The Interpreter by Alice Kaplan

Author:Alice Kaplan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2005-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

Because I ducked down as I told you…I am not sure that I hit the ground or not but I ducked down and the way that is done is merely to flash the holster up with the thumb, grasp the pistol and use the same motion as you bring it forward, knocking the safety off with the thumb.

“The way that is done”: One of the officers on the court took the bait. How, he asked, had Whittington learned to draw his pistol in the way he described?

D-Day wasn’t even four months behind them, but the Rangers’ feats at Omaha Beach, crawling under enemy fire, scaling the cliffs, were already legendary. The officer wanted to see what an expert Ranger marksman, a Distinguished Shot, looked like in action. Who could be a better model than Whittington?

Colonel Montgomery, the president of the court, ruled: “The witness is certainly under an entirely different mental situation so much so to render such a demonstration of little or no value to the evidence.”

The officers on the court-martial would have to imagine George Whittington in action. Their desire to do so gives us another insight into the court’s understanding of James Hendricks in comparison to George Whittington. Hendricks had fired through a door, chased and assaulted Noémie Bignon, and run from the scene. Afterwards, he couldn’t even remember what happened. His actions and confession showed him to be a person without self-control, overwhelmed by events. By his own account, Whittington had done everything deliberately, with calculation and self-control. His fellow officers perceived him as an agent of his destiny.

If they couldn’t watch him perform, the court wanted to learn more about Whittington’s experience in the war. He explained that his battalion hadn’t been in action since D-Day + 8, when they finished fighting in some towns along the Normandy-Brittany coast. From then until August, they’d been jumped a few times and dealt with snipers, but they hadn’t made any attacks. They were waiting for replacements for the men they’d lost in battle, getting ready to go back into combat at Brest. The 2nd Ranger Battalion had been ambushed, shot up pretty bad, Whittington told them, the night before the shooting, and his 5th Rangers, too, were on the watch for enemy patrols operating near their bivouac area.

In this atmosphere of fear and suspicion of spies, an officer asked, why did Whittington suspect Morand in particular? Because of his speech, Whittington answered, because of what the MI officers said at the bar, and because of what Morand had told him about fighting with the Condor Legion. Again, the Condor story went unchallenged.

The last officer on the panel asked a last question that allowed the Ranger captain to summarize his own defense:

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