Chapter 20
Hannah arrived at the Air Ministry that morning with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.
Trying to act normally as if she wasn’t seething with fury in the depths of Hitler’s cesspit was difficult enough every day, but on this bleak morning as she rode the S-Bahn she decided she would sneak into the filing room and continue her search for Henry’s name.
The supervisor was already at her desk, as she was every morning, and Hannah walked towards her assigned typewriter. The Führer’s vile image dominated the room, and she took her seat, avoiding looking at it.
‘Heil Hitler,’ the supervisor said, raising her right arm. ‘Good morning, Frau Weber. You’ll be working in here today.’
‘Heil Hitler,’ Hannah replied, returning the mandatory salute, realising she wouldn’t be in the filing section.
The supervisor used formal names with the staff, and it suited Hannah to keep her at a distance.
The woman was far too eager to tow the party line for Hannah to have any doubts about her devotion to the regime.
Hannah judged her to be the type who would sell her out in a moment if she suspected disloyalty, so she must tread extra carefully around her.
At tea break, Hannah sat with the typist who had made fun of Goring and listened to her talk about her boyfriend, who was in Stalingrad.
‘Do you think we will win the battle with the Soviets?’ she whispered to Hannah; her eyes full of terror.
Lizzie had told Hannah the latest news from London about the bloody battle on the Eastern Front, and she knew it was going badly for the Germans, no matter what they printed in their newspapers.
But she felt sorry for the nineteen-year-old girl.
She hadn’t voted for Hitler and showed no sympathy for the Nazis, but she was swept up in the fate of her country, and who knew whether her boyfriend would make it out alive.
Hannah patted her hand and smiled weakly.
Words of consolation and hope for the German army would not cross her tongue, even in her war widow guise.
Time dragged by slowly as she typed and waited for her lunch break, which would be her opportunity to sneak into the filing room.
Appearing in the canteen was critical so she wouldn’t be visibly absent, but she ate her unappetising lunch quickly, drained her cup of coffee, and then excused herself, saying she must go to the bathroom.
The supervisor was in the canteen talking to a colleague from another department, and Hannah hoped she didn’t notice when she slipped out of the busy dining hall.
Hannah kept to her story in case anyone was watching her, and went into the bathroom, closing a cubicle door as if she was going to the toilet.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she leant against the door, the enormity of what she was about to do overwhelming her.
She had to find out if Henry was listed in the other file, and she knew the clerks were still off work sick, so this might be her only chance.
She had hoped to be assigned to another shift, but her supervisor kept her feet to the fire in the typing pool.
There was no telling when or even if she would be asked to work in there again, and she couldn’t wait any longer.
Henry’s face haunted her dreams, and she could get no respite from the visions of him lying somewhere alone and injured, or dead in a ditch in a field outside Stuttgart. Whatever the truth, she had to know.
Emerging, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Her dyed black hair gave her such a different look to her natural blonde, and her blue eyes glittered, reflecting the fear coursing through her at what she was about to do.
If they caught her, it would blow her cover, and she would be hauled off to interrogation by the Gestapo.
People were arrested for much less than accessing secret military files without permission.
Lizzie didn’t know she had found the Allied files or what she planned to do.
She had enough to contend with, and besides, Lizzie would warn her not to risk her cover.
Despite their friendship, and Henry being Jack’s brother, Lizzie’s priority was to complete the mission for the SOE by extracting the weapons’ intelligence from Ingrid Becker and getting it back to London.
Anything else was merely a distraction and could cost them their lives.
Hannah respected Lizzie’s position and so decided not to compromise it by confiding in her.
If she found out what had happened to Henry, there would be time to tell her then.
And Jack. Poor dear Jack. As much for him as for herself, she hoped she wouldn’t find Henry’s name listed among the dead.
Hannah took a deep breath and slipped into the corridor.
It was empty with no one in sight, so she moved swiftly to the door of the filing room and let herself in, and closed it behind her gently, the blood thundering in her head.
The supervisor locked the door at night but left it unlocked during the day as staff were in and out.
There stood the filing cabinet, and the drawer creaked as she opened it.
The sound seemed to echo around the otherwise silent room, and she froze, waiting for any noise beyond the closed door.
None came, so she flicked through the files until she came to the K section.
An eerie calm settled over her, slowing her rapid heartbeat, as if she knew what she was about to discover.
There was the file she needed, so she removed it and turned over the pages.
They were neatly clipped together, as though listing the names of dead young men were merely an administrative task.
Her finger moved down the names, and she saw Kennedy, Kent, and then Kincaid.
Her breath snagged in her throat, and the room swam as her eyes found Henry King.
The date his aircraft had been shot down matched what Lizzie had told her.
She read the other details. The Lancaster had been shot down over Stuttgart.
All crew were listed as killed in the crash.
And as if that wasn’t definitive enough, it also said no survivors.
There was a note about the crew’s personal effects, which included letters, photos, and identification discs that were recovered from the crash site.
Hannah couldn’t cry or make any sound—it was as though she were awake in a nightmare and must go through the motions.
A small envelope with Henry’s name on it nestled next to the damning document, and she was about to open it when she heard footsteps outside and quickly shoved the file back into its place and closed the cabinet.
The door opened, and the supervisor stood there, glaring. ‘What are you doing in here without permission?’
Hannah offered the woman a meek smile. She’d moved to stand by a row of cabinets where she had worked the other day.
‘Heil Hitler,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise it was against the rules.
During my last session, I was called away to type an urgent document and didn’t get to complete what I was filing in the most efficient manner.
I know how important it is to keep good order, and it preyed on my mind, so I took ten minutes from my lunch break to make it right. ’
The woman stared at her, inspecting her face as she saluted in turn. ‘I see. Your dedication to the work is commendable, but do not let me see you in here again without permission. Understood, Frau Weber?’
‘Understood completely,’ Hannah said, fighting to keep the meek expression on her face when all her senses were ablaze, and she felt like screaming in agony.
‘Get back to work. We have important documents to type this afternoon, and we are expecting a visit from Reichsmarschall Goring himself,’ she snapped.
Hannah hurried out of the room, fierce emotions swirling through her. Now she knew the Luftwaffe had killed her fiancé in action. As she walked, she heard the supervisor’s heels clicking on the hard floor behind her.