Small wars: a novel by Sadie Jones

Author:Sadie Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Cyprus - History - British rule, Historical, Cyprus, Fiction:Historical, British, General, Military spouses, British - Cyprus, War & Military, Fiction, 1878-1960
ISBN: 9780061929885
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-01-19T08:58:20.862000+00:00

Chapter Eight

The summary hearings were held immediately, within forty-eight hours of the crimes being reported.

Both Colonel Burroughs’s and Hal’s offices were too small to hold all the people required, so they were assigned a room at the club that was sometimes used for private dinners. There was a big polished table, various dim photographs on the walls and louvred blinds to keep out the sun. Grieves would be first.

The procedure was as official and court-like as possible, given the circumstances. The room was full of people; Grieves was under guard, and pale. Officers from the army and the RMP, as well as a plainclothes SIB man, were there, and Lieutenant Davis, who came in last.

Much time was spent deciding where everyone ought to stand, with murmured politeness and shuffling of papers.

Hal was on Burroughs’s right; he stood rigid and correct. Physically uncomfortable as he was, he felt peace bordering on the blissful.

The heat of all the men, in their stiff uniforms but sweating underneath them, thickened the atmosphere quite quickly and the smell of Greek cigarettes mixed with the air. Tumblers of water, glinting, were arranged next to a jug in the middle of the table and were untouched. There was a thin white cloth over the jug, with beaded edges to stop it slipping, so that no flies could get into the water but flies circled and landed and circled all through the hearing.

The colonel asked the questions, and occasionally spoke in an undertone to his adjutant, who was the only man seated, and held a fountain pen, although he did not write.

Francke was sent for; he came in under guard. He stood opposite Hal and the colonel, flanked by privates.

Hal tried to see something in Francke that perhaps he might have seen before. He pictured him hitting the women’s faces, holding their hair to keep their heads still, as Davis had described. He imagined him kicking the Greek man as he lay down, and saw him on top of the women. He remembered, suddenly, that it had been Francke who had ransacked the old couple’s village house that day. He remembered the bayoneted bedding, smooth oil on the tiles and the olive-wreath plate in pieces. He had known Francke was dangerous. He ought to have checked him. He ought to have done something.

Colonel Burroughs began to question Francke, with Hal’s notes held firmly in front of him, referring to them.

Francke had decided confidence and bluster would get him through. His answers were bold, almost swaggering:

‘Reasonable force, I’d say, sir – only reasonable. But we had to stop them, didn’t we?’

‘No, sir, there was women there, but we never touched ’em.’

‘I saw him coming for me and I shot him – he was coming at me, sir.’

And on.

After Francke, it was Private Miller’s turn. He, too, apparently, had only the vaguest recollection of any women present and didn’t remember Davis being there either. He had seen Francke shoot the man, though, ‘And thank God he did, sir, ’cos if he’d got to him he would’ve killed him, sir.

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