Andrew Williams: The Interrogator

‘Signal from Rosemary , s ir. She wants to get a line across to us and rig a bosun’s chair.’

The wreck shuddered as a wave pounded against its makeshift bow, sending another drenching sheet of spray racing along the sides.

‘Let’s make sure we’re ready to receive it, Chief,’ shouted Lindsay.

The Rosemary turned to run on a parallel course and was lifted to the crest of a wave until she towered above them, her screws racing clear of the ocean. She was rolling unhappily, struggling to edge close enough to fire a line, the sea an unbridgeable broken white between them, the restless length of a rugby pitch. One pass, a second and then a third, and Lindsay knew it was impossible. Grim faces, sagging shoulders, the seamen about him were of the same mind. And at that moment, as if possessed by a contrary spirit, the wreck pitched forward with a vicious jolt, the sea sweeping along the deck to meet them.

‘She’s going,’ shouted Jones desperately. No one needed to be told. Instead of rising with the next wave the Culloden was settling at a sickening angle, the sea boiling about its funnel.

‘Signal to Rosemary , preparing to abandon ship,’ shouted Lindsay. But the Rosemary was already hanging scramble nets down her sides.

Everyone was at the quarterdeck rail. To Lindsay’s right was one of the stokers, eyes glazed, expression fixed, careless with the cold. It was too late to do anything for him.

‘The Rosemary ’s standing by.’ He spoke as if to strangers, empty and distant. ‘Stay with the Carley rafts and she will find you. Good luck.’ And then, from somewhere, words he never thought he would hear, let alone have to say: ‘Abandon ship.’

A few feet below him, the sea was surging white up the side, in constant terrifying motion. ‘Go. Go now,’ and with a great effort of will he stepped forward. The shock of the cold water left him breathless. He was struggling to keep his head clear, gasping, panicking. Swept to the crest of a wave, he could see the grey side of the corvette two hundred yards away and, close by, a Carley raft with men hanging round its sides. Heart pounding, he struck out towards it and welcoming hands pulled him in and on to a rope. At that moment, the wreck gave a deep groan and as the raft swung about he saw its stern rise from the sea to hang there, its screws glinting darkly.

‘Swim, swim.’

They were too close. It would drag them under. There was a frenzy of splashing and the raft raced forward. Then with a blinding yellow-white flash, the sea lifted in a huge dome beneath them. Confused, only half-conscious, Lindsay let go of the raft. His eyes were stinging, his arms heavy as if he were swimming in treacle. The wreck had gone and the sea was on fire, shrouded in choking black smoke. A dark shape floated close by and he reached out to touch it. It half turned, a body, face burnt black, features unrecognisable, and he could taste its sickly smell. Through the smoke he glimpsed another seaman waving frantically. He was lost between waves for a moment but reappeared only feet away. His face was oily black and almost all his hair had gone.

‘Where’s the Rosemary ?’ Lindsay shouted, but the sailor was too frantic to listen or care. After a few seconds his head slumped forward on to his life vest. Lindsay tried to support him, to keep his mouth and nose clear of the water, but he felt weak and cold to his very core. ‘I’m going to die,’ he thought, and was surprised by how little it concerned him. He could see himself drifting on, pushed from wave to wave, held upright in the Atlantic by his life jacket, and he wondered if he had the strength to take it off.

And then someone was pulling at his arm and shouting, ‘Give me your fucking hand.’ More hands were pulling at him, lifting him up and over the side. And the last thing he remembered was his cheek against cold steel.

Mary Henderson woke to a splitting headache, her sheets damp with condensation and every muscle in her body stiff. It was morning but the room was as black as the grave. She lay there listening to the rumble of sleep. The Admiralty had squeezed three bunk beds — six women — into a narrow concrete corridor with no windows and no ventilation. Could it have been worse on a slaver? Mary wondered. Fumbling for her torch, she dived beneath the bedclothes and shone the light on the face of her watch. Seven o’clock. No time for breakfast — a small sacrifice — the canteen cooks boiled and battered the taste from everything they touched.

One of the bunks creaked threateningly. Mary surfaced, grabbed the bag at the bottom of her bed and swung her legs into the darkness. The bolt on the bathroom door slid into place with a satisfying clunk. She turned reluctantly to the mirror. Her sandy-green eyes were red-rimmed and weepy. Two days without sunlight had cast an unhealthy shadow on her white, even skin and her thick black shoulder-length hair fell in unruly curls about her face. Her girlfriends told her that she should make more effort with her appearance; she was pretty and, at twenty-six, too young for sensible shoes and badly cut tweed. Perhaps it was acceptable in the university libraries she used to frequent, but naval officers preferred a little glamour. Mary knew her friends were wrong. A spring frock from the collection at Adèle’s might turn a head or two above ground but it would do nothing for her authority in the subterranean world of the Citadel.

Huge, featureless, it was a cruel brown block of concrete just a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Downing Street. The Citadel was a little like a submarine with its squat tower on the Mall and its deck stretching aft to Horse Guards Parade, and rather like a submarine, it was larger below the surface than above. Mary had visited her uncle at the House of Commons the autumn before and he was the first to mention it to her. Hitler’s bombers were pounding London by day and night and it had struck her as strange that a small army of workmen was busy throwing up a new building when so many were in need of repair. In the time it had taken to complete, she had abandoned her academic post at an Oxford college to become part of its secret life. Workmen were still crashing about the upper floors and there was the sharp smell of wet concrete in the corridors but the Navy’s Operational Intelligence Centre had moved into its new home next to the Admiralty

By the time she felt presentable enough to leave the ladies’ room it was almost half past seven. A couple of cross-looking Wrens were shivering in their dressing gowns in the dimly lit corridor. She gave them her sweetest smile. Room 41 was in the bowels of the building, down drab cream stairs and corridors, past the convoy wall-plot, the signals girls in Room 29 and the watch-keepers in 30. At its blue door, she paused to catch her breath, then turned the handle and stepped quickly inside.

‘Good morning, Dr Henderson’ — it was the duty officer, Lieutenant Freddie Wilmot. He liked to tease her with her academic title. ‘Sleep well?’

‘No.’

Wilmot frowned and shook his head in mock sympathy: ‘Sorry to hear that but then I didn’t sleep at all.’

‘You’ll be off duty in an hour — you’ll be able to breathe again.’