‘War.’
‘And your guilt?’
Lindsay leant across the table to offer him a cigarette. Mohr looked at it for a second or so then took it, rolling it thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger. He was a swarthy man but his skin had turned U-boat grey, as if he had spent weeks in the hull of his submarine, and there were dark rings about his eyes. It was a noisy landing at night with heavy-booted warders and the slamming of doors: that had been simple to arrange.
‘Don’t you want to smoke it?’ Lindsay sent his lighter spinning across the table. ‘There is more than one kind of death, don’t you agree?’
Mohr snapped the lighter and held the long yellow flame to his cigarette. It flickered in the draught from the ventilation grille above, cutting sad lines in his face. Then he inhaled deeply and with obvious pleasure.
‘Many men died on my ship,’ said Lindsay quietly, ‘Most of them. But their names will be remembered with pride and honour. That is one kind of death.’ He paused to fold his arms comfortably on the table in front of him in a way that suggested he was reflecting on this thought.
‘A man’s reputation for a hundred years can depend on a single moment. To lose it is another kind of death.’
Mohr watched him closely through the haze of cigarette smoke that hung over the table, his face quite empty of emotion.
‘What will people say about you and the others do you think? That you brought honour to your Navy and to your families in that washroom? Will your name be spoken in anything above a whisper?’
Still the quiet steady stare. Mohr’s elbow was on the table, the side of his face in his hand, his shoulders hunched wearily over the ashtray, and there was ash on the sleeve of his shit-brown uniform. He seemed older and diminished, as if after slopping-out with the cons at Brixton there was nowhere further to fall. If that was what he was thinking, he was wrong.
‘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:…
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
