At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [153]
“I am suggesting, sir, that your loyalty to your own men supersedes all honor or balance or judgment on your part. Fighting together in these appalling circumstances, and your fearful losses, have warped your judgment and upset the balance of your thinking. We have no one’s word for it but yours and Captain Morel’s that any of these events in Major Northrup’s home village ever took place.”
“Are those your last questions to me?” Joseph found his voice was trembling and there were pins and needles tingling in his fingers. The last chance, the one he had been hoping to avoid since the beginning, was now facing him.
“They are,” Faulkner replied with a gleam of satisfaction.
Joseph turned to Hardesty. “Sir, I need to call one last witness who can substantiate the greater part of what I have said.”
“Who is it, Captain Reavley?”
“General Northrup, sir.”
Hardesty stared at him, eyes wide, questioning.
Joseph stared back. The fact that he had made the decision did not lessen his revulsion at it.
“Very well,” Hardesty agreed. “General Northrup, sir. Will you take the stand.” It was an order, not a request. There was no choice for either of them.
Slowly, as if his whole body ached, Northrup rose to his feet and walked forward, back straight, shoulders angular and rigid. He was sworn in and turned to face Joseph. There was nothing gentle in his face, no silent plea for mercy. He looked like a man facing his execution. It seemed Faulkner had convinced him that Joseph was utterly partisan, a man without justice, only blind loyalty to his own, regardless of innocence or guilt.
Joseph wavered. He longed to be able to prove him wrong. He had mercy, honor, a sense of justice being for all, as it was for none. But his calling here was to fight for his own men, and that did not allow him space to cover Major Howard Northrup’s weaknesses with mercy. He wanted General Northrup to know that, to understand. He realized in the same moment that to do the right thing was necessary, to need to be seen to do it was a luxury, even a self-indulgence, and completely irrelevant.
“General Northrup,” he began, his voice firmer than he had expected. “Would you confirm for the court that you live at Wood End Manor in Gloucestershire, and that your son Major Howard Northrup grew up there, and lived there until the outbreak of war in 1914?”
“That is correct,” Northrup replied coldly.
“Did Corporal Geddes’s family live in the same village at that time?”
“Yes.”
“Did Corporal John Geddes’s father become involved in a business venture with Major Northrup?”
General Northrup stiffened, his face pink. “I did not concern myself in my son’s financial affairs,” he replied quietly.
Joseph loathed doing it, but his voice was perfectly steady. “Every man in this court would understand your desire to protect your son’s name, sir, but you are under oath, and other men’s lives depend upon your honesty—good men, soldiers like yourself. Are you swearing on your word as an officer that you at no time involved yourself, financially or otherwise, in your son’s business affairs?”
Northrup’s face burned scarlet. “I…I lent him money when it was…necessary. Once or twice. Not…not as a habit, sir.”
“Would it be truthful to say that you indulged many of his desires, and that when he overspent, you paid his debts?” Joseph pressed. “Or did you never do that?”
“I did it…. It was a matter of honor,” Northrup said savagely. Hiseyes blazed in sockets so shadowed as to seem hollows in the bones of his head. He had aged bitterly in the weeks since his son’s body had been found.
“Did the Geddes family lose their home?”
Northrup’s hand jerked up. He drew his breath in as if to deny it, then remained silent.
“Is the Geddes family still in the home in which Corporal Geddes grew up?” Joseph insisted. “If necessary we can find out, but it will delay proceedings, surely pointlessly. The answer will be the same. Is it something you wish to hide?”
Faulkner rose to his feet, and Hardesty waved him sharply down again.
“No,