Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  “Now he’s being ridiculous!” Courie retorted.

  “Maybe,” Ryan said with a shrug, “but you were there first.”

  “I could always throw a blanket over myself,” deadpanned Ricks.

  “That’s enough, Captain,” Ryan warned.

  “Or maybe we could have a continuance while Captain Courie puts in some time on the line and gets his share of battle souvenirs to even out – ”

  “Enough!” Ryan snapped. “I wanted it informal, fellas! Not a brawl!”

  Harry turned about from Ryan, walked slowly to the Defense table and stood over Peter Ricks. I couldn’t hear what he said, saw only the cold glare on his face, one of his stubby fingers jabbing the tabletop for emphasis as Ricks’ head began to sink. Then, when Harry was finished, he stepped back and Peter Ricks stood. “My apologies to the Court, and to you, Captain Courie. My remarks were uncalled for.”

  Ryan nodded, satisfied, then turned balefully to Courie. “Anything else, Captain? And before you open your mouth this time, you better be damned sure it’s an issue of honest–to–God due process! Nothing? Good. Gentlemen, we’re back here at eleven hundred. Ta–ta!” He brought his gavel down with finality, extracted a bundle of papers from his briefcase and strode off quickly down the aisle and out the chapel doors.

  I adjusted my leg and began to stand. “Excusez moi,” I said to la comtesse, her puzzled as she watched me bustle after Ryan.

  I drew within hailing distance of him some ways down the corridor. “Colonel! A moment, please!”

  He turned, still keeping up his brisk pace, not welcoming the intrusion. “Who is – ? Jesus, Owen, what do you want?”

  “Just a quick question if you – ”

  “Christ, can’t this wait ten minutes? Can’t you see I am moving with a great urgency? Oh, no! Don’t tell me you already want to break the peace? If you have to file a story, Owen – ”

  “Do you know the writer Ouida?”

  Which did manage to finally stop him. “The who–what–a?”

  “‘A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run.’”

  “Owen, I’m on my way to the little boy’s room, ok? The last few minutes I was in that icebox I’ve been trying not to bust a gut! So I’d appreciate it if you got to the point posthaste.”

  I noticed the “documents” he’d taken with him from his briefcase. It was a copy of Photoplay Magazine. “What better way to dispatch a troublesome heir presumptive than with the cruel story of his failure? And what better way to oil that cruel story’s wheels than by the hands of seven respected witnesses; a jury panel selected by an equally respected divisional commander. A publicly attested–to defeat!”

  “I think I overdid it at breakfast,” he said, swaying restlessly from one foot to the other, one arm cradling the area marking his gastrointestinal tract. “You’re either going to have to talk faster, or talk shorter. Didn’t you say a quick question?”

  I stepped round him, interposing myself between him and the path to the loo. “I can’t say I’ve ever liked you much, Colonel – ”

  “I guess I can forget about a Christmas card from you, then.”

  “ – but I’ve always had a certain respect for you. A left–handed sort of respect, but respect none the less. I’ve never seen a better navigator of the shoals and reefs in what are commonly referred to as, ‘the halls of power.’ You’ve developed self–interest to a fine art.”

  “Your idea of a compliment needs a little work, buster.”

  “So I could never understand how someone so adept let Courie get his head on this case. All his sneaking off to discuss the matter with the general, the change of venue and so forth…without tipping you to it?” I shook my head, incredulous.

  “I’m getting old, Owen. Reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Neither is bowel control. Do you mind?”

  He tried to push by, but I kept on in front of him. “Someone with Courie’s naked ambition, and you the perceptive sly boots you are…you must’ve been on your guard against this bloke the day he stuck out his hand and said, ‘Hi there! Name’s Courie and I’m damned glad to meet you!’ One sniff of him and you must’ve known he was after your job.”

  “It’s not like I’m looking forward to putting my delicate cheeks on one of these freezing toilets seats, but I really have to take a crap – ”

  “Dominick Sisto didn’t call for Harry Voss until you coaxed him into it. Sisto didn’t want him here; you did. Harry is what they call in your Western films, ‘a hired gun, eh? You brought him in to slap Courie down for you. Courie suffers a public professional debasement, but your hands are clean. Now that makes a Joe Ryan brand of sense! You knew Harry wouldn’t come for a dirty business like that if you asked him, so you held up the plight of poor Dominick Sisto – ”

  Ryan held up a finger to stop me, and beyond it his response was a galling, amused smile. “Harry is always telling me how smart you are! But I’ll be damned if I see it.” He nodded at me to walk along as his digestive situation was growing more imperative by the second. “Don’t convince yourself I don’t care about Dominick. You’d be as wrong as wrong gets if you thought that. And I do want to see that little prick Courie get slapped down. And Harry, he had himself buried in Rome preparing a case he’s never going to try, and was coming within a hair’s breadth of flushing himself down the toilet. A good deed, Owen – ” a flashing of his perfect white teeth, an impish, taunting smile “ – can serve many masters.” We were stopped at the door to the loo. “And you’re wrong if you’ve got the idea Harry doesn’t know what’s going on. You’re not very bright, are you? How the hell do you keep your job? Don’t you think Dominick told him what the scoop was the first time him and Harry sat down together?”

  “If that’s true, why in God’s name he didn’t turn on his heel and tell you to piss off I’ll never know.”

  Here Ryan no longer looked so impish, but truly respectful. “Because he’s better than you. And he’s better than me. Look, Owen, I’m no prince; I know that. Would you believe some people even think I’m kind of a bastard?”

  “You don’t say!”

  “I haven’t always been a good friend to that fat little s.o.b.; but I’m still his best friend. He came for Dominick. He stayed for the both of us.” There was a look, then…I’m tempted to call it “pitying.” As if he believed I could not possibly understand what he could explain no plainer than he had.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” and he waved the Photoplay about my face, “There are matters of great import which require my attention,” and the loo door closed in my face.

  *

  When I came into Sisto’s quarters, the lieutenant was pacing about the room, flush with excitement. Ricks was slouched in a chair, looking equally satisfied. One would have thought from the air in the room that the trial had already concluded in Sisto’s favor.

  “I’m tellin’ ya, Cap’n, I was startin’ to think, ‘A coupla more rounds like this and that bulb–headed little bastard’s not gonna have anything left to have a trial with!”

  “That would’ve been nice,” Harry mused. His was the only – I won’t say sour note, but he was far from sharing the jubilant mood of his two cohorts. He seemed not to have changed posture one iota from when I’d left the court room: still flipping through his notes, gravely studying his scribbles on pad and card through his half–moon spectacles. “I was hoping to get him down to one charge.”

  “Don’t short–change yourself, Signor,” Sisto said, patting the older man on the back. “I’m not complaining!”

  “Now I know why you didn’t bother trying to negotiate a plea,” Ricks said.

  Harry nodded. “I figured if we did, we’d wind up more or less where we are now, only this way we still have a shot at rolling the dice with a jury on the remaining charges. Courie may not have been in uniform very long, but he’s no rookie lawyer; he knows how to read a statute. He must have known how inflated the indictment was, and that those deserti
on and mutiny charges were going to get quashed. They were only there as pre–trial bargaining chips. That is, unless I’ve seriously overestimated the guy.”

  “I dare venture quite the opposite to be true,” I said. “I think Monsieur Courie is the one guilty of a miscalculation; I think he has seriously underestimated you!”

  “Here here!” Ricks cheered.

  “Put me in for some of that!” added Sisto.

  Without looking up from his notes, Harry made a short, acknowledging bow of his head. “Before everyone goes thinking I’m a courtroom genius, I think all it was is I caught him off–guard. Don’t count on that happening too often.”

  “Me thinks you too often deprive yourself of credit due,” I chided Harry.

  “Sometimes I don’t know how this guy talks he’s got so many words stuck in his mouth,” Sisto joked to Ricks nodding in my direction.

  “I know,” Ricks agreed. “One time he got a syllable stuck in his throat and it took two Army surgeons to get it out.”

  “Droll, gentlemen,” I responded. “Tres droll.”

  Then Sisto grew more serious and sat on the bed across from Harry’s chair. His boyish figure seemed all the more diminutive on the four–poster, his boots only barely touching the floor. “So this means there’s not gonna be no negotiating from here on out, right?”

  Harry scratched the top of his head, just a fingertip moving ever so slightly so as not to disturb the few carefully laid strands. He looked up at Sisto, cocked his head. I could see the question in his face, the wondering as to the motive behind Sisto’s query.

  But it was Ricks who answered him. “We didn’t leave him a lot of room to go much lower. Maybe he could go to conduct unbecoming, maybe disrespect for an officer, plea out on a substitution of a lesser included charge. Make a sentencing recommendation in consideration of exigent circumstances.”

  “That’s providing he’s willing to negotiate at all, eh?” I said. “Dependent on the value he sets on his pride, wouldn’t you think?”

  Sisto looked from me then to Ricks for clarification. “He went to General Cota screaming rape and murder. I don’t know how willing he’s going to be to say, ‘Well, ok, it wasn’t rape and murder, but he did call Major Joyce a dirty name!’”

  “Even if he did accept a plea,” Harry said, setting his notes down in his lap, slipping off his glasses and rubbing tired eyes, “– and that’s a big if – it still means a conviction for you, Dominick, on the military equivalent of a felony. There’ll be a dishonorable discharge and you’ll do some hard time. At this point, the only difference between a plea and losing at trial is how much time you’re going to end up doing. Dominick, I can’t tell you what to do; you’re the one on the block. I’d rather not go to Courie and look like we’re having doubts about our case unless that’s the way you want to go. But if that’s what you want, I’ll go to him and ask if anything’s still on the table. I’ll beg him if you want. It’s your call.”

  Sisto let himself fall rearwards onto the bed with a heavy sigh. He closed his eyes and lay that way for a long moment, before he pulled himself upright again. “What are our chances with a trial?”

  “Better than they were yesterday,” Harry said, “but not great. It’d be a stretch to even call them good.”

  Sisto let his head hang forward, seemed to study the lazy circles his boot was making just skimming the floor stones. Another sigh, then a smile: “Don’t ask, Signor,” he said. “Don’t beg. Let’s role dem bones!”

  *

  When the trial reconvened, arrayed along the row of chairs along the back of the chapel where I sat with la comtesse were 15 officers ranging in rank from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel.

  There was one other change to the scene. Harry and Peter Ricks were no longer in their dress uniforms but were clad, as was Dominick Sisto, in field kit. It was not the kind of courtroom shenanigan Harry would normally have been partial to, but it had been Ricks’ idea and Harry, with a what–the–hell shrug, had agreed.

  “Everybody hates lawyers,” Ricks had explained to me. “Everybody! I hate ‘em and I’m a lawyer!” The idea, then, was to make themselves “…look a little more like soldiers and a little less like lawyers.”

  I don’t know how the distinction played to that jury, but evidently Leonard Courie and his tag–along Alth gave the ploy some credence. At least that was my conclusion based on the glares they focused at the Defense table; a look of resentment as well as the unhappiness of men pained by how easily they’d been outflanked. It certainly did nothing to alleviate their concern in this regard to see that many of the officers in the jury pool – particularly the junior ranks – were similarly garbed. Nor could Courie retrench and make his next appearance in a warrior’s attire. The potential jurors had already seen him in his posh dress; it would only confirm the impression of him as a courtroom schemer; a “shyster” as the Americans like to say.

  This time, Ryan was properly seated behind his little table, wearing an appropriately dignified mien, sitting with a posture of casual regality. He rapped his gavel, and Courie arose to address the jury panel. He repeated the initial introductory remarks, read the new, abbreviated charge sheet. “The accused and the following persons named in the convening orders are present,” he said, then listed the names of the members of the jury pool, ending with, “The Trial Judge Advocate is ready to proceed with the trial in the case of the U.S. vs. Second Lieutenant Dominick V. Sisto, U.S. Army, who is present.”

  “The members will now be sworn,” Ryan ordered.

  “All rise!” the MP/bailiff snapped and the row of officers stood to attention.

  “Do each of you swear,” Courie said to the row of officers, “that you will answer truthfully the questions concerning whether you should serve as a member of this court–martial?”

  There was a staggered chorus of “I do”‘s in response and Ryan ordered them seated once more. “The court–martial is now assembled.” Ryan then had the bailiff read seven names from a clipboard and requested that they take seats at the jury table at the front of the chapel. “Gentlemen, I will ask you some general questions before letting the lawyers loose on you,” Ryan said. A few chuckles among the panel. “I would like the officers who have not yet been called to pay attention in case any of them end up being called to sit. That’ll save us a lot of repetition and I would so hate to bore any of you.” Another few chuckles; Ryan was expert at putting the potential jurors at ease. He repeated the charges and specifications of the indictment. He asked if, prior to being assigned to the case, any of them were acquainted with any member of the court or any of the witnesses scheduled to testify.

  As Ryan wound his way through the protocol, la comtesse tilted her head my way. “I have seen the trial in the cinema. Is the same in America?”

  “In America, yes. In the Army, no.” I explained to her that while civilian jury pools were assembled randomly, the convening authority in a court–martial – General Cota, in this case – selected the members of the pool. “Each side can object to a member of the jury as long as he has a good reason; well, a good reason in the eyes of military law. And each side has a peremptory challenge.”

  “Que?”

  “Harry there, for instance, he can look at that blighter there at the end and say to himself – ”, and here, I imitated the careful scratching of the head operation Harry was wont to perform, “ – anyone with that much more hair than me doesn’t deserve to be on any jury of mine!’”

  A frown, then, from Ryan and Harry and nearly everyone else in the chamber as la comtesse giggled. Like a little Catholic girl caught by the nuns snickering in church, she cast a properly penitential look Ryan’s way, then cocked her head again in my direction. As I turned to continue my explanation of the arcana of American military jurisprudence, I couldn’t help but notice how small and delicately folded that ear was, like a newly–bloomed carnation.

  Have a care there, ya silly old bugger! I reprimanded myself, and refocused my
attention on the matter at hand.

  “As I was saying, each side can toss any of ‘em off the panel without a reason, but they only get to do that once. And the replacements…” I nodded at the eight officers still sitting along the rear of the chapel. “…they’ve all been picked by the same man.”

  I could see the expected befuddlement in her face over the obvious inequity of the arrangement. I could offer her no clarifying explanation, but perhaps an edifying analogy. “Do you know Groucho Marx?”

  Even more puzzled, now. “From the cinema?” She wig–wagged her eyebrows a la Groucho, holding two fingers under her nose to simulate his mustache. Now it was my turn to nearly giggle.

  “Oui,” I said. “Groucho said that military justice is to justice, what military music is to music. Comme ça.”

  She pondered this a moment, then nodded as she understood the sad, truthful fact of it.

  Ryan had nearly finished his address to the troops, ending by asking if any of the potential jurors were acquainted with Dominick Sisto. Two lieutenants raised their hands. Both served in the 103rd Regiment, they explained; the same Regiment containing Sisto’s battalion. Neither was personally acquainted with Sisto, but both knew of him.

  “Do either of you gentlemen think this would prejudice your ability to render a fair and impartial judgement in this case?”

  Both said no.

  “Can any member of the panel think of any reason they would be unable to render a fair and impartial judgement in this case?”

  To a man, they shook their heads, declared their denials.

  “Well, then, gentlemen, gird your loins, because I am releasing the hounds! Captain Courie, commence firing.”

  As the seven officers sitting at the jury table had introduced themselves, Courie and Alth had busied themselves filling out small tabs – I presumed with the name, rank, and posting of each – and inserting them into a cardboard apparatus such as one might see a teacher use to arrange seating in their classroom (across the aisle, Harry’s tactic involved his steadfast index cards; a quick, identifying scribble, then spreading them out on the table in the order in which they were seated). Courie and Alth leaned toward each other, conferred quietly for a moment, then Courie rose, holding his seating chart in front of him. He took a stand in front of one of the lieutenants who had acknowledged being from Sisto’s regiment, a freckle–faced lad who blinked fearfully when he saw the attention of the entire court come bearing his way.