Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 3

Chapter Four.

We took an aeroplane a noisy military transport, echoing, metallic and cold. It b.u.mped and swayed, and I was sick twice. The Doctor was excited and interested in everything, even though he was still technically under arrest and had two burly MPs with him. He seemed none the worse for his incarceration, and when I (rather weakly) asked him about it, just smiled and said, 'Military prison food is probably as good as the Officers' Mess rations.' Which told me nothing. He didn't seem to be angry with me, but his excitable, distant manner created a coolness between us that worried me which was stupid. I was still infatuated, I suppose. I was soon to realise that these mercurial moods were little to do with me.

We landed at a military base north of Paris at about four o'clock on the 24th. A car was waiting to take the Doctor, White and me to a hotel in the capital itself. The Doctor greatly enjoyed the ride it was an open-top jeep, and he sat in the back like Montgomery on a victory parade, saluting the largely empty streets of Paris. He didn't seem to mind when it started to rain.

I was still feeling rather sick, and was glad when we reached the Hotel du Parc, where we were to stay. It was getting dark, and the red bricks of the hotel had taken on an ochre gloss. Its windows receded, neat black rectangles in parallel lines, like a lesson in geometry made shadowy and uncertain by the falling night.

Inside, we found that the hotel had been taken over by the military, mostly Americans: young Marines hung about in the plush-andgilt reception area, with traces of soft down on their cheeks and sidearms at their belts, the holsters heavier than the British variety, as obvious as blisters. All had a tense look: I later learned that they were a fresh unit, about to be sent to the front near Arnheim. They seemed younger than the English soldiers I knew, their flesh softer and less knowing. I imagine, given what was happening there at the time, that many of them did not survive.

We waited around in the lobby until the usual military muddle had sorted itself out. The Doctor paced up and down, occasionally making wild suggestions: at one point he suggested that the hotel should be redecorated in blue, bra.s.s and stone, with a domed ceiling, though I think he was joking because he laughed out loud afterwards.

At length our French liaison officer arrived. He turned out to be English by birth: his name was Colonel Herbert Elgar, though he was no relation to the musician the Doctor, who had apparently known the late Sir Edward Elgar, asked him straightaway. The colonel explained that he had been married to a Frenchwoman for some years, had been caught in France after the invasion and had served the Resistance. However, his appearance hardly suggested a physically active role in that organisation: he was plump and balding, with a handlebar moustache in fact the very image of Colonel Blimp, the cartoon character from the newspaper. I wondered if he had seen the recent film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and was therefore a case of life imitating art, but somehow felt I couldn't ask him.

He told me how much he admired the work I had done, and that it had saved many lives which slightly disconcerted me, because my information had always been that people at the business end of operations were not told that the codes were broken, in case they were captured and forced to reveal the information. I decided that Elgar must have been briefed only for the current mission.

As we left the lobby for the bar, he gave the Doctor a curious look, which was returned with interest, then began talking about the new German a.s.sault in the Ardennes region, which was according to Elgar 'making everyone in Paris feel jittery'. There was no serious prospect of the Germans making any great advance into French territory: but the French, he said, were understandably rather nervous, having been invaded and defeated by le Bosche le Bosche not only in this war, but twice before that in the s.p.a.ce of a century. not only in this war, but twice before that in the s.p.a.ce of a century.

One of the American Marines overheard our conversation and laughed. 'It'll all be over in a month or two,' he said. 'And nothing won't ever be the same after that.'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'It won't.'

His tone was gloomy and peculiarly certain. White glanced at him, frowning, and seemed about to take up the discussion, but Elgar grabbed the Intelligence man and marched him towards the bar.

The Doctor nudged me. 'That man Elgar reminds me of someone.'

'Who?'

'That's the whole point I don't remember!' He made it seem a joke, but his face showed traces of that pent-up frustration I'd encountered several times already.

I told him about Colonel Blimp, but he only shook his head. 'Someone real,' he insisted.

White and Elgar returned from the bar with drinks: we sat down and ordered food. When I looked for the Doctor, I saw that he was sitting with a couple of the Americans, playing cribbage.

We drank some more and awaited our food, and watched the Doctor winning the game handsomely. He then insisted his winnings be given to the poor. One of the Americans laughed, and said that soon it would all be over and there would be no more 'poor' the Doctor gave him a dark look, and muttered, 'Young, aren't you.' It wasn't a question.

The soldier frowned. 'I'm older than you are, you Limey ponce.'

'I'm sorry,' The Doctor said at once, shaking his head in what seemed almost clarification rather than apology. 'I meant your species.'

The Doctor met the soldier's angry glare with a casual turn of his head. I didn't catch his expression, for his face was turned away from me, but the American soldier felt a sudden apparent need to refresh his gla.s.s. He got up and headed for the bar.

Not sure what to make of this exchange, and confused at the sudden mix of emotions it engendered in me, I opted for what I hoped would be a relatively safe conversational gambit. 'Surely we can hope for a better future, with all the improvements that science can offer?' I would have given the example of my own work, but couldn't do so in company, and in any case it would have felt like showing off.

White only shrugged at Elgar, who clicked his finger for the waiter. I felt warm breath on my ear, and the Doctor's voice: 'We'll talk later.'

All thought of the distant future went out of my mind, as I thought about the rest of the evening. It was hard to be concerned about the fate of mankind in the face of the lavish hospitality offered by the liberated French who ran the hotel. After a tremendous meal of some six or seven courses, we were offered the oldest and rarest brandies the hotel had in its cellars and we had already drunk a great deal of wine with the meal. By the end of the evening we were all fairly drunk. White was still the pessimist, now declaiming in a loud voice that civilisation had not been saved by Theodore Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, in fact just the opposite. 'The gloom, degradation and purgatory of the postwar era,' he said, 'will in time make the war seem almost an indulgence. To be honest, I don't know how I'm going to survive it.'

In an outrageously exaggerated c.o.c.kney accent, one of the Marines said, 'What's that, then, me ol' mucker the war or your hangover?' The Americans guffawed. So did the Doctor.

For myself, having seen White's brave new world, I know that he was, in many ways, quite right. I suppose a pessimistic and depressed character such as White's gives a man a kind of prescience.

Elgar and White at length retired together with the remains of a bottle of brandy, ignoring the Doctor and me, who remained at the table.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, touched the side of his nose, and smiled. It occurred to me at that moment that it had been the Doctor who had charmed the waiters into providing the special wines and brandies in such quant.i.ties, but that it had been Elgar and White who had drunk the most. I realised that the Doctor had expected as much. I was confused once more by the sharpness of his mind operating behind the innocent exterior. Confused, and perhaps a little frightened.

He said, 'You've made no progress with this code?'

I shook my head.

'Elgar says it's coming from Dresden.'

'He told you that?'

'He told White. I have very sensitive ears.' He gave me a conspiratorial wink, then shrugged. 'Anyway, they'll brief you about it tomorrow. What I need to do is get at the code. Listen to a sample or two. And I'd also like to listen again to some of your attempts at decoding, if you have them with you. I promise not to scream this time.'

I stared at him, unable to believe that he had made such a blatant request. Everything around us seemed to freeze, as if time had stopped: a waiter with a silver salver bearing a small roast bird with dark purplish flesh perhaps a pigeon or a quail a couple of the more decorous Americans in uniform laughing with some young ladies in the doorway, the rest howling like drunken wolves at some unheard but undoubtedly insane whimsy.

I tried to think. Yes, the Doctor had White's approval to 'help' me with the decoding: but I had yet to have the terms of that approval properly explained. In fact, nothing had yet been explained. I had been told I was to go: I had agreed, mostly because of my fascination with the Doctor: I had not, necessarily, agreed to share the most advanced kind of code-breaking intelligence with the Doctor, or anyone else. I wasn't sure about White he seemed to me dangerously emotional and self-centred, and I had no idea of his role in Military Intelligence. Had he informed his own superiors of his actions? Elgar was no better bizarre, an enigma, a cartoon character with a life that didn't seem quite real. Furthermore, the Doctor's subterfuge with the others, and his contrasting openness with me, suggested that he wasn't entirely in control of himself.

'After all that has happened to you, surely you realise how important the secrecy ' I began.

'I realise that I'm in France, enjoying myself at the expense of His Majesty's Government!' Again the conspiratorial wink, but then a more serious look. 'I know I can help you, Alan. White approves. And it is serious. I don't know why.'

I realised then that it wasn't just White and Elgar that he had plied with drink.

'What do you think of Elgar?' I asked, anxious to change the subject.

'Elgar? He's a pompous twit. There may be something behind ' He shrugged. 'There must be something else. He's a senior man. But then people get seniority in odd ways.'

I nodded ruefully 'People aren't always reasonable about power.' I was thinking of Hugh Alexander and Brigadier Tiltman, his superior. There was no doubt who was the more intelligent and better qualified, but for all Alexander's politicking, there was also no doubt who was in charge these days. The running of Bletchley Park was the worse for it.

'They can't be reasonable,' said the Doctor. 'Power isn't. It's a reflection of the inherent badness of things. If you have power, you're in control of some aspect of a world that's bad, and that means however good your intentions you you end up being bad. At least partly.' A shadow had crossed his face. 'It's inevitable that ' end up being bad. At least partly.' A shadow had crossed his face. 'It's inevitable that '

'Not necessarily,' I interrupted, eager to remove that shadow. I wanted to get into a real dialogue with the Doctor something I still thought possible, at that stage in our friends.h.i.+p. 'People might be foolish, or misguided, or have the wrong information; but if you can convince them '

The Doctor was shaking his head. 'You don't understand! You haven't met '

He froze for a second, then flung his hands up in the air: he looked like a conductor who has given up on the music for ever and is commanding the orchestra to disband. Somehow this pitiful flamboyance failed to take the sting out of his next words: 'You haven't met anyone, Alan, or done anything, which would cause you to think otherwise. You live in a small, small world of theorems and equations and numbers and machines that break codes. You have encountered death, but you haven't encountered evil not directly. You've avoided it deliberately, I expect.'

'And you have encountered evil?' I asked, a little piqued by this outburst. 'Does that make you a better man than I?'

'Of course I have!' He looked down at the table, now bare of all except a solitary brandy gla.s.s. 'And of course it doesn't.' He lifted it to his nose, swirling the brandy: I was reminded of his gesture in the Crown with the cup of special tea. 'It's probably made me worse,' he added, though the words were an anticlimax, as if he had felt again that lack of the information necessary to explain the immensity of his feelings.

'Have you really lost your memory?' I asked, softly, anxious to make up for the rudeness of my previous question and to restore our mood of friendly intimacy.

But it seemed that this subject was no comfort: the Doctor scowled and snapped, 'Do you think I would lie about it? What would be the point?' He drained his brandy in a gulp. 'I'm going for a walk.'

I got up to follow him. I could think of several reasons why the Doctor might pretend to have lost his memory: to pique my interest and gain my confidence, and to avoid awkward questions. I wanted to argue this with him, but it took me a while to catch up. I pushed my way past the Marines, who were still laughing in the doorway. Young faces, soft downy half-beards. They were no more than eighteen or nineteen years old.

'And yet they've killed men,' commented the Doctor, when we were outside and together again. He must have noted my covert observation of the young men.

'It doesn't make them evil. They were doing their duty.'

He didn't reply immediately. We walked for a while along a side street, both of us without coats and hats despite a heavy drizzle. At last he said, 'Some duties, Alan, are so monstrous that no man can obey them and remain entirely human.'

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder if he knew what was happening in the death camps in the depths of the failing Reich. Or whether he simply guessed. Now that I know of Auschwitz and Belsen, I doubt the memory of the laughing faces of the young Marines, filled with drink and hope and fear and the prospect of a night with those pretty, flirting French girls. I wonder how many of those young jesters reached the dark horizon where duty becomes evil, and crossed it, and never noticed.

The Doctor didn't say anything further for some time, though he kept giving me surrept.i.tious little glances as we walked along. I worked it out after a few minutes: he was waiting for me to agree to let him have his way. To co-operate in breaking the code.

We were down by the river somewhere, the air full of drizzle and a perfume smell, when I began to give in. 'Will White allow it? He didn't give me any clear instructions.'

'I don't think he has a choice.' The Doctor waved an arm at the sky, as if G.o.d were giving White his instructions which indeed seemed entirely possible. 'I wish I had one.'

I looked at him then, full in the face. I think I would have kissed him if I'd dared: instead I 'looked the kiss', that is, wore the expression of one who might be about to kiss. I have done it with men before: most have thought it rather odd.

I don't think the Doctor noticed. He said, 'I'm sorry, Alan. There's more you deserve to know, but telling you will only make things seem more unsatisfactory.' He looked away, across the river.

We walked a little further, saying nothing, but I knew I was going to give the Doctor what he wanted.

I began by telling him about the amplifiers, my attempts to correct the possibly decoded sounds he had heard.

'That's your first mistake,' he said. 'You have a problem with language, not with decoding. You've already decoded the sounds quite well, I think.'

I frowned. 'Those weren't human voices.'

'No, but they were speaking a language.'

I was bewildered. 'What kind of language?'

'I don't know.'

'Why did you scream then?'

'I think I felt sorry for them.'

I remembered what White had said, about the sounds being lonely. Both he and the Doctor, then, were concerned with the emotional content of the message. 'But surely that's just conjectural, in the absence of meaning.'

'Emotion is conjecture, conjecture is emotion,' said the Doctor.

We were in my room in the hotel, with another bottle of fine old brandy between us. The window was open behind the blackout curtains, letting the chilly dampness of the night creep in. I was cold, but didn't feel like shutting it. The Doctor was comfortable. He was sprawled on the floor with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed.

'It could be one of several languages,' he said, after the silence had gone on for some minutes. 'But I don't know it, and can't translate it. All I can do is tell you it's a language.'

'You know that from the structure?'

He opened his eyes and nodded. There was a glimmer of respect on his face. The effect this had on me was tremendous: I hadn't felt so pleased and excited since Chris Morton had smiled at my enthusiasm for numbers, fifteen years before.

'Language has structure,' said the Doctor, half to himself. 'A complex structure. On the other hand so does noise, in a strictly harmonic sense. But only one has meaning meaning. That is, only one has meaning to us us, I mean.' He blinked. 'If you see what I mean. So the question becomes,' he added before I had time to become confused, 'not whether there is noise in the structure of meaning, which I happen to believe is actually true, and of which, come to think of it, this explanation is actually as fine an example as I remember hearing, not that I remember hearing many, you understand; but whether there is meaning meaning in the structure of in the structure of noise noise, because that will be the determining factor upon which we decide whether your coded transmission can be a.s.sumed to have a meaning intended to be comprehensible to someone like you, or even us. Of course,' he added without stopping for breath, 'success or failure depends on the degree to which you can separate the structure that describes whatever meaning the message has from any other structural noise which may or may not accidentally or deliberately be buried in the code. Coffee?' He added with perfectly equal weight. 'Or cocoa?'

I thought hard for a moment. 'You said, "Comprehensible to someone like me."' I thought for a moment and then added, 'All language is intended for human ears, surely.'

'Tell that to crickets.'

'You're not suggesting an animal sent this transmission?' I was beginning to feel as if I needed to scream. Perhaps it was the alcohol.

'Animal? I doubt it.'

'Well then who who?' If my recollection is clear, I did actually shout.

From his position on his back on the carpet, the Doctor looked up at the ceiling. 'In a universe of thirty billion billion billion stars,' he said, pointing at the architrave, 'it could be almost anyone.' He rolled over on his side, like a man in pain. 'Maybe even the crickets.' He peered sideways at the shadows lurking between the bed and the wall. 'What do you think, Jiminy?'

It occurred to me that we were both very drunk: I wondered if he was going to be sick. I started looking around for a towel or a bucket. Whilst I was doing so the Doctor got up, but only to look out of the window at the black, starless, cloud-filled sky. An aircraft droned overhead, perhaps more than one, perhaps on their way to bomb Germany. It occurred to me we were in breach of the blackout.

I decided it was time to bring the discussion, at least, down to earth. 'There are other explanations,' I said. 'It could be a false language designed by the Germans to act as another layer of encoding. Perhaps they have a machine to voice it.'

'That's possible,' conceded the Doctor. 'We could work with that approach. But how would you decide the meaning of an entirely arbitrary language? It's the same problem. They might as well be from another world.'

'No,' I said patiently. 'They're from Germany. We know a lot about the way they think and the things they're going to say.' This was how we'd broken the ENIGMA code, in essence: guessing at key words that were likely to appear, such as 'general' or 'battles.h.i.+p', and trying various combinations until we got one right. But I didn't tell the Doctor that.

'Yes!' The Doctor whirled round and grabbed my arms: for a terrible, wonderful moment I thought he was going to hug me again. 'Yes yes yes! That's it! There are only a few basic messages we could take a numerical approach. I could work on the Syntactic Principle '

I hadn't heard of this, and said so. The Doctor didn't choose to explain. He started to cast around the room, like a hungry cat searching for its supper. The effect was comical, and I was drunk enough to start giggling.

'Where's the playback machine for the code?'

I laughed outright. 'It's the size of a large chest of drawers, Doctor. There was no way we could move it from Bletchley. I explained all that to White but he insisted we had to come here '

He glared at me. 'They should have brought it! It's important!'

'It's equally "important",' I giggled, 'that we're not both put in prison for treason against the Crown. I should have a talk with White before we do any more talking about the code.'

'Hmm.'

'Doctor, we're both drunk and there's no real urgency about this. It can wait until morning.'

'I'm not drunk. I'm never '

'Tell me, have you any family? A wife?'

He extended a hand a few inches above his face and examined the fingers closely. 'I don't see a wedding ring,' he said. 'I might have taken it off, though.'

'Be serious!'

He looked at me. 'Do you often feel the lack of a partner in life?'