The Enigma Game

by Elizabeth Wein

  He’d had a hell of a go at me after 7 November. This time I didn’t blame him for wanting to have a go at me, because I knew we shouldn’t have gone after a German fighter, and my new Australian flight crew had survived on blind luck, and Ignacy had essentially ignored everything I’d told him to do.

  ‘Going to have to put another reprimand stamp in your logbook, Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart,’ he told me. ‘You’ll have to get a better grip on your crews than this or I’ll replace you as B-Flight’s commander. Adam Stedman in Madeira’s a capable chap.’

  I stood in front of his desk as he defaced my logbook, clenching my teeth so hard I started to give myself jaw ache, watching his hands moving. His head was lowered, so I couldn’t see any part of his face but his frowning forehead and wiry eyebrows. Of course he wanted to replace me, and this was the perfect excuse. Stedman was an easy-going, capable fellow, transferred last week from another Blenheim squadron, but he didn’t have any more experience than I did, or know the new crews any better.

  ‘Sir, with respect—’ I made myself say it, polite words, without choking. ‘With respect, it’ll take a couple of flights for these new pilots to learn to fly together. Mazur is a bit of a daredevil, and Morrow’s just inexperienced.’

  ‘It’s not their flying that’s getting them in trouble,’ Cromwell said, deep-set eyes making his craggy face grimmer than it had any business being. ‘It’s their big mouths. “Careless talk costs lives” and all that. But you’re their commander, so you’ll have to be held responsible.’

  Now I was confused.

  ‘“Careless talk costs lives”?’ I repeated.

  ‘Your young Australians were chattering like magpies about receiving Morse code in German! It’s all over the aerodrome – the whole squadron knows what Pimms Section did out there today. Half of ’em are jealous and want to go shooting at Messers themselves. The other half want to know what kind of secret ops you’re on. I can’t have such undisciplined behaviour, Beaufort-Stuart. There’s a delicate operation going on, and you may have thrown a wrench in it by chasing off that Jerry.’

  Wing Commander Cromwell pushed my logbook across the table and leaned back. I gaped at him.

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do, chase off Jerries?’ I exclaimed.

  Buckets of blood! What the hell was he talking about?

  ‘Too bad you of all men ran into this,’ Cromwell said. ‘You weren’t to know. This was the one German plane we weren’t supposed to shoot down. Intelligence was expecting him – hoping to collar him alive.’

  ‘Well, he’s still alive, sir,’ I said. ‘We didn’t shoot him down.’

  But an idea hit me. If there was a rogue Messerschmitt pilot on the loose, maybe he’d used the broken radio as a smokescreen. Maybe our Luftwaffe fighter hadn’t been trying to contact a friend at all. Maybe he’d been hunting down a traitor who’d given him the slip.

  In that case, Pimms Section hadn’t ruined some special operation – we’d helped by distracting the enemy.

  I sucked in air, wondering whether Wing Commander Talbot Cromwell was capable of understanding this. It was guesswork, and he never took me seriously. As I hesitated, the radio operator tore in, out of breath and waving a sheet of notepaper.

  He slammed the page down on Cromwell’s desk by my logbook and said explosively, ‘It’s all right, sir. We’ve got a message from Windyedge in Aberdeenshire: Odysseus in port.’

  He stood panting.

  I stepped forward and picked up my logbook.

  ‘Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart, you didn’t hear that,’ the Old Roundhead barked.

  ‘No, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Tell your men to keep their mouths shut.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Dismissed. Close that door on your way out.’

  I stood in the corridor with my back against the wall, trying to relax the muscles of my face before the jaw ache turned into a headache. It was like being in school, like failing a test on Latin verbs because I’d studied noun declensions all night. How could I possibly have guessed any of this? No one had briefed me about ‘Odysseus’ in a special Messerschmitt 109 – and how were my lads to guess that today’s op was a secret when yesterday’s wasn’t?

  I was a hundred per cent on my men’s side, but I wasn’t sure how to get them on mine.

  I steeled myself to give them a talking-to.

  Louisa:

  Jane and I sat by the peat fire in the public room of the Limehouse, just next to the mantel made out of the wishing tree, making the most of our first night there. I had a glass of Rose’s lime because it reminded me of Mummy and Daddy, who used to drink it with rum on the veranda of our bungalow in Kingston; Jane very slowly nursed a tumbler of whisky and water.

  ‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘This is almost what I missed the most in That Place.’ She closed her eyes with a blissful smile. ‘Except it is really the BBC Home Service on the radio I missed the most.’

  I spent the evening on edge. Every old man who came into the Limehouse eyed me curiously, and I leaped to my feet every time the door opened, as if this would somehow show people that I was there on business and not as a paying customer. It made me feel doubly out of place that not a single woman came in that night. But perhaps that was because it wasn’t very busy. When the last two customers from the village said goodnight, it was only half past nine – half an hour before closing – but Mrs Campbell began to stack chairs on tables anyway. I suppose it didn’t seem likely anyone else would come in so late on a weekday.

  ‘Shall I lend a hand?’ I offered.

  Mrs Campbell looked at me with suspicion again. I felt my face beginning to burn and braced myself. I hoped hard she too wasn’t going to make some nasty remark about the Caribbean sun making people lazy.

  Instead she said, ‘What age are you?’

  I hadn’t even thought about that. Was I old enough to be in the bar? I knew Scotland’s laws were different from England’s, but I didn’t know how that affected me.

  Rules are made to be broken.

  ‘I am just about sixteen,’ I told her.

  She sniffed and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘“Just about”! Well, you’re willing, I’ll give you that,’ she said in her grudging way. ‘Come on behind the bar then, you can do the washing-up. There’s a girl from the village who helps me, Morag Torrie, but she’s part-time since the squadron is away. I’m just going to sweep under these tables and then I’ll lock the door.’

  ‘What about Ellen?’ I asked her.

  ‘She has her own key,’ grunted Mrs Campbell.

  Of course she has her own key, I thought jealously. Important.

  ‘They keep odd hours at RAF Windyedge,’ Mrs Campbell added. ‘The squadron that was here before mostly flew at night. Ellen’s got to be on hand if someone needs her.’

  When the fire was low and the chairs were hung upside down, it didn’t feel as cosy. But Jane was still bright-eyed and wide awake – I don’t know how, after two nights and a day and a half of travelling. There weren’t many glasses to wash up, and when I finished my little job I hung about at Jane’s shoulder, staying on my feet to encourage her on to hers. Mrs Campbell went into the entryway to lock the outside door.

  As she opened the inner door leading into the vestibule, we heard the harsh noise of a motor engine straining up the steep hill past the limekilns.

  ‘That’ll be Ellen now,’ said Mrs Campbell, and stepped back to wait for her to come in.

  The engine stopped. There was a long pause. Then a van door slammed. Another slam followed a second later – like gunshots, the two slams cracking whiplash quick on top of each other. I knew it must be two people getting out at the same time, one on each side of the van. So Ellen had brought someone home.

  She came in slowly, tall and graceful as a goddess in her khaki ATS trousers and tunic. Her hair was still coiled in its neat bun below her peaked cap, but I could see it gleaming like a copper whisky still as she turned to
hold open the inner door for her guest. He walked in past her, and Ellen closed the door.

  She’d brought home a young man! I wondered for a moment if she did it often, and what old Nancy Campbell had to say about that.

  Then I saw that Ellen’s face was as pale as a dead fish’s belly. She hugged her ribs as if her body would fly into pieces if she let go, and suddenly I no longer envied her.

  She was very, very scared.

  The man who came in with her seemed perfectly ordinary. He wasn’t in uniform; he wore a scarf and sweater like a seaman. He carried a wooden case under one arm, with the other hand hidden deep in the pocket of his heavy coat.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Campbell,’ Ellen choked out. ‘He needs a room.’

  ‘A room,’ the man repeated, striding to the bar.

  He was strongly built and much taller than me. He gazed up curiously at the coins in the oak beam over the bar for a few seconds. But he didn’t touch them.

  ‘A room,’ he repeated. ‘And –’ he hesitated – ‘drink.’ He put his wooden case on the brass counter and mimed drinking, with his cupped hand going to his mouth.

  He didn’t speak much English. I held my breath, guessing what that must mean.

  ‘He’s flown from Norway,’ Ellen whispered.

  ‘Norwegian?’ asked Mrs Campbell, frowning. She seemed to distrust all foreigners, but Norwegians probably ought to be made welcome. They would be refugees, escaping the iron rule of the Nazis in their invaded country.

  ‘He’s not Norwegian,’ Ellen whispered. ‘I think he’s German.’

  She raised her voice, and asked me, ‘You remember the plane we saw this afternoon? You said …’

  She trailed off.

  ‘It was a German plane?’ I asked.

  Ellen nodded.

  I stared at the stranger in alarm. If this was a German pilot, this wasn’t someone who’d chosen to live in England for decades, like Jane. This was a military man, fighting for Hitler, like the German soldiers who killed my parents. This was the enemy, the real enemy, right here in the room with me.

  My heart lurched in fear. When that passed, it lurched again, in fascination.

  He was also a pilot. A real pilot.

  The enemy pilot swept his curious glance around the room. He paused to look at Jane. Then he looked at me, standing beside her.

  My cheeks began burning again. What did Nazis think of West Indians? Not much, I imagined. They wanted everybody to be just like them. They didn’t like Jews, or Gypsies, or jazz.

  The stranger patted the brass bar and pointed to the glasses.

  Jane spoke up.

  ‘Come now, the young man would like a drink,’ she said from her seat by the now-dead fire. ‘Perhaps he’s come to Scotland for the whisky.’

  Ellen let out a nervous squeak of a laugh.

  ‘He’d be better off in America, then, where there’s no rationing,’ said Mrs Campbell, putting on a defiant brave face like a Londoner in the Blitz.

  The German pilot pulled his left hand from his pocket, and the hand was closed around a sleek and sturdy black pistol.

  He’d been holding it all the time, a nasty secret.

  I didn’t dare to move.

  Jane and Mrs Campbell froze too.

  But Ellen’s expression didn’t change. She’d known all along. She drove him here from the aerodrome, knowing that if she didn’t do as he told her, he’d shoot her.

  The pilot beckoned Ellen, using the pistol. She crossed the room like a whipped dog. He pointed to the beer with the gun.

  ‘I don’t ken how to draw the ale,’ Ellen whimpered. ‘Mrs Campbell, please get him a drink.’

  Nancy Campbell shook herself to life and quietly let herself in behind the bar. She’d already covered the taps for the night, but she lifted the towel, screwed a nozzle back on, and picked up a clean glass. As she filled it, she made a fierce offer through clenched teeth: ‘Would you like a sandwich?’

  The German pilot didn’t understand. He rested both elbows on the counter, making his hold on the gun seem terrifyingly casual.

  ‘What does he want?’ Mrs Campbell hissed. ‘I don’t mean the room. He can have the room. Ellen! What else does he want?’

  Ellen shook her head. A wisp of fiery hair escaped her bun, like a flame flicking her cheek. She hissed back, ‘How do I know? His English isn’t very good, and I don’t speak Jerry myself!’

  Mrs Campbell said helplessly, ‘Aunt Jane?’

  The old woman stared at her niece with blank, pale blue eyes. She said stiffly, ‘I don’t speak Norwegian.’

  ‘You know he’s not Norwegian,’ Mrs Campbell said through still-gritted teeth.

  She handed the full glass to the grim young man. He took it, held it up in a salute, and drank half the pint in one gulp.

  ‘Please, Aunt Jane,’ begged Mrs Campbell.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Ask him if he’d like a sandwich.’

  Ellen exploded in fizzing nervous laughter.

  The man drank off the rest of the pint. Ellen backed up and collapsed into my empty chair, at the table across from Jane. She told us, ‘He’s waiting for a toff from Intelligence to meet him here. If his contact doesn’t turn up, he has to fly off at the crack of dawn tomorrow, and we’re to let him. He’s a spy, or a double agent or some such. He has a code name, they said. “Odysseus”.’

  I read a lot, I read all the time, and I knew who that was. I thought of the Trojan Horse.

  So did Jane.

  ‘“Odysseus, man of many wiles,”’ she said. ‘From Homer’s Odyssey.’

  He must have known we were talking about him, because ‘Odysseus’ sounds much the same in English and German and I expect Norwegian too. He pointed his gun at Ellen again.

  ‘You bloody Nazi bastard,’ she spat, her voice catching in a sob. ‘What can I do? You’re the one with the gun.’

  He glared at her and handed his glass back to the landlady.

  While Mrs Campbell refilled his glass with beer and resentment, the German pilot crossed the room to the piano.

  He took his wooden case with him. The polished blond box looked like a small gramophone, much like Jane’s, but without the loudspeaker. The pilot placed his box on the piano next to Jane’s gramophone and laid his gun on top of the box. The two cases looked like a mother and child gramophone sitting side by side.

  With his hands free, the German opened the piano lid. His left hand pulled out a hesitant arpeggio of low notes from the keyboard.

  Almost as if he were surprised to find the piano in tune, he coaxed out a few more handfuls of sound, repetitive and dark and insistent. Then he added a high, sustained trill in the right hand. It was Mendelssohn – the Hebrides Overture.

  His fingers moved like wind over the keys, and the music was heartbreaking, heart-stopping, filling the damp walls of the old house with beauty and longing and a crashing of waves.

  It was not a piece I usually think of when I think of Mummy. It is an orchestral piece. But the last time I heard it, Mummy was playing it on the school piano.

  I don’t remember crossing the room.

  I stood next to him at the piano, tears streaming down my face, and watched his hands, long, bony, strong fingers and a plain gold ring with a bear engraved on it, flying over the keys.

  The German pilot suddenly realised I was there beside him.

  He broke off playing to snatch up his pistol so I couldn’t pick it up myself. The music stopped abruptly, and as he grabbed at the gun he knocked it against his wooden case.

  The front of the box was a narrow, hinged flap held in place by a hasp on the flat lid, and when the gun hit the catch – it must have been loose – the front flap fell open to lay bare a panel full of holes and wires, each labelled with numbers and letters of the alphabet, like a telephone switchboard.

  The inside of the wooden flap was stamped with a brand name: ENIGMA.

  The German pilot flipped the front flap back up. He had to raise
the lid on top of the case a little bit to fit the catch back into place, and beneath the lid I saw a keyboard of ordinary typewriter keys.

  It looked like a portable electrical typewriter.

  He used the gun to make me step back.

  Jane spoke suddenly, sharp and scolding, in a language I didn’t understand.

  But the pilot did.

  He put the gun back into his coat pocket and stepped away from me, holding up his empty hands to show he wasn’t going to threaten me any more.

  ‘I do speak a little German,’ Jane admitted grudgingly.

  ‘I know you do,’ said Mrs Campbell.

  Ellen:

  That brave young lassie – I’d not spent an hour in her company, and knew not a thing about her but that she had brown skin and was in London during the Blitz. But seeing her in tears at the music, and him stopping to point his gun at her, made me hate him all over again.

  Nan’s old auntie was calm as could be. She asked the young man a question in his own tongue. He bowed his head to Mrs Warner and I heard the name he gave her: Felix Baer.

  What was he up to, sly devil? Trying to make friends, just because a body speaks your lingo? Expecting us to behave ourselves just because he was polite? I was fuming.

  But the old girl, Jane Warner, just cracked on and gave him an English lesson.

  When she finished, he faced Louisa standing there with her brown eyes full of tears. His voice when he spoke was gentle and polite as a lady’s maid. ‘I am sorry I frightened you.’

  ‘I told him about your parents,’ Jane said softly. ‘So he knows it was German bombs and torpedoes that killed them.’

  Her parents were killed in the Blitz? She must have hated the Nazis even more than I did.

  ‘Oh.’ Louisa gave a great gulp of a swallow, and just about whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  I could see she didn’t like to talk about it, and I was glad I hadn’t asked.

  ‘My mother played the piano,’ she added, getting control of herself. ‘You can tell him that, I suppose.’

  ‘Ask him if he wants a sandwich,’ Mrs Campbell insisted, and then I roundly lost my temper with her. Shaness, could she not see Louisa’s tears for herself, and all she could think of was food? I jumped up and barked, ‘Hold your whisht, Nan Campbell, and stop going on about sandwiches! Hitler himself could walk in here and if he was a young pilot you’d pull him a pint and stuff him full of grub! I’ll get the ruddy Jerry a ruddy sandwich for you.’