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

orders. We will have to have one set of sheets for each ordering—that is, 6 sets of 26 sheets each.”
    Anna lowered her head. She was very much afraid that she was going to start rolling her eyes; that wouldn't be very good form.
    “But we'll have help,” said Marian. “We'll be producing six of the new machines as soon as possible, one to test each of the possible wheel orderings.”
    Henryk wound up the meeting. “Finally—and this must remain secret, just among the four of us—I've asked the General Staff for permission to inform the British and French of our progress. With the barbaric behavior of Germany, we need to give our allies as much help as possible.”
    This was the first time that Anna could remember Henryk speaking harshly of the Germans; thus far, their work had seemed like a dispassionate, intricate academic puzzle. But they were all aware, in the backs of their minds, just how much might be at stake. The events of the past week had driven home the dangers facing Poland. Hitler's legions had goose-stepped into the remnants of Czechoslovakia. The Czech government, shorn of its Sudetenland defenses by the British-French capitulation at Munich, chose not to resist. If they did, Hitler threatened, he would bomb Prague flat. This, after promising the umbrella-toting British Prime Minister that Sudetenland was his “last territorial demand,” and that “peace in our time” could be gained by selling out the Czechs.
    Hitler already had his eyes on his next victim; he was threatening Poland. In response, France and Britain declared that they would guarantee Poland's independence. The Poles were going out of their way not to provoke the ranting Führer; they did not want to give him the slimmest pretext to invade. But the prospects were grim.
    Marian asked Anna to come to his office.
    “I notice from your file that your mother was British.”
    “That's right.”
    “You speak English?”
    “Some.”
    “Let's not be coy. This is important. Didn't you spend your first eight years in Britain, when your father was at the Embassy?”
    “Yes.”
    “So English was your first language. You speak it comfortably?”
    “So-so. When I was young, I spoke English to my mother. I spoke Polish to my father. When we came to Poland, my father insisted that I speak only Polish. I confess, mom and I cheated from time to time. I can think in English, but still speak it like an eight year old. More or less. I don't know many technical terms.”
    “Can you translate this?”
    Anna took the book—a Polish treatise on the physics of radio—and translated a paragraph, stumbling over a number of technical terms, but otherwise speaking fluently. Marian was satisfied; as far as he could tell, she had a perfect Oxford accent.
    “Our number one priority is a meeting with the French and British. To let you in on a secret,” he lowered his voice, “I met with French and British intelligence officers in Paris in January. Our government instructed me to listen, not pass on information. But, from what I can tell, we're substantially ahead of them. Can't be sure, of course; they may have held back when I said so little. But now the time has come for everybody to get serious.”
    Anna's face must have shown surprise; she had always thought of the British and French as being serious. It seemed ungracious to suggest that they were not, when Rejewski apparently hadn't offered any information in return.
    “I'm particularly eager to work with the French.” Rejewski gave Anna a brief summary of the early codebreaking effort. “I haven't mentioned this before, but I got one of the first big breaks on the Enigma from Bertrand—now the head of French intelligence—way back in 1932, before Hitler came to power. He was just a captain then, but was their specialist in foreign ciphers. He came into contact with a German official who gave him Enigma settings for October and December of the previous year.
    “Bertrand thought they were