by Daniel Wyatt
“And the second set starts the transposing?”
“Exactly, Mr. Hollinger. To start with, the operator hits the letters of his message on the keyboard. Each time he presses a key, a letter lights up on the second alphabet. An assistant makes a note of the lit letters, then sends those letters by Morse Code on the wireless.”
“And we here at Bletchley receive these messages from the receiving stations.”
“Right again, Mr. Hollinger. The party receiving the message takes the collection of letters and taps it out on his own machine in order to get the appropriate message. But the secret is in the plugs and wheels inside and how they are arranged. They are the actual mechanisms that, for example, make the letter N come out as a C one time, a K the next, and so on. The transposition is supposed to be done in such a tricky manner that it is nearly impossible for any eavesdropper to know what goes on inside the machine, especially since the sender and the receiver have their machines set exactly the same, simply by turning each of their wheels to the same starting point letter. There are so many letter permutations to consider that it is overwhelming. We have a computer housed in another hut to organize the variations in the deciphering, although a lot of our work is still done manually.”
“Very good.”
“After thousands of hours,” Langford went on, “we cracked the original Enigma cipher with its five wheels and three slots. Not all the wheels are used at one time. But Enigma II has eight wheels and six slots, with more variations to consider.”
“I think I get the drift of it, Langford. In your estimation, how close are you to cracking this Enigma II?
Langford shrugged, glancing at Winslow. “Months, at least,” she answered slowly. “Unless we get awfully lucky.”
“That about covers it,” Winslow said during a long pause in which Langford and Hollinger tried to stare each other down.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Langford said, breaking off first, “I have a cigarette to finish. I won’t trouble you any longer. Cheerio.” She disappeared without speaking another word in a streak of legs, skirt, and red hair, taking the ashtray with her.
* * * *
Half an hour later, Winslow showed Hollinger to his living quarters. They were located inside a large garage that had been converted into several rooms for the senior officers at Bletchley.
“Not bad,” Hollinger commented, throwing his suitcase on the bed.
“You weren’t too impressed by Langford, were you?” asked Winslow.
“What would make you say that?”
Winslow chuckled. “Well ...”
“All right. Yeah, she seems to know her stuff, I’ll grant her that. She’s a looker all right, and lots of spunk. It’s just that I have an aversion to redheads.”
“That’s probably best, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because if you’re thinking of moving in, I’d advise you against it. She’s already taken. She’s pretty serious about a navy officer up in Scapa Flow. I’m sorry we couldn’t accommodate you with a brunette or a blonde.”
Hollinger caught the humour, and laughed. He glanced at his watch to see it was nearly four in the afternoon. “When do you have tea around here? I’m starved.”
“It’s coming on the hour.”
Hollinger sat on the edge of the bed, testing the springs. “Good.”
“All the comforts of home, Mr. Hollinger. We want to make things the best we can under the circumstances. Solving Enigma II is top of the list of priorities at Bletchley.”
Hollinger stood. “This Enigma II thing has got me interested. If the Germans weren’t such a maniacal lot, I’d admit to their brilliance. My first impression is that they are more methodical than the Japanese. They are quite clever.”
“I agree. They’re giving us a good run.”
Hollinger looked through the window at the grey sky. “Will it really be months before we break this thing?”
“It appears that way, yes.”
“Great,” Hollinger said with no enthusiasm. “So I might be hanging around here for a while.”
“You’re stuck here.”
“What are you talking about? You make it sound so final.”
“We are the crème de la crème of the Secret Service, with the best mathematical and scientific minds in the British Isles, Canada, and America. We know too much. Once in this line of business, never out. Maybe when the war is over ... Some of us have tried for postings elsewhere, but we’ve all been turned down.”
“Really?”
“You seem surprised. Didn’t you know that? Although, if you have an in with Winnie ...”
“I don’t think my in is that good. I’ve only met Churchill once. Besides, why would anyone want to leave that badly?” Hollinger bent over his suitcase and unsnapped it. On top were his monogrammed shirts. He wondered if he had packed enough clothes for a prolonged stay. Maybe he could send for more. From underneath his clothes he pulled out a dartboard and a brown paper bag full of multi-coloured darts.
“Chess is my game,” Winslow said, glancing at the dartboard. He opened the door to the room. “Getting back to the question of why anyone would want to leave that badly you’ll find out soon enough. We are granted a day off once a week, except for emergencies, for some outside activities. It’s best to get away and clear your mind.”
“No doubt,” Hollinger replied. Emergencies, eh?
“Four or five trains come and go into Bletchley on weekdays and two on Sunday. Traveling through the countryside makes you forget there’s a war on, at least for a day.”
“It feels as if I’ve been committed to a prison or an asylum.”
Winslow laughed. “Very accurate deduction.”
“What’s so funny?”
“A Royal Air Force regiment guards the grounds. They warn their NCOs to look lively or they’ll be thrown inside the compound.” He lowered his voice. “I’ll have someone bring your tea and biscuits over,” Winslow said, closing the door. “Toodle-oo.”
Hollinger stood at the window and watched Winslow take the stone path that returned him to Hut Nine. Toodle-oo. Cheerio. These English were a strange bunch. What was wrong with a goodbye or a see you later?
Apparently, it was going to be a longer siege than Hollinger had first imagined. Three years in the business and this was where he ended up. He smirked, bringing back the summer of 1938 and the football accident he had suffered at Cornell that left him with a bum knee, thus ruining his dreams of an air force career. That autumn, one of Hollinger’s professors saw a certain ability in the young man, and recommended him to an important person within a highly secretive organization; Colonel William Donovan, an intelligence adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt. At just twenty years of age, Hollinger showed amazing aptitude at breaking simple ciphers and codes in his early training with the agency. Then he was sent on loan to the US Navy Intelligence Service. There he laboured with a team of engineers instrumental in cracking the Japanese codes and ciphers that were being transmitted between Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy in Washington. After reporting back to Donovan, Hollinger was transferred to a receiving station off the coast of East Anglia, England, to learn the British decoding system as part of another team that received coded wireless messages from the European continent. Quickly promoted because of his brilliant mind and keen intuition in translating coded signals, he did not go unnoticed by MI-6 and the British Prime Minister in London.
Hollinger looked up to the sky again. Rain had been forecast. So, what else was new in Britain? Now, if only the sun would show itself and brighten not only the day but his spirits as well. With a sigh, he turned to his suitcase and continued to unpack. What had he gotten himself into?
FOUR
Berchtesgaden, Germany
High in the Bavarian Alps, one hundred miles southeast of Munich, Rudolf Hess and Adolf Hitler walked onto the balcony off the main sitting room at Hitler’s mountain residence. They looked over the glittering expanse of the snow-covered val
ley below, dotted with cedar and pine trees.
This was the Fuehrer’s remote hideaway called Berghof, purchased with the royalties of his book, Mein Kampf. What once was unspoiled Bavarian landscape was now crowded with guest houses, garages, and air-raid shelters, and crisscrossed by numerous roads. Surrounding the property was a secured park of barbed wire, complete with alarms and armed SS guards around the clock.
Bundled in a thick knee-length coat, Hitler, just out of bed, leaned over the balcony ledge with his hands on the wood rail, and inhaled deeply. He looked right and left. The cold mountain air filled his lungs. Adolf Hitler was an ordinary-looking man, outside of his square moustache and common-soldier haircut, which he considered was indicative of his identification with the German working class. It was early afternoon, shortly after one-thirty; another late night for the leader who usually hit his stride after midnight. His red puffy eyes caught a flock of swift-moving nightingales far below in the valley. Always fascinated by birds, he followed their flight until they disappeared into some trees. By then the fresh air was beginning to revive him.
“More problems, Hess?”
“Yes, mein Fuehrer. Radio malfunction.”
“Three times, three aborts. I have no tolerance for failure,” Hitler said in his rural Austrian accent, the direct opposite of Hess’s articulate and educated upper class Bavarian tone.
“I have a solution, mein Fuehrer. May we go inside to discuss it?”
Hitler smiled sadly, conscious of Hess’s First World War lung injury. For over twenty years since, Hess had trouble breathing in such high altitudes. Hitler decided not to give Hess the upper hand and motioned him to a set of steel patio chairs beside a wide, white table.
Hess took a deep breath of the cool air, and waited for Hitler to seat himself first.
“What is that in your hand?”
“A map, mein Fuehrer,” Hess replied between punctuated gasps, desperate to show no physical weakness before his leader. “I have brought it to clarify the entire situation for you.” Hess spread out a crisp, creased paper nearly as big as the table, pointing out England, Scotland, and Wales. Hitler took immediate interest, fishing for his reading glasses in his pocket and sliding them on.
“The original plan,” Hess began, “was to fly to Aalborg in Denmark and hand your peace proposal package to a specially-trained ME-110 crew which was to fly to a secluded, predetermined point in England.” Hess pointed to a large X in the northeast corner of England. “Here, near Ainwick. The crew would drop the package to our contact, Lion, on a low-level pass over the beach due east of the town.”
Hitler reached into his pocket for his small chocolates. He handled them gently, selected one, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. “I know all that, Hess. So what is your solution?”
“I will fly to Denmark, refuel, and then set out for Great Britain myself.”
“And drop the package?”
“Oh, no, mein Fuehrer,” Hess uttered slowly. “I will present the peace initiatives to Lion personally.”
Hitler quickly gulped down the chocolate in his mouth and stared at his deputy. “What! Are you crazy, Hess?”
Hess shook his head. “No, mein Fuehrer. It is the only way to test the appeasers’ reaction to your generous proposals. It will not be as dangerous as you may think.”
“Not as dangerous? But where would you land?”
“A place known as Dunhampton. An RAF aerodrome in Scotland. Our aerial intelligence has discovered the secret RAF base not far from the Duke of Hamilton’s castle, from which the British fly our captured aircraft. My fighter, you see, mein Fuehrer, won’t seem out of place.”
Hitler nodded, calming down. “Yes, I do see.”
“I have not confirmed my plans with Lion as yet, but I’m sure that the Duke of Hamilton will assure my safe arrival. If he can provide our Denmark crew an untouched corridor as promised, he should allow me the same privilege.”
“Where is this Dunhampton? Show me.”
Hess’s finger found the general area, south of Glasgow, east of Eaglesham. “Here, in the moors where it’s thinly populated.”
Between more short gasps, Hess went on to describe what would be the turning points coming off the North Sea. He began with the lighthouse at Holy Island, which stayed lit because of the treacherous local waters despite the blackout. The Farn Islands would lead him to the Cheviot Hills and another lighthouse at Troon. He recited names, distances, and whether he would have to vector left or right at various points. He mentioned the towns of St. Abb’s, Coldstream, and Peebles as if he had already been there. And why not? Hess had gone over the maps dozens of times in the last few days, arming himself with names, repeating them again and again.
“This is interesting,” Hitler said.
“I will use a radio beam, mein Fuehrer. I should arrive during the remaining hours of daylight, thus enabling me to see my turning points and destinations, giving me the night for an unchallenged return.”
Hitler rubbed his chin, his puffy eyes moving from Hess to the map and back to Hess. “And if you are not successful? What if you are captured? What then?”
Hess bolted upright, hands on his hips. “I am prepared for that. Just say that I went crazy. And you can say that neither you nor anyone else in the High Command had any prior knowledge of the flight. I will take full responsibility, for the sake of the Fatherland’s future. The risk is mine. Mine alone.”
Hitler smiled and reached for a new chocolate. He could see the seriousness in Hess’s face, a sense of no turning back.
“Peace with England is essential to our plans. No sacrifice should be too great in winning Britain’s friendship. Remember? Your very own words, mein Fuehrer,” Hess exclaimed, quoting Mein Kampf to its author.
“Don’t I know it.” Hitler brought to mind their prison days together in 1923, when the two shared their thoughts and minds on paper. Hitler spoke and Hess wrote. The outcome was Mein Kampf. “As usual, Hess,” Hitler smirked, “your planning is extremely thorough, and it is certainly feasible the way you present it. And you do seem bent on this. You always were stubborn in your ideas.”
Hitler fell silent for a long time, eyeing the mountains. He dug for another chocolate. He had to think. His deputy had just offered to lay his life on the line for his country. Goering or anyone else in the High Command hadn’t offered to do that. If successful, Hess could move up the chain of command and dislodge Goering, whom Hitler had appointed as Germany’s successor only the year before. Wouldn’t that be something? Peace with Britain was the key. The flight was a desperate move on Hess’s part to gain back the acceptance he once had. If the mission failed, Hess was expendable anyway. Other individuals were in line to take over, men like Martin Bormann. As far as Hitler saw it, he had a lot to gain and very little to lose.
“Make the arrangements, Hess,” Hitler said, at last. “You have my permission.”
Hess grinned. “Mein Fuehrer, I failed to mention it, but I thought you might appreciate the name I have chosen. In honour of your passion for birds, I am calling the mission Operation Night Eagle.”
Hitler looked pleased. “Very well. If that is all, you may go. I have work to do. Bormann will see you out.”
Hess gave the Nazi salute, his arm outstretched, his heels clicking together.
Smiling, Hitler lifted his arm, his thoughts elsewhere. As Hess walked away, Hitler barked, “Rudolf!”
The Deputy Fuehrer turned around. “Yes, mein Fuehrer?”
Hitler’s eyes rested on a distant snow-capped mountain, his back to Hess. “Remember, your mission is for the good of the Fatherland, and not your own.”
“Mein Fuehrer,” Hess answered, his breathing laboured. “I will never do anything to hurt the Fatherland.”
“See that you don’t.”
* * * *
Bletchley Park, England — April 2
Wesley Hollinger swaggered down the long hall of Hut Nine, stopping when he saw Langford through her open door. Holli
nger snuck in, knocking on the frame at the same time. Her office was a small room, half the size of his own. Her desk was piled with papers. There she sat, massaging her forehead lightly with her hand. She lifted her head up slowly, her face showing obvious pain, her pale, wrinkled forehead the proof.
“Pressures getting to you?”
She attempted a weak smile. “I’ve had this headache all day. Doesn’t seem to want to go away.”
Hollinger put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. Langford had some light make-up on and her perfume smelled of lilacs. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how pretty she really was. “While I’m here, I want to apologize for my rude behaviour a couple days ago. I shouldn’t have snatched the cigarette from your mouth. The trouble is, I detest smoke in any shape or form. So, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
She waved her free hand, her head down, giving Hollinger the impression that her headache was her immediate concern. “That’s quite all right. You’re forgiven.”
Hollinger hadn’t expected such leniency from her. The other redheads he had known weren’t so easy-going. “I don’t apologize to many people, you know.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“I just don’t want to have Bletchley’s number one cryptographer mad at me. Spencer said I should be good to you.”
“How decent of him. Don’t fret. I’m not mad at you. At least not anymore.”
“I guess we have something in common. Never hold a grudge, my father used to say. May I sit down?”
“By all means. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”