Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

The crew had abandoned its line and Mohr was most of the way through his fifth cigarette by the time the small party of British officers arrived on the quay. They stopped to look down in silence at the black and twisted bridge of the White , fifteen feet of blasted steel breaking the oily water. Mohr recognised her captain and the fat lieutenant he had met the day before but not their companion, a tall, fair-haired officer. He dropped his cigarette, ground it beneath his shoe, then walked slowly towards Lieutenant-Commander Thompson.

‘A cruel blow, Captain, really’, he said, with as much sincerity as he could manage.

Thompson acknowledged him with a curt nod. He looked grey and careworn, his thoughts clearly somewhere close to the bottom of the dock. They stood there in foot-shuffling silence for a moment before Thompson said, almost as an afterthought: ‘Yes, unfortunate.’ A perfect piece of English understatement — Mohr just managed to suppress a smile. He listened as Thompson explained in an empty, colourless voice that the lieutenants at his side were arranging for the crew of the 112 to be transferred to a camp.

‘I regret to say that an angry crowd has gathered at the gates of the dock. There are a lot of sailors’ families in this city, but you will be quite safe with Lieutenants Cooper and Lindsay.’

Mohr smiled at him, ‘I want to thank you again for your kindness, Captain.’

The fair-haired officer, the one Thompson had introduced as Lindsay, gave a short, humourless laugh. Thompson frowned and seemed on the point of rebuking him but changed his mind. There was something in his manner that suggested the two men had crossed swords already.

After another awkward silence Lieutenant Lindsay turned to him and said sharply in German, ‘Herr Kapitän Mohr, there are some rules.’

‘I was sure there would be,’ Mohr replied in German. Then in English he said: ‘But Commander Thompson doesn’t speak German. It would be polite to speak English, Lieutenant.’

Lieutenant Lindsay stared at him coldly and Mohr was struck by the intense blue of his eyes. Then Lindsay said in German: ‘You will be travelling to the station with your officers but your guards are under orders to prevent any talking.’ He glanced at his watch, ‘And we will be leaving in ten minutes.’

Mohr watched Lindsay and the others drift out of earshot. Something was niggling him, a faint but persistent echo. What was it? There was something about Lindsay that seemed inexplicably familiar.

After a few minutes, Thompson walked briskly away, his trophy prisoner no longer a concern. Lindsay and Cooper turned back to Mohr, deep in conversation. They had gone no more than a few steps when there was a blinding white flash. A savage growl seemed to roll up the Mersey towards them. Mohr threw himself face down on the rough cobbles. A chunk of steel plate clanged on to the quay close by and the sky was suddenly alive with the whistle and crash of shellfire.

‘The ammunition ship.’ Cooper was lying a few feet away. ‘She must have been sent to every corner of the city.’

Mohr lifted his head a little and caught Lindsay’s eye and in that instant, in the pandemonium, it came to him where he had seen the man before and he began to laugh, laugh out loud.

No mention was made in the BBC bulletin of the two thousand people killed or of the homes destroyed, no mention even of the city, although everyone knew the censor’s ‘port in the north-west’ was Liverpool. In the Citadel the cost was carefully calculated, but in tons of food and fuel burnt, in ships sunk and berths damaged.

Mary had spoken to Lindsay on the telephone but he had not wanted to talk of Liverpool and by then the bombs were falling on London again. She had returned home very late one night to find Lord North Street closed and St John’s Church in Smith Square burning like a torch. For more than an hour she had stood and watched the fire as if at the bedside of a dying friend, and reflected on the strange world she inhabited at the Citadel, where a church counted for so much less than a tanker.

The list of ships lost in the Atlantic was longer every week and yet the fog in which those in Room 41 had always worked was clearing a little. There were days when bold black track lines criss-crossed the main submarine plot with certainty and the enemy pinheads sported numbers like U-552 and U-96 . And every day the mountain of signals on Mary’s desk rose a little higher. The Citadel was a jealous master. She spoke to Lindsay on the telephone when she could but it was often after midnight and their conversations would peter out in weary frustrated silence.

At the time it had seemed like a coincidence but later, when she reflected on her exchange with Rodger Winn, she was not so sure. It was early afternoon on the day she had arranged to meet Lindsay after almost a fortnight apart. Winn had just returned from a meeting with the Director of Naval Intelligence and was talking to one of the watch-keepers in his office. Mary glanced up from the anti-submarine warfare bulletin she was reading and across at him. He caught her eye and smiled. A few minutes later the watch-keeper, Lieutenant Herbert, tapped her on the shoulder: ‘Rodger says can you leave that for a moment, he’d like a word.’

She found Winn leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head. He sighed loudly as Mary stepped into the room.

‘You look weary, Rodger.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘Perhaps you’re pushing yourself a little too hard.’ It was more familiar than she had ever been with Winn but his smile suggested he was touched by her concern.

‘I am tired, Mary, tired of other people’s stupidity. No, no, I don’t mean you.’

‘You’re not about to give me a dressing-down?’

‘No. Whatever for? You’ve really taken to this work — much more reliable than the chaps here.’ He paused for a moment to light a cigarette, then said: ‘How much do you know about Station X?’

‘Almost nothing, except that we have a lot to thank them for. Frankly I’ve been too frightened to ask.’

‘You know, the special intelligence we’re getting now is just the tip of the iceberg,’ said Winn. ‘In the weeks to come it could alter the balance of the war at sea.’

Mary nodded.

Winn leant forward to cram the cigarette he had just lit into an ashtray already overflowing with butts. She could tell he was on edge. ‘You’re a member of a very small circle, Mary. And the members of the circle must guard its secret very closely…’

Mary flushed a little: ‘I know that, Rodger.’

‘Yes,’ said Winn uncomfortably. ‘This is difficult. I understand you’re seeing Lieutenant Lindsay.’

Mary stared at him, confused for a moment and embarrassed. Then a hot tide of anger began to well up inside her and it was with difficulty that she managed to steady her voice: ‘Who told you that?’

‘The Director’s Assistant. Fleming had it from your brother.’

‘Yes, I’m seeing Douglas but I can’t see what that has to do with you or him.’

‘Can’t you?’ asked Winn coolly.

‘No,’ she lied.

‘Of course you can.’

Mary was about to say something but Winn held up his hand.

‘No. Let me finish. I probably shouldn’t tell you this but the security people want to question you. Fleming has put them off. He told them I would speak to you instead.’

‘Why? Is this to do with Douglas’s family?’

‘Yes. And also his interest in our codes. He’s one of the few people fighting this war who’s face to face with the enemy every day. The interrogators are under orders to avoid any reference to signals or codes. They could let something slip, a careless observation, a badly phrased question that reveals something about our signals or theirs. It’s too risky — it could find its way to Berlin. Prisoners have their ways of passing on intelligence too. We know that.’