by Jim Gregson
Fourteen
Major Tarleton’s death had not been reported in the British press. Security was tight in Cyprus. The island had recently been declared an ‘active service’ posting. Any soldier there for more than four months was now entitled to claim a medal when he returned to Britain.
I wondered what Tarleton’s next of kin had been told about the man’s death. It certainly wouldn’t have been that he was a drunken lout who had been shot by his own side on his own orders. You couldn’t report stark facts like that to relatives; that wouldn’t be fair to anyone. And this was the British army: majors could never be louts.
I had originally thought it might be quite interesting to be involved in a court martial – so long, of course, that you weren’t the accused. I’d thought it would be fun to see the military at their most pompous in this farcical situation. And to see the officer class discomfited: Tarleton’s conduct as a representative of it could surely invite nothing but contumely.
My attitude changed as the hearing approached. I became ashamed of my pettiness. A man had died. Whatever his deficiencies, they had scarcely merited death. And what did I know of Tarleton, really? I had the merest cartoon impression of him. I’d seen him for twenty minutes at two o’clock in the morning when he’d been at his worst. In his previous life, he might have done all kinds of admirable things.
And how could I ever have thought of a court martial so lightly, when a man I knew and liked was going to be tried for murder? No one bothered to tell me exactly what the charges were to be, but clearly George Armstrong was going to be charged with at least the manslaughter of a commissioned officer. I hadn’t had the chance to get to know Armstrong well, but he had displayed flashes of a depth and intensity which had intrigued me. Now not just his army rank but his very freedom and the course of the rest of his life were at stake.
As the date approached, I became increasingly nervous on my own account. I would have been nervous if it had been a civil court, with the whole intricate panoply of the law and lawyers involved. But there was more to it than that. This wasn’t a civil court but an army court. I had reason to fear the army: it was an alien organisation to me. Unlike the veterans around me in the sergeants’ mess, I hadn’t chosen to be here and I didn’t feel comfortable here. I didn’t like the army and I was pretty certain that the army didn’t like me.
I must have been very worried, for I did something I would otherwise never have been bold enough to do. I sought out the senior figure in the mess, an RSM I had never spoken to before. Schoolies didn’t speak to RSMs unless the RSM came to them. This one didn’t speak much to anyone and didn’t play snooker, so I approached him with trepidation. My heart beat strongly as I said, ‘I wondered if you might be able to give me some advice, sir. From your own experience of these things.’
‘We don’t use titles in the mess, Jim. I’m Gordon.’
RSM Bradshaw knew my name. I was shocked by that, and still more shocked that he should use it. I knew that I would never be able to bring myself to address this upright, unsmiling man as Gordon.
‘It’s just that I’ve got this court martial coming up on Wednesday. I’m a bit nervous about it.’
‘Why’s that? They’re not going to string you up, are they?’
I decided that this was probably a joke, though a surreptitious glance at the unyielding features showed no smile there. ‘No. It’s just that I know it’s a serious matter and I don’t want to get it wrong, sir.’
The title had slipped out in spite of the warning he’d given me, but RSM Bradshaw didn’t take me to task. ‘You won’t be allowed to get it wrong. But you’re right. It’s a serious matter. I’m glad you’re giving it serious thought.’
‘Staff Sergeant Armstrong is a good man, sir. I want to do whatever I can to help him.’
The RSM looked hard into my young, earnest face and I divined as he did so that he was concerned for me. Weeks after all this was over, he told me that he knew all about the grateful, experienced men who had attended my ACE Class One classes and become substantive rather than acting sergeants. He told me also that he had a son of about my age, though he didn’t say what he was doing. Now he said, ‘You’re not there to help George Armstrong. You’re there to see justice done.’
‘But if justice is done, George won’t be found guilty.’
‘That’s not for you to decide, Jim, is it? If things were as simple as that, we wouldn’t need courts martial.
‘No, sir. I can see that. But I don’t want to do anything that might damage George’s case.’
‘Then you will answer whatever questions you are asked to the best of your ability. That’s what you are there for, Jim. You are one small part of the story. The court will decide what justice is, when they’ve listened to you and to a lot of other people.’
‘Yes. I see all that.’ I wanted to shut up and get away from this formidable presence. But my loyalty to George wrung one final thought from me. ‘But it’s an officer who was killed. And it will be officers who control the court, won’t it? They might be biased against George.’
Now, when I least expected it, a brief smile lit up the rugged face. ‘I’ve seen a lot more officers than you’re ever going to see, Jim. And among them there are good men and there are fucking twats. You and I know which is which, don’t we, even though we’re supposed to treat them all just the same? Don’t answer that question, Jim. We’re speaking off the record in the sergeants’ mess.’
He was giving me too much credit. I wasn’t at all sure that I saw the differences in officers with anything like the clarity this man could apply to the task. Once again, I was filled with admiration for a man operating with such certainty in this environment which was so alien and confusing for me. I nodded. ‘Thank you for your advice, sir.’
It had slipped out again, that ‘sir’ which I had been forbidden to use here. And again RSM Bradshaw didn’t pick me upon it. ‘I wasn’t aware that I’d given you much advice, son.’ He grinned again, this time at his own expense. This time it was he who had let slip a term he hadn’t intended to use. ‘Use your common sense, that’s all. You might be young, but you’ve got plenty of that. You’re not there to plead anyone’s case: there’ll be lawyers to do that. Listen to the questions carefully and answer them clearly and simply.’
It was excellent advice and I knew it was. I went away determined to follow it. Detachment was the thing. Yet when the moment came, I didn’t quite manage that detachment.
*
The court martial assembled on a bright, clear morning. I remember most mornings in Cyprus as being like that, though there must have been lots of others. People in splendid uniforms bustled around the big room which had been cleared for the court.
I watched from the window of the adjacent education centre and became steadily more nervous. I would have felt an outsider even in a civilian court. My best friend in Manchester had studied law and was on his way to becoming a world expert on Criminal Law, so I knew all about the arcane rites with which lawyers surrounded themselves. But this law had the added complication of being army law. I felt it was certain to be more obscure and more hostile to me than its civilian counterpart.
I was pretty sure that I could see medals being sported and I thought I’d glimpsed people wearing blues in the shadows at the back of the room. But that might have been my heightened imagination working too hard. I knew I was suggestible, because when I was a child I’d believed the girl next door when she’d told me she’d seen broomsticks outside the Women’s Institute. Blokes in blues might be swaggering about with hands on the handles of swords by the time I became involved, I thought.
I was ordered to stand by from the start, because I would probably be called quite early in the case. But the preliminaries must have been extensive, because I waited for hours, growing steadily more uncomfortable in my best battledress as the sun climbed. It seemed to be taking them a long time in there to establish the simple facts of Staff Sergeant Armstrong’s offence. He’d s
hot the drunken bugger who’d asked to be shot, as far as I was concerned. You couldn’t get much more straightforward than that. But lawyers could make anything complex. That was how they maintained their mystique.
It was half past eleven when I was eventually called. The combination of the wait, the heat, and the extreme formality of the court made me even more nervous than I had expected to be. Everyone around me seemed to be a model of elegance, whilst I was a scruffy impostor who should not be here. I stood stiffly upright and confirmed my name and rank. I felt as if I was involved in an exceptionally vivid dream.
I stole a glance at Staff Sergeant George Armstrong. He stood bareheaded in the dock, looking much older than when I had last seen him. His hair was cut very short and was much greyer than I remembered it. His face was pale and drawn, so that the scar running up through his forehead was more evident. I had been determined to remember the RSM’s advice before I stepped inside this room. Now I suddenly wanted to do my best for George.
The prosecuting counsel paused for a long, dramatic moment before putting his first question to me. His name was Major Steel and it was of course his legitimate concern to discredit a man who might well damage his case against the prisoner. He used this long silence to look at me as if I was something unpleasant to be scraped off his shoe.
I thought I could read his mind. The tall, uncertain young man on the stand was the only national serviceman in the room. He was an oik who had three stripes on his arm without having committed himself to army life for five or even for three years. He deserved to be exposed to the court as the presumptuous bumpkin he was. And Major Steel was the man to do it. He looked at me with calculated distaste.
I had checked all my buttons three times whilst I waited to be called. But it felt now as if one had mysteriously undone itself. I resisted the urge to check my dress and stared steadily back at my tormentor. And a strange thing happened. The hostility I felt or imagined I felt in the court cleared my mind and determined me to give of my best. I had feared that I would be tongue-tied by the solemnity and the strangeness of the court. Now I felt ready to concentrate not only upon the questions but on the precision of my replies.
Major Steel made a great play of going through his papers to establish the date of my stint as orderly sergeant, as if I had been trying to conceal it from him. We confirmed the date and he said, ‘And you were acting as orderly sergeant on this night?’
‘I was.’
‘An uneventful night, was it not, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir. Uneventful apart from one particular incident.’
‘Oh?’ Shocked incredulity. ‘And what kind of incident was that?’
‘I suppose you would call it disorderly conduct.’
‘Would I indeed? I don’t think you should attempt to put words into my mouth, Sergeant Gregson. How “disorderly” do you consider this particular conduct to have been?’
This time it was me who took my time, as I considered the matter. ‘Reprehensible, sir.’ The five-syllable word seemed to disconcert him a little. I stored that thought away for future use.
‘Come along, sergeant. We need to be precise, do we not? How “reprehensible” was this particular piece of conduct?’
‘Well, it would certainly have landed a squaddie in the glasshouse for the night, sir, with charges to follow. It was distressing to witness it in an officer, because of the example it was setting. Fortunately, at zero two hundred hours there was no one to witness it, apart from the soldiers who formed the overnight guard.’
‘And yet you saw no need to call out your orderly officer of the day to deal with the incident. It must surely therefore have been very trivial.’
Major Steel made that a statement. He glanced down at his notes to identify his next question, leaving a pause for the court to appreciate the minor but telling point he thought he’d made. I decided that the oik must offer an alternative view.
‘I would not describe the incident as trivial, sir. I thought it potentially disruptive and perhaps even dangerous, in the present tense situation upon this island. I did not call out the orderly officer because I was able to deal with the situation satisfactorily without his assistance. I reported verbally to him in due course, but we decided that it was better for all concerned not to exaggerate its significance.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to conceal what you now claim was a serious incident.’
‘I don’t think I said it was serious, sir. I merely denied your view that it was trivial. It might have become serious, had I and the rest of the overnight guard not been able to deal with it satisfactorily. As I said, I reported the matter to the orderly officer. As he chose not to include the incident in his written report, I have to assume that he shared my view that it was not in the public interest to do so.’
‘The public interest, sergeant? That is a vague and rather curious phrase to produce in a military court. What particular interests do you consider were served by keeping this so low-key?’
‘The interests of good army and army discipline, for a start, sir.’ I kept my face studiously straight as I threw out the most well-worn of all army phrases. ‘And we were acting in Major Tarleton’s own interests, of course. I cannot think that he would have welcomed wider publicity for his conduct.’
George Armstrong’s defence counsel had risen at one stage to protect his witness, but I had been pleased to see him sink back happily on to his chair. Apparently he had decided that this fresh-faced and gawky young man was capable of looking after himself. That gave me a lot of confidence.
Steel looked to me rather shaken. He wasn’t very effective when he now tried to sound scathing and sarcastic. ‘Perhaps you had better give the court your account of this incident, which in your considered opinion was not trivial but was not serious either, sergeant.’
I took a deep breath, feeling a little easier now. I certainly had the court’s attention. ‘It was almost exactly zero two hundred hours when Major Tarleton drove up to the barrier in his Standard Vanguard car.’
The prosecutor curled his lip and sighed wearily. ‘Is the make of the car really relevant to this, sergeant?’
‘I think it has a peripheral relevance, sir.’ I’d only managed four syllables in this adjective, but it seemed to have Steel worried, because I was sure that panic flashed briefly across his high-boned face. ‘The Standard Vanguard is a distinctive vehicle, especially in this context. That is how we all knew that the man behind the driving wheel was Major Tarleton.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Major Tarleton was three times challenged and asked to give the password of the day. He failed to produce it.’
‘He was a very experienced officer. I’m sure there was a reason for this.’
‘There was, sir. In my view and in the view of the soldiers who constituted the guard, he was inebriated.’ I produced each of the five syllables carefully, as if he might need help with the word. It was the manner he had adopted towards me at the beginning of this exchange.
‘You’re saying that Major Tarleton was drunk?’
‘He was very drunk indeed. So drunk that he was inarticulate.’ I again delivered the five syllables as if they might give trouble to my interrogator.
‘And what evidence can you produce to support this serious allegation?’
‘When the driver failed to respond with the password, I approached the vehicle cautiously, with the rifles of the guard trained upon the occupant, as current army orders dictate. I ascertained that the driver was indeed Major Tarleton, as the make of car had suggested it would be, and also that there was no other person in the vehicle. Once I was satisfied of these facts, I ordered that the barrier should be raised, to permit Major Tarleton to drive the short distance to his quarters. In view of his condition, I offered to detail a driver to assist him, but this he refused.’
Major Steel plainly hadn’t expected this sort of resistance. The oik was failing to conform. But I felt on firm ground. My testimony couldn’t possi
bly have helped the prosecution’s case and he would have been better to keep it as quick and low-key as possible.
Major Steele had enough legal experience to know when to cut his losses and re-group. ‘And that was the end of the matter. Thank you, sergeant. I think that the court will probably agree with my view that you have made rather too much of an incident which was in fact rather trivial.’
‘No, sir. That was not the end of the matter.’ I would never have dared to pick him up like that when I had come into the court, but I had gathered confidence during the last five minutes. And I suspected that the Brigadier who was presiding here was not altogether happy with Steel’s approach. Perhaps officers did not always automatically close ranks, as my rather unbalanced perspective had told me they did.
‘But sergeant, you have just told us that it was the end of the matter. You have just told us that you raised the barrier and allowed Major Tarleton to proceed to his quarters, offering him assistance which he patently did not require.’
‘Which he required but did not accept, in my view, sir. But that was not the end of the matter. Major Tarleton insisted on getting out of his car. He needed my assistance to do so. That was when I realised quite how inebriated he was. He then ordered me to accompany him to the guardroom.’
Steel glanced up towards the Brigadier. He didn’t want to ask the next question, but having come this far he could see no alternative. He tried to sound as sceptical as he could as he said, ‘And what happened in the guardroom, sergeant?’
‘Major Tarleton used language which I did not record, sir. It would have benefited no one to do so.’
‘He was aggressive?’
‘Very aggressive, sir.’
Steel affected weariness. ‘Perhaps you had better tell us what happened and what part you played in this, sergeant.’
‘He threatened to bring serious charges against me.’
Major Steel looked as though he would like to do that himself. He sighed theatrically. ‘On what grounds?’
