Breaking Enigma || The Imitation Game

◈ SEVEN- Let's Play ◈

Later that day, in the afternoon, when the weather had improved, Hugh and I made our way back to the mansion. According to him, it's where this meeting was supposed to be held, which Denniston didn't tell me the details of.

"Ah, finally. It's nice of you two to arrive," Denniston himself sighed as we entered the room. There were two other men stood by the large table in the middle of the room. The first was tall, but not as tall as Hugh was. His hair was a chocolate-brown colour, long and wavy in length. His eyes were of a cornflower-blue colour and currently giving-off an unimpressed glare. While the second man was a lot shorter, his hazel-coloured gaze was soft, appearing to be quite timid and shy too. He also had similar hair to the man stood next to him; they looked almost like brothers.

A machine sat on the table. It was black and looked like a typewriter. There were wires running all over it and gears and cogs sticking out of the sides. I believe it was also half electrical and half mechanical. An intriguing device.

"Welcome to Enigma," the Commander announced, gesturing to the typewriter-like object. So, this was the infamous Enigma machine. Just looking at it gave me a shiver down my spine.

"There will be another recruit joining you all later when he arrives," Denniston stated, finishing off his 'welcome.' As I thought about the new team of Hut 8 and how welcoming they would be, I caught a glimpse of a man standing in the corner by the window, almost shadowed away by the draping curtain. He stood silently, observing what was taking place. His dark, inscrutable eyes watched us all like a hawk as Denniston carried on.

"The German navy encodes every message they send using the Enigma machine.  The details of every surprise attack, of every secret convoy, of every U-Boat in the Atlantic go into that thing, and out comes... Gibberish."

Gibberish to him, perhaps, but it could be a game to many others. Especially those who were employed to crack such a machine with mathematical intelligence and organisation skills.

"It's magnificent," the first man said, tracing his finger over one of the silver cogs. His accent was tinged faintly Scottish- Edinburgh, most likely.

"It's the crooked hand of death itself," Denniston seemed to correct him, throwing down some sheets of paper into the table. He seemed to despise such a thing, but I can't say that I don't blame him. The Enigma machine was a menace by the sounds of things.

The papers showed page after page of random letters; perplexing to the average mind and most people in Bletchley Park, but I'm positive that this is what we'd have to be working on for God knows how long.

"Our WRENS intercept thousands of radio messages a day. But to the lovely young ladies of the Women's Royal Navy, they're nonsense. It's only when you feed them back into Enigma that they make sense."

"But we have an Enigma machine," states the second man, pointing to the sitting typewriter-object. He ran his hand through his brown hair, nervously.

"Yes," Denniston nodded. "Polish intelligence smuggled it out of Berlin."

"So, what's the problem?" He questioned. "Just put the intercepted messages back into Enigma and-"

"It's not that simple, is it?" I interject, after sudden realisation. I felt as though I was becoming more familiar with what was going on and what was required of us all. "Just having an Enigma machine doesn't help you decode the messages."

"Very good," Denniston approved. "To decode a message, you need to know the machine's settings. The Germans, as I may have mentioned to you individually, switch settings every day, promptly at midnight. We usually intercept our first message around six a.m. Which gives you exactly eighteen hours to every single day to crack the code before it changes... And you start again."