Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

He walked across the room to his dark galley kitchen, picked up his cigarettes and lighter, then, returning to the window, lit one and exhaled, a comforting stream of smoke. He had noticed he was smoking more, forty or even fifty a day, but he could think more clearly with a cigarette in his hand. And in its reflective haze it was easier to admit that the emptiness he felt was not just disappointment that Mary had hidden the truth from him. He wanted to be right. He had been so certain the Navy’s codes were compromised, so sure that he was doing something useful, something that would help to wipe the slate clean. And now that hope was gone.

LANGE HelmutLeutnant z S (PK)

PW No 86993

Br. of ServiceNavy

Date of Capture24-2-41

NationalityGerman

Date of Birth8 Aug. 21

Weight170

HairBrown

ChinFlabby

MouthLarge

Height5′ 9″

ComplexionFresh

EyesBrown

TeethRegular

ScarsAppendix

LanguagesGerman and a little English

ReligionRoman Catholic

RemarksAmiable

It was the 112 ’s burly navigator who came for Lange. Bruns’s meaty shoulders filled the door-frame. His tone was polite and easy but his restless body churlishly insistent: would Leutnant Lange be good enough to present himself to the Ältestenrat.

Heavy drops were tapping at the casement windows and the broad terrace beneath them was deserted but for a sentry standing dripping at the wire. It had rained for a few hours on every one of the six days he had been here and the football pitch between the inner and outer fences was a quagmire. Above the house the broken woodland and bracken slopes were unseasonably green even for a Lakeland summer.

Lange slipped a letter he was writing into the pages of the book he had borrowed from the camp library.

‘What are you reading, Herr Leutnant?’ Bruns was making an effort to be amiable.

‘ Great Expectations . Charles Dickens. I want to improve my English.’

‘Why? After the war everyone will speak German.’

Lange glanced up at him to be sure he was serious then he picked up the book and, pushing his chair away from the table, stepped across to his bed to slip it under the pillow.

‘You’re lucky,’ said Bruns enviously. ‘This is a nice room.’

Yes, Lange did count himself fortunate. It was bright with a high ceiling, lemon-yellow wallpaper and old pine floorboards. Everything was in good order. There were five low camp beds, a table and five collapsible chairs. His bed was in a corner between a fireplace of royal blue tiles and an oak dresser with a vanity mirror, the glass cracked and spotted with rust. In the opposite corner was a makeshift wardrobe on which five cardboard suitcases were neatly stacked.

Camp Number One for German officers. On their first night, they had leapt from a lorry on to a loose stone carriageway in front of an imposing Edwardian mansion. A cool breeze was shaking the tops of the tall pines beyond the wire, and by the low moon they could see the valley falling away from them, its slopes roughly chequered with drystone walls. The guards had hurried them into a panelled entrance hall with large mullioned windows, then up a fine carved oak staircase to bed.

A few days later, Lange had found an old newspaper in the common room in which their prison camp was described as ‘the U-boat Hotel’. The paper’s correspondent grumbled about the library and the grand piano in the old billiard room, that some of the rooms had log fires and the Germans were permitted to read newspapers and listen to the BBC. A Member of Parliament had promised to raise the matter with the War Office. But for all that its walls were panelled and papered and its windows lead-paned, it was a prison much like any other: two hundred men behind two security fences and a belt of barbed wire, roll calls, lights-out, camp searches and the discipline of their own Ältestenrat.

‘Are you ready, Herr Leutnant?’

‘Yes.’

Lange followed Bruns out of the room without closing the door behind him. He was expecting the Ältestenrat to call him and he had tried to prepare himself. Mohr’s hand planted firmly against his chest pressed upon him still, as did the recollection of those hard little wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, the contemptuous stare. On Day One Lange had heard that Mohr had joined ‘the council of the eldest’. It was the correct order of things. The council was made up of the three most senior officers and Mohr was now the most senior. On Day Two he learnt that there was to be an investigation. The Ältestenrat would gather intelligence on British interrogation techniques and some officers would be asked to give evidence. By the following day the camp knew it would be about much more.

Lange had been preparing the camp’s daily news digest when the second officer of his own U-boat, the 500 , had fluttered into the room like a coal-black crow. Schmidt was a thick-set youth with metallic blue eyes and bad skin, beneath which beat a heart full of National Socialist zeal. He perched on the edge of his bed and lit a cigarette:

‘Anything in the British papers about our armies?’

The whole camp was hungry for news. It was three weeks since the start of the invasion of the Soviet Union and pride and confidence were high. But Lange had found nothing of importance.

‘Well, I have some news for you,’ Schmidt had whispered smugly, ‘but not for the digest.’

There was a rumour that someone in the camp was giving intelligence to the British.

‘The Ältestenrat is sure he’s a naval officer. Can you imagine what will happen if it is true?’ Schmidt had laughed, a grating and mirthless laugh.

Bruns led him down the corridor and up the narrow wooden back staircase to a bedroom under the eaves.

‘Wait here, please.’

It was small but comfortable with just two camp beds, necessary furniture and a fine view of the valley below. The camp’s senior officers had elected for the privacy of the servants’ quarters at the top of the house. Lange sat at the desk beneath the window and tried to look at ease. The waiting, the wild thoughts, the tight little knot in the pit of the stomach were so familiar; if anything, the anxiety was more acute than it had been when he was questioned by the British. To be interrogated and judged by your comrades and perhaps found wanting, such a thing was unthinkable. He could hear Bruns speaking in a low voice to someone in the corridor.

On his fourth day in the camp the U-112 ’s engineer had found him in the exercise yard. Lange was watching a muddy game of football, a wet mist beading his wool jacket. Then August Heine had touched his elbow.

‘May I speak to you, Helmut?’ His voice was strained and unhappy.

It was the first time they had spoken since they had been held together at Trent Park. Heine had behaved rather boorishly since then, cutting him dead more than once.

‘Is something the matter?’ Lange had asked coldly. It was plain enough that there was from the alarm in the engineer’s chestnut eyes.

‘Please, I must talk to you.’

Then he had turned and walked away and Lange had followed, edging along the wire towards the house in silence. After casting about to be sure there was no one close by, Heine stopped beneath a dripping oak and began fumbling for a cigarette.