and a few general observations had been scribbled beside the names of the officers. ‘I don’t think there’s anything of great interest there, but that’s for you and your colleagues to judge, isn’t it?’
‘Has Mohr been co-operative, sir?’
Thompson stared pointedly at Cooper for a few seconds to indicate his displeasure, then said with careful emphasis: ‘Captain Mohr, Lieutenant. Captain Mohr behaved in an exemplary manner and we treated him accordingly.’
A sheet of paper slipped unnoticed from Cooper’s knees to the deck. He had the anxious air of someone with something on his broad chest but wisdom or fear got the better of him.
On the deck below, Kapitan zur See Jurgen Mohr could hear the stamp of soldiers’ boots and the orders barked at his crew as they were led along the ship’s side and down the gangway. He had been locked in the wardroom with the
‘They will be coming for us in a minute.’
Mohr’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched for such a tall man. He was too tall ever to be comfortable in a U-boat, lean, older-looking than his thirty–two years, his face weathered brown and creased.
‘We’ve spoken often of the days to come,’ he said with quiet authority, ‘but I must remind you again. We still have a part to play in this war. Carry on fighting for your Fatherland.’
He had warned them time and again: be silent, be strong. They would be separated and questioned. It was vital they kept their discipline and the details of the mission locked tight. The British would work away at the smallest crack, prising it open until they knew all there was to know of the
There were voices in the passage and someone began to turn the handle of the wardroom door. Mohr got to his feet and picked up his white commander’s cap: ‘Remember, do your duty. Be vigilant. Victory is certain.’
11
It was still coppery bright when the sirens began to wail again, the last of the sun diffused in the warm haze of smoke rising from the city’s smouldering streets. Within minutes, a ragged tide of humanity was surging along Lime Street: travellers with suitcases, servicemen with their girlfriends, the very old and the very young. No one panicked or protested. They moved with hunched, weary resignation. Lindsay stepped from the shelter of a doorway into the street and looked up to a skyline of broken brick pillars and roofless gables. Liverpool was being stripped to its core. The sirens began to die away. Lime Street was almost deserted now. He turned and followed the stragglers to the corner of Hanover Street where a patient queue was filing down steps into a large underground shelter. A stout old woman hobbled past him on swollen feet, a basket of food on one arm, a bundle of blankets beneath the other. It was going to be oppressively close inside the shelter. Lindsay lit a cigarette and walked a little way along the empty street. Beyond a telltale mound of brick and broken plaster he could just make out the domeless silhouette of the old Customs House. The city was black now and almost silent as if it were holding its breath.
He had been five hours late into Lime Street, the platforms lined with ‘trekkers’, the anxious and the homeless waiting for trains to carry them to the safety of draughty church halls in the suburbs. By the time Lindsay had fought his way out of the station it was after six o’clock. But he was pleased he had missed the
From the west, the distant drone of approaching aircraft, slow and heavy. Searchlights began to sweep in sinister arcs above him and soon the horizon was peppered with the smoky flash of anti-aircraft shrapnel. He stood and watched as if in a dream. The first enemy flares were dripping on to the rooftops of the city, followed moments later by what sounded like a rattle of iron bedsteads thrown from a great height. There was a flash and a tongue of flame — incendiaries.
Then he heard someone shouting at him from across the street.
‘What’s the matter with you…?’ The man’s words were lost in a rising scream.
Lindsay instinctively hunched his shoulders. His feet were knocked from under him and his mouth was full of dirt. He looked up. A policeman was gesticulating wildly: ‘Run you bloody fool.’ Suddenly aware of the mad danger he had placed himself in, he covered the distance to the shelter at breakneck speed. He was just feet from the entrance when the ground rose, throwing him forwards against the sandbags. For a moment everything was a blur. Then someone was pulling his arm, dragging him down rubble-strewn steps towards the door.
‘It’s all right,’ he shouted as he scrambled to his feet.
The door clanged shut behind him.
By the half lantern-light he could see a score or more of frightened faces. His rescuer was shouting something but it was impossible to hear above the scream and crump of bombs. He collapsed on to a bench and rested his chin in his hands. The air was thick with dust and the shelter shook and heaved, the explosions reverberating along its length like a blow on a tremendous kettledrum. The bedlam continued for eight or nine minutes then lifted almost at once. Nobody moved, but the darkness was full of whispering voices and the whimpering of small children.
‘That’s just the start — take my word for it…’ Lindsay’s rescuer had leant across and touched his knee. He looked as if he was in his fifties although it was difficult to tell because his round, amiable face was caked in dust.
‘You were lucky, weren’t cha?’ he wheezed with a scouse accent you could cut with a knife. ‘Feckin death wish…’
‘You can stop that, George Barnes.’ A blowsy-looking woman in a fake-fur wrap elbowed George so hard he nearly toppled off the bench: ‘Just mind your language — there are ladies and children in here.’
The shelter smelt of piss. Some of the children were being settled under blankets on the floor; everyone else was preparing to make the best of the narrow benches for another night. Bundled and patched-up people, smart alecks and quiet ones, some knitting, some playing cards. The bombs were still falling. Like a storm on a distant shore, the low rumble of high explosives seemed to break and retreat. From time to time one fell close enough to send a shudder through the shelter and everyone held their breath and wondered where the next would fall. Then the weary murmur would begin again as if no one in the shelter wanted to be left with their thoughts for long. One of Lindsay’s neighbours, the large woman with the sharp elbows, began to work her way through the streets that had been hit:
‘Fountains Road, Chancel Street, Endborne Road and Newman Street. The shelter was destroyed in Newman Street and three small children from the same family were killed. My cousin Gertrude’s husband was badly hurt on fire-watch down at the docks…’
A wizened old man swaddled in a khaki greatcoat many sizes too big for him leant across the shelter and spoke to Lindsay:
‘My son’s in the Navy. On a battleship.’
Lindsay nodded.
‘Just a rating. Your ship an escort? We’ve got lots of ’em ’ere.’
‘My old ship was a destroyer.’
‘Did you sink one of their submarines?’
‘No,’ said Lindsay.
‘Shame. I hate ’em you know, hate ’em. Don’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘Who d’yer think? Germans. Nazis. Fuckin’ hate ’em.’ The old man spoke in staccato bursts as if he was in danger of being overwhelmed by his own anger. ‘Look at this — women and children. It’s murder. There’s a German lives near us, his name’s Fetteroll. Says he doesn’t want to fight because his father’s German. Don’t understand
