The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

Author:Elizabeth Speller [Speller, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2011-07-06T00:36:43+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

'Why did you have to defend Hart anyway?'

Brabourne shrugged as he lit his cigarette. 'Well, somebody had to. He was in my regiment. My father died when I was young but he'd been a barrister. KC in criminal law. Mostly to please my mother I was supposed to be going the same route. I was a pupil in chambers: Paper Court, strings pulled, shoehorns applied. Outcome, disappointment all round. I hated it and suddenly the war came and there was a way out. So I'd had some experience of advocacy, though not much. Fat lot of good it did Hart. Frankly they were only giving lip service to the conventions anyway.'

'Was the court martial fair?' asked Laurence. He wasn't sure whether any of this was relevant to John but having heard Byers' disturbing version of Hart's execution, he wanted to get a sense of the whole episode.

'Fair? What a question. It was a full-field, general court martial, of course, as he was an officer. Would he have been convicted in a peacetime court? No. Would he have been shot if he were a private? Probably. Did guiltier men than he escape prosecution? Undoubtedly. Were there grounds for leniency? Certainly; the board made a unanimous recommendation for mercy. And I gather some, at least, were appalled to find the sentence had been confirmed. Were they out to make an example of somebody? Unquestionably.

'But was the sentence unjust in the circumstances?' He appeared to think it over. 'No, not really. But hard? Very. The evidence was hardly substantial. It was the handling of the whole affair that was cruel. They took six weeks to decide to act against him in the first place and that hiatus had persuaded him that there wouldn't be any court martial. In the event, he had less than two days to prepare a defence, though proper procedures were just about followed. A court martial isn't really an inquiry. It's not like a court case at the Old Bailey. There's no real cross-examining, just statements with an assumption the truth is being told—except by the defendant.'

He stopped and examined his cigarette, which was burning fast, and then drew on it almost experimentally. 'About a hundred years old,' he said, 'my brother got them in Turkey.' He paused for a moment. 'You know how it all came about?'

Laurence shook his head. 'I don't know anything about what he did.'

Ah.' Brabourne said nothing for a while. The cigarette looked close to catching fire completely.

'Do you have the time for this now?' Laurence asked.

'I'll tell you what,' Brabourne said. 'I do need to meet someone actually. Old friend now at the Bar. Come with me. Have a quick drink at the Cock. He's invariably late.'

He stood up without waiting for a reply, took what looked like an old naval duffel coat from a hook on the back of the door and let Laurence follow him down several flights of stone stairs.

***

They came out of the square and turned right into Fleet Street.

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