Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

‘You know I’ll protect you.’

The propaganda reporter made a noise in his throat that was something between a grunt and a hollow laugh, rather like the neighing of an asthmatic horse.

Lindsay picked up his cigarettes and shook one from the packet. He was on the point of lighting it when his hand stopped and he lifted his head to look at Lange again: ‘Why did you tell Kapitän Mohr that I had taken you to a jazz club? It made things very difficult for me.’

‘I… I’m sorry.’ Lange was looking at him now and there was a very pained expression on his open face. ‘I know I shouldn’t have.’

‘It was unfortunate.’

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant, really I am.’

Lindsay shook his head, ‘All right, we’re friends. Forget it.’

Neither of them spoke and their eyes met for a moment before Lange looked down in embarrassment. Then he took a deep breath:

‘Perhaps he did kill himself — in the end. Perhaps. But it was murder.’

Lange closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his lips with the back of a shaking hand. A tap was dripping into a cistern close by, drip, drip, drip, the echo bouncing off the hard wet walls of the washroom.

‘Senseless bloody murder. He was found guilty of treason by the Council of Honour, you see.’

‘The Council of Honour?’

‘Yes.’

He had to drag the words out of himself, his body rocking to and fro on the chair. ‘The Ältestenrat discovered he’d given information to the enemy.’

‘To me?’

‘Yes.’

The pipes above them clanked as they flooded with hot water.

‘And the bruises?’

‘He was interrogated.’ Lange sighed — his breath long and shaky — then covered his face with his hands like a child hiding from an angry parent.

‘You were there?’

He nodded without moving his hands from his face.

‘And others?’ Lindsay’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

And he nodded again.

‘Who?’

Lange dropped his hands and there were tears on his face: ‘It was my fault.’

‘Who beat him?’

‘I… I can’t say.’

‘Schmidt?’

‘I… can’t…’

‘Did Mohr know about it?’

‘God forgive me. It was my fault,’ and he threw his head back and groaned long and loud, until the walls and pipes beat it back hollow and despairing. Lindsay got up and walked round the table to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Lange reached up to touch it: ‘Thank you.’

Almost a minute passed before Lindsay spoke again, his hand still on Lange’s shoulder: ‘Did Mohr authorise this Council of Honour?’

‘No,’ Lange shouted the word. ‘No… I don’t know, I can’t say.’ He placed his elbows on the table and pushed himself upright, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘They don’t trust me you see. If I say anything more I will be a dead man.’

‘I’ve told you, we’ll protect you. Isn’t it your duty? Your duty to all I know you believe in — that you still hold dear.’

Lange’s body stiffened and he shrugged Lindsay’s hand from his shoulder.

‘Don’t talk to me of my duty, of my faith,’ and his words rasped like grinding metal. ‘Don’t. You don’t care if I live or die.’

The silence filled again with the clanking of the pipes. Lindsay stepped away and walked round the table to look down at him. Lange lifted his chin a little, his jaw firmly set, his eyes almost lost beneath a heavy frown: ‘Heine means nothing to you, does he?’

‘If he was murdered, yes he does.’

‘I don’t know if he was murdered. I have nothing more to say.’

Lindsay pulled out the chair, its legs grating harshly across the stone floor, and leant on the back of it to look at him across the table:

‘All right Helmut. You decide. You said it was your fault. Think about it. We’ll leave it — for now.’

Then he half turned to shout at the door. A moment later Lieutenant Duncan came in with the guard, peaked cap neatly tucked under his arm. He stood at the table and watched as Lange was led from the washroom.

‘Any joy?’

‘Some.’

‘I’ve been asked to deliver this,’ and he pulled a small grey envelope from his pocket. ‘The office received it this morning, something from your lot.’

Lindsay took it and tore open the sleeve.

‘I think Schmidt will be a waste of time,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Mohr next.’

It was written in the camp secretary’s fine hand:

A Dr Henderson rang from the Admiralty. She wanted to speak to you in person but I said you would be busy all morning. She said she had sad news. Your cousin’s ship has been sunk and there are no survivors. Your family has been informed. Major Benson has asked me to pass on his condolences.

Lindsay stared at it blankly for a few seconds. What was he supposed to feel? For a time they had done everything together, like brothers. It was Martin who had taught him to sail and Martin who had introduced him to his first girlfriend. They shared the same dark sense of humour, the same shoe size, the same taste in music, and they had enjoyed taking risks together. And now he was dead, lost in the Atlantic like thousands of others. And he could feel only a deep grey emptiness like the ocean itself. God. What was left but pain and loss?

‘Is something the matter?’ It was Duncan.

‘Yes.’

Lindsay glanced up, then handed him the note. Duncan looked at it carefully and when he had read it he folded it gently in two:

‘I’m sorry.’ He cleared his throat nervously: ‘It’s a war crime, a bloody war crime.’

‘What?’

‘The U-boats. The attack on our merchant ships.’

Lindsay felt an urge to laugh. Instead he looked away, an angry knot in his stomach. Shafts of sunlight were streaming through a high window on to the wall at the end of the washroom, bleaching the colour from the blue-grey tiles. And then the room was plunged into shadow again.

‘Shall I tell them to take Mohr back?’

‘No. I’ll see him now.’

‘Are you surprised to see me, Mohr?’

Kapitän zur See Jürgen Mohr raised his dark eyebrows and his lips twitched in a small smile: ‘No. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you again, Lieutenant.’

He was standing in front of the table. The guard had removed the other chair. ‘But couldn’t we have met somewhere pleasanter than the shithouse?’

Lindsay glanced up at the pipe above their heads and Mohr followed his eyes: ‘Terrible,’ and he shook his head a little. ‘And it was terrible news about the 330 . No survivors. Oh, you’re surprised? You shouldn’t be. Your BBC has been gloating about the sinking for nearly twenty-four hours.’

Lindsay stared at him coldly. ‘Isn’t the BBC propaganda?’

‘We sort the truth from the fiction,’ he said with a smile. ‘The 330 was a fine boat. You should be proud of Schultze. He died with honour for his Führer and Fatherland — they all did.’

‘Honour?’ Lindsay almost spat the word at him. Leaning forward to the table, he flipped open the brown cardboard file that was lying in front of him, then slid it towards Mohr. ‘And was this for Führer and Fatherland too?’

Mohr glanced down at the swollen blue face of Heine, his tongue hanging obscenely from his mouth.

‘No. Take a good look, Herr Kapitän,’ Lindsay snapped.

Without taking his eyes off him, Mohr reached across the table for the picture, lifted it deliberately and looked at it again. And for a fleeting moment his expression changed as he struggled to maintain his composure, his weathered face cut by lines of pain and regret.

‘Poor man.’

In an effort to disguise his feelings he casually tossed the picture back on to the table, sending it spinning towards Lindsay.