Never within the memory of the oldest members had such excitement been caused in the various Service clubs as on the day when the court-martial for trial of Lieutenant Robert Wingate, of the Tank Corps, began. It seemed impossible to credit such allegations as those made against this young officer. For an Englishman, holding the King’s commission, to scheme deliberately to sell secrets of military importance to a foreign country—and a country, at that, with whom the nation might shortly find itself at war—why, it was utterly fantastic.
And yet, as the front pages of the evening newspapers showed, it was true.
There, printed in heavy type, were the stunning words of the barrister-soldier, Major Arthur Bingham, from the Military and Air Force Department of the Judge-Advocate General, who was acting as prosecutor:—
I will be frank. It is the contention of the prosecution that Lieutenant Wingate betrayed his country for the sum of £100.
Long before the trial was due to start in the large library of the Chelbridge barracks, it had become known that the proceedings would be invested with much of the meretricious glamour peculiar to the cinema and popular fiction. For instance, evidence would be given by Secret Service agents whose names and methods could not be disclosed; the evidence of those who had brought the alleged traitor to justice would be given and special precautions taken to keep their identities secret. The chief actors on the enemy’s side, it was known, were a reputedly beautiful woman agent and a man who had been prominently connected with the German Secret Service during the World War.
Altogether, a feast of unparalleled sensations was promised—and those who had waited sufficiently long to be fortunate enough to get seats among the “Public” were not disappointed.
There were two principal charges against the accused, stated the Judge-Advocate in opening the proceedings: the fact that the accused “did on or about the eighteenth of September, 1935, for a purpose prejudicial to the interests of the State, give to another person certain designs of a military importance which might be useful to an enemy,” and the second, “that on September 22, 1935, he did collect at Woolvington certain information which might be useful to an enemy power, the said information dealing with the construction of a new type of tank.”
In reply to both charges the prisoner replied in a firm, clear voice the plea of “Not Guilty.”
The prosecutor, a short, thickly-built man in uniform, addressing the Court, which was presided over by Major-General Sir Somerset Faunthorpe, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., then proceeded to outline his case.
After using the words quoted above, he said:
“The accused is a Lieutenant in the Tank Corps and has been stationed with his unit at Woolvington. Up to the time that suspicion was first cast on his actions he had the reputation—it is only right that I should make this statement—of being a keen, efficient and zealous officer.
“Early in September he applied for leave and, as this was his due, permission was granted. I would point out that, in making his application, he stated that he intended to visit Paris; no mention was made of his proceeding to any other country. No doubt he was aware that if he had asked for permission to visit Ronstadt, leave of absence for that purpose would not have been granted; and yet, as the evidence of certain witnesses (witnesses whose statements are very necessary, but whose identities will not be made public) will go to show, the accused certainly did go to Ronstadt—in short, to Pé, the capital of that country.
“While in Paris, he applied at the British Embassy for a visa to visit Pé. He did not disclose the fact that he was a military officer; he posed, while making this application, as a civilian. It is an important point to be noted.
“Evidence will be brought before you to prove that, while on the Paris-Pé express, the accused got into conversation with a man named Ritter, a person employed by the Ronstadt Intelligence Service, and that the two of them spent considerable time talking together in a secluded part of the dining-saloon.
“Arrived at Pé, the accused did not sleep at the Hotel Poste, where he registered, but proceeded to a guest-house, run as a kind of annex to the hotel.
“Now it will be proved to the entire satisfaction of the Court, I believe, that this guest-house is a meeting-place for all branches of Ronstadt Secret Service operatives,” proceeded the prosecutor, raising his voice from its previous monotone; “and it was during his first evening at this guest-house that the accused met, and became friendly with, a very attractive woman calling herself Minna Braun. She was a successful spy for the Germans during the last war, and is now known to be in the service of the Ronstadt Intelligence. That much will be proved to you on the evidence of reliable witnesses.
“The two of them—this professional seductress, for that is her mission in life, and the young British officer, who was in Pé ostensibly as a civilian—became very friendly. The accused does not deny that he spent the whole of the following day with her, visiting cafés and a cinema. Although he himself did not realise the fact, eyes were watching him, and there was no single moment of that day when he and his fascinating companion were not under the closest supervision. Even”—and here the speaker paused, weighing every word—“when she went to his room at something after one o’clock in the morning.”
At this point it was noticed that the girl shorthand-writer, for whose presence Sir Brian Fordinghame had applied in order that a complete “note” of the evidence might be obtained, leaned her head on one hand, while her face became very pale.
A reporter, more omniscient than even the average of his kind, leaning towards his neighbour, whispered: “Her name’s Rosemary Allister; daughter of the banker. Engaged or something to Wingate.”
“And his old man is a Colonel in M.I.5—boy, what a story!” came the rejoinder. “Well, the kid’s taking it on the chin all right. He doesn’t look a swine.”
“No.” The journalist who had opened the conversation glanced at the notes he intended to incorporate into the descriptive sketch he was due to write of the proceedings for the Morning Meteor. “Accused, handsome, soldierly bearing…looks anything but a traitor…serious but composed.”
The voice of the prosecutor continued:
“What happened at that meeting I cannot tell you. It may be that the woman offered the usual price in such transactions, but the contention of the prosecution is that it was at this moment that the accused handed over the designs of the new anti-tank weapon, the selling of which forms Charge No. 1 and the most important part of this prosecution.
“At any rate, there can be no possible doubt that either then or on the following day the accused was handed two fifty-pound notes, representing either the whole or part payment for the treachery of which the prosecution contends he was guilty. While a great deal of the evidence in this case is—and I admit it at this early stage—circumstantial, I shall hope to prove quite clearly that these two notes of fifty pounds each were paid to the accused while he was in Pé and by a certain agent of this foreign power. Later you will have his banking account placed in front of you, and you will be able to see that at no time during the material period were any other payments of similar sums made to him. I reiterate that the accused, for this sum, and possibly the promise of others, betrayed his country. It is a very grave accusation to make against any one, let alone a man wearing His Majesty’s uniform, and it is one which should not be made unless there is evidence to support it. There is evidence to support it, as you will hear.
“After receiving the payment, the accused did not linger in Pé; possibly he had received definite instructions from those with whom he had done business; at any rate, we find him travelling back to Paris the following morning by air liner. He had not wasted much time in the Ronstadt capital.
“He was observed standing about in the rue Danou in Paris, looking for what may have been an address or a certain person. Perhaps realising that he had rendered himself liable to a certain amount of suspi
cion, he returned the next day to London, also by air. His leave was not yet up.
“Now comes a very significant fact: although, as I have said, he was not due to rejoin his unit for some days, he proceeded straight to Woolvington. Is it too much to presume that, acting on the instructions of his paymasters, he was anxious to obtain other information of a military nature which they in turn were eager to secure? The reason he gave his brother officers to explain why he returned to Woolvington was that he was to attend a dinner of the Old Boys’ Society of his Public School, Repington. Although he took his mess uniform away with him the following day (he spent that night at Woolvington), he did not attend this dinner—he was otherwise engaged.
“Now, as it happened, on the morning following his unexpected arrival at his unit, a new type of tank was to be demonstrated at Woolvington. Evidence will be brought before you to show that he attended these trials and later went to the engineering shops and asked a good many questions from the sergeant-instructor in charge. That afternoon he returned to London. This was the twenty-second of September.
“Proceeding to his club, he was handed a telegram. The club porter will say in his evidence that he evinced considerable agitation after reading the telegram. Perhaps he did not expect to be summoned abroad again so quickly. That message summoned him to a meeting—an immediate meeting—at The Hague. Who but his paymasters could have required his presence in Holland? That night, the accused caught the eight o’clock train from Liverpool Street Station to Harwich, and took the night boat to the Hook of Holland. Before he went, being perhaps still in a state of agitation, he gave the case containing his mess uniform in charge of the club porter, explaining that he was obliged to ‘cut’ the Old Boys’ dinner; he was going abroad.
“At shortly after ten o’clock on the morning that he arrived at The Hague, his destination, he was observed seated in the lounge of the Hotel Continental, which is situated just off Zeestraat, the main street. A page-boy handed him a note, and in obedience to this obvious summons he went to a room on the second floor of the hotel. In this room he handed to a man, who will be identified by reliable witnesses as another Ronstadt agent, a certain package. Immediately afterwards he returned to London. Directly he rejoined his unit he was placed under arrest, removed to the Tower, and there interrogated.
“He answered all the questions put to him, but the examining officer was not satisfied that he was telling the truth. For example, he found it difficult to believe that the two fifty-pound notes were paid him as the result of visiting a gambling club in Pé and being extremely fortunate in a game of poker—a game at which, he admitted, he was not proficient, having few opportunities to play it. As regards the woman calling herself Minna Braun, who will be identified, as I have said, as a well-known Secret Service agent now working for Ronstadt, he told an astonishing story. He claimed that this woman represented herself to be a French agent and that she came to his bedroom that night because she was anxious for the safety of a package containing certain documents which she had been able to obtain, documents the loss of which she was afraid had been discovered. Fearful of being arrested when these papers were in her possession, she handed them over to him ‘because they are vitally necessary to the future of our joint countries.’ That is his story. I will leave it to the Court to express an opinion on it. It is a fact that plans of a new military weapon to be used against tanks have recently been stolen from this country, and that they have been traced to a certain foreign power—namely, Ronstadt. It is also a fact that their loss coincided with the period during which the accused went to Pé. These facts, in conjunction with his subsequent visit to The Hague, the handing over by him of a certain package after he had witnessed the trials of a new type of Tank, cannot be regarded in any other than a very serious light.
“The accused contends that his visit to The Hague was solely for the purpose of handing over to the woman who called herself ‘Minna Braun,’ but who has many aliases, a certain package which he says she entrusted to his care on the occasion when she visited his bedroom in the early hours of the morning. The woman herself did not meet him—as he had expected from her wire—but sent an emissary, who was duly handed the package. He further contends that he is entirely innocent—on the two main and all the lesser charges.”
***
The officer from the Judge-Advocate’s office who questioned the accused on the morning after his arrival at the Tower was an early important witness. After agreeing with the prosecutor’s statement that he was not satisfied with the prisoner’s replies (“although he spoke with great frankness”), he was cross-examined by the Accused’s Friend.
Considerable surprise had been expressed that the prisoner’s father had not engaged a well-known professional pleader like the famous Casson, until the President asked Mallory if he would care to be addressed by his military rank of Major, to which he was still entitled.
“He’s an ex-Regular, then?” whispered one pressman to another.
“Yes—that’s why Wingate’s old man’s given him the job; he’ll know all the tricks.”
“You have said that the prisoner answered all your questions with great frankness?” Mallory began.
“That is so.”
“Then why were you not satisfied?”
“I felt he was keeping something back.”
“The two facts are scarcely compatible, surely?”
The witness flushed.
“I have told the Court my impression.”
“What gave you this impression?”
“I cannot say exactly. It may have been an occasional hesitancy on his part.”
“He admitted having met the man who called himself Sandor on the train?”
“Yes.”
“Can you give me any reason why the accused, who knew nothing of Intelligence methods, should be able to recognise on sight a Secret Service agent of another country?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me why a young man, on holiday in a foreign country, should refuse the company of an attractive visitor at the same hotel?”
“No, providing—”
“I was coming to that,” cut in the Accused’s Friend; “providing, of course, that he is entirely ignorant of the fact that, to use the picturesque if somewhat lurid words of the prosecution, she is a ‘professional seductress’ and a character borrowed from the realm of fiction. Granted those premises—and the accused in his evidence will swear that he had no idea of the lady’s real mission in life—can you advance any reason why Lieutenant Wingate should not have spent a day in her company—or have entertained her in his bedroom?”
The witness, conscious of a growing titter at the back of the Court, flushed a deeper red.
“The woman was a foreign spy,” he said at length.
“Will you please answer my question and not make comments?”
“You must answer the question,” prompted the Judge-Advocate.
“Since you put it that way—no,” replied the witness, turning to his cross-examiner.
“Thank you. Now you realise, of course, the extreme importance of the interview you had with this young officer?”
“Yes—from his point of view.”
“Did it occur to you at the time that you might be called as a witness?”
“No.”
“You swear that?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” The man acting in the capacity of defending counsel sat down, and shortly afterwards the Court adjourned.
***
At the Senior Services—the club which had been the scene of so much animated discussion of the case during the previous three weeks—the talk was of nothing but the court-martial that evening. In one corner of the smoking-room, a particularly heated argument was proceeding between a young “ace” of the R.A.F. and an elderly major who had “Indian Retired List” written all over him.
“Damnable.…I hope he gets five years…deserves it…ought to be publicly flogged as well.…”
The younger man flicked the ash off his cigarette.
“Hold your horses, Major,” he returned, a steely look in his grey eyes; “the fellow hasn’t been found guilty yet.”
“Guilty! Of course he’s guilty! Do you think the authorities would have brought him to trial (and letting in the civilian public, too!) if they hadn’t overwhelming evidence—if they weren’t absolutely certain of a conviction?”
“Then it’s something like shooting a sitting pheasant,” was the irreverent reply. “Well, all the same, Major, I don’t mind making a small bet with you that Wingate gets off.”
“Do you want to lose your money, young man?”
“I don’t mind giving a fiver a run.”
“I’ll take the bet; it will teach you a lesson. But I should like to know the reasons for your absurd confidence.”
“I haven’t any reasons; I’m just backing my fancy. It’s ridiculous, in my opinion, to think that a fellow like Wingate (you should have seen him to-day) would be a traitor—especially for a paltry hundred quid. He isn’t the type.”
“Traitors have sold their country before this young man for less than a hundred pounds.”
“Well, I maintain that the whole thing is just so much cock-eye. Any one would think the Army crush were staging one of old man Sardou’s spy-dramas: why do they insist upon the foreign witnesses being cloaked?”
“You damned well don’t know what you are talking about!” exploded his opponent, rising from his chair and stamping from the room.
“I’ll make it a tenner if you like,” was the flying officer’s parting taunt.
***
Down in Fleet Street, the editor of the Evening Sun, returning to the office after hours in order to plan the next day’s campaign, was holding a secret conference with his star reporter and his most intrepid photographer.
“There’s a story behind these hooded witnesses, and I want you to get it,” he said.
The Traitor Page 18