PROLOGUE November 1942   There is a moment somewhere between the first warning siren and the first falling bomb when the earth turns silent and stops. The air tightens. The ground braces. The sky holds its breath. Only the planes keep moving. What happens next is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the bomb doors will open, perhaps death will rain down. Perhaps the planes will roar on over Berlin and away. Whatever the outcome, the initial response is the same. Bodies freeze. Brains go blank. Buildings shift on their foundations and become fragile. People look up, shrink away, crouch down. No one speaks. Words won’t help, words won’t change anything. As the sky darkens and drones, the only thing certain is fear. Fear of being caught out in the open as the heavens crack apart. Of being caught deep in a cellar when the lights fail and the oxygen runs out and the water starts rising. Of the streets overhead collapsing back into their bricks and the cellar becoming a tomb. Fear of being caught in the wrong place. On a cold clear night in November 1942 – as wave after wave of British Lancaster bombers thicken the skies to a shroud…