Retromancer (11 page)

We travelled in an Armstrong Hepworth-Stapleford RAF staff car. And it was not the most enjoyable ride of my life. It is a long haul from Brentford to Bletchley Park and more than once the air-raid sirens screamed.

And we moved on as the bombs rained down and the sounds and the sights were terrible. The mindless destruction sickened me and made me fierce and angry. The Allies would win this war, right would prevail against wrong and I would do all that I could to aid Hugo Rune in whatever it took to achieve this end.

It was late in the evening when we finally arrived and what with the blackout and everything, I would not have been able to discern much of the mansion itself had it not been for the fine full moon that swam in the cloudless heavens.

This was a wonderful Victorian pile and as a great fan of Victorian architecture, I was thrilled at the prospect of going inside. But even more thrilled at the prospect of meeting Mr Turing.

I have always had this thing about back-room boffins. Other boys at my junior school chose more obvious heroes to emulate and praise. Douglas Bader with his tin legs. And curiously now as I now remember it, Lord Jason Lark-Rising, who performed great feats of valour. But as I never saw myself as ever likely to be any kind of a hero, in the sense that, in all truth, I would probably never actually have the guts to do anything really brave, I liked to read of those other heroes who worked quietly away cracking codes, inventing marvellous weapons and ‘being-the-brains-behind’.

I always fancied ‘being-the-brains-behind’.

‘Pacy-pacy, Rizla,’ called Hugo Rune to me as he stepped from the staff car and onto the gravel drive. ‘When attacked by a grand piano, you had better not play for time.’

And I marvelled at the brains behind that.

Squadron Leader Lancaster bumbled along in the wake of Hugo Rune. And I wondered whether indeed he was a hero. Had he shot down Heinkels and Messerschmitts? Did he have any artificial body parts?

Would they make a film about him after the war, with Kenneth More or David Niven in the starring role?

Hugo Rune rapped upon the big front door with the pommel of his stout stick. Then called, ‘Open up there,’ through the letterbox. But nothing stirred. All was silent. Silent, that is, but for the muffled sounds of distant bombing. And the call of a nearby owl.

‘Most curious,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And most alarming also.’

‘Perhaps they are having an early night,’ I suggested. ‘After all, they did work very hard. Well, do work very hard. Or perhaps they’ve taken to the shelters and not heard the all clear?’

Hugo Rune did shakings of the head. ‘They work around the clock,’ he said. ‘And do you see that window up there?’

‘Top floor, beneath the copper dome?’ I asked.

‘That very one. That is Winston Churchill’s room. He spends a great deal of time here. And he should be here tonight.’

‘Winston Churchill,’ I said. And I whistled as one would. I mean, Winston Churchill. ‘Will I get to meet him?’ I asked. As Hugo Rune struck the door once more.

‘Hopefully not,’ replied the Magus. ‘I don’t think you’d take to him at all. And he certainly would not take to you.’

I opened my mouth to protest at this, but instead said, ‘There is an open window.’

And Hugo Rune asked where and I told him.

‘Up there, on the first floor. I could perhaps-’

‘You could indeed.’ And with a single, and might I say violent, motion, Hugo Rune hoiked me from my feet and propelled me skywards. And I made the wailing, as of a lost soul, and floundered about with my hands in the hope of gaining some purchase.

Which I did amidst the climbing ivy. And puffing and blowing in, I admit, a most unheroic fashion, I shinnied to the windowsill, then wriggled in through the open window.

I slid untidily to a carpeted floor, struggled to my feet and gently parted the blackout curtains. Soft candlelight welled within this room, which appeared to be some kind of office. There were many papers all littered about and I noticed that drawers had been pulled from a pine desk and emptied onto the floor. This did not look good.

I returned to the window and stuck my head out of it. ‘There is an office up here,’ I called down, ‘and it looks all ransacked. I will come down and let you both in.’

I left the ransacked office and found myself upon a wide landing. I thought about calling, ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’ but I chose not to. There was something altogether uncomfortable about the silence in this great house. Something oppressive. Something somehow alien.

I made off down the stairs at the hurry-up, crossed a marble floor and opened up the big front door.

‘Things are not right at all,’ I whispered as Hugo Rune entered the house. ‘There is a terrible atmosphere here – can you feel it?’

‘I feel it and more,’ said Himself. ‘There is evil afoot in this place.’

‘Perhaps I should just wait in the staff car,’ said Squadron Leader Lancaster, giving up all hopes of ever being played by David Niven.

‘No, come along, do.’ And Hugo Rune chivvied him in. He then closed the door and requested that I turn on the lights. I clicked at the switches.

‘The lights do not work,’ I said. ‘The office upstairs is candle-lit. Perhaps there has been a power cut, so they have all gone down to the pub.’

‘Perhaps we should go there and check,’ said the squadron leader. Whose film part, if any, now seemed likely to be filled by Charlie Drake, or Kenneth Williams at best.

‘No electrics and no signs of life,’ said Hugo Rune, raising his stout stick in the fashion of Moses calling upon the waters of the Red Sea to part. ‘We must step carefully, Rizla. But boldly too, I think.’

He then clocked the squadron leader on the head.

I opened my mouth to ask why as I watched that fellow sink to the floor.

Hugo Rune replied that it was all for the best and that I should follow him.

After which he did that thing with his stout stick again – the bringing-light thing that he had done in the tunnel of the London Underground. And the stout stick’s pommel cast a beam of light before us and I followed Mr Rune.

‘What do you think has happened here?’ I whispered. ‘You always have a theory. Or an answer before a question has even been asked. So what do you think about this?’

‘If you are asking what I suspect, Rizla, then I must say the worst. But in order to learn what has specifically occurred, we must find a survivor.’

And I did not like the sound of that word at all. ‘Do you think then that there has been some kind of massacre here? This establishment is top secret, surely.’

‘This way, Rizla, come.’

We passed under a Gothic arch, all decoratively diddled in the Arts and Crafts style, and entered what was surely the operations room.

There was a great world map on the far wall, acupunctured all over by myriad coloured flag-pins.

There were rows of desks and upon these desks were the amazing Enigma machines. I had never before seen one up close and the temptation was great to have a little tinker.

‘Tinker ye not,’ said Hugo Rune. Which made me think that indeed the part of Squadron Leader Lancaster should be played by Frankie Howerd.

‘And oh dear me.’ And Hugo Rune held high his stick and gestured with his free hand towards the floor.

I peeped past his elbow and gave out with a low, slow whistle, and then I said, ‘Oh my goodness, what is that?’

Before us, and twinkling slightly in the magical light, was a blackened shape. As it were a shadow or silhouette cast upon the carpeted floor. And the more I looked upon it, the more I became aware of just what it was and just how nasty also.

‘It is the shape of a man,’ I whispered. ‘The shape of a man who has been flung to the floor. But the shape is formed from ashes.’

‘That’s just what it is, young Rizla. And I have seen such a phenomenon before. A case of Spontaneous Human Combustion.’

‘Golly gosh and things of that nature generally,’ I said. ‘I am now once again most confused. You think that we have stumbled upon that rarest of all rare Fortean phenomena – a case of Mass Spontaneous Human Combustion?’

And Hugo Rune clocked me with his stick.

Although not sufficiently hard as to induce unconsciousness.

‘Ouch,’ I said, as to do so was appropriate at this time.

‘Buffoon,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘This is not the work of God.’

‘The work of God?’ I said. In considerable surprise. ‘Are you telling me that Spontaneous Human Combustion is really caused by God smiting people down with a thunderbolt, or something?’

‘You have, perchance, a better explanation?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I read this article about an experiment that these scientists did with a piggy’s leg and a gentleman’s pyjama bottom. There is this effect called the slow-burning candle-’

But Hugo Rune raised his stick once more.

‘But if you say God, then God it must be,’ I said.

‘But this is not the work of God.’ And Hugo Rune stepped over the blackened shape and approached the big wall map of the world.

And this he examined at considerable length.

I stood and shuffled my feet. There were the ashes of a dead person right there on the carpet before me and I did not like that very much. I quite fancied being off on my way. Perhaps I would get to meet Mr Turing another day. But for now all I wanted was to be out of this house of oppressive gloom and body ashes and away to my cosy bed.

‘This is all most interesting,’ said Hugo Rune suddenly.

So suddenly in fact that I all but dampened my trousers.

‘It would appear that the progress of the war that is displayed upon this map scarcely mirrors that which is displayed daily before us in the news-sheets.’

‘And that surprises you?’ I said.

‘I know that propaganda naturally plays its part in the War Effort,’ said the Perfect Master, ‘but this is something more. This map shows military ground offensives that are either presently underway, or are planned soon to be so. But these are the most extraordinary strategies. These put me in mind of a game of chess. And I do like a game of chess.’

And indeed Mr Rune did like a game of chess. He had taught me how to play, but not, so it seemed, how to win. And Mr Rune did not play chess upon the standard sixty-four-square board. He had created a somewhat larger board with two extra rows of squares. To accommodate the extra chess piece he had invented. This piece stood to either side of the castle on the new squares of the board. This piece was introduced to me as The Gentleman. And as I examined one of these extraordinary pieces, I discerned it to be a small and beautifully carved facsimile of Hugo Rune himself, shaven head and stout stick and everything.

The Gentleman, I was informed, was a rather special chess piece. He could duplicate any movement made by any other piece, including the horsey. And could not be taken, no matter the circumstances. I only played chess with Mr Rune twice. The first time he huffed one of my bishops and the second, one of his Gentlemen took all of my pieces, including both of my Gentlemen and my King. Mr Rune then poked one of his Gentlemen up my left nostril and made me pay a forfeit.

I decided at this point that chess was not the game for me.

‘It’s a work of genius,’ said Hugo Rune, gazing at the big wall map of the world. ‘But of unworldly genius. With these strategies the Allies will surely trounce the Germans. Although at great human cost. Indeed-’ And he stepped back from the map and gestured with his effulgent stick. ‘Do you see it, Rizla, do you see it?’

And I gazed too at that map and I saw it.

The flag-pins that represented Allied troops, regiments and units and squadrons too of planes, were tipped with black, the Nazis’ tipped with red.

And these black flags’ pin-tips formed, it seemed, a great pictorial representation upon that map of the world. And if one stepped back, as I did, and took to slight squintings of the eyes, it was quite clear that they formed a recognisable shape.

And this shape, it seemed, was that of a hangèd man.

‘What does it mean?’ I asked of Hugo Rune. ‘What does it mean and what is going on in this place?’

And I think he might have told me, because he probably knew, but he did not get the chance to speak, which was in itself most odd for Hugo Rune.

Because a door, which was clearly camouflaged because neither Mr Rune nor I had noticed its presence, suddenly flew open to the right of the great map and a fellow staggered through the opening and dropped to the floor in a crumpled tweedy heap.

Hugo Rune gazed down upon this tweedy heap and said, ‘Step lively Rizla and meet Mr Alan Turing.’

We revived, as best we could, the back-room boffin of a hero with the contents of Hugo Rune’s hip flask.

The back-room boffin came to and coughed somewhat and spluttered.

‘Alan,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Are you feeling yourself now?’

‘I was searching in my pocket for my keys,’ said the other. ‘I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue.’

And sadly I shook my head and hoped against hope that I was not about to find myself on the receiving end of a load of ghastly double entendres and cheap knob gags. This, I knew, was not what Alan Turing was all about. Although it would be right up Frankie Howerd’s back alley. So to speak. I helped the hero into a chair and dusted down his tweeds. He certainly had a noble look to him. A noble look and a famous one too. He had one of those big square heads that film stars and politicians seem always to have. They look so big and square when you actually see them in the flesh that it is as if you are seeing one of Gerry Anderson’s puppets brought to life. And it was indeed the case here that Alan Turing bore an uncanny resemblance to Brains out of Thunderbirds. I was very taken with his suit, though. Boleskine tweed, like my own, but in the blue. The man had class.

He had extremely twinkly brown eyes and these now stared at Hugo Rune.

‘Hugo,’ said Alan Turing. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The matter of the murder,’ the mage replied. ‘McMurdo from the Ministry called me in, as it were.’

‘You should go,’ cried Alan Turing. ‘Go at once!’ And he stared now at me. ‘And take your catamite with you.’

‘Now steady on,’ I said. ‘I am an acolyte, me.’

‘It’s out of control,’ Alan now cried. ‘I fear it will kill us all. In fact I am certain that it will. Go now. Run while you still can.’

‘Where is the rest of your team?’ asked Mr Rune, downing the last of his hip flask’s contents. ‘Not all dead, as that fellow there?’ And he gestured to the ashes on the floor.

‘Outside, in the Anderson shelter.’

I wondered whether Gerry Anderson had invented this.

‘They are all safe,’ Alan continued, ‘as long as they do not come back in here.’

‘So why are you here, my friend?’ Mr Rune asked.

‘I must pull the plug. It is my folly that has brought this upon us. I must, if needs be, pay the price.’

‘I think,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘indeed I know, that you must now tell me all that you know regarding this matter.’

‘I must destroy it. You must leave.’ Alan Turing fluttered his hands about in a futile fashion, imploring that Hugo Rune and I depart.

‘I must know all that you know,’ said Hugo Rune. And with that said, he now hoiked Alan Turing to his feet and dragged him from the room and from the hall and from the building.

And then sat him down upon the gravel drive.

‘Tell me all,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Tell me all, and now.’

Alan Turing huffed and puffed, but then he told it all.

‘It is this way,’ he said, his big face lit by the moonlight. ‘As you must know, this unit has been assembled to crack German codes. Each member of the team is a genius in their own field. Each was required to pass a test, solve the Daily Telegraph crossword in less than twelve minutes-’

‘I can do that in eight,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Whilst holding my breath.’

‘I have not the slightest doubt that you can,’ said Alan. ‘But we are not as you. But we are gathered here to beat the Germans in our way. And I did what I did in good faith and through the honest wish to aid my country. You must understand that.’

‘I will understand it better when you explain it to me,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Although a light is slowly beginning to appear at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Would I be right in believing that you are referring to Colossus?’

‘The computer built by Tommy Flowers,’ I said, ‘at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill.’

‘The same,’ said Alan Turing. ‘Are you with MI6?’

I shook my head. And shrugged my shoulders. And then I scratched at my nose and twiddled my chin.

‘I see,’ said Alan Turing. ‘A Freemason, I understand.’

I looked at Hugo Rune. Who rolled his eyes.

‘Colossus,’ said Alan Turing. ‘A work of genius if ever there was one. You see, Hugo, there are certain things that cannot be improved upon. Certain mathematical theorems. Certain works of engineering. The Merlin engine for the Spitfire. The Tesla coil. These things have been designed and built to the best standard humanly possible and they simply cannot be improved upon. Such was Colossus. But I improved upon it. I added extra components. I upgraded its memory banks. I improved upon perfection. And that a man must never do.’

‘That, by definition, a man can never do,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘So what did you do, Alan?’

Alan Turing gave a great sigh. ‘I gave it life,’ he said.

And I gave a gasp as big as his sigh. ‘You gave it what?’ said I.

‘Life,’ said Alan Turing. ‘Colossus lives. It is a thinking machine. It now thinks independently of those who programme it. It has its own-’

‘Artificial Intelligence,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Alan Turing. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. That is what it has. Artificial Intelligence. It learns, it thinks. It makes its own decisions.’

‘The flags on the great wall map?’ said Hugo Rune. ‘The strategies, as in a great game of chess?’

‘The work of Colossus.’

‘A work of unworldly genius,’ said the Magus.

‘Indeed, indeed.’ And Alan Turing nodded his big square head. ‘It thinks for itself and it is now in command of the Allied offensive against Germany. It is, in effect, running the war from this side of the English Channel.’

‘And Churchill?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘He loves every minute of it. Because when we win the war he will take all the credit. No one is ever going to believe that a machine constructed from wires and valves did all the thinking and planned all the military campaigns, are they?’

‘It is not in any history book I have ever read,’ I said.

‘What?’ asked Mr Turing.

‘And how long has this been going on for?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘About six months.’

‘And would you say that we are winning the war?’

‘Undoubtedly so.’

‘And so where, exactly, is the problem?’

‘The problem,’ cried Alan Turing, his voice rising to an alarming pitch, ‘is that it has started killing my staff. It is eliminating those it considers to be slackers, or not contributing sufficient new ideas regarding the winning of the war. It thrives upon ideas. Ideas are its brain food, as it were.’

‘How many dead?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘Four,’ said Alan Turing. ‘Mavis the tea lady. She was the first to go. Colossus said that she made the tea too weak. That the operatives needed the noblesse of strong tea-’

‘Have to stop you there,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Colossus said this? Colossus speaks? And noblesse?’

‘I installed a frequency modulator linked to a vibrating diaphragm. The resultant oscillations mimic speech of a rudimentary nature. It uses words such as noblesse and chivalry. It thinks it is King Arthur.’

I said, ‘What?’

Mr Rune said, ‘What?’

And again we said, ‘What?’ together.