Free THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel by Paul Wonnacott Page A

eye for the ladies.”
    Again there was a pause, again Anna shifted in her chair, and again Henryk continued.
    “To compensate, Jerzy's mother expected a lot from him. One day, when he was only four, she caught him signaling under the table, helping his older brother with a math problem. After scolding him—gently, because she was so proud of his precocious abilities—she expressed her greatest hope: 'One day, you'll be a great man. I'll be proud of you.' Nice, in some ways. But quite a burden to lay on a four-year old.”
    Again Henryk stopped. This time, Anna sat tight. Henryk had his chin resting on his loosely clenched fist, the other arm across his chest to support his elbow. Apparently, he was trying to think something through.
    “There is one way out of our problem. With the expansion, we're about to get new offices. I can find an office for Jerzy next to a conference room. As the construction is not yet complete, I think I can arrange both an upgrade in the air circulation system and a connecting door from his room. I'll arrange to keep the conference room as free as possible; your meetings are likely to migrate there naturally. If they don't, please let me know. I'll suggest to him—as tactfully as I can—that the two of you meet there, rather than in his small office.
    “We need Jerzy. We need you—we're delighted, how quickly you proved you belonged in the senior group. And we need the two of you to work together. If you find you can't stand the smoke, we might ask him to stay in his office while he's puffing away. But let me think about it.”
    Anna expressed her thanks. She had been embarrassed to raise the subject of smoking. Now she was glad she had.
     
    T he Wednesday meetings were canceled until further notice. Henryk really did want the two groups to work independently, not simply follow the same approach. A good idea, perhaps. But Anna and Jerzy—in their new conference room—sweated away, day after day, which stretched into week after week. They weren't getting anywhere, and Anna took Marian's earlier advice. She decided she would be more productive if she took more time off. Whenever Kaz could get away.
    Then, one afternoon in March 1939, Henryk's secretary called. The core group of four was to meet right away. There were some ideas to consider.
    “Let's look at the machine and its settings,” Henryk began. “Rather than trying to work directly toward a solution, we propose to go at the problem from the opposite direction—to rule out impossible settings. Settings that could not give a repeat. Then we can focus our work on what remains—the ones that are possible.”
    “Ah,” said Jerzy, “you've intruded into the idiot's territory. We welcome you.”
    Henryk ignored the interruption. “What information do we have? We're going to pick out German messages where there's a repeat in the inscrutable six. But there are thousands of possible wheel settings. How can we keep track of the absolute blizzard of detail? What we propose is to use square sheets—26 spaces across, labeled from A to Z for each setting of the second wheel, and 26 spaces down for each setting of the third wheel. We will need 26 such sheets, one for each setting of the first wheel.
    “Consider an example, where the three wheels are set at the letters BDH. This will show up on the second—B—sheet, in the D column and the H row. If it is possible for that setting to give a repeat on the third press of the key, our staff will mark that box.
    “It will be tedious to make the sheets. But whenever there's a repeat within the inscrutable six, the sheets will tell us which settings are worth testing with our new machine. We can ignore the unmarked boxes; they're not possible.”
    “Mention the six sets,” interjected Marian. “Mention the six sets.”
    “Oh yes,” said Henryk, trying to add a light touch to a difficult topic. “I left out one little detail. As we know, the three wheels can be set in six different