Our lowly status as females actually gave us more freedom, and the office was on the mezzanine floor so one of me could watch the coming and goings, and make notes in the notebook. Paper and pens were not easily available.

Once we had begun the work we stayed late in the evening, and then we began to leave to eat dinner and then return to work. Although there was a night watchman the offices were never locked, as there were deliveries at all times of the day and night - presumably whenever there was room in a car boxes of papers were loaded on and then they were brought straight to the town hall.

Thankfully our work brought us better food, and we were given dark blue shawls in recognition of our usefulness. They contrasted rather oddly with the pale lime green coloured gowns which were now what we had to wear.

We shared a small apartment which was intended for four, but which we had to ourselves as there were no other women office workers. We even had a radio, and were woken each working day by the cheerful announcement of the time followed by happy morning music. There was no off switch, and the volume control did not rotate far enough to make it inaudible. As there were news bulletins and announcements from time to time we did not dare try to disconnect the speaker entirely just in case we missed something.

Once we were fairly sure we knew the systems, or at least what other departments did, we began to move, and to steal paperwork. We tried to make it as random as possible, and we put our shawls around our hands so as not to leave finger prints. About two thirds of the papers were put into wrong files, and almost one third was shredded small then put into a sink full of water and rubbed to pulp, then washed away. We were careful to include some papers from our own office, some from those already processed and some from the stacks waiting to be done. We used different washrooms around the building, and we waited for our sabotage to take effect.

It seemed that there was nothing happening for a long time, weeks passed, but we resisted the temptation to increase the thefts. Then, when the Captain noticed an alteration in the routine of the Golden, we decided to call a halt.

Two days later there was an almighty disruption as a small army of auditors arrived and we were all excluded from the offices.

After a couple of days we asked a supervisor if it would be alright for us to go home, as there was nothing to do, and promised faithfully to return in a week to see how things were going.

We were sent to the Hall of the Rings, to keep the records there.

I heard the Captain humming a tune as we waited to be assigned, and the Chorister and I exchanged smiles, though just why we found the Ride of the Valkyrie amusing I could not really say.