Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

Someone was pushing his way through the crowd towards the two of them — Fischer, the commander of the 500 — and he placed a warning hand on Bruns’s shoulder. Strong words, an order and Bruns stepped smartly away. They spoke for a few seconds, then Fischer took Lange by the arm and began leading him across the terrace. As they passed the window he caught Mohr’s eye but looked quickly away as if ashamed of his small kindness. They disappeared into the house but Mohr stayed at the schoolroom window for a moment longer. The same number of guards in the same places, the wire, the gate, the watchtowers, no, there was nothing that struck him as out of the ordinary.

‘I want to see Kapitänleutnant Fischer and Major Brand in my room as soon as possible. And organise the Council for tonight.’

The expression on Lieutenant Duncan’s face was eloquent testimony to the unpleasantness of the scene he had just witnessed.

‘Of course he protested and asked to speak to you and then he wanted the camp commander. He was cold-shouldered by the prisoners. He was surprisingly brave and dignified. Poor sod.’

‘Yes. It’s tough.’ Lindsay instantly felt ashamed of himself for uttering such a hopeless platitude. He was standing at the intelligence officer’s desk, anxiously rolling a glass paperweight from hand to hand.

‘How you got approval for this desperate enterprise I’ll never know,’ said Duncan hotly. ‘Goodness, I hope you know what you’re doing.’

He lifted a pot of tea on to a small filing cabinet beside his desk and began stirring it with a knife. ‘And what if you get it wrong, time it badly? Lange could end up in the graveyard next to Heine.’

He stopped stirring the tea to fix Lindsay with a pulpit frown that a minister of the Free Kirk would have been proud of: ‘Or don’t you care?’

It was not worthy of a reply. There were listening devices in the old drawing room which the prisoners used as their mess, the kitchen and in the washroom, and a listening station in the west wing of the house. They had also worked on night-time positions for a large detachment of military policemen. Lindsay had considered placing one of the park’s German refugees among the new prisoners as a stool pigeon but that would have been even riskier. Yes, he was taking a risk, a terrible risk, but he had promised the camp commander he would pull the operation the moment Lange was in danger. There was just the doubt, the fear eating at him as he played restlessly with the paperweight: would he know when to take action?

‘Mohr will deal with this at once so it will happen tonight,’ he said with a certainty he did not feel. ‘We need to keep the prisoners busy before supper and roll call. Guards in and out of the house.’

‘It’s organised.’

‘And you’ve checked the microphones?’

‘Yes.’

Lindsay spent the rest of the afternoon skulking in Duncan’s office. It was important that none of the prisoners saw him but the time ticked too idly by and it was as much as he could do to control the old panic welling inside him. He was depending on Duncan and the Military Police for the arrangements. Major Benson visited him once to rumble anxiously about his ‘mad scheme’; it should be a job for the Police not the Navy, his camp was being turned into ‘a circus’. Then at eight o’clock Duncan returned to report on the evening roll call. Lange had stood a little apart, a lonely figure but in good health and calm, and surprisingly he had made no request to speak to the camp commander.

‘I hear he’s being ostracised by the camp. The Ältestenrat has let it be known that no one is to speak to him until he’s cleared his name,’ said Duncan, settling into his chair. ‘But there is no news of an investigation or a Council of Honour.’

The men listening to the hidden microphones had heard only the cursing of the cooks in the kitchen, the songs and banter of the washroom.

‘I don’t expect anything to happen before lock-up,’ said Lindsay, glancing at his watch.

Half an hour and then the game of cat and mouse would begin. The Military Police would move into position close to the west wing of the house ready to force their way in if called upon to do so. One group at the entrance to the old crew yard, the other close to the covered passage that offered direct access to kitchen and washroom. They would have to be discreet because Mohr would post his lookouts too. Could ordinary soldiers be discreet? Lindsay wondered. There were so many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, so many. A frisson of fear coursed through him from neck to toes. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was going to be a disaster. Since the Culloden everything had been a disaster. Duncan was right, what if they were too late? Call it off now. He should call it off. But he knew he wouldn’t.

Then, at half past nine, there was a sharp knock on the office door and without waiting for permission a corporal stepped smartly inside. His face was bright with excitement: compliments of Lieutenant Green, orders are being given in the prisoners’ common room that suggest preparations are being made for the court. Lindsay was on his feet at once and without waiting for Duncan, he pushed past the corporal into the corridor, his heart pounding furiously. So, it was beginning.

Elsewhere in the house, Leutnant zur See Helmut Lange was placing one foot in front of the other very deliberately on the stairs. He felt strangely detached, as if he was floating above his body, marking everything from the escort at his back to the tiniest of stains on the rough strip of burgundy carpet. They turned right at the bottom and on through the hall, the armorial glass in the tall windows twinkling in the last of the light.

The lookout at the common-room door — a Luftwaffe officer he did not recognise — made a point of scowling at him before he stepped aside to let him pass. As Lange was reaching for the handle, it turned on the inside and the door swung open on a room full of faces. A little dazed, he stood there trying to focus on just one face until a hand pressed him firmly in the middle of the back and through the door. There were at least forty men, silent, watchful, hostile, leaning against the dark oak-panelled walls or draped over the common room’s battered armchairs. It was gloomy, some bulbs had been removed from the chandelier and the corners were lost in shadow. On the side of the room opposite the door, two lookouts were standing at the bay window with an eye to chinks in the heavy blackout drapes.

The Council of Honour was sitting in front of the inglenook fireplace at a low trestle table, a yellow file and papers scattered across its green baize cover. Major Brand of the Ältestenrat was in the chair; to his right was Mohr, bent over pencil and paper; the third member was a fresh-faced captain of the Luftwaffe.

‘Here, Herr Leutnant,’ said Brand, pointing to a small wooden chair a short distance from the table. ‘Sit down.’

Lange’s right knee was trembling like a leaf in a gale and it was a comfort of sorts to sit down, to put the eyes of all but a few in the room behind him.

‘This is Hauptmann Peters,’ Brand turned his head a little to the Luftwaffe captain. ‘He will be taking the place of your former commander on this council. Kapitänleutnant Fischer is indisposed.’

That was for the benefit of the room. It sounded like an excuse. Perhaps his old commander was refusing to play any part in the proceedings. And just the thought was enough for Lange to feel a surge of gratitude and warmth for Fischer, bawdy, drunken, decent Fischer. Try, try, try, he must try to draw strength from the thought.

‘You know why you’re here before this council?’

Lange nodded quietly. His left knee was beginning to tremble too. Why was his body letting him down? It was frustrating. Yet he felt an inner stillness he did not expect or understand. Brand began to read from a badly written charge sheet: ‘… that you gave aid to the enemy by providing him with intelligence on the disciplinary proceedings of a Court of Honour…’