Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

The other bed groaned as Leutnant August Heine rolled over to face him.

‘Why are you smiling, Helmut?’

‘Was I smiling?’ asked Lange.

‘You were smiling.’

Lange had silently cursed the British for holding him with a man called Heine who possessed not an ounce of poetry in his soul.

‘If they don’t want to interrogate us, why are they holding us?’ Heine asked.

Lange shrugged. Heine was a typical northerner, reserved, perhaps a little shy, nineteen, slight, greasy brown as if the engine oil of the U-112 was engrained in his skin. He seemed to have no interest in politics or religion, beer or women. He was an engineer — a small but essential cog — and U-boats were his chief, almost his only concern. At first his conversation had been limited even more by his commander’s order to say nothing of the war and the U-112 . Lange had formed the firm impression that Mohr was capable of inspiring a dread which the old Jewish prophets would have envied. But slowly, patiently, he had drawn Heine from his shell. The engineer had begun to talk freely of the 112 , of ships sunk and his commander’s fame, and of the feature film that had been shot aboard. It was to the U-boat that Heine’s thoughts turned again:

‘Admiral Dönitz came to see us sail.’

‘Yes,’ said Lange as he hoisted himself up on to the edge of his bed. ‘Cigarette?’

Heine reached across and took one from the packet. There were just three left.

‘I was there too,’ said Lange casually, ‘there when you sailed.’

‘You saw us leave Lorient?’ Heine asked with boyish excitement. ‘What a turnout.’

‘Yes.’

The quay had been crowded with naval uniforms, the black greatcoats of the senior officers at the head of the gangway. Lange remembered the 112 ’s screws turning slowly in reverse, the shouts of ‘Happy hunting’, and the thump of the military band as it struck up the old favourite, ‘Wir fahren gegen Engeland’, the ‘Sailing Against England’ song. The music, the occasion, the spirit of the men on the narrow deck, flowers fastened to their olive-green fatigues — Lange had been full of pride and admiration.

‘Have you met the Admiral?’ Heine asked.

‘Three or four times. The last time a few months ago. I took some photographs for a feature. He shook my hand and he remembered my name.’

Heine leant forward, eyes bright with excitement: ‘Three or four times?’

‘Four times, yes.’

‘He visited our boat once and spoke to me. He’s a personal friend of the commander.’

‘Is he?’ said Lange flatly. Almost everyone in the U-boat arm claimed Admiral Dönitz as a personal friend.

‘The commander knows him very well.’

‘Yes?’ Lange struggled to suppress a yawn. His stomach was rumbling; it would be supper soon and perhaps the guards would bring news of his transfer to a proper camp. Heine was still speaking: ‘…at headquarters and before.’

Lange looked across at him: ‘Herr Kapitän Mohr was at U-boat Headquarters?’

‘Yes, for some time. He was…’

Lange stiffened and raised his hand with a jerk. The boredom and indifference that had fogged his mind for most of the last three days had been swept away in an instant. He knew little of U-boats, and no one had ever trusted him with a secret, but he was enough of a journalist to know that their conversation was dangerously close to one. Chit-chat was one thing but Heine was forgetting himself.

‘I think we’d better talk of something else,’ he said quietly.

Heine was pulling nervously at the cuff of his leather jacket, his face blotchy red, and when he spoke again it was in barely more than a whisper: ‘I’ve been talking too much, haven’t I? I’ll say nothing more.’

‘I think we should change the subject, yes. Tell me, have you ever visited Munich?’

‘You won’t say anything to Kapitän Mohr?’ Heine’s voice trembled a little: ‘Please don’t say anything.’

‘No, no, don’t worry,’ said Lange. ‘No one heard you except me and I can keep a secret.’

‘I heard you,’ the operator in the Map Room whispered under his breath as he lifted the heavy cutting head from the disc.

The Map Room occupied most of the first floor at Trent Park. It was not a room at all but a dozen rooms, each equipped with a recording table and a microphone amplifier. Room Three was at the dark end of the corridor. Lindsay opened the door and stepped quietly inside. The shutters were closed, the room harshly lit by a single naked ceiling bulb. It was little more than a cubicle, smoky and very close. Karl Jacob was sitting with his back to the door.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’

Very deliberately, Jacob placed his headphones on the table in front of him then swung his heavy swivel chair about until he was facing Lindsay. He was an elderly man with a thin, thoughtful face, a neat grey beard and lamp-like glasses that made his light brown eyes appear enormous. He was dressed a little like a street musician in a shabby checked jacket and green flannel trousers. Once, he had been a doctor with a smart practice in Berlin — before his patients cared that he was Jewish.

‘Yes, I have something for you, Lieutenant,’ he said in heavily accented English.

A twelve-inch zinc disc was revolving slowly on the unit in front of him. Lindsay could see from the concentric rings of purple filings on its surface that almost five minutes of conversation had been recorded.

‘Well?’

‘It’s your propaganda man. There’s something he doesn’t want you to hear.’

Jacob pushed back the steel cutting arm and lifted the disc gently from the turntable: ‘Mohr was something at U-boat Headquarters.’

He handed the disc to Lindsay who placed it in a protective can that was lying open on the recording table. They had been listening to the crew of the 112 for nearly a week, until now, none of them had let anything slip.

‘Thank you, Karl. Thank you very much.’

In the duty intelligence officer’s room, Lindsay slipped the fragile disc on to a playback machine, settled behind the desk and picked up a broken set of headphones. He smiled as Lange’s strong bass voice crackled in the single earpiece. Yes, Mohr had done a good job with his crew. Heine was very frightened. But he could use that fear.

The murmur of conversation and laughter stopped as Lindsay reached the half-open door of the old library. Colonel Philip Checkland was clearing his throat purposefully. Lindsay slipped sheepishly into the room.

‘Good of you to join us,’ said Checkland with clumsy sarcasm. ‘I was just about to tell everyone about the Bismarck . Have you heard?’

‘No, sir.’

The head of Section 11 was perched like a large grey thrush on the edge of a low desk, a heavy fifty-eight, soft brown eyes, jowls, crisp blue uniform. James Henderson was at his side and sitting in front of him were the other four interrogators and the section’s Wrens. Lindsay slumped into a threadbare armchair beside them.

‘The battleship Bismarck is out.’ Checkland’s voice shook a little with excitement. ‘The latest report has her somewhere in the Denmark Strait. The Prinz Eugen is with her.’

One of the other interrogators, Samuels, caught Lindsay’s eye and gave him a discreet smile.

‘The Prince of Wales and the Hood are in pursuit.’ Checkland coughed and waited for a response. There was none. ‘Well now you’re all here,’ he said tetchily, ‘the U-112 . Annie, can you do the honours?’

The section’s Chief Wren, Annie Sherlock, rustled about the room with the preliminary interrogation report. She dropped one with some force into Lindsay’s lap and winked at him.