All Clear

Bletchley—November 1940

TURING. OH, GOD. HE’D COLLIDED WITH ALAN TURING AND nearly got him killed. “That was Turing?” Mike asked, and grabbed for the wall, his legs suddenly unsteady.

“Oh, you are hurt!” Elspeth said. “Here, come inside and sit down. And you’re limping!”

“No, that’s not—” he began, but the girls were already helping him up the steps and inside.

“People like that should be forbidden from riding bicycles,” Mavis said indignantly. “Let me see your foot.”

“Did you say Turing?” Mike said. “Alan Turing?”

“Yes,” Elspeth said. “Do you know him?”

“No. I knew a guy named Turing in college. A math—”

“That’s him. They say he’s a genius at maths.”

“Well, I don’t care if he’s a genius or not,” Mavis said. “I intend to give him a piece of my mind!”

“No! Don’t say anything to him. I’m all right.”

“But he may have broken your foot—”

“No, he didn’t. It was shot off.”

Their eyes widened, and Elspeth, obviously impressed, said, “Were you at Dunkirk?”

“Yes. The point is, he didn’t hurt me. I was just shaken up for a minute. There’s no need to say anything to Mr. Turing. I was the one who wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“You were the one?” Mavis said indignantly. “Turing never pays the slightest attention to where he’s going. He simply plows through pedestrians.”

Elspeth nodded. “Someone needs to tell him he must be more careful! He could have injured you!”

And I could have injured him, Mike thought. Or killed him. If Turing had lost control of his bicycle and crashed into a lamppost instead of the curb, or into a brick wall …

Mavis said, “I’ve a good mind to tell Cap—”

“No. There’s no need to tell anybody. I’m fine. No harm done. Thank you for picking me up and dusting me off.” He picked up his bag, which Mavis had carried in.

“Oh, don’t go,” Elspeth said. “We want to hear about Dunkirk.” She perched on the arm of the couch. “Was it exciting? It must have been dangerous.”

“Not half as dangerous as this place,” he said.

Elspeth laughed, but not Mavis. She was looking curiously at him. “Why were you at Dunkirk? Aren’t you an American?”

Oh, Jesus, worse and worse. He hadn’t even been thinking what he was saying, he’d been so upset about nearly killing Turing, and now he’d just blown his cover.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“I knew it,” Mavis said smugly, and Elspeth added, “Oh, good, we adore Americans. But what were you doing at Dunkirk?”

You can’t say you’re a reporter. “A friend of mine had a boat. We thought we’d go over and see if we could lend a hand.”

“Oh, how thrilling!” Elspeth said. “You’ve no idea how exciting it is to meet someone who’s actually doing something important in the war.”

“You must stay to tea and tell us all about it,” Mavis said. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

“No, don’t.” He stood up. “I’m sure you’re busy, and I’m interrupting—”

“No, you’re not,” Elspeth said. “We’re off duty tonight.”

“But it’s getting late, and I have to find a place to stay. I don’t suppose you know of any rooms that are available?”

“In Bletchley?” Elspeth said, as if he’d asked for an apartment on the moon.

“I’m afraid everything’s filled up for miles around,” Mavis said. “We’re three to a room here.”

“Did I hear someone say we’re getting a new roommate?” a female voice called down from upstairs. “Tell her there’s no room.” A young woman came running down the stairs. She was very buxom and very blonde. “We’re crammed in like pilchards as it is—oh, hullo,” she said, coming over to meet Mike. “Are you going to be billeted here? How lovely!”

“He’s not billeted here, Joan,” Mavis said. “Even if we weren’t full up, Mrs. Braithewaite only lets to girls,” she explained to Mike. “She says it saves complications.”

I can imagine, Mike thought, looking at Joan.

“Have you been to the billeting office yet?” Elspeth asked.

Billeting office? “No,” he said. “I just arrived.”

“Well, when you go,” Elspeth said, “tell them it’s essential you live close in, or they’ll put you up in Glasgow.”

“And you must insist on seeing your billet first,” Mavis added. “Some of them are dreadful. WC at the bottom of the garden, and bedbugs!”

He was still thinking about what they’d said about a billeting office. He should have thought of that. Of course the administration at Bletchley Park would be in charge of assigning lodgings. He’d been thinking he could rent a room and hint to his landlady that he worked out at the Park, but if everyone who worked there got lodgings through the billeting office—

“He might try the Empire Hotel,” Joan said to Mavis.

“It’s full up,” Mavis said, and to Mike, “Everything’s full up. Even closets. Our friend Wendy’s sleeping in the pantry at her billet, in among the bottled peaches.”

“The billeting office isn’t open on a Sunday,” Joan said. “We could sneak him upstairs for tonight.”

“No,” the other two said in unison.

“What about the Bell?” Elspeth asked.

Mavis shook her head.

“Well, maybe they’ll let me sleep in the lobby,” Mike said, and went to the door.

“You’re certain you can’t stay a bit longer?” Joan asked.

“Afraid not. Thanks for all your help. Do any of you happen to know—” But before he could ask whether they knew a Gerald Phipps, they began giving him directions to the Bell. “And if it hasn’t any rooms, the Milton’s two streets down—”

“Watch out for Turing on your way there,” Joan cut in.

“And for Dilly,” Elspeth said. “He’s even worse about not watching where he’s going, and he has a car! Whenever he comes to a crossing, he speeds up.”

“Dilly?” Mike said hoarsely.

“Captain Knox,” Mavis said. “We work for him. He has some sort of mathematical theory that by going faster he’ll hit fewer people, because of being in the crossing a shorter time.”

My God. First Alan Turing and now Dilly’s girls. He was smack in the middle of Ultra, and he’d only been in Bletchley half an hour. “I refuse to accept lifts from him anymore,” Elspeth was saying. “He forgets he’s driving and takes both hands off the—are you all right? You’re pale as a ghost.”

“Turing did injure you,” Mavis said. “Come sit down while we phone for the doctor. Elspeth, go put the kettle—”

“No!” he said. “No. I’m fine. Really.” And he left before they could protest. Or Dilly Knox showed up.

“But we don’t even know your name!” Mavis called after him.

Thank God for that at least, he thought, pretending he hadn’t heard her. And thank God he hadn’t asked about Phipps. He hurried off toward the Bell. What next?

Would there be an Enigma machine in his room?

If you can find a room, he thought. But surely they’d have saved a hotel room or two for people passing through, billeting or no billeting.

Wrong. The desk clerk hooted when he asked.

“You don’t know of anywhere?” Mike asked.

“In Bletchley?” the clerk said, and turned to the young man who’d just come up to the counter. “Yes, Mr. Welchman?”

Gordon Welchman? Who’d headed up the team which had broken the German Army and Air Force Enigma codes? Christ, he thought, retreating hastily. At this rate he’d have met all the key players by morning. He headed for the Milton, wondering if he should go back to the station right now and catch the first train going anywhere.

No, with his luck, Alan Ross would be on it with Menzies sound asleep in the luggage rack. But it didn’t look as if he could stay here either. Neither the Milton nor the Empire had a room, and going back to the Bell was out of the question. “You might try one of the boardinghouses on Albion Street,” the clerk at the Empire said,

“but I doubt you’ll find anything.”

He was right. Every house had a No Rooms Available or No Vacancy placard in its front window. May be the reason the Germans never found out about Ultra was because their spies couldn’t find anywhere to stay, Mike thought, crossing the street—after first looking carefully in all directions—and starting down the other side, peering through the dark at the signs: No Rooms, Full Up, Room to Let.

Room to Let. It took a moment for that to sink in, and then he was up the steps and pounding on the door. A plump, rosy-cheeked old lady opened the door a sliver, smiling. “Yes?”

“I saw that you have a room. Is it still available?”

She stopped smiling and folded her arms belligerently across her stomach. “Did the billeting office send you?”

If he said yes, he might have to produce some sort of official form, and if he said no, she was likely to tell him all her rooms had already been co-opted. “I saw your notice,” he said, pointing at it. The smile came back, and she motioned him to come in.

“I’m Mrs. Jolsom,” she said. “I didn’t think you looked like one of them.”

Polly and Eileen won’t be happy about that after all their efforts, he thought, wondering what was wrong with his appearance.

“I don’t let rooms to that lot at the Park. Unreliable. Coming and going at all hours, scattering papers everywhere, and when you try to tidy up after them, shouting at you not to touch anything, like it was something valuable instead of a lot of papers covered with numbers. Ten and four.”

For a moment he thought she was talking about the numbers on the papers, then realized she meant the price of the room. “Paid by the week. In advance,” she said, leading him upstairs. “Room only, no board—the rationing, you know. I ask two weeks’ notice if you’re leaving,” she said, leading him up a second flight, “so the room won’t stand empty.”

She apparently hasn’t heard about Wendy having to sleep in the pantry, Mike thought, following her down a hall. The room was the size of a closet, but it was a room and in Bletchley. “I’ll take it,” he said.

“I’ve had them go off without a word,” she said indignantly. “Or not come when they said they would. And after I’d saved the room for them. ‘There must have been a miscommunication,’ the billeting officer said. ‘Miscommunication!’ I said. ‘What about this letter? And what about my four weeks’ rent?’ ”

Mike finally stopped her by handing her the week’s rent and asking if she had a telephone. “No, but there’s one at the pub two streets over,” she said. “Claimed he hadn’t sent the letter, he did. ‘Well, then, that’s the last one you billet here,’ I told him. ‘What about your patriotic duty?’ he says. ‘What about their patriotic duty?’ I says, ‘lazing about here messing with multiplication tables like a lot of schoolboys when they ought to be in the Army?’ ” She looked at Mike suspiciously. “Why aren’t you in the Army?”

He wasn’t about to blow it now, when this was the only room for miles, and in the one house where he wouldn’t have to worry about running into a famous cryptanalyst on the way to the bathroom. “I was injured at Dunkirk.” He pointed at his foot. “Dive-bomber.”

“Oh, my,” Mrs. Jolsom said, pressing a hand to her bosom. “Only just think, a hero here under my own roof.” She bustled off to make him tea and a soft-boiled egg. He’d have felt ashamed of himself for passing himself off as a war hero if he hadn’t still been spooked by his encounters with Turing, Dilly’s girls, and Welchman.

You didn’t do any damage, he told himself. Turing wasn’t hurt, and all he’d done to Dilly’s girls was talk to them. And blow your cover, he thought. But they You didn’t do any damage, he told himself. Turing wasn’t hurt, and all he’d done to Dilly’s girls was talk to them. And blow your cover, he thought. But they hadn’t thought there was anything odd about an American being in Bletchley. And if Dilly’s girls and Turing were this easy to find, then Gerald Phipps should be a snap. And you have a room, and since Mrs. Jolsom’s making you supper, you don’t have to go out, so you can’t get into any more trouble tonight. But he’d have to go out tomorrow to look for Phipps, which meant being in places where he was likely to run into BPers.

Or maybe not. Instead, he could pretend to be looking for a room to rent. Nobody could be suspicious of that, given the housing situation, and after they’d turned him down, he could say casually, “Oh, by the way, you don’t have a boarder named Gerald Phipps, do you? Sandy-haired guy with spectacles?” And he wouldn’t have to go anywhere near Bletchley Park.

His plan worked like a charm—except that he didn’t find Phipps. And if he’d really been looking for a room, he wouldn’t have found that either. He’d apparently got the last one in Bletchley. After four days of knocking on doors and asking at every hotel and inn, he was certain Phipps wasn’t living anywhere in the town.

Which meant he was billeted in one of the surrounding villages, but according to Dilly’s girls, BPers were scattered all over the area. It would take him forever to find Phipps that way. Looking out at Bletchley Park would be much more efficient.

If he could find it. He doubted if Mrs. Jolsom would tell him, given her enmity against the Park, and he didn’t dare ask a passerby. With his luck it would turn out to be Angus Wilson. Or Winston Churchill.

But the Park turned out not to be that hard to find. All he had to do was follow the stream of naval officers and professors and pretty girls out of town, along a paved road clogged with bicycles ridden by people who didn’t pay any more attention to where they were going than Turing had.

Polly’d been right. He didn’t need to get into Bletchley Park to see who worked there. He could watch them all from the cinder-covered driveway that led up to the guarded gate. Beyond it lay long gray-green buildings and a gabled red-brick Victorian mansion. He limped a few feet up the drive and then stopped and knelt, pretending to tie his shoe, though nobody was taking any notice of him. The pretty girls were chattering to one another, and the professors were in another world. The guard paid no attention either. He checked off names on a roster and glanced cursorily at the identity cards people held out to him. Mike had the feeling he could hold out his press pass and get in.

He finished tying his shoe and stood up. Several men were standing around smoking and apparently waiting for someone. I need to buy some cigarettes, he thought.

No, a pipe. He could spend a long time filling it, trying to light it, patting his pockets for matches. For now, he glanced impatiently at his watch and scanned the people coming out. He didn’t see Phipps, though there were several sandy-haired, spectacled, tweed-clad men, and he caught a glimpse of two more inside the grounds.

Let’s hope I don’t have to sneak inside to find him, Mike thought, though if he did, at least it wouldn’t be hard. There was a fence but no barbed wire, and the gate’s bar wasn’t even lowered. It didn’t look at all like a military installation, let alone the site of the most closely guarded secret of the war. It looked like Balliol in midterm.

The young women walking between the buildings, file folders clasped to their breasts, could be students; the men playing a game on the lawn could be the cricket team.

He could imagine what the regimented, spit-and-polish Germans would make of this place and its inhabitants. Maybe that was why they’d never figured out that the British had cracked the Enigma code. It wouldn’t have occurred to them that these giggling young women and disheveled daydreamers could be a threat. The Nazis would have had nothing but contempt for Dilly’s girls and the stammering Turing.

Which was why they’d been defeated. They shouldn’t have underestimated them. And he’d better not underestimate them either. For all he knew, the scruffy professor smoking over by the gate or the blonde dabbing powder on her nose worked for British Intelligence and would shortly knock on his landlady’s door to “ask him a few questions.” In which case he’d better get out of here before he attracted their attention.

He waited till a staff car pulled up to the gate and the guard leaned in the window to talk to the driver and then casually joined the stream of people walking back to town. Once there, he bought a pipe, tobacco, and a newspaper, went to the lobby of the Milton, looked around to make sure Wilson or Menzies wasn’t there, and sat down in a chair by the window to wait for the four o’clock shift change and look for Gerald.

When he didn’t see him, he followed two men who looked like cryptanalysts to a pub, ordered a pint of ale, and spent the evening nursing it and observing everyone who came in.

He did the same thing at a different pub over the next few nights. The first night he pretended to be reading a newspaper, but it was awkward seeing over it, so the next night he folded it open to the crossword and pretended to be working it, like he had in the hospital sunroom at Orpington. That way he could stare thoughtfully into space—as if trying to think of an answer—while scanning the room, though he wasn’t sure it was necessary. No one paid any attention to him. The men either talked in heads-bent-together groups, scribbled busily, or sat with their heads in a book—Haas’s Atomic Theory, Broglie’s Matter and Light, and, in one instance, an Agatha Christie. He’d have to tell Eileen.

He didn’t run into Turing again—literally or figuratively. Or Welchman. He did see Dilly Knox at the wheel of a car, and the girls hadn’t exaggerated about his bad driving. The two naval officers ahead of him had to leap for the curb. He glimpsed the girls twice but managed to escape both times without their seeing him.

His only problem (aside from not having found Phipps) was staying in contact with Eileen and Polly. Wednesday night he’d realized he hadn’t told them his address yet and had spent the next two days trying to find a phone where he could talk and not be overheard. He finally went back to the train station—after first watching Dilly’s girls leave for their shift so he wouldn’t run into them—and called from there, but no one answered, and the station was full of people all through the weekend.

He wasn’t able to get hold of Polly till Monday. He told her where he was living and what he was doing to find Gerald. “Good,” Polly said, and asked him what the original order of his drops had been.

He told her. “Why?” he asked curiously.

“I was just trying to remember other historians who might be here,” she said, “or might be Historian X, and I wanted to make certain they weren’t you.”

“They weren’t,” he said and asked her if the retrieval team had responded to any of their ads, which they hadn’t. He didn’t tell her about Dilly’s girls or Welchman or about colliding with Turing that first night. There hadn’t been any repercussions from that. The accident hadn’t even made Turing mend his ways. On Saturday night he’d overheard a Wren complaining loudly about his having nearly run her down the night before.

Nobody seemed to worry about being overheard, and listening to them and watching their casual comings and goings, he wondered how the government had managed to keep Ultra’s secret from getting out. New people arrived every day, jamming the already overcrowded town. And the station. He gave up on the idea of calling Polly and Eileen again and sent them a note hidden in the squares of a torn-out newspaper crossword puzzle, instructing them to check the old remote drop in St. John’s Wood and hoping Polly would recognize it was a code, and then went back to trying to find Gerald.

He made the rounds of the Park gates, the boardinghouses, the hotels, and then went back to sitting in the pubs, though they were so crowded he couldn’t find an empty table. Monday night Mike had to squeeze to the counter to order his pint of ale and then lean against the bar for over an hour, waiting for one where he could sit, pretend to work his crossword, eavesdrop, and watch for Phipps.

A small knot of men stood in the far corner, talking and laughing, but they were all too tall to be Phipps. At the table next to them sat a bald man, doing calculations on the back of an envelope, and next to him, his back to Mike, was a sandy-haired guy. He was talking to a pretty brunette, and from the annoyed look on her face, he on the back of an envelope, and next to him, his back to Mike, was a sandy-haired guy. He was talking to a pretty brunette, and from the annoyed look on her face, he might very well be telling her an unfunny joke.

Mike moved his chair, trying to see his face. No luck. He looked down at his crossword for a moment, then up again, tapping his pencil against his nose, waiting for the guy to turn around.

The men in the corner were leaving, stopping as they went out to talk to the girls at the table between Mike and the sandy-haired guy.

Get out of the way, Mike thought, leaning so he could see past them.

“Good Lord,” a man’s voice behind him said, “you’re the last person I expected to see here.”

Mike looked up, startled. He’d completely forgotten about the possibility that Phipps might recognize him. But it wasn’t Phipps standing over the table. It was Tensing, the officer he’d conspired with in the sunroom of the hospital at Orpington.

We’ll Meet Again.

—WORLD WAR II SONG