Sadly there were no winners for this particular decryption competition so as promised here is the cipher text and the plain text. The ciphertext is
1342/2/5 700/2/6 1341/2/9 598/2/8 562/2/3
644/2/9 32/1/8 1341/2/9 598/2/8 562/2/3
43/2/6 1342/2/5 700/2/6 1341/2/9 598/2/8 562/2/3
644/2/9 1518/2/4
1342/2/5 723/2/12 1341/2/9 598/2/8 562/2/3
837/1/3 1342/2/5 700/2/6 1341/2/9 598/2/8 562/2/3
644/2/9 1518/2/4 43/2/6 1518/2/4 43/2/6 1518/2/4
1/1/1 1199/2/15 598/2/8 1167/1/7 562/2/3
1/1/1 1061/27 598/2/8 1167/1/7 562/2/3
1516/2/2 312/1/8 1494/1/8 101/1/12 161/2/15 1/1/1 892/1/1
474/1/1 1342/2/5 893/1/6 837/1/3 797/2/11 1515/1/9
611/1/1 1342/2/5 718/1/14 539/2/5 537/1/1
1494/1/8 101/1/12 1518/2/4 43/2/6 1518/2/4 43/2/6 1518/2/4
The plain text answer to this conundrum is:
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
Poem by Leo Marks http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-life-that-i-have/
The method chosen to encrypt this poem was a single source dictionary code. This was done as follows. A particular dictionary was chosen, in this case a copy of the 1964 edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary and the words were encrypted as follows.
Page/Column/Word number (from top of page)
Therefore the word ‘the’ equals 1342/2/5 or page 1342, column 2 and word number 5. The word ‘life’ equals 700/2/6 or page 700, column 2 and word number 6, and so on and so on until the end of the poem.
You can have great fun with book codes and they are reasonably secure provided that you a) use an obscure enough book and b) take care to avoid too many repetitions, which can really give the game away, and I thought would do so in this case. Using a triple source book dictionary code with one word chosen from each different each of three different dictionaries would reduce the number of obvious repetitions as common words, the repetition of which are major crypto solving clues, may be on different pages in different dictionaries.
So why not get together with some friends and allies and have a play around with manual encryption and book codes, you may even find it a useful tool one day.
I’d recommend Leo Marks’ account of his time in SOE during WW2: Between Silk and Cyanide.
He also wrote scripts for films including the underrated Guns at Batasi and Michael Powell’s cult classic, Peeping Tom.
Oooh I watched Peeping Tom a few weeks ago. Amazing psych thriller which really doesn’t deserve to be classified as a ‘horror’.
That was a nice cipher, F211, one to ‘get your teeth into’. I started to block it out, looking for repetitions but something got in the way — life, I suppose — and I forgot about it.
I like the SOE recognition poem; it has long been one of my favourites. Thanks also for the great videos, and keep up the good work. And God bless Matriot!