by Dudley Pope
The question was asked in a persuasive tone and accompanied by what Goddard no doubt regarded as his winning smile.
Shirley raised his head a fraction, as though resting from his survey of every thread in the canvas stretched over the deck. Before answering, he stood up and walked the three or four paces to Jenkins’ place at the table, retrieved some slips of paper and returned to his seat. He reached under his chair for a leather pouch, opened it and put away the slips, taking out several more.
Only then did he look up at Goddard and say in a monotone: “I have no more questions to put to this witness.”
Goddard sighed and then stared heavy-eyed at Ramage. “Do you have any questions? As he’ll be called later as a defence witness, you must restrict your questions to the points raised by the prosecution.”
“I have some questions, sir.” He turned to Aitken. “The first question asked by the prosecution was to describe your role when the Jason was boarded. You omitted to describe my orders to you before the Calypso went alongside the Jason.”
Ramage was conscious that Goddard’s great bulk was tense; he could imagine the man’s mind working quickly, trying to spot hidden meanings or traps.
“Your orders were brief, sir. I was to lead one of the boarding parties.” He waited while Jenkins wrote the sentence and then looked at Ramage, as if waiting for the next question. Then he added: “And I was to help secure the captain.”
Goddard neither shouted nor banged the table: he was learning quickly how to deal with questions and answers he did not want in the trial minutes. “Strike out the last part of that reply.”
Ramage took a step forward. “May I ask why, sir?”
“Indeed you may; that is your privilege,” Goddard said amiably. “The question is not allowed because it has nothing to do with the question asked by the prosecutor. I warned you about that a few moments ago, and your very first question ignored the warning.”
“But sir, Captain Shirley asked about Lieutenant Aitken’s role. Tell the deputy judge advocate to read out that part of the minutes. If Captain Shirley can ask Lieutenant Aitken about his role, surely I can – I am the one on trial!”
“Your question did not ask Lieutenant Aitken about his role,” Goddard said, his voice oozing with reasonableness. “You asked him what orders you gave him.”
“But my orders concerned his role!” Ramage protested. “He answered that he was to lead a boarding party–”
“Exactly,” snapped Goddard. “That was the answer to the question. If the witness decides that is his answer to the prosecutor’s question, that is the end of it. You can only question him on that.”
Ramage knew that Goddard held too many aces. The president controlled what Jenkins wrote down in the minutes: he controlled the questions asked; he controlled the answers given because he could always order sentences struck out of the minutes on the grounds of them not being relevant. Who could argue – there was no record of – Ramage’s question, the witness’ reply or of Goddard’s reason for striking anything out. In theory the safeguard for the accused (and the witnesses, for that matter) lay in the members of the court, the captains sitting round the table. But those captains, Ramage understood only too well, were serving officers with careers (and therefore promotion) to think about. The defect in the system was in making the president of the court the senior officer. In ports of the United Kingdom it was usually the second-in-command to the commander-in-chief; abroad a flag officer if available, otherwise the senior captain. It would be a bold and foolhardy captain who argued with a flag officer whose gossip, let alone a written report, would lose him his command and ensure that he would stay on half-pay for the rest of his life…on the beach drawing half-pay while the other captains round the table, who had kept their mouths shut, went on to find glory and prize money in battle.
Ramage bowed towards Goddard and said, speaking every word slowly and with deliberate clarity, and watching Jenkins to make sure he entered it all in the minutes: “In view of what you have just said, sir, there are no other questions I can ask this witness.”
Goddard, seeing no ambiguity, said: “Very well, the witness may stand down.”
Jenkins waved his pen at Aitken. “Wait, I must read the minutes back to you and then you must sign them.”
As Jenkins read in a monotone, Aitken caught Ramage’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Ramage gave an imperceptible nod. Aitken had a quick grasp in normal times: in these somewhat unusual circumstances he seemed to be even faster.
Jenkins finished reading and, looking across at Aitken, held up the quill. “Please sign here that the minutes are a true record of the evidence you have given.”
“Ahhhh,” Aitken shook his head, “now there we have a problem, mister. You know quite well the minutes are by no means a true record of the evidence I’ve been giving, so thanking you for your trouble, but I’ll no be signing the noo.”
Shirley continued looking down at the black and white squares painted on the deck canvas, but both Goddard and Jenkins looked at Aitken as though he was a barrel of powder which a fast-burning fuse had only a couple of inches to go.
Goddard smiled reassuringly but his thick lips betrayed his nervousness at this unexpected turn. “My dear Aitken, you must sign the minutes. The regulations, you know.”
“That’s not my understanding of them, if you’ll forgive me, sir. I may be wrong,” he added sorrowfully, and Ramage almost laughed aloud as he saw a flicker of hope cross Goddard’s face. “Aye, I might be wrong, and for that matter so might you, sir. But of course that’s why we have the deputy judge advocate, and why he’s paid extra per diem while the court is sitting, to act as our legal adviser. Would you be good enough, sir, to have him consult the court-martial statutes?”
“Look here, Aitken, you’ll save everyone a great deal of trouble if you just sign the minutes. It won’t do your chances of promotion any good if you get a reputation for fussing about…”
Ramage was staggered at the barefaced threat and suddenly regretted having been responsible for getting Aitken in this, position, and yet curiously thankful that because of the prize money Aitken had earned under his command, he could resign his commission this moment and walk on shore wealthier, in all probability, than any of the twelve captains sitting round the table.
Captain Swinford said unexpectedly but firmly: “I think that the lieutenant has every right to hear what the court-martial statutes have to say on the matter. In all my years, I haven’t come across the point before.”
Captain Royce, sitting next to him, said: “Personally, I’m quite clear on the point. If the witness isn’t satisfied with the minutes, he does not have to sign ’em.”
Swinford said: “I must say, if a witness is expected to sign the minutes as ‘a true record’ of his evidence, then it seems only right that if they aren’t ‘a true record’ he shouldn’t sign ’em.”
Goddard rapped the table. “Clear the court,” he ordered.
“Sir,” Jenkins said meekly, standing up, “the witness and the prisoner are involved in this argument, and if you clear the court, they will be removed from…”
“Oh very well,” Goddard said petulantly, “why don’t you cite some references?”
“I have several here, sir.”
“Well, damnation, why didn’t you mention it? What do they say?”
“They are clear on the point, sir,” Jenkins said. “Quite clear.”
“There you are,” Goddard told Swinford and Royce. “Now I hope you will stop interfering. Sign and leave the court,” he told Aitken.
“But sir,” Jenkins wailed, “the statutes are clear upon the point that a witness should sign the minutes only if he is satisfied they correctly record his evidence.”
Goddard sat with his eyes shut. Clearly, as far as Ramage was concerned, the rear-admiral was trying to recall the earlier part of Aitken’s evidence because, of course, if Aitken refused to sign the minutes then none of his evidence would be admissible. Was there anyt
hing in that evidence that Shirley wanted? After a minute or two, Ramage decided that Goddard could not clearly remember. This was confirmed by Goddard’s next words: “Very well, Lieutenant, if you do not sign the minutes you had better remember my words, and remember that the court can recall you as a witness any time it wishes.”
Jenkins glanced down at his list and turned to the Marine sentry at the door. “Call Mr Southwick, master of the Calypso.”
Southwick was another of the men warned by both the defence and the prosecution that they would be required as witnesses, and he marched in to the great cabin looking unexpectedly smart, sword by his side, hat tucked under his left arm, freshly shaven, and only his hair the usual unruly white mop which had for many years defied brush and comb and responded only to a fresh wind.
Ramage suddenly realized that although he met Southwick many times a day (and had been doing so for several years) he rarely “saw” him in the sense of assessing his character from his appearance. In fact, watching him now as Jenkins administered the oath, Ramage felt he was looking at a stranger he had known well for years, admittedly a truly absurd contradiction. But Southwick obviously stood four-square, a bluff and kindly man, every inch of him a seaman; a man who spoke his mind and whose honesty no other honest man could possibly doubt. That assessment, Ramage thought wryly, ruled out Goddard, who clearly measured every man by his own standards, thus ensuring he lived in a world apparently peopled only by scoundrels.
As soon as Jenkins was back in his chair, Shirley gave him several slips of paper. The man glided, Ramage realized. Again he had the picture of a sad-faced monk in long robes gliding gloomily along a cloister, head down, hands clasped behind his back – or even clutching a rosary to his breast. Quiet, remote from daily life, little understood by laymen who tried (and failed) to relate remoteness to holiness, and in turn understanding little of laymen.
Jenkins read the first question establishing that Southwick had been master of the Calypso on the relevant day and then, holding one of Shirley’s slips of paper, asked: “What was your role in the encounter between the Jason and the Calypso?”
Ramage pictured Shirley sitting in the Jason’s great cabin, thinking hard and then scribbling away, thinking again and reaching for another slip of paper. He could not have thought of a more suitable question (from Southwick’s point of view) to ask the master.
“Knotting and splicing rigging cut by the Jason’s broadside,” he said matter-of-factly, in the same tone of voice that one prosperous farmer might use to discuss with another the improving price of wheat.
Goddard turned to look at Southwick. “I can’t believe that you personally would be knotting and splicing rigging?”
“Masters of ships don’t, sir,” Southwick said politely. “You were expected to understand that I was supervising the work.”
Ramage saw a cunning glint in Goddard’s eyes: he had an ace concealed somewhere. “We can only take notice of what you say, not what you expect us to understand, so strike that answer out, Jenkins,” he said. “I think in fact Captain Shirley wishes to withdraw that question.”
Shirley nodded once without looking up, and Jenkins ostentatiously screwed up the piece of paper and put it to one side. He took up the next slip. Without reading it out he looked at Shirley and, when the captain did not glance up, walked over to him and whispered something. Ramage saw Shirley nod and Jenkins gave him the slip of paper and returned to his chair. That, Ramage guessed, was another question where Southwick’s blunt answer could embarrass the prosecution. He watched as Jenkins picked up the next page.
“When you were on board the Jason, did Captain Shirley make any threatening gesture towards you, or employ any threatening words?”
“No, he seemed to be sleepwalking.”
Goddard tapped the table with his signet ring. “The witness’ answer to the question is ‘No’.”
Captain Swinford said quickly without reference to Goddard: “Mr Southwick, why do you use the word ‘sleepwalking’?”
Southwick grinned. “You remember when I was serving with you in the Canopus, sir, back in – must be ’92? We had that first lieutenant who from time to time would appear on the quarterdeck in his nightshirt, and a midshipman had to be told off to lead him back to his cabin without waking him? Well, he looked like that.”
Goddard said sarcastically: “Reminiscing over old times is quite fascinating, but this is hardly the time for it. The reference to sleepwalking was struck from the minutes so your question, Captain Swinford, apart from not being asked through me as president of the court, is quite out of order.”
“He was killed at Camperdown, sir,” Southwick said, as though Goddard did not exist. “Had he lived, he’d have gone far.”
“Quite,” Swinford agreed, also ignoring Goddard. “That was why I’d picked him as my first lieutenant.”
“Have you any more questions to ask this witness, Captain Shirley?” Goddard asked ominously.
Again Shirley did not look up. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, and after Ramage said he had no questions, Jenkins cautioned Southwick to listen while the minutes of his evidence were read aloud to him.
“Aye, that won’t take long,” commented Southwick. Then he walked down to the end of the table to where Jenkins sat, signed his name with a flourish and, giving Jenkins a broad smile as he thanked him for the trouble he had taken, put the quill back in the inkwell with just enough force to make sure the quill split slightly and ruined the point.
As Southwick walked out of the cabin – because he was to be called again, next time as a defence witness, he had to leave the court and join Aitken – Goddard said: “Your next witness, Captain Shirley.”
Shirley stood up. “Mr Southwick was my last witness, sir. The prosecution’s case is concluded.”
“Very well. Mr Ramage, are you ready to present your defence?”
Yes, he was ready; but was there any point in making a defence? Goddard had blocked nearly all the answers referring to the Jason firing a broadside into the Calypso; he had blocked any hint that Captain Shirley might be mad. He had done all this very skilfully; anyone (particularly Their Lordships at the Admiralty) reading the minutes could not guess what had been struck out; indeed, might never suspect that even a comma was missing.
Yet upon those two facts, the Jason’s broadside and Shirley’s madness, rested Ramage’s entire defence: they were the two reasons why he took the step – which put his life in legal jeopardy – of removing a captain from his command.
How the devil then, could he defend himself against these charges, brought by Shirley himself, if the president of the court ruled out of order any reference to the broadside or madness? Oh yes, Ramage knew he could go to the commander-in-chief and complain, but the commander-in-chief (and the Admiralty too for that matter) would never accept his word against Rear-Admiral Goddard’s, not because they particularly favoured Goddard but because the whole edifice on which the Navy was built depended on strict obedience to one’s superior, whether an able seaman jumping when the bosun said jump or a lieutenant doing promptly what the captain said, or the captain carrying out his admiral’s orders, or the admiral carrying out the Board of Admiralty’s orders – and, finally, the Admiralty carrying out orders from its superior, which was the government of the day in the shape of His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Foreign Department. Who, come to think of it, received his instructions from the Cabinet or the prime minister.
If any one of those men or bodies refused to obey, then the whole edifice would collapse or give a tiny shiver, depending on the level of the disobedience. The link between the Cabinet issuing orders to the Secretary of State and an ordinary seaman being harried by a surly bosun’s mate might seem tenuous, but it was there and, Ramage had to agree, everyone from the prime minister to the bosun’s mate was concerned with upholding authority.
The only problem arose when some unusual circumstance did not fit into the intricate structure of obedience whi
ch had been built up over the centuries. The structure had been modified by various Acts of Parliament from time to time; it was the best that men could contrive – up to now, anyway. As far as the Navy was concerned, it had one defect which either no one had noticed or (more likely) no one in authority would admit existed, yet that defect although small could eventually threaten the whole structure.
It was this defect, or flaw, which had trapped Ramage, and it was, quite simply, that there was no way that a captain of a ship of war could lawfully be removed from his command at sea by his officers if he went mad, lapsed into alcoholism, broke his back and could not leave his bunk or in some other way became unfit to command unless the surgeon was prepared to give his opinion in writing that the captain was unfit to command. Few surgeons would risk the consequences, and anyway the Jason’s surgeon was dead by the time his opinion was wanted. So the defect or flaw in the Admiralty’s command structure became a gaping hole in the case of the Jason on that July day.
Still, there was only one question now remaining in Ramage’s mind, and that was why none of the Jason’s officers or seamen would admit that she had fired a broadside at the Calypso. Goddard would block the question which, he recalled, led to another: why would none of the officers discuss the reason or even admit they were locked in the gunroom when the Calypsos boarded? Which brought a third question: why would none of the officers discuss the possibility of Shirley being mad with the very captain who was rescuing them from a madman?