‘Nothing, that’s the problem,’ Elsie answered. ‘We need to go through this pile to find any previous mention of Daimler.’ The word had been said today—mistakenly, the WAAF operator who had heard it believed—over the R/T by a Luftwaffe pilot. That an unidentified code word had been used was nothing out of the ordinary—it was a daily occurrence in fact, but that it had been used by a pilot testing out what they believed was a new, night navigational beam called Knickebein, was cause for great concern.
‘Well,’ Violet started, making no attempt to lower her voice, ‘it would save a barrow-load of time if they would actually tell us everything that they knew about these bloody beams.’ She pulled out a packet of Wills’ Gold Flakes and offered one to Elsie.
‘Thanks,’ Elsie responded, considering what Violet had just said. It was true. Their job had quickly evolved into one of not simply gathering the information, but of trying to piece it together and help to solve the puzzle. The only problem was that they were never privy to all the pieces of the blasted puzzle. From the limited intelligence with which they had been entrusted, they knew that a Heinkel had been shot down and on board had been some kind of new navigational device. Interrogated prisoners and intelligence from ‘reliable sources’ had also confirmed that the beams were being used to assist night bombing. The RAF wouldn’t have a hope in hell’s chance of stopping the Luftwaffe flying blind on a pre-determined course. Daimler could not only hold a clue to a future target, but to determining the direction in which the beams were travelling.
Violet held a match to her cigarette, then to Elsie’s. She drew an impossibly long drag and held her breath for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she blew out the smoke in a long, slow column. ‘Daimler,’ she finally said. ‘It has to be something to do with cars.’
Elsie nodded. It was an obvious conclusion that a child in her class could have drawn, yet it still held some validity. Seldom was a Luftwaffe code word—or RAF, for that matter—chosen at random; there was always some kind of a connection to the word that it was attempting to disguise. ‘Would they bomb a car factory?’ Elsie mused. ‘Do we even have factories still producing cars anymore?’
Violet screwed up her face, unconvinced. ‘Military vehicles?’
Elsie had written the word Daimler at the top of the notepad. Below it, she wrote Violet’s suggestion, followed by a pair of large question marks. ‘Okay, let’s start wading through the log books, then.’
They each took a book in turn and began scanning through for any mention of the code word, military vehicles or anything else that might just fit.
It was tiring work. They smoked, took Benzedrine tablets with coffee to keep themselves awake and searched long into the night. Elsie took frequent toilet breaks, on each occasion expecting to find that her period had started. But it never had. The idea that it wasn’t going to start any time soon gained more solid traction as the night, and her tiredness, wore on.
Nothing further had been added to the notepad until the early hours of the morning, when a bleary-eyed Violet spotted something. She sat bolt upright and tossed the log book in front of Elsie.
It took her a moment, then she saw it. On the night of August 19th, a WAAF operator had transcribed an R/T conversation between a group of Heinkel pilots. She had written Daimler? in her entry and was seemingly unable to offer any suggestion as to its operational meaning. From the transcript in front of Elsie, it seemed that the word had been blurted out, then nothing more had been said.
Violet smiled smugly, then collapsed in a dramatic performance onto the desk. ‘Can we go home now?’
But Elsie had woken up. ‘No, we need to know where they hit that night.’ She leapt up and bounded over to the telephone.
‘Elsie Finch, who are you phoning at this ungodly hour?’ Violet demanded, her voice laboured, each word seemingly dragged out of her voice box.
‘Eleven Group—they’ll have a log of past bombing raids.’
The call was eventually answered and, after a lengthy explanation to two different operators, Elsie was finally given the answer that she was looking for. She reset the receiver and sat back down opposite Violet. ‘Derby.’
‘Derby?’ Violet repeated.
‘Derby,’ Elsie confirmed, shoving the log books to one side and taking a close look at the map. She prodded Derby, in the north of England. She frowned at Violet. It was a town of insignificance. ‘Why Derby?’
‘It’s odd, given how close Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham are—blind-bombing those major cities would cause significantly more damage than to Derby,’ Violet said.
‘There must be something there…’ Elsie mumbled. ‘But what?’
‘I think it’s time to move from the Unintelligent Office to the Intelligent Office,’ Violet said with a laugh. ‘Let me finish my coffee and cigarette first, though.’
Elsie stood and waited, eager to get next door with their findings. But Violet, in her usual way, was making a real meal of the last breaths of her cigarette. When finally she stubbed it down into the glass ashtray on the table, she then finished her coffee, holding the cup high above her face for the last drips to trickle down onto her waiting tongue.
‘Now I’m ready.’
They hurried out of the room and Elsie tapped lightly on the Intelligence Office door. A deep masculine voice told them to enter and they stepped into a cramped, cluttered room containing bookshelves brimming with files, two messy desks and a run of metal filing cabinets. The windowless walls were adorned with maps of various parts of the world.
‘Good gracious! What the dickens are you two still doing here?’ asked Flight Lieutenant Budge—or RKB, as he was
