A Keen Soldier by Andrew Clark

Author:Andrew Clark [Clark, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36873-7
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2004-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

12.

A CRAZY THING TO DO

Harold Pringle’s court martial was Captain Norman Bergman’s first murder trial.1 In fact, it was his first trial of any kind. Still, Bergman was confident; he came from a lawyer’s family and saw this trial as a golden opportunity to distinguish himself. With only seven days to prepare, he worked feverishly to build a case. By the time the court martial began, he was convinced he could win.

Yet it quickly became clear that he was waging an uphill battle. The first day of the trial was spent establishing basic legal facts. A witness, for example, was called to identify Lucky’s picture as that of John Norman McGillivary. Sergeant Joseph Ryan was called in to testify about the discovery of the body. On February 16, 1945, the prosecution called Harold’s former flatmate Bill Holton to testify. The British deserter’s testimony seemed so perjured that it enraged Bergman. On February 17, in the midst of his cross-examination, the lawyer from Manitoba was so furious that his disdain for Holton poured off him. It was not just Holton Bergman was angry with; he was incensed by what he saw as a panel and president slanted against his client. He took this anger out on Bill Holton.

“Do you realize today what you are saying?” Bergman asked Holton, who sat on the witness chair looking well scrubbed and fresh.

“Yes.”

“Do you realize someone’s life hangs on what you are saying?”

“Yes.”

“You are off scot-free so it does not matter what you say,” Bergman continued. He paused. The disgust registered on his face. He spoke to Holton as a nasty schoolteacher might address a child. “Does it?”

Here, the court martial’s judge advocate interrupted, saying, “That is a matter for the Court.”

If so, it was a mere technicality. Bergman was right: Holton was not going to spend one minute in prison. The British Judge Advocate General had given him complete immunity in exchange for his testimony, and they were getting their money’s worth. Holton was proving a measured witness, at ease and yet not overconfident. While he testified, Holton avoided Harold’s stare as best he could. Harold, who was under close police guard, sat and listened to the man he had invited into his flat off the Via Appia do his best to incriminate him. Like Holton, Harold was clean-shaven and decked out smartly in his uniform. Yet the boy from Flinton was not smiling anymore. That grin had disappeared at ten in the morning on February 14, when the panel had been brought into the courtroom for the first time. The charge had been read: “That the accused, C5292, Private Pringle, H. J., did commit a civil offence, that is to say, murder, in that he, in the Field, in Italy, on or about November 1, 1944, murdered F55044 Pte McGillivray [sic],2 J. N., a soldier of the Canadian Army Overseas.” Harold had entered his plea: not guilty.

By the trial’s third day, both former members of the Sailor Gang sat before the seven-man panel. Along with the president, Dr.

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