"Are you paying attention?" "Good." "If you're not listening carefully you will miss things." "Important things." "I will not pause, I will not repeat myself and you will not interrupt me." "If you think that because you're sitting where you are and I am sitting where I am that you are in control of what is about to happen," "you're mistaken." "I am in control, because I know things that you do not know." "Manchester Police Department." "Please hold." "Looks like a break-in." "Residence of Turing, Alan." "Window's broken." "Home's been ransacked." "Send a detective down, will you?" "What I will need from you now is a commitment." "You will listen closely and you will not judge me until I am finished." "If you cannot commit to this, then please leave the room." "Come in." "But if you choose to stay, remember, you chose to be here." "What happens from this moment forward is not my responsibility." "It's yours." "Pay attention." "What's all this, then?" "Turing, Alan." "Professor at King's." " Seems to have been a burglary." " Oh?" "What of?" "Well, that's just it." "Nothing missing, really." "What's he doing in Manchester?" "Something with machines." "The project at the NPL." "I checked but he won't say what it's on." "Professor Turing?" "Detective Nock, Manchester Police." "Sergeant Staehl here tells me you had a burglary last night." "Professor Turing?" "Take a step back and don't breathe heavily." " Breathe?" " Undiluted cyanide." "It wouldn't take more than a thimbleful to kill you." "Ah." " Disappointing." " Pardon?" "I had hoped for a bit more." "Sergeant Staehl, is it just me or do you get the sense that we're being insulted?" "Last night you had a break-in." "Your neighbour Mr Springborn called to report the noise." "He said there was quite a ruckus." "Only you say nothing was taken." "It's odd." "So how about you tell us what happened and we'll find the chap who did this." "Gentlemen," "I don't believe that you could find the chap that did this if he walked up to you and spat in your face." "What I could use right now is not a bobby but a really good cleaning lady." "So unless one of you has an apron in your car," "I suggest you file your reports and leave me alone." "As you say, Professor Turing." "Best of luck with your cyanide." "I'll give you a quid if you can name me a more insufferable sod." "Seemed a bit forced, though, didn't it?" "Don't know what you mean." "Well, if you didn't want a pair of bobbies digging around in your personal affairs, that'd have been a stellar way to make sure they don't." "Tell me you don't think this is suspicious." "I don't think this is suspicious." "A mysterious professor who won't admit he's had something stolen from his house?" "I think Alan Turing's hiding something." "War declared!" "800,000 children evacuated!" "German bombs on their way!" "Get your papers here." "Fresh off the press." "War declared!" "800,000 children evacuated!" "German bombs expected soon!" "Get your papers here." "Fresh off the press." "This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note, stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock, a state of war would exist between us." "I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received." "And that consequently, this country is at war with Germany." "For the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war." "We have tried to find a peaceful way out..." "Papers, please." " What are you doing here?" " Uh, the lady told me to wait." "In my office?" "Did she tell you to help yourself to tea while you were here?" "Uh..." "No, she didn't." "She obviously didn't tell you what a joke was then, either, I gather?" "Was she supposed to?" " Who are you?" " Alan Turing." " Ah, Turing." "The mathematician." " Correct." "However could I have guessed?" "You didn't." "You just read it on that piece of paper." "King's College, Cambridge." "Now it says here you were a bit of a prodigy in the Maths Department." "I'm not sure I can evaluate that, Mr..." " How old are you, Mr Turing?" " Uh, 27." "And how old were you when you became a fellow at Cambridge?" "Twenty-four." "And how old were you when you published this paper that has a title that I can barely understand?" "Uh, 23." "And you don't think that qualifies you as a certified prodigy?" "Well, Newton discovered Binomial Theorem aged 22." "Einstein wrote four papers that changed the world by the age of 26." "As far as I can tell, I've..." "I've barely made par." " My God, you're serious." " Would you prefer I made a joke?" "Oh, I don't think you know what those are." "Hardly seems fair that that's a requirement for employment here, Mr..." "Commander Denniston, Royal Navy." "All right, Mr Turing, I'll bite." "Why do you wish to work for His Majesty's Government?" "Oh, I don't, really." "Are you a bleeding pacifist?" "I'm agnostic about violence." "But you do realise that 600 miles away from London there's this nasty little chap called Hitler who wants to engulf Europe in tyranny?" "Politics isn't really my area of expertise." "Really?" "Well, I believe you've just set the record for the shortest job interview in British military history." "Oh, uh..." "Mother says I can be off-putting sometimes on account of being one of the best mathematicians in the world." " In the world?" " Oh, yes." "Do you know how many people I've rejected for this programme?" " No." " That's right." "Because we're a top secret programme." "But I'll tell you, just because we're friends, that only last week I rejected one of our great nation's top linguists." "Knows German better than Bertolt Brecht." " I don't speak German." " What?" "I don't speak German." "Well, how the hell are you supposed to decrypt German communications if you don't..." "I don't know, speak German?" "Well, I'm really quite excellent at crossword puzzles." "Margaret!" "German codes are a puzzle." "A game just like any other game." " Margaret, where are you?" " I'm really very good at games, uh, puzzles." "And this is the most difficult puzzle in the world." "Margaret!" "For the love of God." "This is a joke, obviously." "I'm afraid I don't know what those are, Commander Denniston." "Have a pleasant trip back to Cambridge, Professor." "Enigma." "You called for me?" "That's what you're doing here." "The top secret programme at Bletchley." "You're trying to break the German Enigma machine." "What makes you think that?" "It's the greatest encryption device in history and the Germans use it for all major communications." "If the Allies broke Enigma, well, this would turn into a very short war indeed." "Of course that's what you're working on." "You also haven't got anywhere with it." "If you had, you wouldn't be hiring cryptographers out of university." "You need me a lot more than I need you." "I..." "I like solving problems, Commander." "And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the world." "Oh, Enigma isn't difficult." "It's impossible." "The Americans, the Russians, the French, the Germans." "Everyone thinks Enigma is unbreakable." "Good." "Let me try, then we'll know for sure, won't we?" "Welcome to Enigma." "The details of every surprise attack, every secret convoy, and every U-boat in the bloody Atlantic go into that thing" "and out comes gibberish." "It's beautiful." "It's the crooked hand of death itself." "Our Wrens intercept thousands of radio messages a day." "And 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 any sense." "But we have an Enigma machine." "Yes, Polish Intelligence smuggled it out of Berlin." "So what's the problem?" "Just put the intercepted messages back into the Enigma and..." "Look, it's not that simple." "Is it?" "Just having an Enigma machine doesn't help you to decode the messages." "Very good, Mr Turing." "To decode a message, you need to know the machine's settings." "Now, the Germans switch settings every day, promptly at midnight." "We usually intercept our first message around 6:00am." "Which gives you exactly 18 hours every day to crack the code before it changes and you start again." "Five rotors. 10 plugboard cables." " That's one million..." " 1,000 million." " No, it's..." "I've got it." " It's a million million." "Well, it's in the millions, obviously." "There's over 150 million million million possible settings." "Very good." "One hundred and fifty-nine, if you want to be exact about it, 1-5-9 with 18 zeros behind it." "Possibilities." "Every single day." "Gentlemen, meet Hugh Alexander." "I personally selected him to run this unit." "Didn't you..." "Mr Alexander won Britain's national chess championship." " Twice." " You're not the only one who's good at games round here, Turing." "Are we to work together, then?" "I prefer to have my own office." "You're a team and you will work as one." "I don't have time to explain myself as I go along and I'm afraid these men would only slow me down." "If you can't play together, then I'm afraid we can't let you play at all." "This is Stewart Menzies." "MI6." "There are only five divisions of Military Intelligence." " There is no MI6." " Exactly." "That's the spirit." "Mr Turing, do you know how many British servicemen have died because of Enigma?" " Uh, no, I don't." " Three." "While we've been having this conversation." "Oh, look, there's another." "I rather hope he didn't have a family." "This war Commander Denniston's been going on about, we're not winning it." "Break the code, at least we have a chance." "Shall we leave the children alone with their new toy?" "All right, gentlemen... let's play." "The game was quite a simple one." "Every single German message, every surprise attack, every bombing run, every, uh imminent U-boat assault." "They were all floating through the air." "Radio signals that, well, any schoolboy with an AM kit could intercept." "The trick was that they were encrypted." "One hundred and fifty-nine million million million possible Enigma settings." "All we had to do was try each one." "But if we had 10 men checking one setting a minute for 24 hours every day and seven days every week," "how many days do you think it would take to check each of the settings?" "It's not days, it's years." "It's 20 million years." "To stop a coming attack, we would have to check 20 million years' worth of settings in 20 minutes." "I'm famished." "Lunch?" "Good Lord, what is it about women with little hats?" "The boys..." "We're going to get some lunch." "Alan?" " Yes?" " I said we're going to get some lunch." " Alan?" " Yes?" " Can you hear me?" " Yes." "I said we're off to get some..." "This is starting to get a little bit repetitive." "What is?" "I had asked if you wanted to come to lunch with us." "Er, no, you didn't." "You said you were going to get some lunch." "Have I offended you in some way?" "Why would you think that?" "Would you like to come to lunch with us?" "What time's lunchtime?" " Christ, Alan, it's a bleeding sandwich." " What is?" " Lunch." " I don't like sandwiches." "Never mind." "You know, to pull off this irascible genius routine, one actually has to be a genius, Alan." "And yet we're the ones making progress here, aren't we?" "You are?" "Yes, we are." "We have decrypted a number of German messages by analysing the frequency of letter distribution." "Oh, even a broken clock is right twice a day." "That's not progress." "That's just blind luck." "I'm designing a machine that will allow us to break every message, every day, instantly." "Who's hungry?" " Let's go." " I'm hungry." " What?" " Peter asked who was hungry." "Can I have some soup, please?" "What do you mean, classified?" "No, I am aware of the literal meaning of the word "classified", what I'm asking is why would a maths professor have his military records classified?" "Yeah, well, I will come down." "Pardon me, I'd like to see some documents, if I may." "Service records of a Mr..." "Turing, Alan." "Foreign Office sent me." "This is unacceptable." "If you wish to discuss a complaint," "I suggest you make a proper appointment." "Alexander..." "Complaint?" "No." "No, Hugh Alexander has denied my requisition for parts and equipment that I need to build the machine I have designed." "Your fellow code-breakers are refusing to work with you and they've filed a formal complaint." "It is inspired by an old Polish code machine, only this one is infinitely more advanced." "If you don't respond to the complaint," "I shall have to take it up with the Home Office." "Put those files by my desk." "Fine." "My response is they're all idiots, fire them and use the savings to fund my machine." "I only need about £100,000." "£100,000?" "Why are you building a machine?" "It's highly technical, you wouldn't understand." "I suggest you make the effort to try." "Enigma is an extremely well-designed machine." "Our problem is that we're only using men to try to beat it." "What if only a machine can defeat another machine?" "Well, that's not very technical." "Hugh Alexander is in charge of your unit." "He said no and that is that." "I simply don't have time for this." "Have you ever won a war, Turing?" "I have." "Do you know how it's done?" "Order." "Discipline." "Chain of command." "You're not at university any longer." "You are a very small cog in a very large system and you will do as your commanding officer instructs." "Who..." "Who is your commanding officer?" "Winston Churchill, Number 10 Downing Street, London SW1." "You have a problem with my decision, you can take it up with him." "Mr Menzies." "Mr Menzies!" "Are you going to London?" " Possibly." " Would you deliver a letter for me?" "Look, I'm sorry, but are you joking?" "Churchill's put Alan in charge?" " This is a terrible idea." " No, no, no..." "So I can give these men orders now?" "I hate to say it but yes." "Excellent." "Keith and Charles, you're both fired." " Excuse me?" " What?" "You're mediocre linguists and positively poor code-breakers." "Alan, you can't just fire Keith and Charles." "Well, he just said I could." "No, I did no such thing." "But Churchill did." "Go to hell." "Well, this is inhuman." "Even for you." "Popular at school, were you?" "The problem began, of course, with the carrots." "The carrots are orange." "The peas are green." "They mustn't touch." "Do you know why people like violence?" "It is because it feels good." "Humans find violence deeply satisfying." "But remove the satisfaction and the act becomes hollow." "Turing?" "Come on." "Don't be such a kike about it." "Leave him to bloody rot." "I didn't learn this on my own, of course." "I had help." "Christopher helped." "Alan, are you all right?" "It's not my fault." "The carrots got in with the peas and..." "I'm sorry, I won't let them do it again." "They're getting worse." "They only beat me up because I'm smarter than they are." "No, they beat you up because you're different." " Mother says I'm just an odd duck." " And she's right." "But you know, Alan, sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine." "So what do we do now?" " We're short on staff." " Well, we, uh, we get more staff, then." "And how do you propose to do that?" "Erm, Alan Turing to see Stewart Menzies." "Very good, sir." "So who are they?" "Oh, all sorts, really." "A teacher." "An engineer." "A handful of students." "And you think they're qualified for Bletchley 'cause they're good at crossword puzzles?" "Well, they say they're good and now we shall find out, won't we?" "In order to aid your efforts, there is, to the right of you, a green scratch card book." "You are to make notes in that." "Gentlemen, you have six minutes in which to complete the puzzle, at which point I will..." "Pardon me, ma'am, this room's restricted." "Oh, apologies for my tardiness." "The bus caught a flat tyre." "May I continue, please?" "Thank you." " You're not allowed in here, ma'am." " Oh, but I'm only a few minutes late..." "The secretaries are to head upstairs." "This room's for the candidates." "May I get on with this now, please?" " Uh, I am a candidate." " For what position?" "The letter didn't say, precisely." "Yes, the secretaries are to head upstairs." "It did say that it was top secret." "What is going on?" "I..." "I solved a crossword puzzle in the newspaper and I got this letter saying that I was a candidate for some sort of mysterious job." "My name's Joan Clarke." "Miss, did you really solve this puzzle yourself?" "What makes you think I couldn't solve the puzzle myself?" "I'm really very good at..." "Ma'am, I'll have to ask you to..." "Miss Clarke, I find tardiness under any circumstance unacceptable." "Take a seat so that we may continue." "Thank you." "Now, as I was saying, you have six minutes to complete the task in front of you." "Erm, gentlemen, and lady... begin." "Six minutes." " Is that even possible?" " No, no." "Takes me eight." "This isn't about crossword puzzles." "It's about how one approaches solving an impossible problem." "Do you tackle the whole thing at once or divide it into small..." "You've finished?" "Yes." "Five minutes and 34 seconds." "You said to do it in under six." "Congratulations." "My warmest welcome to His Majesty's Service." "If you speak a word of what I'm about to show you, you will be executed for high treason." "You will lie to your friends, your family and everyone you meet about what it is you really do." "And what is it that we're really doing?" "We're going to break an unbreakable Nazi code and win the war." "Oh." "What's that you're reading?" " It's about cryptography." " Like secret messages?" "Not secret." "That's the brilliant part." "Messages that anyone can see but no one knows what they mean unless you have the key." "How's that different from talking?" " Talking?" " When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean, they say something else." "And you're expected to just know what they mean." "Only I never do." "So... how's that different?" "Alan, I have a funny feeling you're going to be very good at this." "Goodnight, Alan." "Goodnight." "Careful, will you?" "It's not a toy." "Funny." "Looks like a toy." "Bloody great £100,000 one." "Your new minion's arrived." " Jack Good." "We met..." " Well, where's Miss Clarke?" "Lovely, isn't he?" "It's not just a usual humdrum production mill factory." "I mean, well, as I was saying, it's a very important radio factory." "It's not, actually." "On the spectrum of radio factories, this one is particularly..." "Why are you not at Bletchley?" "Thank you so much for your visit, Mr Turing." " Was your trip pleasant?" " Gather your things and let's go." "I'm sorry but I'm unable to accept your offer." "We feel that such a position would hardly be appropriate." "You earned a double first in mathematics." "But sadly, wasn't granted the opportunity to become a fellow." "You belong at Bletchley." "I'm sorry, but for someone in my position to live, to... to work in a radio factory so far from home, with all your men, erm, it would be... indecorous." "What in the world does that even mean?" "We have a group of young ladies who tend to all of our clerical tasks." "Assistants, translators." "They live, erm, together in town." "Would that be a more suitable environment?" "Hmm." "So..." "So I would be working amongst these women?" "Yes." "Wonderful ladies." "They even organise social events at St Martin's church down the road." "Really, the whole thing is quite, er, um, decorous." "Now, you won't have proper security clearance, of course, so we'll have to improvise things a bit." "Why are you helping me?" "Because there is only one thing that matters in this entire world right now, do you understand?" "And that is breaking Enigma." "But..." "But Mr Turing..." "Why are you helping me?" "Oh, um..." "Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine." "Sir." " What this?" " Alan Turing's classified military file." " Bloody empty." " Exactly." " It's an empty manila envelope." " Yeah." "You've cracked the case wide open, then, haven't you?" "Alan Turing's war records aren't just classified, they're non-existent." "That means someone's got rid of them, erased them, burnt them." "And that same person broke into his house and stole nothing?" "Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean." " What, the spies from the papers?" " Soviet spies." "But first they were professors, weren't they?" "Radicalised at Cambridge, then they joined the Communist Party, then the Foreign Office, then leaked information to Stalin during the war." "Now, can you think of anyone else we know who was at Cambridge, then took up something murky and top secret when the war broke out?" "You think this Alan Turing might be a Soviet agent?" "I think something very serious is happening right here under our noses." "Wouldn't you like to find out what it is?" "Welcome, ladies." "If you'd like to follow me." "Some people thought we were at war with the Germans." "Incorrect." "We were at war with the clock." "Britain was literally starving to death." "The Americans sent over 100,000 tonnes of food every week and every week the Germans would send our desperately needed bread to the bottom of the ocean." "Our daily failure was announced at the chimes of midnight." "And the sound would haunt our unwelcome dreams." "Tick, tock." "Tick." "Damn it!" " What just happened?" " Midnight." "All the work we've done today is useless." "Oh, but don't worry, we've a few hours before tomorrow's messages start flooding in, then we start all over again." " From scratch." " I'm so sick of this." "Four hours rewiring his plugboard matrix." "Three hours yesterday on his rotor positions." " Don't go over there." " Look, John, no." "If this job wasn't already impossible before, it bloody well is now." "Hugh, don't." "Damn you and your useless machine." "My machine is how we are going to win." "Really?" "This machine?" "Are you talking about this bloody machine?" " Hugh!" " Hugh, don't!" "Don't!" " Stop!" " You arrogant bastard." "You could help us." "You could make this go faster but you won't." "Get off." "He's right, Alan." "There are actual soldiers out there trying to win an actual war." "My brother protects food convoys in the Navy." "My cousins fly RAF patrols." "All my friends, they're all making a difference while we just while away our days producing nothing." "Because of you." "My machine will work." "Come on, Peter." "Okay." "Joan!" "Could you have made a bit more noise?" "I'm not quite sure my landlady woke up." " Oh, sorry." " Oh, uh, look." "I think that's the best I can do." "No male visitors after dark." " So, what did you bring me?" " Erm..." " There you go." " Here." "Some men try flowers, you know." "These are actual decrypted Enigma messages direct from Nazi High Command." ""0600 hours, weather today is clear." ""Rain in the evening." "Heil Hitler."" "Well, clearly that vital piece of information is going to win us the war." "It's the relationship between the encrypted and decrypted messages that interests me." "Can we find a clue here that we can build into Christopher?" " Who's Christopher?" " Oh, he's my machine." "You named him?" "Is that a bad name?" "No." "No, never mind." "Are you trying to build your universal machine?" "I read your paper at university." " Is it already being taught?" " No." "No." "No, I was precocious." "So, you theorised a machine that could solve any problem?" "It didn't just do one thing, it did everything?" "It wasn't just programmable, it was re-programmable?" "Mmm." "Is that your idea behind Christopher?" "Human brains can compute large sums very quickly, even Hugh can do that, but I want Christopher to be smarter." "To make a calculation and then to determine what to do next." "Like a person does." "Think of it." "An electrical brain." "A digital computer." "Digital computer?" "Hmm." "What's going on?" "What's happening?" " No, no, no." "Don't touch that." " Stay back." "That's my desk." "Thank goodness." "I'd hate to think we were searching the wrong one." "What are you doing?" "What's going on?" "There is a spy in Bletchley Park." "The Navy thinks that one of us is a Soviet double agent, Alan." "Why?" "Our boys intercepted this on its way to Moscow." "Look familiar?" "It's a Beale cipher." "Encrypted with a phrase from a book or a poem or..." "You..." "You don't seriously think I did this, do you?" "Double agents are such bastards." "Isolated loners." "No attachments to friends or family." "Arrogant." "Know anybody like that?" "I..." "Hmm." "I know you don't like me but that does not make me a Soviet spy." "Nothing out of the ordinary, sir." "Really?" "Hmm, all right." "The Home Office may be protecting you now but sooner or later, you will make a mistake." "And I needn't bother firing you." "They will hang you for treason." "Hello." "I heard about what happened." "It's all the girls in Hut 3 can talk about." "I have an idea of what might cheer you up." "So, because no letter can be encoded as itself, there's already a handful of settings that can be rejected at the outset." " Is that your team?" " Uh, yes." " Shall we say hello?" " No." "Hello." "I told you not to do that." "Alan." " Uh, Hugh, hello." " Didn't know you drank." "He doesn't, really." "He just sort of sips at the foam." "I'll let you into a little secret, Miss..." " Clarke." " Miss Clarke." " Please." " Foam's my favourite part, too." " Is it really?" " Come and join us for a drink." " We'll be there in a moment." " Miss Clarke." "Well, he likes you." " Yes." " You, uh..." "You got him to like you." " Yes." " Why?" "Because I'm a woman in a man's job and I don't have the luxury of being an arse." "Alan, it doesn't matter how smart you are," "Enigma is always smarter." "If you really want to solve your puzzle, then you're going to need all the help you can get and they are not going to help you if they do not like you." "What are those?" " Apples." " No." "Oh, they really are." "Um, I've..." "Well, Miss Clarke..." "Joan, actually, um, said that it would be nice if I was to bring you all something." "So here we are." " Thank you." " I like apples." "My best to Miss Clarke." "Uh, there are two people in a wood and, um, they run into a bear." "The first person gets down on his knees to pray." "The second person starts lacing up his boots." "The first person asks the second person," ""My dear friend, what are you doing?" "You can't outrun a bear."" "To which the second person responds," ""I don't have to, I only have to outrun you."" "I'll be with Christopher if anyone needs me." "If we assume that the square root of two is a rational number, then we can say that the square root of two is A over B," "where A and B are whole numbers and B is not zero." " Mr Turing, passing notes, are we?" " No, sir." "Only Turing would pass notes written in gibberish." "All right, gentlemen." "Do not forget your algebra over the break." "Have a pleasant holiday." "And we'll resume your irrationals when you return." "Mmm." "But Euler's Theorem gives you that immediately." "Erm..." "Here, look at this." "If you run the wires across the plugboard matrix diagonally, it will eliminate rotor positions 500 times faster." "That's, uh, actually not an entirely terrible idea." "I think that was Alan for "thank you"." " That's my sandwich." " You don't like sandwiches." "Are you nervous?" "What happens now?" "Well, it should work out the day's Enigma settings." "How long?" "The German Army has fanned out across Europe, from Poland to Serbia, Lithuania to Denmark, Norway to France." "The Nazi flag now flies from more than two dozen national capitals." "Their campaign mounts in fury as a free Europe crumbles." "Oh, it's still going." " Good morning, sir." " Morning, Margaret." "Gears keep spinning on and on." "Rotors on and on." "It's endless." " With no result in sight?" " No." "Turing." "Turing, open the bloody door." "No." "No." "Open the door or we'll break it down." "I can't let you in." "I cannot let you interfere." "Go on, then." "Turn that thing off!" "No." "Don't, please." "Please, please, please!" "No." "No, don't!" "No, no!" "Well, then, it seems that your great big expensive machine doesn't work." "It does." "Wonderful." "So you've broken Enigma, then?" "It was just..." "Still working." "This is my associate from the Home Office." "You see, £100,000 is rather a lot of money and he's here to see what you have to show for it." "You will never understand the importance of what I am creating here!" "Have you decrypted any German messages?" "A single one?" "Can you point to anything at all that you've achieved?" "Hmm." "Your funding is up and our patience has expired." "It's with such great pleasure that I am finally able to say this." "Alan Turing, you're fired." "Please escort Mr Turing from the premises." "No." "I beg your pardon?" "If you fire Alan, well, then, you'll have to fire me, too." "What on earth are you saying?" "Trust me when I tell you there is no one who would rather say this less than I do but... he's right." "Alan is right." "His machine can work and it's probably the best chance that we've got." "God, it's beyond belief." "If you fire them, you'll have to fire me, too." "And me." "We're the best cryptographic minds in Britain." "Are you going to fire us all?" "Commander, at least give us some more time." "Six months." "And if the machine doesn't produce any results that we need, then we'll go back to doing things the old way." "How about that?" "One month." "And then so help me God, you're all gone." "Oh, leave him." " Thank you." " You're welcome." "Oh, and, Alan, your machine," "it had better bloody work." "Hugh..." "I swear," "I'm not a spy." "Oh, for God's sake, of course you're not a bloody spy." " What?" " Denniston gave me the Beale cipher and guess what?" "I cracked it." ""Ask, and it shall be given to you;" "seek and ye shall find."" "Matthew 7:7." "That was the key." "Far too simple for the likes of you." "Pity Denniston disagrees." "Come in." "Sir, I think I've got Turing." "I tailed him to a pub last night where he met a bloke." "Exchanged an envelope." "So I follow this other fella, pick him up, gave him a good shake." " He's a poofter." "He confessed." " What?" "The man admitted it." "Arnold Murray." "Hangs around that pub, men pay him for a go." "Turing's one of the men that paid." "Only Mr Murray here then has the bright idea of robbing Turing's house after, with a friend." "That's what Turing's hiding." "Well, he's a poof, not a spy." " No." " What's the matter?" "We can charge a university professor with indecency." "No, this is..." "It's bloody rubbish." "Turing's up to something important." "He's committed a crime and he's broken the law." "And with a bloke." "Jesus Christ, it's bloody disgusting." "This isn't the investigation I was conducting." "Bring him in." "Wait." "Let me interrogate him." "Please." "Give me half an hour alone and then I swear, I'll spend the next month running errands on as many rubbish cases as you like." "Fine." "Now, will someone get me a warrant for the arrest of Alan Turing?" "Alan?" "Christopher's simply not moving fast enough." " We should talk." " And even with the diagonal board, he's still not eliminating settings as quickly as we need him to..." " I'm leaving." " But you've just walked in." "No." "No, Bletchley." " What?" " It's my parents." "I'm 25, I'm unmarried, I'm living alone and they want me home." "That's just ridiculous." "That's my parents." "You..." "You can't leave." "I won't let you." ""I'll miss you."" "That's what a normal person might say in this situation." "I don't care what is normal." "What am I supposed to do, Alan?" "I..." "I will not give up my parents." "You..." "You have an opportunity here to make some actual use of your life." "And end up like you?" "No, thanks." "I'm sorry you're lonely but Enigma will not save you." "Can you decipher that, you fragile narcissist?" "Or would you like me to go and fetch your precious Christopher to help?" "I'm sorry." "I want you..." "I want you to stay because I like you." "I like talking to you." "I like talking to you, too, Alan." "And what if you weren't alone?" "What if you had a husband?" "Do you have one in mind?" "I do." "Hugh?" "Hugh's terribly attractive, I'll give you that, but I don't really think he's the marrying kind." "No, I..." "I wasn't thinking of Hugh." "Or Peter." "Peter's so quiet." "Oh, my God." " But this makes sense." " Did you just propose to me?" "Well, it is the logical thing to do." "This is ridiculous." "This is your parents." "I can't believe that this is happening." "Joan..." "Is your middle name Caroline or Catherine?" "Elizabeth." "Erm, Joan Elizabeth Clarke, erm... will you marry me?" "It's beautiful." "Well, I know it isn't ordinary but... whoever loved ordinary?" "She had it in both hands." "And she looked up at me with her doe eyes and said," ""Am I supposed to put that in my mouth?"" "And I said, "Yes, you know, the French way."" "So she pops it in, clamps her lips around it, and starts humming the bloody Marseillaise." " Come and have a dance." " No, no, no, no." "You can dance with your fiancé any time you like." "Right now, this moment my turn." "What's the matter?" "What if..." "What if I don't fancy being with Joan in that way?" "Because you're a homosexual?" "I suspected." "Well, should I tell her that I've had affairs with men?" "You know, in my admittedly limited experience, women tend to be a bit touchy about accidentally marrying homosexuals." "Perhaps not spreading this information about might be in your best interest." "I care for her, I truly do." "I..." "I..." "I just don't know if I can, erm..." " pretend about..." " You can't tell anyone, Alan." "It's illegal." "And Denniston is looking for any excuse he can to put you away." " I know." " This has to stay a secret." "Come on, it's your turn." "Ah, okay." "It's a sport for girls!" "It's not a sport for girls!" " Cup of tea?" " No, thank you." "Mr Turing, can I tell you a secret?" "I'm quite good with those." "I'm here to help you." "Oh, clearly." "Can machines think?" "Oh, so you've read some of my published works?" "What makes you say that?" "Well, because I'm sitting in a police station accused of entreating a young man to touch my penis and you just asked me if machines can think." "Well, can they?" "Could machines ever think as human beings do?" "Most people say not." "You're not most people." "Well, the problem is you're asking a stupid question." "I am?" "Of course machines can't think as people do." "A machine is different from a person." "Hence they think differently." "The interesting question is just because something, er, thinks differently from you, does that mean it's not thinking?" "Well, we allow for humans to have such divergences from one another." "You like strawberries." "I hate ice-skating." "You cry at sad films." "I am allergic to pollen." "What is the point of different tastes, different preferences if not to say that our brains work differently, that we think differently?" "And if we can say that about one another, then why can't we say the same thing for brains built of copper and wire, steel?" "And that's this big paper you wrote?" "What's it called?" "The Imitation Game." "Right, that's..." "That's what it's about?" "Would you like to play?" " Play?" " It's a game." "A test of sorts." "For determining whether something is a... a machine or a human being." " How do I play?" " Well, there's a judge and a subject." "And the judge asks questions and depending on the subject's answers, determines who he is talking with, er, what he is talking with and, um," "all you have to do is ask me a question." "What did you do during the war?" "I worked in a radio factory." "What did you really do during the war?" "Are you paying attention?" "Damn it!" "We're soon out of time." "Our month." "So that's it, then, is it?" "Oh, the trouble is it doesn't matter how much we improve it." "The machine's never going to be able to process 159 million million million possibilities in time." "It's just bloody hopeless." "It's searching." "It's just..." "It doesn't know what it's searching for." "If we knew what the messages were going to say..." "If we knew what the messages were going to say, we wouldn't have to decrypt them at all." "Who's Alan's friend?" "Hugh?" "He's a bit of a cad, actually." "So my type, then?" " Well, I'll introduce you." " No..." "He'll come over." " Are you sure?" " Yes." "I smiled at him 15 minutes ago and haven't looked back since." " Who's that with Joan?" " Mmm?" "Er, Helen." "Works with her." "She's really pretty." "She wants me to come over." "What?" "How..." "How on earth can you know that?" "She smiled at me a while back and she hasn't looked again since." "And got him." "Now, why is this, that when I was single I found it very boring, but now that I'm engaged, I just find it dreadfully fun?" "Bingo, she's in." "Alan, introduce us." "What?" "Why me?" "Because there's nothing like a friend's engagement to make a woman want to do something she'll later regret with the fiancé's better-looking chum." "Let's go." "Half a crown says Alan bollockses this up entirely." "No bet." " Alan Turing has a theory." " He has many." "He believes that the regulations against men and women working side by side are sound because such proximity will necessarily lead to romance." " Er, what?" "No, I don't." "I..." " However, I disagree." " You do?" " Yeah." "I think that if I were working beside a woman all day long," "I could appreciate her abilities and intellect without taking her to bed." "I'm sorry, have we met?" "I don't recall." "But let's assume we haven't." "Helen Stewart, Hugh Alexander." "So who do you agree with?" "Alan or myself?" "Well, Alan, of course." "I'm very flattered really, but I..." "I don't think that..." "Rubbish." "Well, I work beside a man every day and I can't help but have developed a bit of a crush on him." "Well, who is this man?" "So I can kick his arse." "Oh, there's no need to worry, it's been chaste." "We've never even met." "He's a German." "Now I really want to kill him." "Er..." "How..." "How do you mean you work alongside a German?" "Well, each of us intercepts messages from a specific German radio tower." "So we have a counterpart on the other side who's tip-tapping out the messages." "Everyone types a touch differently, so you get to know the rhythm of your counterpart." "It's strangely intimate." "I feel as if I know him so well." "It's a pity he has a girlfriend but that's why I disagree with you, Mr Alexander, because I'm in love with a co-worker of sorts and we've never even met." "Well, allow me to buy you another pint and I'll tell you why you're wrong." "Let's." "Excellent." "Thanks." "Erm..." "Pints and a sloe gin." "In case you were wondering, that's what flirting looks like." "Helen!" " Alan!" " Yes, Alan?" "Why do you think your German counterpart has a girlfriend?" "It's just a stupid joke." "Don't worry about it." "No, no, no, no, no." "Tell me." "Well, each of his messages begins with the same five letters." "C-I-L-L-Y." "So I suspect that Cilly must be the name of his amore." "But that's impossible." "The Germans are instructed to use five random letters at the start of every message." "Well, this bloke doesn't." "Love will make a man do strange things, I suppose." "In this case, love just lost Germany the whole bloody war!" " Oh!" " Go, Peter." "Sorry." "Alan!" "Alan!" " Whoa, whoa!" " Stop!" " No, no, no..." " Stop!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "Hugh Alexander." "John Cairncross." "Peter bloody Hilton." "Alan?" "What..." "What..." "What if..." "What if Christopher doesn't have to search through all of the settings?" "What if he only has to search through ones that produce words we already know will be in the message?" " Repeated words." "Predictable words." " Exactly." "Look." "Look, like this one." ""0600 hours." "Weather today is clear." "Rain in the evening." ""Heil Hitler."" "Oh, that's it." "Exactly." "They send a weather report every day at 6:00 a.m." "So that's..." "That's three words we... we know will be in every 6:00 a.m. message." "Er, "weather", obviously and..." " Heil bloody Hitler?" " Heil bloody Hitler!" "Here's the 6:00 message from this morning." "Hugh, the, er, the right-hand letter wheels." "Set them to..." "Yes, yes, I know." ""Weather" and "Hitler"." " Peter, John." " Yes." "Run voltages through those letters, through the back scramblers." " So we'll use the loops?" " Yes." "Joan, what was the last 6:00 a.m. message?" " L." " L." " H." " H." " W." " W." " A." " A." "Q." "Done." "Come on." "Come on, Christopher." "Oh, my God." "What..." "What happened?" " Did it work?" " Alan?" "Alan!" "Alan!" "I need a new message." "The latest intercept." "Thanks." "E..." "O..." "T." " Ready?" " Yes." " M." " M." " Y." " Y." " M." " M." " S." " S." " A." " A." " I." " I." " C." " C." " T." " T." " R." " R." " I." " I." " S." " S." " O." " O." " A." " A." " Y." " Y." " R." " R." " I." " I." ""KMS Jaguar ist aufpunkt... is directed to 53 degrees 24 minutes north" ""and aufpunkt one degree west."" "Heil Hitler." "Turns out that's the only German you need to know to break Enigma." "Yes!" "Come here." "M." "A." "Y." " I." " I." " T. R." " R." " O." " T." "T." " A." " A." " H." " H." " Q." " Q." " U." " U." "R." "R." "My God, you did it." "You just defeated Nazism with a crossword puzzle." "There are five people in the world who know the position of every ship in the Atlantic." " They're all in this room." " Oh, good God." "Oh, I don't think even He has the power that we do right now." "No, there's going to be an attack on a British passenger convoy." " Right there." " Oh, God, you're right." "All those U-boats are only 20, 30 minutes away." "Civilians." "Hundreds of them." "We can save their lives." "I'll phone Denniston's office" " so that he can alert the Admiralty." " No." "Do you think there's enough time to save them?" "There should be if we can get a message to that convoy." "Commander Denniston's office, please." "It's urgent." " No." " What the hell are you doing?" "You..." "You..." "You can't call Denniston." "You..." "You can't tell him about the attack." "What are you talking about?" "We can have air support over that convoy in 10 minutes." " Let the U-boat sink the convoy." " Look, it's been a big day, maybe you're suffering from a bit of shock..." " We don't have time for this." " No!" " That's enough!" "That's enough!" " Stop, Hugh!" "John, the attack is in minutes." "Yes, no, I'm fine." "I'm fine." "I'm fine." "Do you know why people like violence, Hugh?" "It's because it feels good." "Sometimes we can't do what feels good." "We have to do what is logical." "What's logical?" "Hardest time to lie to somebody is when they're expecting to be lied to." " Oh, God." " What?" "If someone's waiting for a lie, you can't just, er, give them one." "Oh, damn it, Alan's right." "What?" "What would the Germans think if we destroy their U-boats?" "Nothing." "They'll be dead." "No." "No, you can't be right." "So our convoy suddenly veers off course." "A squadron of RAF bombers miraculously descends on the coordinates of the U-boats." "What will the Germans think?" "The Germans will know that we have broken Enigma." "They'll stop all radio communications by midday and they'll have changed the design of Enigma by the weekend." "Yes." "Two years' work." "Everything that we've done here, it will all be for nothing." "There are 500 civilians in that convoy." "Women, children." "We're about to let them die." "Our job is not to save one passenger convoy, it is to win the war." " Our job was to crack Enigma." " Well, we've done that." "Now for the hard part." " Keeping it a secret." " Carlisle." "What?" "The convoy you're about to..." "It's, er..." "The HMS Carlisle is one of the ships." "We can't act on every piece of intelligence." "So, fine, we won't." "Just this one." "Peter, what's the matter with you?" "My..." "My brother's..." "Well, he's on the Carlisle." "A gunnery ensign." "I'm..." "I'm so sorry." "Who the hell do you think you are?" "This..." "This is my brother." "Look, he's my big brother, all right?" "And you have a few minutes to call off his murder." "We can't." "He's right." "Alan..." "Joan..." "Hugh..." "John." "Oh, please, I..." "The Germans, they won't get suspicious just because we stop one attack." "No one will know." "I'm asking you as your friend." "Please." "I'm so sorry." "You're not God, Alan, you don't get to decide who lives and who dies." "Yes, we do." "Why?" "Because no one else can." "Why are you telling me this?" "We need your help to keep this a secret from Admiralty, Army, RAF." "No one can know we broke Enigma." "Not even Denniston." "Who's in the process of having you fired." "You can take care of that." "While we develop a system to help you determine how much intelligence to act on." "Which, er, attacks to stop, which to let through." "Statistical analysis." "The minimal number of actions it would take for us to win the war but the maximum number we can take before the Germans get suspicious." "And you're going to trust all this to statistics?" " To maths?" " Correct." "And then MI6 can come up with the lies that we tell everybody else." "You'll need a believable alternative source for all the pieces of information you use." "A false story so that we can explain how we got our information that has nothing to do with Enigma." "And then you can leak those stories to the, er, the Germans." "And then to our own military." "Maintain a conspiracy of lies at the highest levels of government?" "Sounds right up my alley." "Alan, I so rarely have cause to say this, but you are exactly the man I always hoped you would be." "They codenamed it Ultra." "It became the largest store of military intelligence in the history of the world." "It was like having a tap on Himmler's intercom." "I-E-O..." "T-X-X..." "Secrecy became the primary concern and for some reason, they..." "They trusted me." "Peter, do you have the, er..." "the 6:30 decrypt?" "It's a Beale cipher." "Encrypted with a phrase from a..." ""Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and ye will find."" "Matthew 7:7." "That was the key." "Peter will come around eventually." "Jack?" "Could you give Alan and me a moment, please?" "The Soviets and us, we're on the same side." "What I'm doing will help Britain." "I have to tell Denniston." "No, you don't." "Because if you tell him my secret," "I'll tell him yours." "Do you know what they do to homosexuals?" "You'll never be able to work again." "Never be able to teach." "Your precious machine?" "I doubt you'll ever see him again." "Hello." "Can I... um, speak to Stewart Menzies, please?" "It's urgent." "One moment, please." "Hello." "Menzies." "Some advice about keeping secrets." "It's a lot easier if you don't know them in the first place." "Were they steaming my letters, tapping my telephone?" "Trailing my nervous walks?" "You know, I..." "I never did find out." "Joan?" "Joan?" "What's..." "Oh." "Where's Joan?" "Military prison." "What have you done?" "Decoded Enigma intercepts." "I found a pile of them in the bedside table." "No, no." "I..." "I gave those to her over a year ago when I was trying to figure out" " a link between..." " I'm sure you did." "Denniston's been looking for a Soviet spy." "He's been looking inside Hut 8." "I know who the spy is." "It..." "It's not Joan." "It's..." "It's Cairncross." "I..." "I found the Beale cipher, the Bible." "God, I wish you'd been the spy." "You'd be so much better at this than he is." "You knew it was him?" "Of course I bloody knew." "I knew before he came to Bletchley." "Why do you think I had him placed here?" "But we have an Enigma machine." "Yes, Polish Intelligence smuggled..." "So what's the problem?" "You placed a..." "a Soviet agent at Bletchley Park?" "It's really quite useful to be able to leak whatever we want to Stalin." "Churchill's too damn paranoid." "He won't share a shred of intelligence with the Soviets." "Not even information that will help them against the Germans." "There's... so much secrecy." "Cairncross has no idea we know, of course." "He's really not the brightest bulb." "Which is why I need your help." "I want to know what to leak to John, what to feed to the Soviets as well as the British." "I..." "I'm not a..." "I'm not a spy." "I'm..." "I'm just a mathematician." "I know a lot of spies, Alan." "You've got more secrets than the best of them." "You..." "You have to promise me that you will release Joan." "Yes, Joan's at the market." "She's going to be back in an hour." "I lied." "I'd better hold on to these." "If anybody finds out about them, prison will be the least of her worries." "Oh, Alan, we're going to have such a wonderful war together." "I need you to leave Bletchley." "What?" "It's Menzies." "I don't trust him." "It's not safe here." "Do you think it's any safer anywhere else?" "You need to get away." "You need to get very far away from me." "Alan, what's happened?" "We can't be engaged any more." "You..." "Your parents need to take you back and find you a husband elsewhere." "What's wrong with you?" "I have something, er, to tell you." "I'm..." "I'm a homosexual." " All right." " No, no." "Men, Joan." " Not women." " So what?" "Well, I..." "I just told you." "So what?" "I had my suspicions, I always did." "But we're not like other people." "We love each other in our own way and we can have the life together that we want." "You..." "You won't be the perfect husband." "Well, I can promise you, I harbour no intention of being the perfect wife." "I'll not be fixing your lamb all day while you come home from the office." "I'll work." "You'll work." "And we'll have each other's company." "We'll have each other's minds." "That sounds like a better marriage than most." "Because I care for you." "And you care for me." "And we understand one another more than... more than anyone else ever has." "I don't." " What?" " Care for you." "I never did." "I..." "I just needed you to break Enigma." "I've done that now, so..." "So you can go." "I'm not going anywhere." "I've spent entirely too much of my life worried about what you think of me or what my parents think of me or the boys in Hut 8 or the girls in Hut 3." "And do you know what?" "I'm done." "This is the most important work I will ever do and no one is going to stop me, least of all you." "Do you know what?" "They were right." "Peter, Hugh, John." "You really are a monster." "The war dragged on for two more solitary years and every day we performed our blood-soaked calculus." "Every day we decided who lived and who died." "Every day we helped the Allies to victories and nobody knew." "Stalingrad." "The Ardenne." "The invasion of Normandy." "All victories that would not have been possible without the intelligence that we supplied." "And people talk about the war as this epic battle between civilisations." "Freedom versus tyranny." "Democracy versus Nazism." "Armies of millions bleeding into the ground." "Fleets of ships weighing down the oceans." "Planes dropping bombs from the sky until they obliterated the sun itself." "The war wasn't like that for us." "For us it was just... half a dozen crossword enthusiasts in a tiny village in the South of England." "...your victory." "It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land." "This is a solemn but glorious hour." "I wish that Franklin D Roosevelt had lived to see this day." "Was I God?" "No." "Because God didn't win the war, we did." "So what happens now?" "Is it back to university for us, I suppose?" "Yes, pretty much." "But you've one other thing left to do before your service to your government is concluded." " What's that?" " Burn everything." "Burn?" "Why?" "You were told when you started this was a top secret programme." "Did you think we were joking?" "But the war is over." "This war is." "But there'll be others." "And we know how to break a code that everybody else believes is unbreakable." "Precisely." "Tear it down, light it up." "Sweep away the ashes." "None of you have ever met before." "None of you have ever even heard the word "Enigma"." "Have a safe trip home." "Behave." "With a bit of luck, you'll never have to see me or one another again for the rest of your lives." "That's unbelievable." "Now, Detective, you get to judge." "So tell me, what am I?" "Am I a machine?" "Am I a person?" "Am I a war hero?" "Am I a criminal?" "I can't judge you." "Well, then." "You're no help to me at all." "Come in." "You wanted to see me, sir?" "Turing." "Sit down." "Is something the matter?" "You and Christopher Morcom are quite close." "I wouldn't say that." "Well, your mathematics teacher says the two of you are positively inseparable." "We're the best students in the class." "He caught you passing notes the other day." "Cryptography, to pass the time." "The class is too simple." "You and your friend solve maths problems during maths class because the maths class is too dull?" "He's not my friend." " Well, I'm told he's your only friend." " Who said that?" "Something's come up concerning Morcom." "Why am I here?" "Christopher is dead." "I don't understand." "His mother sent word this morning." "The family were on holiday, you see." "I don't understand." "Well, he had bovine tuberculosis, as I'm sure he told you." "So this won't come as a shock but still, all the same, I'm sorry." "You're mistaken." "Did he not tell you?" "Well, he's been sick for a long time." "He knew this was coming soon." "But he had a stiff upper lip about it." "Good lad." " Are you all right, Turing?" " Yes." "Of course." "Like I said, I didn't know him very well." "Ah, I see." "Very well." "May I leave, Headmaster?" "Congratulations, sir." "Sorry." "I would have come." "I would have testified." "And what would you have said?" "That I..." "I wasn't a homosexual?" "Alan, this is serious." "They could send you to jail." "Oh, damn it." " Your hands, you're twitching." " No." "No, I'm not." " Alan." " Er..." "It's the medication." "The medication?" "Well, the judge gave me, um, a choice." "Either two years in prison or hor... hormonal therapy." "Oh, my God." " Oh, my God!" " Yes, yes, that's right." "Chemical castration." "To, er, to cure me of my, um, homosexual predilections." "Well, of course I chose that." "I mean, I couldn't... work in prison and..." "All right." "Now, I'm going to speak to your doctors." " I'm going to speak to your lawyers." " I'm..." "I'm fine." " Please let me help you." " No, I..." "I don't need your help, thank you." "Alan, you do not have to do this alone." "I'm not alone." "Never have been." "Christopher's become so smart." "If I don't continue my treatment, then they'll..." "They'll take him away from me." "You..." "You..." "You..." "You can't let them do that." "You can't." "You..." "You can't let them leave me alone." "I don't..." "I don't want to be alone." "I don't want to be alone." "All right, all right." "All right." "It's all right, come and sit down." "It's all right." "Come and sit down." "It's all right." "Oh, well..." "That's a much nicer ring than the one I..." "I made you." "Yes." "His name's Jock." "He's an army man, if you can believe it." "We work together." "Why don't we do a crossword puzzle?" "It'll only take us five minutes." "Or in your case, six." "There." "Perhaps later." "Yes, of course." "You got what you wanted, didn't you?" "Work, a husband." "Normal life." "No one normal could have done that." "Do you know, this morning," "I was on a train that went through a city that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you." "I bought a ticket from a man who would likely be dead if it wasn't for you." "I read up on my work, a whole field of scientific inquiry that only exists because of you." "Now, if you wish you could have been normal," "I can promise you, I do not." "The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren't." "Do you..." "Do you really think that?" "I think that sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."