At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [154]
Joseph chose his question very carefully. “Did your son’s business succeed or fail?”
“It failed.”
Joseph was aware of Faulkner tense in his seat, ready to spring to his feet any moment. He would need only a shred of a chance.
“Might it be possible that Corporal Geddes could believe that was Major Northrup’s fault, whether it was or not?”
“It…” Northrup swallowed, a flash of gratitude in his eyes, there and then gone again instantly. “He might have believed it, yes.”
“Thank you, General Northrup. That is all I have to ask you, sir.”
Faulkner shot to his feet, stared at Northrup’s ashen face, then very slowly sat down again. “I have nothing to add to this…this fiasco,” he said angrily.
Hardesty looked at Northrup. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “The court has nothing further to say, either.”
In a room electric with hostility, Faulkner made a closing speech demanding justice against one man who had committed murder, and eleven others whose act of mutiny had condoned it and made them accessories both before and after the fact. He requested that the court sentence them all to death, for the sake of law, justice, and the values the army and the country stood for. He demanded that they not allow sentimentality or fear of the enemy to dissuade them from doing their duty.
He sat down again, still with the court in utter silence.
Joseph stood up.
“The circumstances of this war are unlike anything we have ever known before,” he began. “A man who has not floundered in the mud of no-man’s-land, faced every fire, and seen his friends and his brothers torn apart by shellfire, riddled with bullets, or gassed to death, cannot even imagine what courage it takes to face it not just day after day, but year after year. Many of us will never leave here. We know that, and we accept it. Almost all of us came here because we wished to, we came to fight for the land and the people we love, our own people.”
He took a deep breath. He realized with surprise how passionately he believed what he was saying. “But in order to walk into hell, we need the loyalty of our brothers, whether of blood and kin, or of common cause. We have to trust them without question, trust that they will share with us their last piece of bread, the warmth of their bodies in the ice of winter, and that they will never sacrifice our lives uselessly, on the altars of their own pride, or expect us to pay the price of their ignorance. If you will follow a man into the darkness and the mouth of the guns, then you have to know beyond question that he will do the same for you, that he will give all he has to be the leader you believe him to be.”
He was speaking to Hardesty and the two men beside him, in whose hands judgment rested, but he faced the body of the court.
“Captain Morel and Captain Cavan, and nine of the other ten men here, took the action of trying to curb Major Northrup in order to fulfill the duty of trust they know their men placed in them.
“They were guilty of gross insubordination. It was the price they were willing to pay to save the lives of their fellows. They will accept judgment for that at the hands of their peers, of men who know what it is to be a soldier at Passchendaele, and they will serve whatever punishment those men decide is just, because they have walked the same path.”
He sat down again, the sweat prickling on his skin, his heart pounding. “Thank you, Captain,” Hardesty said quietly. He looked at the men on either side of him. “Gentlemen, we shall return to the farmhouse kitchen in case there are any points of law you wish to consider.” He rose to his feet and Apsted and Simmons went out after him.
Not a man or woman left the court. No one even spoke. Minutes ticked by.
Hardesty, Apsted, and Simmons returned.
Joseph found his heart beating so violently he gagged on his own breath.
As the junior officer, Simmons gave his verdict first.
“I find Corporal John Geddes guilty of murder,” he said quietly. Then he listed the names of all the others, which seemed interminable.