The heat in the room was incredible.
‘Don’t touch it!’ he said.
The warning was unnecessary. I could feel the power radiating off the machine. It was like being trapped in a stall with a bull.
*
The submarine door held even more of a surprise.
‘We call this the cinema,’ Bunny said, as we stepped through into a plush lobby that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Leicester Square.
Adams pulled the submarine door shut behind us, as Bunny let me take in our surroundings.
‘If you’re going to spend your days underground, no reason why it has to feel like a bunker, eh?’ Bunny said.
I looked at Adams, curious to know if he shared the sentiment. He shrugged.
In the middle of the foyer, exactly where the entrance to the theatre would be, double doors beckoned us.
‘You’ll like this,’ Bunny said, as he led the way. Adams caught my eye. ‘Humour him,’ the look said.
*
Two technicians sat at a desk, monitoring a bank of what I assumed was broadcasting equipment. A large windowseparated the booth from the next room – the studio – where the Germans took their places at two chromium microphones.
In the booth, a third technician was rifling through a wall of records.
There was a speaker on the wall, and the room was filled with opera music.
‘It’s Wagner,’ one of the technicians said. He was in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his jacket over the back of his chair. He tapped his cigarette into a mug as he watched his colleague searching the records.
‘I know it’s bloody Wagner,’ his colleague said.
‘Götterdämmerung,’ the other engineer said, leafing furiously through a well-worn reference book. ‘New recording.’
‘We haven’t got a new recording,’ Shirtsleeves said.
‘We have, it came in last week from the Foreign Office,’ the man searching the records said, as he pulled an album from the wall with a flourish. ‘Gentlemen, I give you Wagner’sGötterdämmerung, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, April 1940.’
Bunny nodded at the speaker.
‘That’s Radio Berlin. It’s their equivalent of the BBC evening concert, broadcast across the entirety of the Reich. From Warsaw to Paris.
‘Hitler’s an absolute radio nut,’ Bunny continued. ‘He’s got speakers on every street corner in every major town and city across his empire. Can you imagine, wherever you walk, there’s a bloody radio announcer telling you what to think about how fantastic the leader is, and how quickly the war will be over once the English are subdued.’
The song finished, and a German voice started talking urgently.
‘He’s saying he hopes all the troops enjoyed the music, and that they should stay tuned for a special bulletin comingin a minute.’ Bunny looked at his watch then caught the eye of the engineer in shirtsleeves.
‘How are we doing? Ready?’
A woman’s voice came on. Whatever she was saying, it sounded soothing. Her voice sounded familiar.
Bunny saw me listening.
‘They’re a double act. He gives the hard news and she makes you forget how worried you should be. She’s very good.’
‘Quiet!’ Shirtsleeves snapped. He listened to the woman on the radio.
