“There are at least fifty-five a month! Fifty-five U-boats slipping through those blasted antisubmarine nets, and the Admiralty is doing nothing!” Knox hadn’t said blasted, of course.

“Because the vice-admiral won’t believe it.” Hall bit off a choice word of his own. “Jellicoe has to take a stand and make a point of it. Force their hand, prove us right. Turn a few floodlights on, I think. That’s all it will take to force the U-boats to dive into the nets instead of skimming over them as they’ve been doing.”

Margot turned back into the room. She’d decrypted countless telegrams about this over the last few weeks—messages from one German U-boat to another, giving advice on how to avoid the explosive nets—but there were still those high up in the Admiralty’s chain of command who couldn’t be convinced that their intelligence was worthwhile. Hall’s eternal headache.

“What’s going on out there?” Camden had finally looked up from his work. He’d only just been moved out of the storage room, now that the others had gotten used to his insults. Or learned to ignore them, anyway. More or less.

Margot took her seat again. They’d take their lunch break in a few more minutes, but she had time to finish her current decrypt first. “They’re yelling.”

Camden gave her the same look Lukas always did when she answered the question he’d asked rather than the one he’d meant. “Brilliant. About what?”

“The usual. A vice admiral failing to heed the warnings we send them. This time about the U-boats still bypassing the nets.” She picked up her pencil.

“What’s the blasted point of all this if people are just going to ignore it?” He, of course, didn’t say blasted either.

Margot rolled her eyes. “The question of the hour, it seems. You ought to step into the corridor and share your very new outrage on the subject that no one else has ever once expressed before.”

Camden grunted. But he also smiled. “You’re a sarcastic little thing, did you know that?”

“I was unaware.”

“There you go again.”

“It wasn’t going again. I hadn’t stopped.”

He snorted a laugh. He must have finished whatever he’d been working on since he stood, stretched, and meandered over to the window. And given that he didn’t make a point of bumping into anyone’s chair, he must have been rather pleased with how that one had gone.

She turned back to her own, ignoring the continued debate in the corridor and the mutters from Culbreth and Adcock about a line that was giving one of them trouble. The words in front of her took her six weeks back in time. Wolfram. Erri Barro. It only took her a few more minutes to finish up.