I've always loved horses.”

  “So we have the same two interests—mathematics and horses. You picked horses; I picked math.”

  “Put that way, horses seem pretty trivial.” Kaz spoke gently, without the hint of offense.

  “Not at all. Not at all. With the grim international situation, it's obvious, how important our armed forces are.” Anna waved her hand in front of her face, attempting to shoo away a fly. She put her hand back on the sofa. Close once more, but not quite touching.

  “You found your niche; you seem unusually good at mathematics.”

  “It's in the genes.... My grandfather was a cousin of Marie Curie.” Again, he seemed impressed.... “I'm also radioactive,” she added with a smile. “I glow in the dark.”

  “My little glowworm.”
<
br />   Anna suddenly realized that she and Kaz were alone. She hadn't noticed; twenty minutes earlier, Krystyna and Pawel had slipped away. She felt a warm glow. Kaz was different—so unlike the boys she dated in high school, who were so... so shallow. Even Ryk, the fun-loving Ryk, always seemed to be skating along the surface. She'd known him since she was fourteen, but somehow she wondered if she really knew him at all. She was so much more comfortable with Kaz. Now, after only one evening, she felt as though she had known him for years.

  6

  Steckered

  When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

  Sherlock Holmes,

  The Sign of Four

  The next afternoon, Anna curled up in a well stuffed chair and began to read Anna Karenina. This was, she realized, the first time in several years she had enjoyed the luxury of sitting down with a novel. When Krystyna dropped by to pick her up for the evening's festivities, Anna demurred; enough parties for the time being. Krystyna smiled quizzically. Anna responded: I'll be going out with Kaz on Saturday. That's the first time he can get away.

  For the next three weeks, Krystyna got the same answer: Anna would be seeing Kaz. Then, on Tuesday of the following week, Anna received a message: a telegram from the “Special Meteorology Project” for her to return—at once. At this time of day, she couldn't contact Kaz by phone to break their date. She wrote, and then rewrote, a telegram to him; and rewrote a follow-up letter at least half a dozen times, saying how much she hoped to get back to Warsaw.

  There was no need to be concerned. Three days earlier, Kaz had put in for a transfer to a base near Poznan. It would come through quickly; many officers were eager to transfer the other way, from Poznan to Warsaw.

  When Anna got back to the “Special Meteorology Project,” she was surprised at the upbeat mood. Substantial progress had been made with Rejewski's machine, although undeciphered messages were still piling up. The following day, Henryk reappeared, carrying a large case. He called the group of four together and opened the case with a flourish. Inside was an Enigma machine with an attachment—something like a small telephone switchboard, dotted with round holes or sockets, each labeled with a letter. A tangle of cables connected the sockets in no apparent order.