The Interrogator

someone shouting, screaming with fear, and through the smoke frantic hands were waving from two of the mess- deck ports. One of the young sailors in the whaler began to whimper. The heat and smoke were almost unbearable. As they pulled closer to the open scuttles, they were showered with small fiery pieces of matting stripped from the deck above. There was another deep rumble inside the ship and for just a second the shouting, the pleading, stopped. By standing on one of the thwarts Lindsay was able to reach up with his hand to the porthole. An unseen, unknown man grasped it and held it tightly as if his life depended upon it.

‘Morphine, we have some morphine for you,’ Lindsay shouted, but he found it difficult to make himself understood. The whaler began to rock as more hands reached up.

‘John, is that you, mate…?’

‘Hang on in there, Taff, we’re on our way…’

These were bonds forged over many months at sea, dangers, mess tables and hammocks shared. They were family. And as Lindsay stood there holding an unknown sailor’s hand he thought of another crew, another ship, and of the desperate helplessness he had felt as she slipped into the darkness. Sleeping, waking, the memory was there, the same cold seconds, whistling sickly through his mind, the white faces contorted in a scream that would last for eternity.

‘Sir, look…’

Through the smoke he could see shadowy figures on the quay, jumping, waving, and although it was impossible to hear what they were saying the panic in their voices was unmistakable.

‘Get this morphine up…’ he shouted.

They began to press small boxes of the drug into outstretched hands. At his side, Brown was shouting, ‘For the wounded, mate…’ and, ‘Just in case.’ Should he explain ‘Just in case’? But it would be obvious soon enough, and he cursed the staff, cursed them for not fitting that escape hatch.

They began to slip away from the ship and there was a new note of despair in the voices of those they left inside her. Hope was leaving too. At their oars the sailors were grim-faced, heads bent, pulling hard. One of the older ratings in the stern was shaking. Then, above the roar of the fire, the grinding of aircraft engines very close and the rolling thunder of ack-ack.

Lindsay had just made the top of the steps when he was thrown to the ground by a tide of water from the dock. He lay there, face pressed to the wet cobbles, legs stretched helplessly behind him. Barely a second later and another explosion drenched him again. The third must have landed a little way up the quay because the ground heaved and he was showered with dirt and stones. Later he remembered being gripped by the blind, terrifying certainty that his legs would be blown off — they seemed so very far from his head and hands. But the fire storm swept over the dock in seconds and on into the city. Even before he raised his head, he could sense the injured close by. Slowly, painfully, he lifted himself to his knees. The shattered bodies of five — or was it six — men were lying just a few yards away like so much human wreckage.

‘Oh God, no,’ he muttered.

Bright red arterial blood rose in an arc from the ragged stump of a sailor’s leg. The boy — he was no more than eighteen — was watching it in silent disbelief. Lindsay recognised his white-blond hair and delicate features — he had pulled one of the whaler’s oars. People were running along the quay now and someone shouted to him, ‘Give us a hand here.’

He stumbled forwards in a daze and a medical orderly thrust a large cotton pad into his hands: ‘Hold it firmly against the stump.’ Blood was seeping across the stones and into the dock. He pressed down hard and the young sailor screamed. Then he was conscious of grinding heavy metal and a deep hissing. He turned his head a little. Steam was rising in a cloud from the bows of His Majesty’s destroyer White as she slipped slowly down, down to the bottom of the dock.

In his cell, a hundred yards along the quay, Kapitan Jurgen Mohr could hear frightened voices and the gonging of an ambulance bell. The explosions had crept closer and the last had shaken the walls and floor until the light flickered and died. He was sitting in impenetrable blackness, so black he felt he could touch it. And he could imagine he was in the control room of his U-boat again, surrounded by the pale, anxious faces of his men. But he felt calm, completely calm. Their lives were no longer in his hands. There were no orders he could give, he was powerless to shape events.

He heard raised voices in the corridor and someone hammered angrily on the cell door: ‘Bastard.’

‘Can I have some light in here?’ he shouted back in English. But there was no answer.

Seconds later another explosion shook the building, throwing him from the bench to the stone-flagged floor. He picked himself up, gritty brick dust in his nose and throat.

Did his family know the 112 was lost? he wondered. Admiral Donitz would be concerned that the British had managed to capture such a senior officer. But perhaps the senior officer would not last the night.

12

‘You look exhausted, old boy.’ Lieutenant Tim Cooper was slumped in the burgundy plush of the Exchange Hotel’s bar, a plate of the chef’s own sandwiches in front of him.

‘Is this the best they can manage?’ He peeled back the top of a damp triangle and carefully examined its contents: luncheon meat.

‘I’ve had breakfast but…’ He glanced hopefully at Lindsay who waved a careless hand at the plate. There was almost nothing in his appearance to suggest that a few hours before he had been squatting in smoke and blood beside a dying man. The hotel staff had worked a small miracle on his uniform and his shoes were polished to perfection. But there was a weary frown on his face and a more observant man than Cooper might have noticed the distant look in his eyes.

‘It’s been a bad night,’ said Cooper mechanically, ‘What a pounding Liverpool’s taken.’ He glanced at his watch, it was eleven o’clock. It had taken him two hours to make the short journey from the mess at Orrell Hey. Burning streets, flooded streets, streets choked with rubble and unexploded bombs. He had seen a parachute mine lying in the front garden of a neat little semi, huge and uninvited.

‘The Central Library’s still burning, and the GPO, and there’s a steamer loaded with ammunition on fire in the Huskisson Dock. If that goes up, they’ll hear it at the Admiralty,’ he said. ‘Did you hear about the White? The buggers managed to sink her. Thompson, her captain, was at the mess last night. Very tight. He climbed up on to the roof and stood there brandishing a pipe at them. Bombs dropping everywhere and there he was shouting, “Come on you buggers”.’

Lindsay said nothing.

Transport for Mohr and the other prisoners from the 112 would be difficult to arrange but Cooper was hopeful of a train from Lime Street later in the day.

‘It was sickening,’ he said. ‘You should have seen them together.’

‘Who?’

‘Thompson and Mohr — yesterday. You would have thought Thompson was entertaining Marlene Dietrich.’

‘You don’t like Commander Thompson,’ said Lindsay drily.

‘He doesn’t like me, which is unforgivable. But he’ll like you.’ Cooper glanced down at the medal ribbon on Lindsay’s uniform. ‘But Mohr’s a clever bugger. He spent time here as a boy. Must have run rings round Thompson.’ He paused and began to examine his nails.

‘Well, what is it?’ asked Lindsay impatiently.

‘I’m afraid I’ve bad news…’

‘Bad news?’ Lindsay gave a short humourless laugh.

‘Yes. Thompson let Mohr talk to his men. He’s had three weeks to prepare them for interrogation.’

‘They didn’t keep him from the crew?’ asked Lindsay in disbelief. Lieutenant-Commander Thompson had broken the golden rule: isolate the commander.

‘Sorry. I hope someone kicks his complacent backside for you,’ said Cooper.