Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 9

Alan Turing reached for his handkerchief again, still bothered by the pollens of early summer, as he always was in June. As deviously clever as he was, he had not yet discovered a way to defeat Mother Nature, or to defend himself from the perennial attacks of Hay Fever that beset him. Not even the full gas mask he wore as he rode his bicycle to Bletchley Park each day for his work in the cypher busting unit seemed to do him any good, and probably frightened scores of roadside passersby and children when they saw his macabre, masked specter, head down, peddling furiously and breathing hard behind the leering visage of his goggle mask.

The bicycle also seemed to conspire against him at regular intervals, its gear chain slipping and clogging the works, bringing him to an ignominious stop on the long country roads. Then he would be forced to remove his gas mask to see well enough to re-set the chain, and the pollens would find his nose, still breathing heavily with the exertion of his ride. So he took to carefully calculating the interval between gear chain failures, counting each rotation of the pedals, and cleverly intervened, tightening and adjusting it just before the average time elapsed to ward off the failure.

In spite of his Hay Fever, he remained fit and trim, sometimes taking to running the three miles from his cottage to work each day, a bona fide marathon man in his own rite. All the while, his mind was feverishly working on some problem or another, be it an equation or expression in his calculations, a thorny problem in his effort to crack some devilishly complex code, or perhaps dreaming up another of his strange devices, like the Universal Machine that stood as a good foundation to the modern understanding of computers. Find the flaws, he thought. Find the loose ends, the contradictions. From those you can get a lever into the code and deduce everything. Then all it required was the proper machine to aid the decryption effort, and of course good signals intelligence. He was determined to have a solution to the German Naval Enigma code in short order.

His associate, Gordon Welchman, has been working with him on a device, which they called a “bombe,” but the work was frustratingly slow. It was a series of drums arrayed in rows that rotated at 120rpms with each setting off the next in a precise order, and the motion migrating down and down to turn the positions of the lower drums, almost like the gears of a clock…or a bicycle. By brute force of trial and error the machine would test the possible relationship or “connection” between two letters.

It might deduce that E was connected to H until a contradicting case appeared in its machination that proposed E was connected to J or some other letter. Since E could not be connected to both H and J at the same time, it was the contradiction that allowed the code breakers to eliminate one case or another and eventually arrive at the correct connection-a connection that corresponded to the assignments on the German Enigma code machine. In effect, Turing and Welchman were building and using a massive analog computer to help them break the German code. It was all much more complex than that, but the principle was sound, and it was slowly producing results.

They had it up and running just a few months ago, in the ides of March, 1940, and at times its clattering and churning could be heard throughout the whole facility. To Turing, it sounded much like the feverish pedaling on his bicycle, mixed in with the chugging repetition of a printing press. The only problem was that there were too few men on the job, and too few “bombe” machines clattering away to move the effort forward. Building on the work of several Polish cryptographers, Turing was also attempting to decipher the German Naval Enigma code. He boldly announced it could be broken, and eagerly set to work on it.

“Look Gordon,” he said one day, “no one else is doing anything about it and I could have it to myself.” That was an idea particularly appealing to him, as it could become a perfect testing ground for his methods and machines. He kept Peter Twinn busy on the project as well, and innumerable girls providing hands and eyes for the enormous clerical work involved. A little luck also helped when the British captured the German Trawler Polares on April 26, 1940, which held numerous pieces of equipment related to the code.

Known as the “Narvik Pinch” it aided the work immensely. The German Enigma machine operators also helped in many ways. Thinking the code unbreakable, they would often pair three letter sets with a second series that was easily related. It was found that the three letter code set for LON was often followed by DON for London, and the three letter set for BER was often followed by LIN, just as HIT was finished off by LER. If any one of the sets could be identified in a message, the related series was easily deciphered.

By May of 1940 Turing and other dedicated cryptanalysts, notably Hugh Foss, had a breakthrough that led to the deciphering of a complete day’s messages. The success was celebrated ever thereafter as “Foss Day,” but as the code changed daily, there was still a great deal of work to be done to allow reliable deciphering for an entire month.

Hut 8 at Bletchley Park, or Station X as it was sometimes called, was a very busy place. That day Turing was wiping his weary nose, lamenting that his gas mask did not seem as reliable as he hoped on the morning ride, even though he had successfully averted a gear chain failure by stopping at a precise interval to effect a repair. A bit weary and bedraggled by his Hay Fever, he went over to the cupboard and quickly unlocked the padlock and chain which he used to secure his favorite coffee mug from any “unauthorized use” as he called it. Coffee! That was what he needed now to get the gears, wheels and bombes of his own mind working and clattering again.

Just as he was settling back into his chair and savoring the aroma as he breathed in thin curls of coffee vapor to soothe his nose and sinuses, in came Peter Twinn, with what looked to be a large photo in hand and a thick manila envelope under his arm. Turing caught the return label and knew it had come in on the morning delivery from Whitehall and the Admiralty.

“Well,” said Twinn, “we’re in trouble, Alan. What, pray tell, do you make of that!”

“What is it?” Turing seemed uninterested.

“It’s the prodigal son, that what it is.” Twinn pressed the photographs into his lap.

Turing took the first photo, eying it suspiciously. It was a typical aerial reconnaissance photo of what appeared to be a large warship at sea. “Well it certainly is exactly what it looks like,” he said. “A ship.”

“Yes, but not a German ship this time, Alan. Take a good guess as to who owns this one. Then have a look at these close-ups under my arm. I think you’ll be quite amazed.”

Turing set down his coffee mug, reached for his magnifying glass, and took a closer look. “Russian naval ensign,” he said definitively. “That’s clear enough. Where was it taken-the Baltic?”

“Southwest of Iceland, right in the middle of this big operation underway out there now.”

Turing looked again, this time his gaze lingering on the photo, eye roving from place to place behind the big round lens of the magnifying glass and a strange feeling coming over him that he could not quite decipher. It was an odd ripple, shiver like, that ran up his spine and tingled at the back of his neck, yet he could not see why he would react thus way to a simple photograph.

“Dear Alan,” said Twinn. “Having another allergy attack, are you? Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation as to why we could have missed a ship like this in the Russian order of battle. After all, we’ve never seen them as much of a threat. It’s the Germans we’ve been hot about, eh?”

Saying nothing, Turing extended an arm, gesturing for the manila envelope Twinn was holding, his eyes still riveted to the original photo, a furrow of growing concern creasing his brow. He had seen this ship before… That was the feeling at the back of his neck now, and it was bloody dangerous, a rising discomfort and warning alarm in his mind. He had seen this ship before, yet he could not recall the where and when of that, strangely bothered, as his mind was a steel trap that little escaped from once embraced by the cold steel of his logic. He took the envelope, opening it hastily as Twinn looked on, now somewhat concerned himself.

“My Lord!” Turing exclaimed. “How did they manage to get these? Why, it looks as though they were taken from a ship steaming right alongside this big bad fellow.”

“That they were-taken from HMS Invincible just days ago and flown off to the Admiralty for the purview of Their Lordships. So now they’ve come to us. Quite a ship, is it not? Note the label. It was listed under the name Kirov, and they’ve classed it as a battlecruiser of sorts, though I can’t see much in the way of armament.”

“Yes, just a few twin secondary turrets, but my god, the damn thing is bristling with receiving antennae and what looks to be radar dishes. Look at all these features here.” Turing pointed out elements in the photo, the feeling he was reliving something of grave concern still deeply rooted in his mind. He could even feel the rising magma of fear there, an old fear, something learned long ago, and he noted how his pulse quickened.

“Now here’s the amazing part,” said Twinn. “This ship was commanded by a Russian Admiral, and he was invited over for lunch and gin with our own Admirals Tovey and Holland! Word is the Russians offered to throw in with us against the Germans! How’s that for news?”

“Officially?” Turing gave him a searching look.

“We don’t know the details yet. Tovey is still at sea, and things are getting quite hot from the latest signals we’ve received. But it would be a rather welcome development. All we have to do now is explain how the Russians built this ship without anyone here knowing about it… and how it came to be found in the Denmark Strait! First word on that monster was apparently sent in by an auxiliary cruiser escorting convoy HX-49 out of Halifax. Then came that aerial sighting from a pilot off Ark Royal.”

“So we missed something,” said Turing. “Ship watch isn’t our department.”

“But signals traffic is. Admiralty wants us to listen in more on the Russians now to see what else they might have up their sleeves. I don’t think they perceive them as a threat, at least not Soviet Russia, but with the Orenburg Federation throwing in with the Germans the situations is somewhat… fluid.”

“To say the least. A lot of dominoes have been falling Peter, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and now Orenburg. Well, they haven’t any navy to speak of, just those antiquated old airship fleets.”

“That’s their navy of sorts,” Twinn countered. “They’ve twenty four big zeppelins, rigged out for aerial reconnaissance, air defense and even bombing missions now. Those new self-sealing gas bags have proven very resilient. A typical fighter group has fits trying to shoot one of the damn things down.”

“Yes, yes, well forget about Orenburg for the moment.” Turing’s attention was still fixated on the photos of the Russian ship. “Something tells me this ship is hiding something beneath that long empty foredeck. See these hatches? I doubt if this is an armed steamer or cargo vessel. Admiralty will have noticed this as well and they’ll be wanting us to sort it all out.”

“I can ask Kendrick or Strachey if they could listen in on Russian signals. This ship is bound to be receiving orders.”

“Good idea, Peter… and let me know, will you? Let me know the instant you hear anything at all about this ship.”

“Finally got your attention, eh?” Turing seemed to have an unusual interest in the matter now. “Well, Alan, I’ve finally found something that can get you to interrupt your coffee time!” Twinn smiled, but as he looked at Turing he could see he was again lost in his review of the photos, a silence about him that seemed very troubled.

Schettler, John

Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States — Volume II (Kirov Series)