Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

‘I’ve spoken to someone here and they say you’re given your own clothes and a glass of brandy to steady your nerves — I would ask for the bottle. Then the hangman visits your cell to strap your hands behind your back. A “T” is chalked on the trap-door for your feet and there are warders on the boards on either side in case you faint. White cotton hood, the noose, the hangman’s assistant straps your ankles.’

Lindsay paused to flick ash from the end of his cigarette.

‘Then bang…’

And he wrapped his knuckles on the table.

‘…the door opens and down you go. Very efficient. Twenty seconds from the condemned cell to the drop. I believe when they take you down they measure your neck and it’s usually an inch or two longer. Then they bury you in an unmarked grave in the prison yard. Not a place of pilgrimage and a long way from the sea.’

Mohr sat there motionless still, his face stiff and white like a marble Buddha, as if determined to live up to the name he was known by in the U-boat messes.

‘There is a choice you know,’ said Lindsay slowly. ‘An honourable one.’

‘An honourable one?’ Mohr laughed harshly.

‘I think so.’

‘I didn’t want those men to die. You know that, don’t you?’ He lifted his right hand to his brow for a moment, a small troubled gesture. The mask was cracking a little. ‘Heine took his own life. And with Lange, well, I let it be known that no one was to speak to him, he was to be isolated, ostracised, and that was all.’

For a few seconds Lindsay stared at him with an expression close to contempt, then he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. There was a yellow file on the table. He picked it up and took a few steps towards the door, his back to Mohr: ‘That is for the court to decide but I am confident they have enough to reach the correct verdict.’

There was an early-morning chill and the corners of the cell were in shadow. It was the large one they had used for the interrogation of Dietrich, gloomy, lit by only a single bulb.

‘Do you recognise the file? It’s the one your men handed to Heine when he was forced to sign a confession.’

‘I know nothing of that.’

‘Well, I thought it was appropriate to use it again for the statements your officers have given to me. They all agree, you know. They’re very clear that they were carrying out your wishes. Here, Dietrich:… the Ältestenrat found him guilty of aiding the enemy… we were carrying out Kapitän Mohr’s orders as senior officer…’

Mohr shook his head but said nothing.

‘Are you afraid of death, Mohr?’

‘No.’

‘And your family? Your lady friend, Marianne, isn’t it? What are they going to think of you when they hear how you died?’

‘Can I have another cigarette?’ His strange high-pitched voice cracked a little.

Turning back to the table, Lindsay placed his silver cigarette case and lighter in front of him. Mohr picked up the case and turned it over in his hands thoughtfully. As he put it down again the small gold crown and letter ‘M’ on the face of Lindsay’s watch caught his eye.

‘My Grandfather’s,’ said Lindsay, drawn by his gaze. ‘The cigarette case belonged to him too. He served in the Imperial Navy.’

‘Your cousin Martin mentioned him to me once — he was on Admiral von Hipper’s Staff?’

‘He’s of the old school. You know, he would think very poorly of what has been done in your name.’

The jibe found its mark, the colour rushing back to Mohr’s face: ‘That was an easy shot. I trusted people… and there was a certain madness. But what would he think of you?’

‘That I was doing my job, I hope.’

‘And if I told you what you want to know, if I betrayed the Reich, what would your grandfather say then?’

‘He will never know.’

Mohr snorted and shook his head.

‘If you tell me in confidence I guarantee there will be no record kept of the source. You and your men will be returned to the camp and in due course sent on to another in Canada. The charges will be dropped and a verdict of suicide recorded in both cases. These things are easy to arrange.’

‘And my honour, my duty to the Fatherland?’

‘Honour will mean nothing at the end of the rope. Disgraced. A murderer. And what about your officers?’

Lindsay dropped the yellow file and bent over the table on outstretched arms so that his face was only a few feet from Mohr’s and when he spoke it was no more than an earnest whisper:

‘They trusted their commanding officer. Weeks in the U-boat, the hardships they endured for you, their commander, their captain, with their blind faith in your judgement. Are you going to desert them now? You are the one who has brought them here to this place. And their lives hang in the balance. It is your duty to return them some day to their families, to their loved ones.’

Slowly Lindsay stood up, his fingertips slipping across the tabletop: ‘I want you to think about their families, about your family. No one will ever know, no one.’

Mohr’s dark eyes were roving about Lindsay’s face in search of some clue to his sincerity: ‘Why should I believe you?’

‘It has been cleared with those who are able to make these things happen.’

‘Who?’

Lindsay picked up the file again and walked to the door. He knocked on it sharply and it opened almost at once. Then, turning quickly back for a moment, he asked: ‘Would you like some tea?’

Ten minutes at most. A short time only for reflection but enough for the shadows in Mohr’s mind to lengthen. Lindsay had sent for tea and was waiting on the landing, his hands on the rail. In the well below him, the squeak of a warder’s shoes, someone shouting in his sleep, the restless echo of the prison, of confused, damaged people. And he was not so different. Perhaps Mohr was the same. Prisoners too, held by memories and guilt as securely as the men behind those heavy steel doors. Prisoners of war.

What would Mohr say when in a few minutes he stepped back into the cell? It was unreasonable, perverse, but he could not escape the thought that his own freedom was hanging in the balance too. Another condemned man in hope of a reprieve. They had met only a few times but he had lived with Mohr for months, rolling the man and the codes round and round in his mind like a stone until they were one and the same. A strange and dangerous obsession. And now the point of decision. He glanced at his watch, it was half past two and the warder was by the door with the tea. It was time.

Mohr was standing at the far wall, his face and shoulders in shadow. The door closed behind Lindsay and he stepped forward to place the mugs on the table. They were alone again, to dance, to fence, studying every word, every gesture.

‘Sit down please. They give you two sugars here whether you like it or not.’ Mohr did not move a muscle.

Lindsay pulled out his chair and sat, then reached across the table for the cigarette case. Two were missing. Two in ten minutes. He could sense that Mohr was watching him closely, like a cat, a cat in a shit-brown uniform. He took a cigarette and lit it.

‘Sit down please.’

But Mohr stood there still.

The seconds passed in edgy silence. Mohr’s chin slipped to his chest as if he was close to sleep. There was a loud metallic rattle on the landing outside, someone must have dropped a tray, footsteps, voices, then silence again.

‘I was the Staff officer responsible for communications.’

Lindsay could feel the pulse thumping in his neck. He took a deep shaky breath to steady himself.

‘Designation, A4.’

Silence again. More footsteps outside the door. Lindsay picked up his mug to sip the hard, tannic, sweet tea. Mohr was teetering on the edge. A small push would send him tumbling over. Slowly, he lowered the mug back to the table.