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Back The Enigma Game Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Part 1
  4. Flight Lieutenant James G. Beaufort-Stuart:
  5. Louisa Adair:
  6. Volunteer Ellen McEwen:
  7. Jamie:
  8. Louisa:
  9. Ellen:
  10. Jamie:
  11. Louisa:
  12. Ellen:
  13. Louisa:
  14. Ellen:
  15. Ellen:
  16. Jamie:
  17. Part 2
  18. Ellen:
  19. Louisa:
  20. Jamie:
  21. Ellen:
  22. Jamie:
  23. Louisa:
  24. Jamie:
  25. Ellen:
  26. Louisa:
  27. Ellen:
  28. Louisa:
  29. Jamie:
  30. Louisa:
  31. Ellen:
  32. Jamie:
  33. Louisa:
  34. Jamie:
  35. Louisa:
  36. Part 3
  37. Jamie:
  38. Louisa:
  39. Jamie:
  40. Ellen:
  41. Jamie:
  42. Louisa:
  43. Jamie:
  44. Ellen:
  45. Jamie:
  46. Louisa:
  47. Jamie:
  48. Louisa:
  49. Ellen:
  50. Jamie:
  51. Ellen:
  52. Louisa:
  53. Ellen:
  54. Jamie:
  55. Part 4
  56. Louisa:
  57. Jamie:
  58. Louisa:
  59. Jamie:
  60. Ellen:
  61. Louisa:
  62. Ellen:
  63. Louisa:
  64. Jamie:
  65. Ellen:
  66. Louisa:
  67. Ellen:
  68. Louisa:
  69. Ellen:
  70. Louisa:
  71. Ellen:
  72. Louisa:
  73. Jamie:
  74. Louisa:
  75. Jamie:
  76. Discover More
  77. Author’s Declaration of Accountability
  78. Further reading:
  79. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  80. About the Author
  81. ALSO BY ELIZABETH WEIN
  82. PRAISE FOR

I’d have to fight. I knew I’d have to fight.

But I was ready for that.

A real voyager.

We’d all have to fight. I wouldn’t be alone.

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Author’s Declaration of Accountability

When I started thinking about what I’d say here, I tried to remember the first spark for this story. And when I dug beyond the obvious—the Enigma machine, the defecting Germans landing in Scotland, the Blenheim crew, the coins in the pub ceiling—what I came back to was the old woman.

Believe it or not, that’s what I started with. I wanted to write a story about a mysterious old woman.

Originally I just wanted to create a bond between a young person and an old person. It is mostly because I am losing, and miss deeply, my wonderful grandmother Betty Flocken and her generation—she was born in 1916 and died in 2015. In the back of my mind I was thinking of Margaret Mahy’s Memory, which is about a troubled teen who ends up caring for a stranger with Alzheimer’s disease, and Penelope Lively’s The House in Norham Gardens, about a younger teen who has to care for her elderly aunts. But my stock in trade is World War II thrillers. How was I going to include a mysterious old person in my adventure story?

In the summer of 2014, the same summer that Betty Flocken suffered the fall that foreshadowed her decline and death six months later, I had one of the most wonderful experiences of my life: I took a flight in a World War II–era Avro Lancaster bomber. It, too, is among the last of its age, one of only two in the world that still fly, and I had a view from the gun turret as we circled over Niagara Falls. Afterward, I chatted with the pilot, Dave Rohrer, who has spent more time at the controls of a Lancaster than any wartime pilot ever did. He told me about a pub he’d visited in England near a former World War II airfield, where a wooden beam over the bar was full of coins placed there by airmen who never came back from their missions. Dead men’s money, the bartender called it, telling Dave not to touch.

From that moment, I knew I had to write a story about those wishing coins and the bomber squadron who left them there.