At Some Disputed Barricade wwi-4

by Anne Perry

  “Yes, thank you, Captain Cavan,” Faulkner said. “I’m not sure how much of your story I believe, but I can think of only one thing further to ask you. Regarding these various men and their injuries, I imagine you will only repeat what you have already told us.” He smiled bleakly. “However, I am interested in the fact that when your eleven coconspirators in this…disciplinary action of yours chose to escape and run for a neutral country, leaving the battle front altogether, you did not. Why was that, Captain?”

  “I had given my word not to, sir,” Cavan answered.

  “And you are a man of the utmost honor?” Faulkner gave the question only the barest lift of interrogation. “So much so that you will remain to face a firing squad rather than break your given word?”

  “Yes, sir. I would have imagined that as an officer yourself you would have understood that,” Cavan replied, the faintest edge of contempt in his expression.

  Cavan had not seen the trap, but Joseph did. He felt the sweat break out on his skin and his stomach clench.

  Faulkner smiled. “I do, Captain, I do. Who organized the escape of the other eleven men held prisoners with you?”

  The heat in the room prickled. Someone shifted their weight and a board creaked.

  “As you observed, sir,” Cavan replied. “I am an officer and I gave my word. I was not imprisoned with the men. I did not see them go, nor did I see who assisted them.”

  “That was not exactly what I asked, Captain Cavan,” Faulkner pointed out. “I asked you if you knew who it was, not if you saw them. But as a matter of fact, Captain Morel went, and he is of the same rank as yourself, an officer! Were you not billeted together?”

  “No, sir. Captain Morel was with the men.”

  “Indeed? Why was that?”

  “You must ask him, sir.”

  “I will. You have not answered me as to who effected this…rescue. I accept that you did not see them. I asked you if you know who it was!”

  Joseph rose to his feet, his legs stiff. “Sir!” he said to Hardesty, far too loudly. “If Captain Cavan did not see who it was, then he cannot know. Anything else would be no more than an educated guess, or what somebody else had said, and not evidence.” He had phrased it badly, forgotten his legal terminology.

  “Quite,” Hardesty agreed. He looked at Faulkner. “You may consider the action reprehensible, Colonel, but hearsay evidence will not stand up. Captain Cavan has told you that he was imprisoned separately and did not see anyone. That is the answer to your question. Proceed.”

  “I have nothing else,” Faulkner said curtly. “For this witness.”

  Now it was Morel’s turn. He stood as stiff as Cavan had, but he was far leaner, almost haggard, all taut muscle and bone, his face thin, dark eyes hollow.

  Joseph found his throat too tight to swallow. He had to clear it to speak. “Do you wish to amend anything in what Captain Cavan has said, Captain Morel?”

  “No, sir.” Morel’s voice was hoarse. He straightened his back even more.

  Joseph knew he must address the escape first. The knowledge and the fear of betrayal was in the room like an unexploded bomb.

  “When you were arrested and imprisoned in the farmhouse you refused to give your word that you would not escape. Did you expect to be rescued?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know who rescued you?”

  Morel hesitated. He was so tense he was swaying a little with the concentration of keeping control. He knew he must be believed. Joseph had told him everything rested on that.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joseph could hear his own breath in the silence of the room. The walls seemed to swell and then recede, as if they were the chest of some sleeping monster. “Who was it?”

  “I refuse to say, sir. They risked their lives for us. We do not betray our own men.”

  “Just so.” Joseph felt his heart pounding. “Did you fire the shot that killed Major Northrup?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And will you refuse to tell us that also?”

  “No, sir. He did not act for the good of the regiment or to save the lives of his men. It was a private vengeance for a civilian matter and had no place here.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Lance Corporal John Geddes, sir.”

  There was a rustle of movement, indistinguishable voices.

  Hardesty looked startled.

  Faulkner was taken aback, angry.

  “And how do you know this, Captain Morel?” Joseph asked loudly.

  “I heard him tell the whole story when we were returning from our escape,” Morel replied. “It would be easily verifiable. I expect General Northrup, who is here in court, would testify to most of it, since it happened in the village where he and his family live, and so also does Geddes’s family. I daresay General Northrup would find it painful, but I believe he would not lie.”

  A score of men in the room turned to look at Northrup who sat ramrod straight and ashen-faced.

  “The motive might be easy enough to check,” Joseph agreed, his voice husky. He loathed doing this, but he was aware that he must raise all the objections before Faulkner did—bite first and draw the poison. “That does not prove Geddes’s guilt. Why would he tell you this? And if he was indeed guilty, why would he return to stand trial rather than simply continue in his escape? Was he not already far beyond British jurisdiction when he made that decision?”

  “Yes, sir.” There was not a flicker in Morel’s face. Now everyone had turned toward him. “He was in German territory, sir,” Morel continued. “Hurt, alone, starving, and unable to speak the language. If the Germans had caught him, I think it possible he would have been treated as a spy. He might not have been shot cleanly, and we can do at least that for him.”

  “How do you know this, Captain Morel?”

  “I was there, sir.”

  “Do we have anyone’s word for this, apart from yours?”

  “Yes, sir.” Again there was not a flicker in Morel’s face. “There are a number of French officers who could testify to various points of our journey. And you yourself could testify to all of it.”

  There was a rustle around the room, a murmur of voices, one or two gasps. Then Hardesty leaned forward. “Is this true, Captain Reavley?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And are you willing to testify? If you do so, you will, of course, be subject to cross-examination by the prosecution.”

  Joseph cleared his throat. He had no choice. He had struggled to avoid it from the beginning, but there was no way around it that did not make him look like a liar. “Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely.

  “Very well. After Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner has questioned Captain Morel, we shall have you testify.”

  Faulkner obtained nothing further from Morel that was of any use and Hardesty adjourned the court for the long, miserable night. Joseph spent most of it awake, trying to think of a safer way to introduce the evidence he needed. It all depended on the understanding of morale, of the loyalties that bound the men together, their trust in Morel and his knowledge of it, the obligations he felt. His own testimony of that was useless. Faulkner would judge it self-serving and dismiss it. Only men like Morel could know what he believed and why.

  A jury of his peers. The phrase flashed into his mind in burning clarity. It was still only a chance. Faulkner might still trip someone and catch them out over Judith, and of course Wil Sloan. Although since Wil was American, the consequences might be less severe for him.

  Finally, almost as the sky was paling in the east, he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  T he next morning Joseph called his first witness. Snowy Nunn stood scrubbed and stiff, answering with surprise to his given name, almost as if he did not recognize it. He had been called “Snowy” since before he could talk.

  “Private Nunn,” Joseph began, addressing him forma
lly.

  “Yes, sir.” Snowy was so rigid Joseph could see where the fabric of his uniform was strained by the unnatural posture.

  “How long have you been in the army?”

  “Since the autumn o’ ’fourteen, sir. Oi soigned up immediate.”

  “Why?”

  Snowy looked startled. “Roight thing to do, sir. Same loike everyone, you know that, sir. You did the same thing. And your sister, to droive ambulances.”

  “Yes, I do know,” Joseph agreed. “But perhaps General Hardesty and the other officers on the panel did not. And of course Colonel Faulkner. Does that mean you have known most of the accused men for all that time?”

  “Yes, sir, most of them. Known the rest since summer of ’fifteen, just after the gas attacks started. Came to replace…” He swallowed. “Some o’ those we lost.”

  “How long have you known Captain Morel, for example?”

  Faulkner rose to his feet, addressing General Hardesty rather than Joseph. “Sir, the prosecution is happy to concede that Private Nunn, and indeed the majority of the men in the Cambridgeshires, all know each other and have a loyalty greater to the men of their own villages than to their king and country, or to the laws thereof. It is wasting the court’s time for witness after witness to attest to it.”

  Hardesty looked deeply unhappy. Beside him Apsted grimaced.

  “Sir,” Joseph responded. “I object profoundly to Colonel Faulkner stating that any man in the Cambridgeshire regiment has a greater loyalty to his fellow soldiers than to His Majesty, or to England. On the battlefield a soldier’s loyalty is to the men who fight beside him, and to those for whom he is responsible. We fight for king and country, give our lives if necessary, endure injury, hardship, and sometimes appalling pain, but we do it here. These are the men whose backs we defend, whose lives we save, or who save ours, whose rations we share, with whom we laugh, and weep, and face the evening, and whose wounds we will try to stanch if we can, or who will carry us back from no-man’s-land—dead or alive. Loyalty is not an idea here, sir, it is the price of life.”

  There was a murmur of approval from the body of the court. One man raised his hand and shouted out his agreement.

  “For God’s sake!” Faulkner snapped. “This is not the place for a sermon. We are dealing with facts, and the law—not emotionalism. We are only too well aware that the chaplain is partisan; I may say, highly partisan. He comes from the same village and has known these men all their lives. I do not question his honesty, but I do most profoundly question his ability to separate the law from his personal loyalties.”

  “Thank you for not questioning my honesty,” Joseph said with considerable sarcasm. “The fact that you raise it at all suggests that you might.”

  “If you give me cause to, I shall, sir,” Faulkner retorted. “I believe Captain Morel was a student of yours in your Bible teaching days in Cambridge? And one of the better-known women ambulance drivers is your sister? Your personal loyalties are deep enough to make questions not unnatural, Captain Reavley.”

  The attack on Judith had come at last, and not to answer it would be to signal his vulnerability. Joseph dared not ignore it. The challenge had been very cleverly made, discreet, oblique enough not to seem deliberate, and yet of course it was. He had walked into the trap. Had there ever been a way of avoiding it?

  “My sister is one of the ambulance drivers,” he agreed. “And yes, Captain Morel was one of my students, of Biblical languages, actually, not of the Bible itself. And certainly I have known most of the men in the regiment all their lives, or if not them, then men exactly like them, from villages like my own. That makes me better able to understand them than you are.”

  “I understand the law, sir, which it seems increasingly apparent you do not!”

  Hardesty drew in his breath, as if to speak. There was a sharp snap as Apsted broke a pencil, accidentally twisting and turning it too hard.

  It was time for Joseph to play his only card. He looked unblinkingly at Faulkner. “One of the few things I know about the law, and have admired the most, is that a man is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers. Not men who are higher or lower than he is, or who are of a different nature or class, or who have never walked a step along his path and know nothing of his faith, the trials he has faced, or the burden he has carried. We cannot be judged fairly by the arrogant or the ignorant. I hope to demonstrate that I am not too partisan to see the truth, but partisan enough to understand it, and the men who have lived for it, or died for it.”

  He steadied himself. It must be done. “And that includes the grief of General Northrup, his desire for justice, and perhaps for revenge, his guilt that he pushed his son into a rank and a position for which he was not equipped, and which ultimately destroyed him. And for Major Northrup who was sent to a miserable death by men who did not understand him, and circumstances that are beyond the control of any of us.”

  Faulkner was furious. “Sir, you exceed your own position! You are a captain. You are a priest in uniform, because the army must offer what spiritual comfort it can to men who face death. You have no right and no remit to judge your superior officers, or the military ability or record of any man at all. To insult General Northrup from the safety of your appointment to this court is a despicable act. I hope the court will see fit to admonish you.”

  Hardesty was pale, his face tight with anger. “Colonel Faulkner, I will exercise my own discipline, without suggestion from you, sir.”

  He waited, but Faulkner did not apologize. He inclined his head and then straightened his shoulders as if he would have taken a step backward, but the room was so crowded men stood pressed against each other; there was nowhere for him to go.

  Hardesty turned to Joseph. “For goodness’ sake, Captain Reavley, ask your questions and get on with it! Does Private Nunn have anything to contribute or not?”

  “Yes, sir,” Joseph replied. He looked at Snowy, doing his best to hide the helplessness he felt. He was not sure now if calling him was wise—in fact if the entire strategy, which had seemed in the night to be possible, was not a disastrous idea. “Private Nunn, do you know all the men who are here accused of mutiny and murder?”

  Snowy’s face was almost as pale as his hair. He stared at Joseph, desperately seeking guidance. Joseph dared not give him any, and was too transparently honest—it would show instantly.

  “Do you?” Joseph repeated. “Just answer truthfully.”

  Snowy relaxed a fraction. “Yes, sir.”

  “Including Captain Morel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are a private. He is a captain. How do you know him, other than to take orders?”

  Snowy hesitated, unsure how much Joseph wished him to say.

  “Your brother Tucky was recently killed,” Joseph prompted him.

  Snowy swayed, struggling to get his breath.

  Joseph waited. He felt brutal, but he knew even worse could be ahead.

  “Yes, sir. He was shot going over the top,” Snowy answered. He took another shuddering breath. “Oi suppose that was when Oi got to know Captain Morel a bit more. He was…he was very good to me. Knew how Oi felt. Tucky an’ me…” He stopped again, unable to go on.

  Joseph had to rescue him. “Were very close. I know. I think we all know a great deal about loss, comforting one another…the responsibility.”

  Faulkner rose to his feet.

  “Yes, sir!” Snowy said loudly, before Faulkner could speak. “Captain Morel took it very hard when any of his men got killed…or injured, either. He’s a good man, sir. Oi hope—” He stopped abruptly, aware that he had nearly said too much. He blushed scarlet.

  Hardesty had the briefest of smiles, little more than a softening of the eyes.

  “I hope so, too,” Joseph said softly. “It is my responsibility to look after my men, and I will do everything I can to fulfill that duty. In your judgment and experience serving under him, did Captain Morel feel that same sense of duty to his men, Private Nunn?�
��

  “For heaven’s sake!” Faulkner said furiously. “That’s an idiotic, self-serving question. The man’s a private! He’s hardly going to say no. He’s talking about his officer! And one who showed him some compassion when his brother was killed. Sir!” He appealed to Hardesty.

  Joseph cut across them both. “It’s also an excellent opportunity to earn credit with his new commanders, and at the same time get a certain revenge, if he felt Captain Morel had been less than the leader he wanted. Private Nunn risks far more speaking for him than he would against him, sir.”

  “You have an excellent point, Captain Reavley,” Hardesty conceded. He looked at Snowy. “Private Nunn, will you please tell me, in your own words, not Captain Reavley’s, what was your experience of Captain Morel as an officer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Snowy stood very straight. “He was a hard soldier and he didn’t like any lip, but he could see a joke like anybody else. He expected you to be obedient, jump to it instant, loike, no slacking, no hesitating once you’d gone over the top. Always look after your own, help the wounded, bring everyone back if you could. Always looked out for his men. Be loyal to him, an’ he’ll be loyal to you, even to his life. Sir.”

  “Thank you, Private Nunn.” Hardesty looked at Joseph.

  For a moment Joseph hesitated. Was it better to reinforce what Snowy had said, or leave it as if Hardesty had done enough? Leave it. The deference to Hardesty was wiser.

  “Thank you,” Joseph said aloud. “That was my point precisely, sir.” Awkwardly, still not quite sure, he sat down.

  Faulkner stood up. He looked at Snowy with weary disgust.

  “Do you believe mutiny is wrong, Private Nunn? Or let me put it this way, is your loyalty to your country, or to the Cambridgeshire regiment?”

  “Oi reckon as they’re the same, sir,” Snowy answered.

  “Well, Cambridgeshire may be your whole world, Private Nunn, but I assure you there is a great deal more of England than that!”

  “Oi expect there is,” Snowy agreed steadily. “But all Oi know is Cambridgeshire and here, and maybe it’s all Oi’m like to know. Cambridgeshire’ll do me.”