The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  Mary nodded: ‘I can’t get anything from my brother, he just grumbles about them.’

  Lindsay frowned and was on the point of saying something but must have thought better of it. Instead he pulled out another file from his briefcase. This one was stamped in red, Very Secret’.

  ‘These are SR reports, Speech Recordings taken in the last couple of weeks at our Interrogation Centre at Cockfosters.’

  ‘You’ve been secretly recording the prisoners?’ she asked.

  ‘The interesting ones. It’s a laborious process, you have to change recording discs every six minutes or so.’

  ‘And they don’t suspect?’

  ‘They were warned not to say anything but they forget after a time. They can’t help themselves, they’re anxious so they talk. You know – ‘What did he ask you?’ Lindsay smiled a small tight-lipped smile: ‘I’m just glad we don’t have to beat it out of them.’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘No.’

  He began to leaf through the SR reports, drawing to her attention details of U-boat sailings, new commanders and ships attacked. It was routine intelligence, nothing that set Mary’s blood racing, nothing that seemed ‘Very Secret’. After a quarter of an hour he closed the file and slipped it back on the desk. One flimsy was still lying across his knees. Mary caught his eye again but this time he looked away. She watched him play with the edge of the paper, lifting it and letting it fall.

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said at last, ‘I’ll work my way through your file and . . .’

  But Lindsay cut across her: ‘There is one more thing.’ He picked up the sheet on his knee. ‘Commander Winn was rather cool about it,’ he shifted awkwardly in his chair as if embarrassed at the recollection, ‘but I think it’s important. Unser B-Dienst ist unterrichtet. I’m sorry, do you speak German?’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘B-Dienst – the B-Service – is responsible for the Kriegsmarine’s signals intelligence, code-breaking, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re under strict orders not to discuss signals and codes with the prisoners, but look at this.’ Lindsay handed her the sheet of paper. It was the transcript of a conversation between three wireless operators. Prisoners 495 and 514 were from a U-boat sunk in January, but the third man was one of the wireless operators on the U-500 – prisoner 530.

  Prisoner 495: We heard on the radio that the convoy had sailed on the 5th and was probably to the south of our area. It is really amazing how well organised our ‘B-Service’ is, what it seems to know.

  Prisoner 514: It was the same on my last U-boat.

  Prisoner 530: Our B-men know everything. They know when the English convoys sail and when they arrive for sure. They’re very clever. They know how many ships are in the convoy and the number of escort destroyers.

  Mary read it again and then for a third time. She could sense that Lindsay was watching her carefully and he wanted her to be impressed. She was impressed. A few short sentences but it might be something of real importance. Of course, it was just one prisoner and only a petty officer. Perhaps it was idle talk or a ruse de guerre.

  Lindsay’s chair screeched as he pulled it closer and their knees touched.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about people here, you know,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘They’re all cleared to read this stuff.’

  ‘It’s just that I’m not sure Commander Winn wanted me to mention it to you.’

  ‘No? Why?’

  Lindsay brushed the question aside: ‘You can see what this means.’

  He was leaning forward, his blue eyes bright with excitement, almost childlike. Mary was conscious of how close he had pulled his chair, really too close. A tiny charge of excitement tingled from her neck to her toes. The proper thing would be to restore a businesslike distance but instead she pretended to study the transcript on her knee.

  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.’

  4

  ‘

  A

  re 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.’

  Rodger Winn pushed his chair back and reached for a cigarette. Mary was standing beside his desk with the U-500 interrogation file in her hands. ‘Lindsay was the first officer,’ said Winn, ‘and well, he . . .’

  Winn leant forward and lifted a flimsy from the mountain of paper in front of him.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ he said, with the air of someone with more pressing matters to consider.

  ‘What were you going to say about Lieutenant Lindsay?’

  Winn blinked curiously at Mary, then looked away, but not before she had caught the suggestion of a sly smile.

  ‘Did you notice his ribbon – the Distinguished Service Cross? Fleming says he picked it up on the night the ship was lost.’

  Mary had not noticed.

  Winn took off his thick black-rimmed spectacles and placed them carefully on the desk. Head bent, he rubbed his eyes wearily with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Fleming has a high opinion of Lindsay,’ he said from behind his hand, ‘a natural interrogator, but he says the loss of the ship has hit him hard. You can see it in his face, can’t you? He’s a little over-zealous too. This business of our codes – the Director and Fleming agree with me – he needs to be careful not to overstep the mark.’

  ‘I told him you’d think it was important and would want someone to look into it,’ said Mary.

  ‘Did you?’ Winn looked up at her, his brow knotted in a deep frown. ‘You’re ready to make that judgement? Yes, it needs to be investigated but not by Lieutenant Lindsay. Interrogators are under strict orders not to question prisoners about their codes in case they give away too much of what we know already. The head of Section 11, Colonel Checkland, will be asked to send all that he has on this to Code Security here at the Admiralty. Of course, it’s a possibility. They’re hammering away at our codes but . . .’ Winn held Mary’s gaze for a moment, then said with careful emphasis, ‘but we’ll know if one of them has been broken soon enough, won’t we, and from a rather more reliable source than Lindsay’s prisoner?’

  Mary nodded. Special intelligence. It was the secret key to their work in the Citadel, or promised to be. Only a small circle in Naval Intelligence – ‘the indoctrinated’ – knew of the source. Lindsay was outside the circle.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Winn glanced down to the papers on his desk as if to indicate that he hoped there was not.

  ‘Just that I’ve asked Lieutenant Lindsay to tell me a little more about the U-boat prisoners – morale, education, beliefs, that sort of thing. Is that all right?’

  ‘Fleming tells me there’s no better person.’ There was a cautious note in his voice that surprised Mary.

  ‘That’s his job isn’t it?’

  Winn lifted his glasses very deliberately from the desk and slipped them back on. He stared at her intently, then he said: ‘Yes, it is his job. But be very careful what you say to him about ours. You see, he’s half German.’

  The clock at the far end of Room 41 had stopped – one of the plotters was trying to coax it back to life – but Mary knew that it was at least ten. The cigarette smoke of the day hung eerily thick beneath the droplamps, softening the hard edges of the room. The plotters floated through it as if in a dream, distant and opaque. Mary’s eyes were stinging with fatigue. She reached beneath the papers on her desk for her watch. Yes, it was a quarter past ten. There was just one thing more she wanted to do.

  The duty officer, Lieutenant Geoff Childs, a dry but cheery soul, a peacetime geographer, was standing at the plot table: ‘On your way?’

  ‘Almost. Just a little housekeeping.’

  She picked up her bag and walked down the room to one of the large grey filing cabinets that stood against the wall just beyond the plot.

  Pulling open the top drawer, she began to flick through the tightly packed files of anti-submarine warfare bulletins. It was in the October report – homebound fast convoy attacked first on 15 September 1940 – thirty-six ships in nine columns with four Royal Navy escorts – a depressingly thick bundle listing the hulls and the cargoes lost; oil, grain, lead and lumber. A very brief paper had been attached to the main narrative:

  Subject: Loss of HMS Culloden:

  At about 2210/16 a torpedo struck the ship on the starboard side, probably in No. 1 Boiler Room. At once the ship began to list and then broke in two. This took place within a minute of the explosion. The wreck of the stern wallowed on an even keel until 1145/16, when the order was given to abandon ship. HMS Rosemary was on hand to rescue twelve of the crew.

  It was signed by the ‘senior surviving officer’: Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay. Mary checked all the September and October repo
rts but there was nothing more on the loss of the ship. It was puzzling. Everything was written up and circulated in the Navy, a small forest consumed every day. But two hundred men and a ship had been sunk and there were just five lines in the file. Why? She closed the drawer of the cabinet with a resounding thump.

  Mary stepped out into a world of unexpected noise and light. A heavy rescue squad in blue boiler suits was marshalling at the entrance to the Admiralty and she could hear the clatter and whine of a fire engine in the Mall. The all-clear had just sounded and people were beginning to trickle from the surface shelters in Trafalgar Square. The sky flickered an angry orange and searchlights were hunting madly overhead, careering back and forth through the darkness. Above them, a cold white moon – a bomber’s moon. A whirlwind of fire had rumbled and burst in the city, sweeping away warehouses, churches, homes, gouging great holes in streets and parks. And yet cocooned in her concrete world twenty feet below the ground, Mary had heard nothing, sensed nothing.

  ‘It’s the worst this year. They’ve got the Café de Paris.’

  A naval officer she did not recognise was standing at her side. The Café de Paris: her brother had taken her to hear the West Indian Orchestra only two weeks before. It was expensive, smart and gay, one of the hottest nightspots in town and one of the safest. A waiter had told them the Café was untouchable.

  ‘That’s where this lot are going,’ said the naval officer, nodding to the rescue squad; ‘it’s a mess.’

  The windows were out and smoke and brick dust seemed to hang over Coventry Street like a fog. Was it curiosity, or a need to do ‘something’, or both? Mary was not sure why she chose to follow the rescue workers. The anti-aircraft guns were still thumping in Hyde Park and yet the street was full of people like her, the anxious and the nosy, fat men smoking cigars, women in evening dresses who looked for all the world as if they were queuing for a West End show. She walked slowly on, slipping through the dust fog like a shadow, her shoes crunching across a carpet of glass.