Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

They began to slip away from the ship and there was a new note of despair in the voices of those they left inside her. Hope was leaving too. At their oars the sailors were grim-faced, heads bent, pulling hard. One of the older ratings in the stern was shaking. Then, above the roar of the fire, the grinding of aircraft engines very close and the rolling thunder of ack-ack.

Lindsay had just made the top of the steps when he was thrown to the ground by a tide of water from the dock. He lay there, face pressed to the wet cobbles, legs stretched helplessly behind him. Barely a second later and another explosion drenched him again. The third must have landed a little way up the quay because the ground heaved and he was showered with dirt and stones. Later he remembered being gripped by the blind, terrifying certainty that his legs would be blown off — they seemed so very far from his head and hands. But the fire storm swept over the dock in seconds and on into the city. Even before he raised his head, he could sense the injured close by. Slowly, painfully, he lifted himself to his knees. The shattered bodies of five — or was it six — men were lying just a few yards away like so much human wreckage.

‘Oh God, no,’ he muttered.

Bright red arterial blood rose in an arc from the ragged stump of a sailor’s leg. The boy — he was no more than eighteen — was watching it in silent disbelief. Lindsay recognised his white-blond hair and delicate features — he had pulled one of the whaler’s oars. People were running along the quay now and someone shouted to him, ‘Give us a hand here.’

He stumbled forwards in a daze and a medical orderly thrust a large cotton pad into his hands: ‘Hold it firmly against the stump.’ Blood was seeping across the stones and into the dock. He pressed down hard and the young sailor screamed. Then he was conscious of grinding heavy metal and a deep hissing. He turned his head a little. Steam was rising in a cloud from the bows of His Majesty’s destroyer White as she slipped slowly down, down to the bottom of the dock.

In his cell, a hundred yards along the quay, Kapitän Jürgen Mohr could hear frightened voices and the gonging of an ambulance bell. The explosions had crept closer and the last had shaken the walls and floor until the light flickered and died. He was sitting in impenetrable blackness, so black he felt he could touch it. And he could imagine he was in the control room of his U-boat again, surrounded by the pale, anxious faces of his men. But he felt calm, completely calm. Their lives were no longer in his hands. There were no orders he could give, he was powerless to shape events.

He heard raised voices in the corridor and someone hammered angrily on the cell door: ‘Bastard.’

‘Can I have some light in here?’ he shouted back in English. But there was no answer.

Seconds later another explosion shook the building, throwing him from the bench to the stone-flagged floor. He picked himself up, gritty brick dust in his nose and throat.

Did his family know the 112 was lost? he wondered. Admiral Dönitz would be concerned that the British had managed to capture such a senior officer. But perhaps the senior officer would not last the night.

‘You look exhausted, old boy.’ Lieutenant Tim Cooper was slumped in the burgundy plush of the Exchange Hotel’s bar, a plate of the chef’s own sandwiches in front of him.

‘Is this the best they can manage?’ He peeled back the top of a damp triangle and carefully examined its contents: luncheon meat.

‘I’ve had breakfast but…’ He glanced hopefully at Lindsay who waved a careless hand at the plate. There was almost nothing in his appearance to suggest that a few hours before he had been squatting in smoke and blood beside a dying man. The hotel staff had worked a small miracle on his uniform and his shoes were polished to perfection. But there was a weary frown on his face and a more observant man than Cooper might have noticed the distant look in his eyes.

‘It’s been a bad night,’ said Cooper mechanically, ‘What a pounding Liverpool’s taken.’ He glanced at his watch, it was eleven o’clock. It had taken him two hours to make the short journey from the mess at Orrell Hey. Burning streets, flooded streets, streets choked with rubble and unexploded bombs. He had seen a parachute mine lying in the front garden of a neat little semi, huge and uninvited.

‘The Central Library’s still burning, and the GPO, and there’s a steamer loaded with ammunition on fire in the Huskisson Dock. If that goes up, they’ll hear it at the Admiralty,’ he said. ‘Did you hear about the White ? The buggers managed to sink her. Thompson, her captain, was at the mess last night. Very tight. He climbed up on to the roof and stood there brandishing a pipe at them. Bombs dropping everywhere and there he was shouting, “Come on you buggers”.’

Lindsay said nothing.

Transport for Mohr and the other prisoners from the 112 would be difficult to arrange but Cooper was hopeful of a train from Lime Street later in the day.

‘It was sickening,’ he said. ‘You should have seen them together.’

‘Who?’

‘Thompson and Mohr — yesterday. You would have thought Thompson was entertaining Marlene Dietrich.’

‘You don’t like Commander Thompson,’ said Lindsay drily.

‘He doesn’t like me, which is unforgivable. But he’ll like you.’ Cooper glanced down at the medal ribbon on Lindsay’s uniform. ‘But Mohr’s a clever bugger. He spent time here as a boy. Must have run rings round Thompson.’ He paused and began to examine his nails.

‘Well, what is it?’ asked Lindsay impatiently.

‘I’m afraid I’ve bad news…’

‘Bad news?’ Lindsay gave a short humourless laugh.

‘Yes. Thompson let Mohr talk to his men. He’s had three weeks to prepare them for interrogation.’

‘They didn’t keep him from the crew?’ asked Lindsay in disbelief. Lieutenant-Commander Thompson had broken the golden rule: isolate the commander.

‘Sorry. I hope someone kicks his complacent backside for you,’ said Cooper.

Lindsay lit a cigarette, and blew the yellow smoke at the bar-room ceiling. As it broke and curled, he could imagine the dancing shadows of the cedar on the walls of the interrogation room at the Park and hear the mocking whisper of its branches.

Standing on the quay above the wreck of HMS White , Kapitän Jürgen Mohr felt no satisfaction nor did he feel regret. It was one more act of war. Das ist eben Schicksal . Fate. The sinking of the White , the damage to city and port, these things happened in war. The country that inflicted the most pain and destruction would win.

‘Get that lot into some sort of line.’

Mohr’s men were shuffling out of a warehouse at the corner of the dock under the eye of a burly British sergeant.

‘Don’t any of you lot speak any English?’ he shouted at them, ‘Fall in now.’

‘Can I help you, Sergeant?’ Mohr’s English was a little precise but perfect in every other respect.

‘No you bloody can’t. Keep away.’ The sergeant pointed at two army trucks that were parked further along the quay. ‘Corporal, take this one up there.’

Mohr shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘Suit yourself? Suit yourself my arse,’ said the sergeant angrily, ‘get a move on.’

Mohr picked his way through the rubble, the tangled hoses and bloody rags, the corporal stamping aggressively at his heels. They stopped beside one of the trucks and he leant against its bonnet to watch the sergeant pushing and prodding his crew into a ragged line. Smoke was still settling in a broad grey blanket over the river and its wharves. From time to time there was a deep dull rumble from the tightly ordered streets beyond the docks, where a demolition party was making the city ‘safe’.