Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

And he held her gaze: ‘Duty? No. Not a duty.’

It was not until the following weekend that they were able to see each other again. By then the Germans had bombed the Admiralty, forcing daylight into dim, remote corridors, shaking even the sub-basement of the Citadel. Yugoslavia capitulated and Greece was on the point of doing the same. Lindsay took Mary to the Coconut Grove night club.

There was an expensive air of hysterical gaiety, with Society girls wrapped around young men in Savile Row suits. The Latin Orchestra was very fine but there was almost no room to dance. They sat at a table sipping martinis, upright and self-conscious and too far apart for conversation. Lindsay said something she took to be an invitation:

‘Yes, if you like.’

‘I didn’t ask you to dance,’ he shouted. ‘We can’t, can we, it’s too crowded?’

He looked ill at ease, unhappy. ‘What’s the matter?’ She reached across for his hand: ‘Come and sit next to me.’

He squeezed in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and she took his hand again, its palm a little rough and dry: ‘Are you all right?’

‘I haven’t been to a place like this for a long time.’

‘We can go?’

‘No, no, it’s fine.’

He smiled and raised her hand to his lips.

Later, she floated home, his arm around her, drunk with warm anticipation. They kissed in the blackout shadows at the end of Lord North Street, quiet, deliberate, intense kisses. And he pressed himself against her, breathed the scent of her hair and felt the weight of her head against his shoulder.

‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he whispered.

At last they broke apart and Lindsay held her hands tightly and bent to rest his forehead against hers: ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to see you for a while.’

‘Tired of me already?’

He laughed and kissed her forehead: ‘I’m meeting prisoners in Liverpool, the crew of the U-112 and then there are the interrogations.’

‘Winn’s very interested in the commander, Jürgen Mohr. He’s quite a catch.’

‘Perhaps it was your brother’s idea to send me to Liverpool, to save his sister?’

‘Perhaps he’s right.’

It was the old White ’s finest hour. She swept into Liverpool in a triumphant cloud of steam, decked in crew and bunting. Her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Jack Thompson, was enjoying the spectacle from his ship’s open bridge. The brisk river breeze cut to the skin but he was too proud to care. He reached into his pocket and touched the rough edge of the signal paper.

From the First Sea Lord. The Prime Minister has asked me to pass on heartfelt congratulations to the captain and crew of HMS White . Keep up the good work.

The destroyer came to rest beneath the great brick bond warehouses of the Albert Dock and up and over went her ropes. There was already a disorderly murmur below, excited voices in the for’ard mess, whistling and singing, as if the ship were haunted by a mutinous ghost. The crew was preparing to celebrate ashore with beer at the Roebuck and dancing at the Grafton Ballroom.

‘The local intelligence officer is here to talk about the transfer of the prisoners, sir.’ The ship’s first lieutenant was at Thompson’s side. ‘And some chaps from the press would like to take pictures.’

Thompson turned with a satisfied smile to the quay where the newspapermen had been joined by sailors and dockyard workers eager for a glimpse of the famous U-boat commander.

‘Very good, Number One, I’ll see the local IO in my cabin.’

The captain of the White was a deck officer of twenty years experience and it was his fixed view that only those who had seen service at sea were worthy of the King’s commission. It was quite apparent to him that the plump, shiny-faced lieutenant who shuffled into his cabin a short time later had not.

‘Lieutenant Cooper, sir.’

Thompson looked the intelligence officer up and down with barely concealed scorn. ‘Please, sit down, Lieutenant,’ he said briskly, ‘It’s rather cramped in here but no doubt you’re used to that.’

Lieutenant Tim Cooper sank with some relief into the chair he had been offered: ‘The news of the U-112 cheered us up no end, sir.’

‘Good.’

Thompson slid some closely typed sheets of paper across the table to him. It was a list of the prisoners, and a few general observations had been scribbled beside the names of the officers. ‘I don’t think there’s anything of great interest there, but that’s for you and your colleagues to judge, isn’t it?’

‘Has Mohr been co-operative, sir?’

Thompson stared pointedly at Cooper for a few seconds to indicate his displeasure, then said with careful emphasis: ‘Captain Mohr, Lieutenant. Captain Mohr behaved in an exemplary manner and we treated him accordingly.’

A sheet of paper slipped unnoticed from Cooper’s knees to the deck. He had the anxious air of someone with something on his broad chest but wisdom or fear got the better of him.

On the deck below, Kapitän zur See Jürgen Mohr could hear the stamp of soldiers’ boots and the orders barked at his crew as they were led along the ship’s side and down the gangway. He had been locked in the wardroom with the White ’s silver trophies. The officers of U-112 were standing stiffly before him.

‘They will be coming for us in a minute.’

Mohr’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched for such a tall man. He was too tall ever to be comfortable in a U-boat, lean, older-looking than his thirty–two years, his face weathered brown and creased.

‘We’ve spoken often of the days to come,’ he said with quiet authority, ‘but I must remind you again. We still have a part to play in this war. Carry on fighting for your Fatherland.’

He had warned them time and again: be silent, be strong. They would be separated and questioned. It was vital they kept their discipline and the details of the mission locked tight. The British would work away at the smallest crack, prising it open until they knew all there was to know of the 112 ’s mission.

There were voices in the passage and someone began to turn the handle of the wardroom door. Mohr got to his feet and picked up his white commander’s cap: ‘Remember, do your duty. Be vigilant. Victory is certain.’

It was still coppery bright when the sirens began to wail again, the last of the sun diffused in the warm haze of smoke rising from the city’s smouldering streets. Within minutes, a ragged tide of humanity was surging along Lime Street: travellers with suitcases, servicemen with their girlfriends, the very old and the very young. No one panicked or protested. They moved with hunched, weary resignation. Lindsay stepped from the shelter of a doorway into the street and looked up to a skyline of broken brick pillars and roofless gables. Liverpool was being stripped to its core. The sirens began to die away. Lime Street was almost deserted now. He turned and followed the stragglers to the corner of Hanover Street where a patient queue was filing down steps into a large underground shelter. A stout old woman hobbled past him on swollen feet, a basket of food on one arm, a bundle of blankets beneath the other. It was going to be oppressively close inside the shelter. Lindsay lit a cigarette and walked a little way along the empty street. Beyond a telltale mound of brick and broken plaster he could just make out the domeless silhouette of the old Customs House. The city was black now and almost silent as if it were holding its breath.