At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [149]
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
The 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 formally.
“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