Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

Beyond the edge of the paper she could see that his hands were squeezing the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles had turned white. He was a tightly coiled spring.

‘You do see what this means,’ he said again. ‘Prisoner 530, Oberfunkmaat Zier — you see what this means?’

‘What do you think it means?’

Lindsay leant back and took a deep breath: ‘At least one of our codes has been broken.’

‘Are you all right, sir?’

Lindsay opened his eyes and blinked at the blur of khaki by his side. It was one of the Citadel’s guards, a tubby sergeant in a uniform at least a size too small for him.

‘I’m fine, Sergeant, thank you.’

‘Yes, sir.’ With a sharp salute, the sergeant turned on his heels and began to march purposefully towards the gun emplacement beneath the centre span of Admiralty Arch. A work detail of Indian soldiers was filling sandbags in front of it, traffic passing to left and right, their strongpoint creeping up the white stone like a growth. Whitehall was still preparing for an invasion: there were trenches in St James’s Park, rifle pits at the Palace. Across the Mall, a matronly-looking lady was bumping her pram up the steps at the bottom of Spring Gardens, a baby’s gas mask swinging wildly from the canopy.

It was a glorious spring day. Lindsay was standing by the statue of Cook in front of the Admiralty, enjoying the bright warmth of the sun on his face. Exhilaration, he felt sheer bloody exhilaration and tense too, like an animal caught in the lights of a car at night. Reason and good sense were threatened. Mary Henderson had lit an unruly spark. She had the air of an academic bluestocking, dusty, a little neglected, but there was something reticent and thoughtful in her manner that he found very, very attractive. She was pretty in an unconventional way, with the most striking Slavic green eyes, complicated like jadeite. Quite different from her brother. Chalk and cheese.

Lindsay had spent his first awkward weeks as an interrogator shadowing James Henderson. It had been enlightening in a way. Henderson spoke barely intelligible German with a thick county accent and he bellowed it at the prisoners as if he was on a Prussian parade ground. Most were either baffled or openly contemptuous of him and not to be shaken from their belligerent silence. For his part, Henderson felt nothing short of hatred for them. Nor did he care very much for Lindsay. What would he think of Mary’s invitation? It was as intriguing as it was unexpected. She had asked him to her brother’s birthday celebration and he had surprised himself and said ‘Yes’. Since the Culloden , he had avoided clubs and parties, and friends and family had given up trying to coax him out in the evenings. Perhaps Henderson’s bash would be a new beginning, some sort of release.

The sun slipped behind cloud and Lindsay felt the sharp chill of a March breeze on his face. It was a little after one o’clock and he was expected at the Interrogation Centre — a dreary train journey through the north London suburbs to Cockfosters. He glanced over his shoulder at the entrance to the Admiralty, half hoping to find Mary in the traffic at the door, then he set off at a brisk pace along the Mall. In Trafalgar Square, a violinist, a refugee from Middle Europe, was playing Strauss for pennies from civil servants in their lunch break. Some soldiers in greatcoats were smoking and chatting close by, their eyes drawn as one to the legs of a passing shopgirl. The square had become a sad grey place, the fountains empty but for a few dirty puddles. Ugly brick shelters had been built on the north and west sides, their walls roughly plastered with air-raid instructions, and the east side was dominated by a huge soot-stained banner of a convoy sailing under the protection of the white ensign. London was changing, slipping into a dark pocket, a place of wire and rubble, ration cards and wailing sirens.

Beyond the square, smartly dressed women were beginning to gather on the steps of St Martin-in-the Fields for a service that was to be broadcast by the BBC to the Empire. Lindsay slipped through the crowd and on past the long, patient bus queues in Charing Cross Road. At Leicester Square, the concourse was heaving with shoppers, travellers with cardboard suitcases, blue and khaki uniforms. He joined the queue for the Piccadilly Line and was stepping through the ticket barrier when he heard someone call his name: ‘Lieutenant Lindsay… sir.’

Turning, he saw the slight figure of a young naval officer pushing towards him. It was the Culloden ’s engineer, Edward Jones, his thin freckled face pink with embarrassment.

‘I’m sorry I shouted, sir,’ he said anxiously, ‘I was so pleased to see you. What a coincidence.’

They shook hands over the ticket barrier.

‘Yes. Quite a coincidence,’ said Lindsay quietly.

The last he had seen of Jones was on the ward of a Liverpool hospital five months before. In the days after the sinking they had said very little to each other. None of the survivors had talked much. A few had gone on drunken benders together in the city but Lindsay had turned inwards, ashamed and guilty, and there were the flashbacks. Every second, every word spoken on the ship that night picked over until it was raw. He felt responsible — he was the ship’s first officer — he should have done more. Why was he alive when so many had perished? The question was always with him.

The doctors said it was a sort of battle fatigue and that it would pass — in time.

‘How are you, Jones?’

‘Fine, sir. I’ve been visiting a friend at the Admiralty. Spot of leave, my last for a while.’ And he explained in his mellifluous Welsh way that he had become the engineering officer on a newly commissioned corvette that would begin convoy duties at the end of the month.

‘Of course I would rather serve on a destroyer. Our little ship has this very awkward corkscrew motion. A glorified trawler. And you, sir?’

‘I’m working for the Admiralty. With German prisoners,’ said Lindsay almost apologetically.

‘Oh, bad luck.’ Jones coloured, aware that he had said something that might offend: ‘Not that I want to suggest… but more comfortable.’

‘Yes,’ said Lindsay with a slight nod of the head. Of course it was more comfortable. They stood in awkward silence at the barrier as shoppers and servicemen bustled noisily past.

‘Look, I’m sorry, Jones, but I must go,’ said Lindsay at last, his voice a little strained.

Jones was clearly disappointed: ‘I hope I haven’t said…’

‘No, no, of course not,’ said Lindsay, cutting across him. ‘I’m on my way to a meeting.’ It was a lie and it sounded very like one too, but nothing had changed since the hospital. He could not speak of the Culloden , of the memories they shared, and what else was there? He held out his hand again and as Jones shook it they made proper eye contact for the first time. It was only for a moment but Lindsay recognised the deep weariness in the engineer’s eyes.

Later, he found it difficult to shake the recollection of it from his thoughts. He stood at the edge of the Piccadilly Line platform and peered into the mouth of the tunnel, barely conscious of the passing minutes and the people who came to stand at his side. A distant speck of light began to rumble and flash towards him, almost imperceptibly at first, then it seemed to gather speed, faster, closer, faster, until it was disconcertingly close. It burst from the tunnel with a high-pitched scream that filled his mind with a familiar dull ache.

‘HMS Culloden ? It was last September. She was lost in one of their first group attacks. Some of the details were in the monthly bulletin. Cut clean in two.’