by Max Hennessy
He peered intently at his notes, then he looked up. ‘Unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘it’s still only nine-tenths of the story. There’s another one-tenth that we haven’t yet accounted for – the most telling part of all. What was Prideaux thinking when it happened?’
Potter frowned. ‘We’ve got Freeman, the batman, if we need him.’
‘He wouldn’t know what made Prideaux’s mind work the way it did,’ Moyalan objected. ‘And that’s what we must bring out. Not merely what happened, but why it happened. There’s one man we haven’t found yet who could fill in the gaps.’
‘Cheltenham Charlie,’ Potter suggested.
Moyalan looked puzzled and Potter smiled.
‘Nickname,’ he explained. ‘Finch. Chap who came out with Prideaux. Chap who went home with him.’
Moyalan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Finch. I’m still looking for this Major Finch.’
‘I heard he was promoted Colonel,’ Higgins said abruptly and they both stopped dead and looked at him – as though a shadow had appeared from the corner and spoken. It was strangely disconcerting and it was a moment or two before they went on.
Potter nodded after the pause. ‘Finch was the sort who would reach Colonel,’ he said.
Moyalan shrugged. ‘Colonel Finch then,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter. I must have Finch. Would he still be in the army?’
‘No.’ Higgins answered immediately. ‘He liked the easy life.’
Moyalan looked at Potter as though he, the outsider, might be able to give a more dispassionate opinion.
Potter nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘Stuck out a mile. Managed to keep out of France throughout the whole war. Ended up commanding some sort of resettlement camp for wounded officers in Cheltenham. God only knows why he volunteered for Russia.’
Higgins cleared his throat and the sound seemed harsh and intrusive.
‘Do you think we shall win?’ he asked.
Moyalan managed a twisted smile. ‘Litigation’s a funny thing,’ he said. ‘The unexpected can always happen, as General Prideaux might discover. I suspect that he feels, like Kirkham and probably ninety-nine per cent of the people who’ve read of the case in the papers, that we haven’t a chance. But perhaps Prideaux’s being over-confident. I hear he’s already said he’s going to offer his damages to Service charities.’
His eyes flashed and he gave a thin smile so that he looked less like a lawyer than a poacher for a second. ‘Let him win them first,’ he ended.
3
Counsel for the plaintiff
The dust was rustling along the pavement as the taxi deposited Potter and Higgins outside the Law Courts next morning. There was an unexpected patch of blue sky over towards Waterloo Bridge, but the sham-ecclesiastic Gothic of the Royal Courts of Justice was still sombre and shadowed.
Just ahead of them another taxi had drawn up and, as they descended, they saw the crowds which had gathered for a glance at the participants, in what promised to be the case of the year, begin to move forward.
‘It’s Prideaux,’ Potter said quietly.
In brief glimpses as he moved forward, they saw the heavily-built man in the dark suit and bowler hat among the crowd, and there was a suggestion of a murmur which grew into a cheer.
‘Thank God he’s not in uniform,’ Higgins said.
Potter smiled. ‘Would be if Kirkham could fix it,’ he said. ‘Straight from the War Office. Business of the nation. Bound to impress the jury – especially with things as they are.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Be worth a point or two with all that red and all those ribbons he wears.’
Prideaux was giving a careless salute now as he walked up the steps, acknowledging the reception, and the crowd turned away as he disappeared. A few people peered at Higgins as he pushed between them, but no one seemed to associate him with the case, and they swung away without a second glance.
There was a smell of age about the gloomy corridors inside that seemed to permeate everything. It seemed to be brought on the draughts that were set up by the breeze outside, out of the shadowy recesses where counsel’s rooms were, down to the main hall. It seemed to be carried up the grey stairs, their worn steps smelling faintly of carbolic from their last scrubbing, into the court where Mr. Justice Godliman was taking his seat and the ushers were still calling out ‘Prideaux versus Higgins and others, Prideaux versus Higgins and others!’
A messenger was sent hurrying to the basement to have the heating turned up a little and another was sent off with a flea in his ear to shut some windows, as the old man in the scarlet robes shuffled himself to comfort and arranged his notebook and pencils alongside him.
At their bench, counsel were untying the tapes of their briefs and arranging their papers, and in the press box the newspapermen sat up, waiting for what they all knew was going to be a most promising story. That their judgment was correct was proved by the number of fashionable women in the public gallery. Ascot and Epsom were over and it was too early for the St. Leger. It promised to be the show of the season, a perfect subject for the evening’s cocktail parties, and a pleasant change from the gloomy news from the Continent and the aggressiveness of Hitler.
Potter, clutching his brief case and sitting with Higgins, looked across to where the plaintiff, General Prideaux, was waiting just behind counsel.
He was trying, Potter decided, to appear absorbed and concerned, but all he was managing was to look as though he were faintly irritated at having been called from his office, and annoyed at having, in these momentous days of planning for the inevitable German aggression, to waste time winning a libel action that obviously couldn’t be lost.
He was probably not far wrong on that score, Potter decided. It was going to need a pretty stiff defence to count against his reputation. Prideaux’s face was too often in the newspapers, a fact which would have the effect of prejudicing even the best of juries in his favour; and the letters he used after his name were enough in themselves to tip the balance. Everybody loved a hero and, to the man in the street, Prideaux was just such an individual.
Abruptly, almost unexpectedly, the judge began to speak and it dawned on Potter with surprise that the case had started.
‘I am advised,’ Godliman was saying over the rail of his desk, ‘that this case is likely to last some time and I will listen to any application by any member of the jury who is likely to suffer exceptional hardship by reason of its duration. Exceptional hardship would include, of course, a man running a business which would have to close down in his absence, or a lady looking after children or sick or elderly relatives.’
He looked over his spectacles at the jury, a small man with a brown wrinkled face like an old walnut, and Potter found it hard to believe that in his youth he had been a brilliant horseman who had once come close to winning the Grand National.
The jury fidgeted and glanced at each other as he spoke – a collection of nameless, faceless people who, by their collective powers of reasoning, were to decide the result of the case. Potter scanned them carefully, looking for any who might have the personality to sway the others. For the most part, he decided, they were pretty nondescript. There was one white-haired, white-moustached man of around sixty who looked as though he could have been a senior officer in the army at some time – one up for Prideaux, he thought – but at the other end of the row there was another man with a battered square face and what looked like a scar on his chin. Ex-ranker, Potter decided – one up for Higgins, unless, of course, he was an ex-sergeant-major, in which case he would be more likely to come down hard on the side of military discipline in the person of Prideaux instead of anarchy in the person of Higgins.
The judge was speaking again, a small figure against dark green curtains. ‘This case,’ he was saying, ‘concerns the period of civil war in Russia that followed the Great War of 1914–1918, and owing to the inflamed feelings of the time, if anyone has any strong political beliefs, I would be glad if he or she would say so.’ Again no one spoke and the judge
nodded to Prideaux’s counsel to open the case.
Sir Gordon Kirkham was a stout man with heavy eyebrows and a chin that swept down to his chest apparently without the intervention of a neck. He seemed enormous to Potter as he stood in front of his papers, surrounded by junior counsel, both hands clutching his gown at the chest and rocking back and forth on his heels as he spoke, easily and indifferently, like an actor at a first rehearsal, as though he were holding himself in check and reserving the histrionics for later in the case. He was speaking in the rich resonant voice which had won him so many cases in the past and, with the facts as they were, gave him a good chance of winning this one. He was known to be rude, arrogant, overbearing and ruthless, and had a reputation for browbeating a court into giving him the verdict he wanted.
‘At the end of November last year,’ he was saying, ‘just after the crisis that sent the Prime Minister to Munich – in the news magazine, Comment, there appeared a series of articles on British generals. The international climate being what it was in that year of grace, 1938, and indeed what it still unhappily remains, it has become normal for magazines and newspapers to study military form rather as if they were discussing the runners at Ascot.’
There was a faint titter from the gallery, and one or two members of the jury smiled, then Godliman looked up, frowning, and the murmur died.
‘Various eminent soldiers,’ Kirkham continued, ‘were mentioned, week by week, as being candidates for the posts of Chief of Imperial General Staff, Quartermaster-General, and Commander-in-Chief of any British Expeditionary Force that might be sent abroad in the event of trouble. These were pure speculation, of course, because war had not been declared and still has not, thank God! But, since the Prime Minister’s return from Munich and in view of the continued aggressiveness on the other side of the Rhine, the thoughts of the more eminent of our political and military commentators turn to the possibility; and, inevitably, springing from that, to whom will be in charge when and if – though God forbid! – war should come.’
The ominousness of the international scene seemed to be brought into the very courtroom with the words – all the sabre-rattling on the Continent and the anxious murmurings of Foreign Ministers. Faces which had been smiling a moment before were grave again at once because, in spite of the Prime Minister’s announcement after his journey the previous autumn to see Hitler, that there was to be peace, subsequent events had led everyone to doubt the accuracy of his statement. Gas masks and air raid shelters didn’t seem to indicate harmony and concord.
‘Very well!’ Sir Gordon Kirkham gestured with his brief. ‘This, then, is the atmosphere from which springs this action. No comment was made when other generals’ names were mentioned. Lord Gort’s name aroused no sign of animosity. Neither did Sir Edmund Ironside’s. But the article on Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Prideaux produced a different effect. Two days later, a letter was received at the office of Comment from the defendant, George Phelps Higgins, a former subordinate of the General’s.
‘The article on General Prideaux had quite naturally referred to his action against Bolshevik or Communist forces at Dankoi in Russia in 1919 and dealt at length with his deployment of his troops, his orders before and after the charge, and the charge itself. The letter that it provoked was published in the next issue. This is the letter of which we complain. This is the letter which is the crux of this whole action. That letter was short, suggested that General Prideaux’s reputation was somewhat undeserved as it was based largely on the action at Dankoi, and concluded with these words:’
Sir Gordon Kirkham paused and everyone craned forward to hear. ‘“Whatever has been said about General Prideaux’s success in launchingand leading the charge against the Red forces at Dankoi in 1919, the truth is that before – and after – the action at Dankoi, when it came to leading and giving orders, General Prideaux (or Colonel Prideaux as he was then) was noticeably not among those present when he was wanted.”’
Kirkham stopped and let the words hang on the silence of the court, then he drew a breath and read again. ‘“Before – and after – the action at Dankoi, when it came to leading and giving orders, General Prideaux was noticeably not among those present when he was wanted.”’
He looked up and spoke briskly, arrogantly almost. ‘Milord, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said, ‘those words are the kernel of this case. “He was not present when he was wanted.” To the plaintiff those words mean only one thing: That he did not order and lead the charge at Dankoi and that therefore he is not a man of honour because that great reputation he now bears has been acquired through deceit and false pretences. To the plaintiff these words can mean nothing else.’
There was another pause and a scattering of whispering in the public gallery, and the scarfaced juryman, Potter noticed gloomily, leaned forward for a better look at Higgins.
‘These are terrible accusations to make against a professional soldier,’ Kirkham continued, ‘and can have no other effect but a diminution of his chances of promotion.’ He shook the papers in his hand again to remove the folds in them and the rattle had the effect of drawing attention to the comment.
‘The laws says,’ he went on, ‘that any statement about a person which exposes him to the hatred, ridicule or contempt of his fellow men and lowers him in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally is defamatory, whether it is written or spoken, and is therefore actionable, particularly when it is calculated to disparage a person in any office, profession, calling, trade or business, whether or not spoken of him in connection with the office he holds at that time.
‘We intend’ – Kirkham raised his voice perceptibly – ‘we intend to bring proof that will show beyond all doubt that General Prideaux was present and did lead that charge and that it was his orders that launched his men against the Bolshevik forces.’ His voice dropped. ‘I understand that the defence will seek to prove that these words do not mean what they appear to mean. We shall see about that. The fact that this action took place almost twenty years ago makes no difference to the import of these words. They suggest, in effect, that the plaintiff has been living on a false reputation all that time, and that, since his career really stems from that action, the whole of it since has been a falsehood. The plaintiff, quite rightly, maintains that this suggestion cannot help but have a derogatory effect on his career. And, with events as they are, it has to be admitted that that career could well lead him to the highest positions in the British Commonwealth. We seek to put that right. A distinguished man’s reputation has been impugned. We claim damages as high as we can go.’
* * *
There was a murmur in the court and a lot of whispering. Godliman let it continue for a while, then he gazed round the public gallery and the whispering stopped.
‘Pray proceed, Sir Gordon,’ he said mildly.
Kirkham was holding his papers in front of him now, his head up, with the theatrical touch of a great actor. The judge moved his notes, his face tranquil, waiting for the next step.
‘My lord,’ Kirkham’s resonant voice filled the courtroom once more, ‘before we hear the plaintiff’s account of what, happened on that November day twenty years ago, it will be necessary to outline the events that preceded it and to explain how it was that British officers and soldiers came to be scattered across Russia from Archangel to Ekaterinodar, from Omsk to Merv, and from the Pamirs to Vladivostok.’
There was a pause and a few papers shuffled as the court settled itself back to listen. The murmur of whispering from among the fashionable hats and furs in the public gallery died away.
‘It began,’ Kirkham’s voice brought them all to attention, ‘with the Bolshevik coup in November, 1917, that virtually ended Russia’s participation in the Great War, and ended with the defeat of the anti-Communist leaders, Admiral Kolchak in Siberia in 1919, and General Wrangel in the Crimea at the end of 1920 – three years of revolution and bitter civil war.’ He paused. ‘This is old stuff now,’ he said, ‘the warp
and weave of a worn carpet, and much of it has been forgotten. How many people nowadays have heard of the epic struggle of the Czechoslovaks in their effort to return home round the world, a hundred thousand men fighting their way from the Ukraine to Vladivostok and holding Siberia for almost a year en route? What of the intrigues and bloodshed in Mongolia; of British gun-boats fighting on the Volga and the Caspian, the French mutiny at Odessa, and the mutiny on the Dvina where British officers were murdered in their beds by their Rusrasian soldiers? What of the thousands of homeless refugees who fled into the wilderness of Central Asia to escape the advancing Red armies or died by the wayside or in mud hovels on the Kirghiz steppes or the barren lands of the Chinese border?’
Kirkham had grasped the attention, of everyone in the court and there was a distinct leaning forward as he cleared his throat and continued.
‘In Siberia and South Russia,’ he went on slowly, ‘awkward young peasants in the khaki of King George V fought half-heartedly against their own countrymen, deserting in droves to the enemy whenever they could, and thousands of refugees lived for months in trains in railway sidings in indescribable filth and misery, while British troops paraded through Omsk, and British-trained Russian cadets arrived from the base to officer the volunteer levies against the Bolsheviks.’
Kirkham paused again, glancing at his brief. ‘It is a story of tragedy and suffering,’ he went on, ‘of comedy and futility; with inefficiency, senseless waste, spineless leadership, bigotry, cowardice and treachery all going hand in hand. Only the rarer cases of heroism such as the one we will hear of in this court can rescue the period of the Allied intervention in Russia from the realms of comic opera.
‘That intervention has been – and still is – severely criticised by both extremes of public opinion. From the militarist point of view, too few troops were sent to help the anti-Bolshevik forces and no concerted action was taken to drive the Soviet leaders from power. The opposite opinion condemns the episode as an unjustifiable adventure which only added hardships to the population of Russia and had no object but to replace the hated Romanov oligarchy in authority.’
