Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

There was a Sunday church hush in the Tracking Room and those not important enough to be at the table were bent over their desks in something very like prayer. The First Sea Lord was standing at the plot. His entourage was stirring the smoke into a restless pea-souper that lent mystery and a strange urgency to every small movement. Admiral Sir Dudley Pound did not visit the Citadel often. He preferred its product to drop into his in-tray on neatly typed sheets of yellow paper. But the Prime Minister was not as patient. The Admiral was expected in Downing Street with an explanation for the disaster within the hour. Winn was taking him through some lines at the plot, his arm planted just south of Iceland, gesturing at a cluster of black flags.

‘Dönitz deployed a pack of fourteen U-boats here to the south-west of Iceland at the end of August…’

At her desk, Mary picked up a pencil and ran it down a report on something rather technical in an effort to appear busy.

‘Of course we were tipped off by Bletchley. We knew their boats were in a search line somewhere here,’ and Winn’s hands swept across the flags again. ‘We were able to use that intelligence to route our convoys away from the pack.’

But after a time Dönitz had drawn a new search line on the big wall chart at U-boat Headquarters. They had learnt that from the special intelligence too. The first little piece of rip-and-read with fresh orders to the U-boats had landed on Mary’s desk.

‘…unfortunately Slow Convoy 42 was forced south by a storm and the ice. It was picked up by the U-85 five days ago. Of course, once contact was made Dönitz was able to direct the rest of his pack to the convoy and the rest is…’ Winn did not feel he needed to say more. The details had already begun to appear in the papers. The pack had set upon the convoy and sunk twenty ships loaded with timber and steel, wheat and sugar and flour. A third of the convoy was lost and with it hundreds of seamen.

The awkward silence was filled with the shuffling of feet and the ringing of a telephone at the far end of the room. All heads were turned to Pound. He was standing on Winn’s right, small, stooped and grey, resting on a stick, his eyes almost lost beneath his heavy brow. The clock ticked on and Mary began to wonder if he had fallen asleep on his feet. It was the Director, Admiral Godfrey, who came to his rescue: ‘Perhaps, sir, Winn can tell us if there is anything to suggest the enemy knew of the convoy’s movements from our signals?’

It was the question Mary knew Winn had been asking himself for the last four days.

‘…I’ve spoken to Bletchley and it is not clear from the special intelligence,’ said Winn cautiously. ‘I don’t think we can discount the possibility. I think the security of our codes is now the first priority.’

Admiral Pound’s body gave a little jerk as if he was joining them again: ‘Don’t we have anything more? I can’t tell the Prime Minister we think our own codes may be compromised but we’re not certain how many or which ones.’

‘Bletchley are doing some analysis of the enemy’s signals traffic, sir,’ said Godfrey, ‘and we are still working on the one man we have who knows.’

Pound turned away from the plot to Godfrey: ‘And when can I tell the Prime Minister we’ll have news for him about this, John?’

‘I can’t be sure, sir.’

Pound made a noise between a grunt and a cough in his throat to indicate his displeasure.

‘All right keep me informed.’

The smoke swirled again as Pound began to weave across the room like a balding enchanter, his Staff in close attendance. As he stepped through the door there was an audible sign of relief from those bent over their desks, phones began ringing, typewriters clattering; it was as if the stale air of crisis had disappeared with him. Admiral Godfrey was still standing with Winn at the plot, cigarette in hand.

‘Thank God he didn’t want to know who we’re working on,’ he said drily. ‘He was impressed by Mohr, took tea with him in the Admiralty boardroom.’

Winn took off his glasses and began polishing the lenses with his handkerchief: ‘I was more worried he would ask who is in charge of the interrogation.’

Mary could feel his eyes on her and she kept her head down over the report. It was already covered in small meaningless pencil marks.

‘Don’t you have faith in our man?’ asked Godfrey with a short laugh. ‘Half German, half mad, insubordinate, a little too ruthless I think — I’ve had the devil’s own job clearing up the mess at the POW camp. Fleming had better be right about him and Lindsay had better be right about Mohr or the shit will stick to all…’

Winn must have pulled a face or touched the Director’s arm to warn him to keep his voice down because he did not finish the sentence. Mary’s face was hot with anger and she knew Godfrey was looking across at her. Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, her lips pursed in naked disapproval. The Admiral gave her a half-smile, a don’t-give-a-damn smile, then looked away.

A short time later, Winn flopped into a seat close to her desk. The Director had gone but his words were still ringing furiously in Mary’s ears and she must have been wearing something close to a scowl.

‘He was joking,’ said Winn, leaning forward to pat her arm. ‘He’s trusting Lindsay with a lot. Have you spoken lately?’

‘We keep missing each other, leaving messages. I haven’t seen him for a while.’

The business with the convoy had kept her late at the Citadel and it was almost a week since she had found time to speak to him.

‘What happened at the camp?’

Winn looked down for a moment, then reached into his uniform jacket pocket for his cigarettes. He took a thoughtful few seconds to light one.

‘It was something close to a riot. A bad business. I think you’d better ask him yourself.’

‘Isn’t it an official secret?’

‘Yes, it probably is, but you should ask him anyway,’ and leaning awkwardly on the arms of the chair he levered himself back on to his feet.

‘Ask him.’ The stiffness, the coldness in his face and voice sent an unpleasant shiver down Mary’s spine.

She left the Citadel a little after eleven and walked the short distance to Lindsay’s flat in St James’s Square. There was no answer. She did not expect there to be. She knew he was at Brixton Prison. But she was restless, she needed to walk, to move, to relieve the dull ache in her chest. It was more than the look Winn had given her. She was not sure how or why, it was a feeling, a strange instinctive feeling, that Lindsay was involved in something painful. Her mind was racing, turning dark corners. For a few wild seconds she considered walking to the prison and hammering on its gates. But she must have made an unconscious decision to go home because a short time later she found herself in Lord North Street. The house was empty and cold and she took an old fur coat of her mother’s from the cloakroom and wrapped it tightly about herself. Then she lay on her bed and curled into a ball to breathe the comfort of her mother’s perfume, the fur soft against her cheek. And she lay there sleepless until dawn.

Oberleutnant Dietrich was the senior officer in the room but the others were too afraid to care. The atmosphere crackled in the headphones like distant thunder. Bruns had remembered one of the lines from the first officer’s confession perfectly.

‘…Bruns was for executing Lange as a traitor…’