Lindsay woke at dawn the following morning after a restless night on a camp bed and as he lay there under the rough army blankets his first half-conscious thoughts were of Mary. He could see her sweeping round the dance floor, cat-green eyes bright with pleasure, more beautiful, more graceful in her sensible skirt than all those women who had made so much effort to please. He tried to cling to this warm, sleepy memory of her, caught up in the dance too, but it began to slip away. It was replaced by an image of Mohr’s clever, confident smile, and it was this that finally drove him from his bed.
One hour and a greasy canteen breakfast later, Lindsay was perched on the balustrade of the Trent Park terrace, the sun warm on his back, in one hand a cigarette, in the other his ‘bible’ — the notes he used to prepare for an interrogation. It was always a little pantomime of sympathy, impatience, rage, and it needed to be structured carefully. So absorbed was he in this task that he did not hear the footsteps approaching from the front of the house.
‘Enjoying the sunshine?’ It was James Henderson. Lindsay turned to acknowledge him, slipping from the balustrade to his feet.
‘Preparing for another crack at Jurgen Mohr.’
‘Ah,’ said Henderson a little sheepishly, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Mohr.’
‘Oh?’
‘You won’t be able to interrogate him today. He isn’t here.’
Lindsay frowned: ‘I have him in solitary.’
‘No you don’t.’ Henderson was inspecting a crack in a broken flagstone. ‘A car’s waiting to take him to the Admiralty. The First Sea Lord, in his wisdom, has decided he wants to meet Mohr.’
‘Does he think he can do a better job than me?’
Henderson shook his head. ‘He wants to meet a famous U-boat commander.’
Lindsay gave a short, harsh laugh: ‘I thought we were fighting a war.’
Henderson looked a little crestfallen; for once authority had let him down: ‘Professional curiosity.’
Lindsay shook his head in disbelief. God save us from ‘professional’ officers and their fellowship of the sea, he thought. The captain of HMS White had been the same and they were still picking up the pieces.
‘How’s Sister Mary?’ Henderson was anxious to change the subject.
‘Fine, fine,’ said Lindsay.
‘You’re still seeing each other then?’
Lindsay smiled. Henderson had done well to keep the disappointment from his voice: ‘When we can, she’s very busy.’
‘Yes.’
For a while, they stood in silence. Lindsay wanted to say something for Mary’s sake but could think of nothing. It was difficult to feel warm about a man who made no secret of his distaste for you.
‘All right, I must get on,’ said Henderson awkwardly.
‘I’ll follow you in.’
He left Henderson in the entrance hall and made his way into the west wing of the house. The naval interrogators had turned the old billiard room into an office and crammed it with files and ugly furniture. A couple of assistants were typing up SR transcripts. Lieutenant Charlie Samuels was the only one of the interrogators at his desk. Bent beneath an anglepoise lamp, he was scribbling frantically in what Lindsay took to be his interrogation bible.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said as he stepped up to Samuels’ desk, ‘Mohr is taking tea with the First Sea Lord.’
Samuels looked up at him, a smile on his thin, almost colourless lips.
‘No, it’s quite true,’ said Lindsay, perching at its edge. He felt sure Samuels would share his disgust. But Samuels just looked at him then raised his eyebrows quizzically.
Lindsay was a little taken aback: ‘Well?’
‘How can you, of all people, complain if the First Sea Lord wants to make friends with a Nazi?’
Lindsay flushed with anger: ‘I’m surprised to hear you say that, Charlie.’
‘Why? You’re not fussy about the company you keep,’ said Samuels quietly.
‘I make no apologies for being friendly with some of the prisoners — that’s part of the job.’
Samuels looked down at his bible for a moment as if steadying himself, his hand covering his chin and mouth. When he looked up again Lindsay was struck by the sadness in his eyes.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘Do you know what Checkland’s written in the interrogation notes he’s pulled together for the Director, for Admiral Godfrey?’ Samuel’s voice shook a little. ‘I’ve scribbled some of it down here.’ He pulled a scrap of paper from his bible and began to read from it:
Sight of Jew has adverse effect on mental attitude of prisoners.. hardens resistance… mistake to employ interrogators of Jewish appearance… Germans have special instinct for slightest Jewish strain and this makes Jewish interrogators feel inferior.
He picked up his spectacles and peered at the paper as if through a magnifying glass. Satisfied there was nothing more, he said as calmly as he could: ‘He is right about the prisoners but not about me. I hate most of them, despise them.’ He paused for a moment then said: ‘But Checkland would just say that proves I shouldn’t be doing this job.’
Lindsay shook his head slowly. The Jew and the German, he thought, neither of us entirely trusted.
‘You know, I loved Germany,’ Samuels said suddenly. ‘You understand, of course. I used to visit my grandfather in Berlin. He took me to the opera in Opernplatz — they burn books there now, and we haven’t heard anything from him for three years.’
‘My mother hasn’t heard from her brothers.’
‘It’s different for us, and you of all the people here should know it,’ said Samuels sharply.
‘Yes, yes it is, of course it’s different.’
Samuels pushed back his chair and stood up as if to indicate that he had nothing more to say on the subject of his family. ‘I agree with you about the First Sea Lord; these U-boat commanders think quite enough of themselves as it is,’ he said brusquely. He picked up a file and thrust it at Lindsay: ‘Look at this — you wanted me to work on the wireless operators. The chief, the Oberfunkmaat, served on at least two U-boats before the U-112. I still don’t know how good his English is — he’s stubborn and unfriendly. I haven’t got anything concrete on the other one but there is this SR transcript.’ He pointed at the file in Lindsay’s hands. ‘I’ve marked it up — page four. Our man’s Prisoner 643, Funkobergefreiter Heinz Brand.’
Lindsay turned the flimsy, closely typed pages of what was obviously a long, dull conversation between Prisoner 643, wireless operator Heinz Brand, and two others, until he found the snippet Samuels had marked in bold red.
640: Our landing craft will be able to land on the English coast easily with the help of fog or a smokescreen.
641: I don’t know how they’ll get across.
643: I don’t know what the Fuhrer intends, but I’m sure it’ll be the right thing.
641: I’m surprised at how good our treatment is here, for instance the treatment I had for my toothache.
643: In my diary I’ve put, ‘Quantity and quality of food are sufficient.’ Actually it’s better than it was on my old ship.
640: Before you joined the 112?
643: Yes.
Samuels saw a quiet, hopeful smile appear on Lindsay’s face. ‘What do you think, is that good enough for you?’ he asked.
‘It pays to feed the prisoners well,’ said Lindsay with a short laugh and he handed the file back to Samuels. ‘So Brand was a wireless operator on a ship before the 112. It’s something to work on. Do you think you’ll get more from him face to face?’
Samuels shrugged doubtfully: ‘I’m going to try. Want to join me? After all, Checkland thinks Aryan good looks make all the difference.’
Interrogation Room Two was just like the others — white walls, simple table, hard chairs — stripped of anything that might distract from the unvarnished truth. The man standing before them was tall, an upright six foot two, nineteen, blond with a handsome good-humoured face. He was dressed in a dirty brown boiler suit and boots. Charlie Samuels had spent many hours trying to befriend Heinz Brand and the broad smile that greeted him suggested he had done a pretty good job.
‘Are they looking after you, Heinz?’ Samuels asked him in German. ‘This lieutenant is my colleague.’
Brand saluted smartly. Lindsay did not look up from his bible.
‘I have a few more questions for you, Heinz, just a few details I would like you to help me with,’ said Samuels.
The ‘few details’ lasted for more than an hour. What did Brand know of the commander, how long had he been with the submarine, and what were the 112 ’s orders? The same questions in German over and over again. Act One of the pantomime. Lindsay listened but said nothing. Brand was forced to stand at the edge of the table, shifting his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. He said he was sorry but he was under orders not to say anything. His expression suggested that his regret was genuine, as if it was the height of bad manners to refuse to answer an enemy’s questions.
‘I know that before you joined the 112 you served on a ship. What was her name?’ Samuels asked again in German. No reply.
‘Your comrade Oberfunkmaat Henning speaks excellent English, so does the commander, and that’s why you joined the U-boat. You were on a special mission. It was important that the wireless operators spoke English. Why?’
Brand shook his head. There was a long silence. Then Lindsay spoke and it was as if his patience snapped. Turning to Samuels, he said angrily in English: ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but you’re wrong.’
Samuels looked down for a moment, then barely above a whisper: ‘We can’t be sure.’
‘Wireless operators. English speakers. The two they landed last summer were the same. We can be sure.’
Lindsay glanced up at Brand who was anxiously biting his thumbnail. Their eyes met for a second and he shook his head a little. Lindsay ignored him and said in a very audible whisper: ‘He hasn’t answered one straight question. He can’t. He’s a spy.’
‘I don’t want him to hang because we made a mistake,’ said Samuels forcefully.
‘We haven’t,’ said Lindsay. He stood up quickly and picked up his bible and cigarettes as if preparing to leave the room. ‘Why are you concerned? He despises you, you said so yourself…’
Brand looked surprised, confused.
‘… he’s a Nazi. He hates Jews.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said Brand in English. His voice trembled slightly with emotion; ‘it’s not true.’
Lindsay turned back to look him in the eye and when he spoke his voice was menacingly loud: ‘Herr Brand, or whatever your real name is, you are very clever, very capable, but you are a Nazi and you’re a spy. You have not been able to prove that you are not a spy. Lieutenant Samuels has had less experience than me…’ Lindsay glanced down at Samuels and Brand followed his gaze. Samuels was gripping the edge of the table, a frown on his face. Lindsay ignored him: ‘I know you are a spy, Herr Brand. You and your comrade were expected to send intelligence to Berlin on our convoys in and out of Freetown. You will be executed.’ He turned towards the door but Samuels grabbed his arm: ‘I think we’d better talk about this…’
They left Brand standing anxiously before the table. Neither of them spoke until they had made their way along the corridor and down the stairs into the mess.
‘How long do you want to give him?’
‘Twenty minutes,’ said Samuels. ‘Do you think that’s enough?’
‘Your call.’ Lindsay flopped into an armchair and took a cigarette from the packet he had brought down from the interrogation room. ‘You don’t, do you, Charlie? I’ll leave these with you, Brand will certainly need one.’
Samuels sat opposite him: ‘You play the ruthless bastard well, Douglas, but was it necessary to bring up my Jewishness?’
Lindsay blew a long stream of smoke towards the mural of the god Mars over the fireplace.
‘After what you’d said, it was on my mind. I could see he liked you, so it just came out. It worked, didn’t it?’ He paused for a moment to consider the next Act. ‘Make him trust you too. Lay it on thick. Tell him I’m writing my report and you’ve got no more than a couple of hours to prove he’s not a spy. Perhaps we’ll be lucky with him and then perhaps I’ll be lucky with Mohr. Perhaps.’