The Interrogator (3 page)

‘Get up. Get up.’

The words seemed to echo down a long tunnel. Then someone grabbed his arm tightly, pulling him to his feet.

‘I know you’re a spy, Leutnant Lange. Help me and you will help yourself.’ Lange could feel the interrogator’s breath on his cheek, smoky stale. He was an elderly man, softly spoken and with strangely sympathetic eyes, an army officer of some kind. His German was thickly accented. There were two more soldiers in the room, younger, harder.

‘I’m a navy journalist,’ Lange croaked, ‘I’ve told you. It was my first war patrol.’ His lips were salty with blood.

‘The
U-500
was going to land you in Scotland. Who were you to contact?’

Lange tried to shake his head. Shapes swirled before his eyes: highly polished shoes, well-creased trousers – someone was wearing gloves – crimson spots, there were drops of blood on his prison overalls. He felt guilty about the blood.

‘You speak English,’ said the interrogator.

‘A little,’ groaned Lange.

‘And you’ve been trained to use a wireless transmitter.’

‘No.’

‘You’re not the first, Herr Lange. We were expecting you. Another of Major Ritter’s men. You were trained in Hamburg?’ There was a note of quiet menace in the interrogator’s voice.

‘I was writing a feature piece,’ said Lange. ‘Why won’t you believe me? Please, please ask the crew. Ask the commander, he’ll tell you.’

‘You’re a fool not a hero, Herr Lange, and we’re losing patience with you.’ The interrogator paused, then added in almost a whisper: ‘If you won’t co-operate we’ll take you to Cell Fourteen. The mortuary is opposite Cell Fourteen.’

Lange knew he couldn’t stand any more, but how could he make them believe him? He had been in the room for hours, the same questions over and over, questions he could not answer. He knew nothing of U-boats or spies. It had been his first war patrol.

And then he was on his knees again, gasping for air, a deep throbbing pain in his side. He was going to be sick. One of the other men was shouting at him now: ‘Cell Fourteen, Lange, Cell Fourteen . . . oh Christ he’s . . .’

There was a bitter taste of bile in Lange’s mouth. He retched again. His knees felt wet. The interrogator said something in English he could not understand. Then shadows began to move across the floor.

The door opened and he heard the sharp click of leather-soled shoes. Were they taking him to Cell Fourteen? He felt dizzy and he was shaking. There was a murmur in the room, his interrogator’s voice raised sharply above the rest. They were arguing. Lange caught no more of their conversation than his name. It was important not to speak or move. He felt so tired, tired enough to fall asleep there on the floor.

For a moment, he thought he had been struck again. The room was full of painful light. But a soft voice he did not recognise said in perfect German,‘You can get up now, Herr Leutnant.’

He was suddenly conscious that he was kneeling in a pool of vomit. There were five men in the room and they were all looking at him. He felt no better than a dog, broken and humiliated. He lifted a trembling hand to his swollen face. One of his eyes had closed.

‘Let me help you.’ It was the same calm, reassuring voice and instead of khaki this man was wearing the blue uniform of a naval officer. Lange began to cry quiet tears of shame. The naval officer reached down and hoisted him up on to unsteady legs.

‘My name is Lieutenant Lindsay. I want you to come with me.’

Confused, Lange followed him out of the interrogation room and slowly, head bowed, along a dark corridor with cell doors to left and right. Footfalls echoed behind them and his heart beat faster. Perhaps it was a trick and they were going to drag him back. But at the end of the corridor, a guard opened the steel security gate and Lindsay led him down a short flight of steps into the rain. He stood in front of the cell block, cool drops falling gently on his face. Smoky London rain, he could taste it, smell it. To his right there was a large yellow-brick Victorian villa; opposite, a collection of Nissan huts and the perimeter wire. A wooden screen had been built a few yards beyond it to shield the camp from passers-by.

‘Where is this place?’

‘Do you smoke?’ Lieutenant Lindsay offered him a silver cigarette case. Lange tried to take one but his hand was still shaking uncontrollably. ‘Here.’ Lindsay held a cigarette to his lips. The smoke made him giddy, numbing the pain in his face and sides.

Lindsay waved to a large black official-looking car that was parked in front of the house. It moved forward at once and a few seconds later pulled up in front of the cell block. The soldier behind the wheel stepped smartly out and opened the rear doors. Lange shuffled across the red leather seat, his trousers clinging unpleasantly to his knees.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, conscious of the sickly-sweet smell.

The heater was on and the air was hot and stale. An opaque glass screen separated them from the driver and blinds were pulled down over the rear windows. It looked and felt like a funeral car. The engine turned again. Lange glanced across at the British officer sitting impassively beside him, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He wanted to say, ‘Thank you, thank you for saving me,’ but the tight anxiety of the last four days was draining from him and his head began to nod forwards. He was just conscious of stammering, ‘Where are we going?’ but if there was an answer he did not hear it.

3

I

‘This is Dr Henderson.’ Rodger Winn was standing at his side. ‘Mary, I would like you to meet one of our colleagues from Section 11.’

The interrogator; she had forgotten all about him. She pushed her chair back and looked up at a curiously striking face, thin, with prominent cheek-bones and a nose that looked as if it had been broken on the rugby field. The lieutenant was at least six feet tall, upright, with wavy fair hair, youthful but for the dark shadows about his blue eyes.

‘Douglas Lindsay.’ He held her hand firmly in his for a moment.

Winn was fiddling impatiently with one of the pencils on Mary’s desk, clearly itching to extricate himself: ‘Lindsay’s going to take you through some of the things he’s wrung from the crew of the
U-500
. One of the prisoners – the engineer – claims they can dive deeper than we thought possible – below six hundred and fifty feet.’

Without waiting for a reply, Winn turned back to his little glass office, leaving Lindsay standing awkwardly at Mary’s desk.

‘I don’t suppose Rodger offered you tea?’

‘No but no thank you.’

She watched him struggle like an ungainly spider into a chair that was uncomfortably close to the desk. Glancing up in some confusion, he caught her smile.

‘You’re enjoying my discomfort, Dr Henderson,’ he said in mock outrage, delivered with a twinkle in the primmest of prim west-of-Scotland accents. ‘I’m glad to have been of some service.’

She laughed: ‘Great service. Rodger seems impressed with your report.’

‘It’s not Rodger I need to impress,’ he said with a weak smile. ‘Our own submarine people refuse to believe us and if they don’t, the Admiralty staff certainly won’t.’ He held her gaze for an uncomfortable, unblinking moment, then glanced down at his hands: ‘Perhaps you’re wondering why the Navy bothers with interrogators if it doesn’t trust them to distinguish fact from fiction. I’ve asked myself the question every day for the last four months.’

‘My brother works for Section 11 too.’

‘Henderson?’ Lindsay shook his head a little: ‘How foolish of me – Lieutenant-Commander Henderson.’

Mary nodded. Her brother had joined Naval Intelligence a few weeks before the outbreak of war. Everyone in the family had been surprised. Their father was a gentleman farmer, prosperous, conservative, but with a keen armchair interest in the world. He was encouraged by Mary’s mother to educate them well but with James it had been, a struggle. They were not close. He was only four years older than Mary but paternalistic, insufferably so, with conventional views on women and work. And yet, remarkably, he had mentioned her name to the Director’s Assistant, Ian Fleming, and that had secured her the position in the Division.

Lindsay reached down to his briefcase and took out a red cardboard file marked ‘
U-500
.’ Placing it on the edge of Mary’s desk, he opened it to reveal a sheaf of closely typed flimsies.

‘The commander, Kapitänleutnant Fischer, was quite a decent sort, although his officers thought he was too familiar with the men – drank with them, enjoyed the same brothels, that sort of thing. There was a propaganda reporter on board but I haven’t had a chance to question him yet. The other officers were Nazis, an ignorant bunch with no knowledge of history or literature. They were insulted when I asked them if they were religious . . .’

Mary leant forward as if to touch Lindsay’s sleeve: ‘Why were they insulted?’

‘They are devout
Deutschgläubig
– German-believers. Their creed is pure blood, strong leadership – immeasurably superior to faith in a God they call a “Jewish Jehovah”.’

‘Do you ever meet prisoners who are just ordinary Christians?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Lindsay, glancing at his watch. ‘I can tell you more, but perhaps some other time.’

It sounded a little like a brush-off. Mary flushed with embarrassment. She eased back into her chair, twisting her body towards the desk and away from him: ‘I’m sorry, curiosity – it’s just that the enemy is not much more than a name and number here.’

She glanced up at Lindsay and was surprised by his playful smile. ‘No, I’m glad you’re interested and I would be happy to talk to you about the prisoners in a little more detail, if you think it would be useful. There are a few sketchy observations here.’ He rested his hand on the cardboard file. ‘But this is just the crew of the
U-500
.’

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 5
^th
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.