At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [135]
Shearing breathed a faint sigh. “There is no good solution, Reavley. Faulkner is simply the best we have—”
“I don’t see how,” Matthew interrupted him bitterly. “He’s—”
“I know what he is!” Shearing snapped. “If you think about it a little harder, use your brain rather than your emotions, you might see it yourself.”
“He’ll insist on the charge of mutiny and murder,” Matthew said wretchedly. “General Northrup might have moderated it, to save his son’s reputation, but from what everyone says of Faulkner, there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance he’ll go for anything less than the full thing, and a firing squad—no matter what a rank injustice it is, who gets executed, or even what it does to the regiment, or even the whole damn Western Front! He’s an obsessive, single-vision martinet.” His anger and helplessness made him louder than he had intended.
“That is precisely what he is, and it is the single weakness that may, with great skill and luck, be turned against him.” Shearing’s voice was elaborately patient as he held up his hand, fingers stiff. “There are three possible verdicts: guilty of mutiny and murder, guilty of mutiny and manslaughter, or guilty of gross insubordination and accidental death—for all except the man who deliberately front-loaded the live round. He alone is guilty of murder.”
“Faulkner will insist on mutiny and murder,” Matthew interrupted him. “Even mutiny and manslaughter will get the firing squad. They might be able to delay it a while on appeal, but what use is that? The end is just as inevitable, and everyone knows it.”
“Which is why there is no use finding a prosecution who will go for the middle charge,” Shearing said grimly.
Matthew still saw no hope. “There’s no way Faulkner will accept gross insubordination!”
Shearing’s lips were drawn into a tight line. “Of course there isn’t! He will insist on murder, and if we can get the right man to defend Cavan and the other men, he will force Faulkner to prove it, to the very last act and word, even thought, beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or unreasonable. He will hang on like a bulldog, until the arena is swimming in blood, but he won’t let go.”
Matthew was stunned.
Shearing’s voice was very low. “It will destroy Howard Northrup’s reputation, but for his father it will be like seeing him killed again. It will show the court exactly why Cavan and Morel and the others felt they had no choice whatever, no morally acceptable choice, but to take an action which they believed would save the lives of at least some of the men they led, and who trusted them, for whom the army had made them responsible.”
At last Matthew understood. He breathed out very slowly. “It’s a hell of a risk, sir.”
“Can you think of something better?”
“No,” Matthew admitted. “Have you got a military lawyer with the nerve to do that? And the knowledge of the front line?”
Shearing smiled with a bitter irony. “No. It’s customary for an officer from the regiment to defend on lesser charges. I think the very best they can do is pick one of them this time….”
Matthew was appalled. “Against Faulkner? His opponent will be cruficied!”
There was a bright, hard light in Shearing’s eyes. “It doesn’t need a brilliant student of the law, Reavley. It needs a man of passion, courage, and undeviating loyalty, a man who knows the accused and what they have endured, and why. A man who will be prepared to sacrifice himself before he will stand by and allow an injustice to be done. A man whom the court will respect as one of their own.”
Matthew could feel his heart pounding in the oppressive room with its still, hot air. “And you have such a man?”
“Naturally! He knows the case better than anyone else, and he believes in their moral innocence. Also, he does not know when he is beaten, so he will not give up.”
“Joseph…”
“Precisely,” Shearing agreed. “I have an excellent man there to brief him. Let’s hope he does not get himself killed in the meantime!”
In Passchendaele the fighting wore on. A sense of foreboding filled the air they breathed, the clothes they wore,