the Court of Honour, of the fear he could sense in the camp at Stapley and of how carefully those he had spoken to had been schooled.
Then he took both Mary’s hands and rested his forehead against hers: ‘Will you come to my flat tonight?’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I do want to.’
He lifted his head sharply away from hers: ‘But not enough.’
‘I have to stay…’
‘But I’m only five minutes walk from this place,’ he said incredulously. ‘For God’s sake, we haven’t seen each other for ten days. You don’t need to sleep in the library too?’
She took half a step back and lifting a hand to her hair, ran her fingers slowly through it, tired and frustrated by his anger.
‘Please?’
‘I do need to sleep, Douglas. You don’t understand there’s something very important I have to do… a ship, the
She could not say more because a choking tide of sadness and regret began to well up from deep inside her, shaking her body, and it was so hard to contain. She turned quickly away from him to the Mall and gave a quiet little sob. But he must have heard her or seen her shoulders crumple.
‘Darling, I’m sorry,’ and he was behind her, holding her, kissing her hair and it was impossible, she knew she would surrender, and her chest began to heave with sobs that caught and trembled in her throat. Gently, he turned her to him and she pressed her cheek against his blue uniform jacket.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘That’s the second time today.’
And she told him about the
‘That’s why I have to stay,’ she said. ‘I feel responsible.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. Of course it wasn’t.’
‘Perhaps it doesn’t make sense but I feel responsible and I want to do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If our…’
She cursed herself for being so stupid.
‘If our?’
‘Never mind, it’s something I’m working on but I don’t want to talk about it now.’
Lindsay raised a knowing eyebrow: ‘I see. And does this “thing” you are working on have anything to do with our codes?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Douglas, please don’t press me.’
He must have recognised the weary note, the pleading in her voice, because he gave her hand a comforting squeeze: ‘All right, but does this “thing” explain why Winn was so unwelcoming?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said with a shrug.
He frowned but only for a moment: ‘Come here,’ and he pulled her tightly to himself again and they stood in silence beneath the rustling canopy of the plane. From time to time a blackout taxi crept past in search of a fare and a night bus rattled under Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square but the city seemed strangely empty and still. Mary was in danger of falling asleep on Linday’s shoulder when after many minutes he spoke again: ‘Will you tell me? Not now but later.’
‘Why?’ she asked, taken aback.
‘You know why.’
She groaned wearily, ‘Please.’
‘Well?’
‘…there is nothing to tell. Look, I have to go,’ and she pulled away from him.
She was not going to be bullied and was too tired to think it through clearly. There was nothing yet to justify another breach of Winn’s trust.
42
It was Geoff Childs who turned up the signal and the ship. He had set about the files with the relish of a natural archivist until two fruitless days blunted even his determination and patience. But at a little after two o’clock on the Saturday afternoon he let out a mighty whoop of triumph that rang round the Tracking Room and the corridor too. All heads swung towards him and for a moment there was a stunned silence. He was half rising from his desk, still bent over the slip of paper.
‘It’d better be good, Geoff.’
He turned to look at Mary: ‘I think it is.’
Lieutenant Childs was older than his thirty years, with a reputation for being something of a dry stick, but he had taken off his glasses and his eyes were shining with boyish enthusiasm.
‘It’s an old signal, sent from U-boat Headquarters to the
1849/6/5 ACCORDING TO SAILING SCHEDULE SHIP WILL BE IN GRID AK22 EAST BOUND AFTERNOON OF 7/5
‘They must have got that sort of intelligence from our signals.’
His voice was husky with excitement and Mary felt guilty that she was too tired and jaded to share it. A single scrap of rip-and-read was not conclusive proof that the Navy’s codes were compromised; the intelligence could have come from a German spy or from a captured document. And the reference to the ‘shipping schedule’ seemed a little neat:
‘Would U-boat Headquarters betray its source in a signal?’
Childs frowned, irritated by the scepticism in her voice: ‘It’s entirely possible. The Germans believe Enigma is the cipher that cannot be broken. Donitz has no inkling we’re reading his signals. Of course that sort of intelligence should be need-to-know only but from time to time his people will make mistakes.’
Childs leant over his desk to check the Trade Division’s report on shipping movements for the day: ‘According to our records, the
‘All right, anything else sent on the seventh or eighth?’
Childs picked up a shabby brown cardboard file and shook it at her: ‘If you want to know, help me look.’
And it was Mary who found the next signal. She held it in her right hand and the paper trembled as a tingle of excitement passed through her whole body. Childs was right; he had found something, something very important. For a few days in May, U-boat Headquarters had been very careless. It was an update on the progress of the freighter,
1440/7/5 B REPORT. SHIP IN GRID AL14 ATTACK WITHOUT FURTHER ORDERS.
It left little room for doubt about the source — the B-Dienst. The Kriegsmarine’s signals intelligence service was intercepting and reading British wireless traffic. She passed the signal to Childs who looked at it and at once began bouncing in his chair with a smile like a Cheshire cat on his face.
‘What happened to the ship, Geoff?’
‘Sunk the same day, the seventh of May.’ He opened the Trade Division file on the desk in front of him and flicked through the reports until he found the one he was looking for. ‘Here we are,
He glanced at Mary: ‘Sorry.’
