The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  ‘We’ve bagged the U-330,’ and he shook the paper at Mary. ‘Dönitz has been trying to make contact for days and now Berlin has confirmed it.’

  ‘Good. When and where?’

  ‘An aircraft from Coastal Command caught the boat on the surface and managed to depth-charge her as she was crash-diving. The pilot reported oil and debris but this is confirmation. No survivors.’

  Wilmot walked over to the U-boat file index by the plot table and took out the 330’s card.

  ‘Rodger wants to check its history. Berlin called it “the lion boat”, claims it sank fourteen ships.’

  Mary nodded politely. The loss of an enemy vessel in the Atlantic was always good news but not the sort she wanted to celebrate. Some of the boys took a different view, especially when the boat had a history. Wilmot took his card back to Winn and Mary picked up her bag and walked over to the coat rail by the door. She was struggling into her mac when Winn’s office door opened again.

  ‘Rodger would like to see you before you go,’ said Wilmot breezily.

  Winn was perched on the edge of his desk, the U-boat file card on his knee, a cigarette burning between his fingers.

  ‘Wilmot told you about the 330?’

  ‘Yes. Good news.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Winn flicked ash off his cigarette then squeezed it into an ashtray. ‘It was a successful boat, an experienced commander.’

  He slipped to his feet and walked round the desk to his chair but remained standing.

  ‘Do you know the name of the 330’s commander?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but I can check.’

  ‘No need. I have it here,’ and he lifted the file card. ‘Schultze.’

  The name rang a distant uneasy bell but Mary was not able to say why. ‘You can tell Lieutenant Lindsay,’ said Winn coolly.

  A cold shudder passed through her body. The penny had dropped and how foolish not to remember. Schultze was Lindsay’s cousin ‘Martin’. She looked down for a moment, confused and a lump formed in her throat. She felt strangely guilty.

  ‘Thank you, Rodger.’

  ‘Tell him I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  She turned slowly to leave but at the door stopped and looked back at him: ‘Is this news we’re supposed to celebrate?’

  He lifted his eyes from his desk and stared at her, his gaze intense and unblinking as ever.

  ‘Yes, we should celebrate.’

  37

  HMS Imperial Star

  16°42N/25°29W

  North Atlantic

  I

  t was a breathless heat, insufferably close even at six o’clock. The captain had given permission for passengers to sleep on the promenade deck and some had already staked a claim to a few feet of polished boards with bags and blankets and the life vests they would use for a pillow. At dusk the blackout would be enforced, deadlights dropped over ports, gangways to the deck sealed, and those who retired to their stifling cabins would be condemned to hours of restless torment. Tempers were fraying. The captain had barked at a lady passenger who insisted on complaining to him in person about the children playing hide-and-seek on deck. A couple of soldiers had come to blows very publicly and were sweltering under guard in the brig.

  On the bridge, Third Officer Hall wiped his brow with a damp handkerchief, then reached for the glass of cold water the steward was offering him on a tray. There were grey hulls as far as the eye could see: the Imperial Star was ship number four in column number three, limping south at the speed of the slowest tramp in the convoy. Hall was an old blue-water sailor with twenty years’ experience and keeping station between ships was a kind of special purgatory which the tropical heat was making even more unbearable. He envied the escorts their freedom – a destroyer was cutting an impressive bow wave half a mile to port – at least they had the run of the convoy. It was the single topic of serious conversation in the officers’ dining saloon. Was the ship safer in this protected box of sea? For his part, Hall was firmly of the view that she should be given her head; her twin screws were capable of sixteen knots and speed, surely, was her best protection. The captain had not expressed a view but the crew – even the engine-room stokers – were able to sense his frustration. They had all seen ships sunk in convoy and the recollection of it was sharp and cold even now on the sunlit bridge.

  ‘They’re still playing Vera Lynn in the lounge. I’ve begged the steward to let me throw the record over the side.’ It was Murray, the Chief Officer, a Glaswegian, short, thick-set, a White Star officer for more than thirty years. He had conducted a general round of the ship, starting with the ancient naval gun on the foredeck. Everything was as it should be; the ladies dressing for dinner, white-coated stewards serving in the bar, the Army playing bridge, in one of the saloons, in another the RAF flirting with some of the nurses who were with the ship all the way to the Middle East. The watch was in place and at a little before dusk the men would be ordered to stand to the guns. But for now at least there was a hushed, somnolent quality to the Imperial Star, the hum of the engines, the gentle whooshing of a calm sea along her sides.

  The duty wireless operator was hovering at Murray’s side with a small square of signal paper in his hand: ‘From the Commodore of the convoy, sir.’

  The Chief Officer took the signal, glanced at it and handed it to Hall: ‘Deal with it, would you?’

  The code and cipher books were held under lock and key in the purser’s cabin. It took Hall just fifteen minutes to decode the signal and when he returned to the bridge it was in triumph: ‘Is the captain in his cabin? Admiralty orders. We are to finish the journey alone at the best speed we can make.’

  His fingers were drumming excitedly on the polished brass telegraph as if he were itching to push it forward from slow through half to full speed ahead.

  ‘We are to alter course at sunset. Should cut at least a week off the voyage.’

  ‘If we get there,’ said Murray coolly.

  Later, something of the same thought could be read in the faces of the passengers crowding the rail as the sun dipped behind the convoy. At eight bells the Imperial Star turned out of the column and her decks began to tremble as she gathered speed to the south and the dark horizon, churning a white fan of water in her wake. Third Officer Hall could almost feel the ship stretching as if waking from sleep. The watch changed as always, the ladies still dressed for dinner, the sheets were turned down in the first-class cabins and drinks served in the bar. But there was a new urgency and a new purpose to every action. And the atmosphere in the passenger saloons crackled like an old wireless, the conversation hushed and anxious. For once the top of the old gramophone was closed, the scratched seventy-eight of Vera Lynn’s ‘Yours’ lying on its torn green sleeve beside it.

  38

  T

  he Military Police hut was cold and damp and smelt of diesel. Its rough walls were little more than a shelter from the Lakeland weather. But it was well placed at the edge of the woodland in front of Stapley Hall, secure between the belts of wire, quiet and hidden from the watchful eyes of the Ältestenrat. Lindsay began with the officers of the U-112, the Nazi roughnecks, Bruns and Koch, as sullen and aggressively silent as they had been at Trent Park. The first officer, Gretschel, decent but clever and disciplined, was not to be tempted into unguarded confidences. He was restless, uncomfortable, playing with his cigarettes, and there was a slight contraction of his pupils when he was asked about the bruises on Heine’s face, but he refused to do more than repeat the statement he had given the Military Police. And the young midshipman, Bischoff, was grim and fixed-jawed, afraid lest he forget his well-rehearsed lines:

  ‘I only spoke to Leutnant Heine a couple of times in the days before he died. He was very upset, he hated being a prisoner. Footsteps, lights, a banging door, almost anything seemed to set him off.’

  Lindsay asked Bischoff about the bruises but he refused to say any more or look him in the eye. Bischoff could be broken in time and i
n a different place. His relief when the guard came to take him away was almost tangible. Lindsay stepped outside the hut with a cigarette to watch the soldiers shepherd him along the fence. He had given the sergeant instructions to observe Bischoff closely when he joined the other prisoners. It was Bruns who found him first, placing a reassuring arm about his shoulders – at least that was how the gesture appeared to the sergeant from the other side of the wire.

  The other naval officers presented the same story. Heine’s death was a surprise. How could it have happened? The commander of the 500, Fischer, said he should have done more to help the dead man come to terms with being a prisoner. Richter, his engineer, felt keenly responsible. He knew Heine’s mindset and how it was tormented by the loss of the 112.

  ‘He was ill. A sort of combat sickness and haunted by the thought that he had failed.’

  ‘Failed?’ Lindsay had asked.

  ‘He thought he could have done more to save the boat.’

  All the prisoners were lying. He had expected them to. After two tobacco-fuelled days gently probing, Lindsay was left with the overwhelming impression of evasion and fear. Lieutenant Duncan sat in on the first day’s interrogations. His German was not strong enough to follow the interviews closely but he was a canny judge and he could sense the prisoners’ fear too. At the end of the second day, he visited Lindsay again: ‘He was murdered, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You haven’t seen Mohr yet?’

  ‘No.’

  Lindsay pulled the door of the hut to and stepped out from beneath the shade of the surrounding trees into the evening sunshine. He stood there soaking it in through every pore, a light breeze ruffling his hair.

  ‘I’ll see Lange and Schmidt and Mohr tomorrow. I want to talk to them in the washroom where he died.’

  Duncan raised his eyebrows: ‘Why?’

  ‘Why use the washroom or why those three prisoners?’

  ‘Both.’

  Lindsay shrugged. He had resisted the temptation to speak to Lange first in order to protect him but he was still the best hope for some sort of insight into the whole business. And Schmidt had admitted responsibility for the bruises to Lange’s face. His story about a fight was clearly a lie – that made him vulnerable. But Lange, Schmidt, the sad sordid death of Heine, they were the levers, the means by which to prise open the end that was Jürgen Mohr.

  ‘Instinct, just a feeling,’ Lindsay said. ‘And perhaps the set will help with the performance.’

  ‘It’s just down the corridor from the prisoners’ kitchen so it’ll be difficult to secure,’ Duncan sounded sceptical. ‘They will all have to use Washroom B. I don’t think Major Benson will be happy.’

  They began crunching down the gravel carriageway towards the officers’ mess. Lindsay would have preferred to stretch out on his bed with a book in the room he had taken above the village pub but he was making an effort to be friendly with the camp’s officers. Duncan was good company, if a little nosy, but some of the others were boorish in a regular military way. He had already spent an uncomfortable evening deflecting questions about his business at the camp and the DSC ribbon on his uniform jacket.

  ‘You know, none of the prisoners seemed surprised to see you,’ said Duncan. ‘Didn’t that strike you as strange? They were told the investigation was over, now that we’ve buried Heine.’

  ‘Mohr knows we’re interested in him. They were expecting me or someone like me.’

  The orderly behind the mess bar mixed Lindsay a pink gin and then another. He was considering a third when a sergeant approached him with a message. Someone from the Navy called Dr Henderson had phoned and asked him to ring back at once.

  ‘Is there a phone I can use here?’ he asked Duncan.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ and he ground his cigarette stub into an ashtray.

  But Major Benson had seen them from the door and was making his way quickly towards them.

  ‘No, please. Let me buy you one,’ he said with a warmth Lindsay thought owed more to the prospect of the drink than to the pleasure of his company.

  ‘I see you’ve picked up some bad habits in the Navy,’ he said, pointing to Lindsay’s glass.

  They sat at a table close to the mess’s only window, from where there was a view across the broken woodland to the rough sheep pastures of the valley below.

  ‘So, it’s been a fruitless visit.’ There was something close to a sneer in Benson’s voice. Lindsay glanced at Duncan who pulled an apologetic face.

  ‘No, sir.’

  Benson ignored him: ‘The Military Police did their job pretty well.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The camp commandant wanted to know how much longer Lindsay expected to be there. What did Naval Intelligence hope to find? Kapitän Mohr was a fine man and they understood each other well. Another drink? His hand shook a little as he raised his glass to his lips. And then he was back on the beaches at Dunkirk, lost among the abandoned lorries, the choking oil-black smoke, the helpless and the dying. And the Navy should have done better. Another?

  By the time Lindsay was able to excuse himself, night had crept up the valley to the camp. He had missed supper and was now quite drunk. A corporal ran him down the road to the village pub. It was only as he was undressing in the little bedroom under the eaves that he remembered the message to ring Mary but it was too late and it was as much as he could do to collapse into bed.

  He slept badly and woke with a start at three o’clock, his sheets clammy and cold. And when he closed his eyes again he slipped back into the confused grey half-world of the ship. Mary was there too. She was standing on the quarterdeck, the sea washing about her bare legs. And she was shouting something; he could hear the panic in her voice, but the wind whipped the words from him. Then she began pointing frantically over the side and he turned to the rail and looked down. August Heine was looking back at him, eyes wide and bloodshot, his blue face bloated and shining, the rope-marks raw and angry about his neck.

  At six o’clock he got up to smoke a cigarette by the window. A thin drizzle of mist was hanging halfway up the valley sides, the sun still low and yellow above the eastern hills. A tractor roared down the road with a weatherbeaten farmer at the wheel, his collies perched precariously on either side. In a few hours he would interview Mohr. There was nothing he could accuse him of, no questions Mohr would be prepared to answer, but he would be required to stand in front of the table and he would know that the pursuit was beginning once again. Lindsay looked down into the village street and smiled quietly with something close to pleasure at the thought.

  Lieutenant Duncan sat shivering behind his desk in only his shirt and trousers. His tiny office was only a few steps from the mess where he had taken a skinful the night before, a damp, cold shoebox of a room with flaking plaster walls. His thick head was not improved at six o’clock in the morning by the stiff rattle of his old typewriter. He ripped the page from the restraining bar and read it through:

  . . . Lindsay intends to question Lieutenant Lange and Captain Mohr today and has made it clear he would like to conduct both interrogations on his own. He is particularly interested in the propaganda reporter’s position in the camp. I believe he is the German officer you referred to in your briefing.

  Duncan paused. He quite liked Lindsay. A little reserved, perhaps, a bit prickly about his past and his family but he seemed straight enough. What had the man done to warrant such close scrutiny? He reached for his mug of tea – it was cold already.

  . . . he will not be drawn into debate about the war and Germany. Nor is he prepared to say why a Naval Intelligence officer should be so interested in the death of a prisoner . . .

  The Security Service had demanded that he thrash out this report himself. There were to be no copies and he was to keep his watching brief on Lindsay secret from Major Benson. Duncan had met Gilbert from Five once, and for twenty minutes only, but it had been long enough to convince him that the Colonel was a ruthless bastard – c
ool in a very Eton, Oxford and the Guards sort of way and comfortable in his half-world of secrets and lies.

  . . . as yet there is no evidence to suggest Lindsay is communicating with the prisoners on any subject other than the death of Heine and other related intelligence matters but to be present at all times would arouse suspicion. It is possible notes have been exchanged in my absence. The prisoners are searched after leaving interrogations. We have conducted a thorough search of Lieutenant Lindsay’s room and belongings but have found nothing . . .

  ‘Despatch.’

  The office door opened with a stiff military jerk and a burly-looking military policeman stepped across the threshold.

  ‘Get this off at once, Corporal.’

  39

  A

  t one end of the rectangular washroom there were two rows of handbasins with cracked and stained mirrors above; the shower cubicles and latrines were at the other end. Heine’s pipe ran across the ceiling between the two, cast iron, six inches in diameter and painted a muddy green. Lindsay had the table and chairs placed beneath it.

  ‘Sit down, Helmut.’

  Leutnant Lange looked crumpled and grey and anxious.

  ‘Here?’ He glanced up at the pipe.

  ‘Yes. Here.’

  Lindsay pushed a packet of cigarettes across the table to him: ‘Help yourself.’

  He waited as Lange took one, lit it and drew in a comforting lungful of smoke.

  ‘You look tired, Helmut. ‘You know why I’m here, of course. You knew Leutnant Heine well . . .’

  ‘Not well.’ He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably.

  ‘You shared a room at the interrogation centre, you knew him better than most. Tell me what you know.’

  ‘He was depressed. He hated being a prisoner. He was sure he’d failed his comrades and his commander. No one could talk to him.’

  It was the same short story in choppy insincere sentences and they were contradicted even as they were spoken by Lange’s restless body language.