by Bill Mesce
“Lieutenant Mills – ”
“Millis, Sir.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Millis.” A corrective note to the chart. “Lieutenant, you say you’re in the same regiment as the accused?”
“Yes, Sir, I’m in the 1st Battalion of the One–Oh–Three. The lieutenant, he’s with the 3rd Battalion.”
“Are you personally acquainted with the lieutenant?”
“No, Sir. I just know of him by name.”
“In what context?”
“What, Sir?”
“Why would a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion hear anybody discussing a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion? How many other people in the 3rd did you hear talk about?”
Millis seemed to think this was not so much a point of information as a case of being in the right or the wrong and began to fidget accordingly. “I dunno off hand. I just remember hearing about Sisto, Lieutenant Sisto.”
“Again, Lieutenant Millis: why did you hear about him?”
“I think a lot of fellas in the regiment heard about him.”
Impatiently: “Why?”
“Well, you know, we heard about him getting decorated back in Italy, and then him getting his bars on a battlefield commission. I mean, that’s the hard way, right? You’d hear about that.”
“So, before you were even called to be a member of the jury pool, you had a highly favorable opinion of the lieutenant.”
Ryan held up a hand for Millis not to answer. “Colonel Voss, an objection?”
Harry did not look up from amusing himself with his index cards. “Hm? Oh, no, Sir, thank you.”
Ryan looked disappointed. “You heard the question?”
“Hm? Oh, yes, Sir, I think the Trial Judge Advocate is doing a hell of a job. No objection.”
From the knitted brows on Courie’s face, I could see he shared Ryan’s puzzlement, if not his disappointment. “In that case, Colonel Ryan, the Trial Judge Advocate challenges Lieutenant Millis for cause.”
“That’s a little thin, Captain,” Ryan cautioned.
“As Defense Counsel keeps reminding me, I haven’t been in the military very long. But I have been in long enough to understand the idea of unit esprit. I think I have a reasonable cause to suspect bias.”
Ryan, again, turned to Harry, and the hard look of his eyes seemed to be trying to prod a more assertive response from his friend. “Colonel Voss?”
Seemingly annoyed at Ryan’s persistent pestering, Harry sounded a little snappish when he responded, “No objection, Sir.”
Ryan thanked Lieutenant Millis for his service to the Court, warned him against discussing the case with anyone until the issue was resolved, then had the bailiff call a replacement.
Courie rose again. “Sir, at this time the Trial Judge Advocate would like to exercise its peremptory challenge.” The target in this case was the other lieutenant from the 103rd Regiment.
“Anything from you, Colonel Voss?” Ryan called.
Harry spent a moment studying his index cards, selected one from the table and rose from his chair with a grunt. He began that pointless rambling of his about the well of the court. “Lieutenant Colonel Stanislas Pietrowski,” he read from the card without looking up. The name rolled easily off his tongue (which Pietrowski seemed to appreciate), no doubt a product of his Russian ancestry.
“Right here, Colonel.” He was a stocky, bull–necked, gruff–voiced bloke, thick about the middle in a way that only served to give him an intimidating bulk rather than a sense of being flaccid and lethargic. He had the rough–hewn air of someone who had worked for everything he’d accomplished, and worked very hard at it. He had earlier identified himself as being a member of General Cota’s headquarters staff.
Harry gave an acknowledging nod, but continued his pacing, keeping his attention on the card in his pudgy little hands. “Colonel Pietrowski, you said you were on General Cota’s staff?”
“That’s my boss, yep.”
Ricks had been right about the wariness the court members might accord the trial’s legal representatives. Pietrowski’s small, hard eyes peered out of the broad, fleshy face looking for the trick, the ruse, the snare.
“Have you been with the general’s staff very long?”
“Ever since he was given command of the division.”
“That would be the 28th Division.”
“Yep.”
“So you were not on the staff of the 28th before the general took command?”
Guardedly: “We came into the division together.”
“Were you assigned to the 28th?”
“Nope. The general requested me.”
“Why was that?”
A pause. “We knew each other before.”
“From where?”
Reluctantly: “I’d been a battalion commander in the old Blue and Grey.”
“The Blue and Grey?”
“The 29th Division. General Cota had been the assistant division commander of the 29th. I was a major on the divisional staff then.”
“So you two know each other quite a while?”
“We came overseas with the 29th.”
“Then, when he was given his own division, he requested your assignment to his staff, promoted you to lieutenant colonel… The general obviously thinks quite highly of you, Colonel Pietrowski. Do you return the favor?”
Defiantly: “I think General Cota is a helluva commander, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
Harry fell silent, still pacing and pondering his card, the pause long enough to elicit a call from Ryan: “Colonel Voss? Colonel Voss! Are you finished with the potential juror?”
“Hm? Oh, uh, not quite, Sir, sorry. Colonel Pietrowski, when General Cota assigned you to the jury pool for this proceeding, did he give you any instructions?”
“He said there’d probably be a lot of lawyer crap getting thrown around, which was a pretty shrewd estimation on his part.”
“Right on the money I’d say. The general say anything else?”
“He said, ‘Get up there and get it done.’”
“That’s all?”
“Well, he used a lot of descriptive language I’m leaving out. Might be some church–goers in the room.”
“He expressed no opinion on the charges? Or the accused? Or how he hoped the trial would come out?”
Firm: “No!”
Harry nodded, moved his finger to his head for that small, careful scratch of his.
Again, from an exasperated Ryan: “Colonel Voss! Are you done?”
“Hm? Oh, yes, Sir.” He started for his table, then, almost as an afterthought: “Colonel, the Defense finds the jury acceptable.”
I don’t think there was a person there whose jaw didn’t drop at least a little, including Ryan’s, especially Courie’s, and particularly the firm mandible of Lieutenant Colonel Stanislas Pietrowski.
Ryan shook his head, as if he hadn’t quite heard correctly. “I’m sorry, Colonel Voss, did you say – ”
Carefully and clearly: “I said the jury is acceptable.” He looked about the room and seemed surprised at everyone’s surprise.
“You have no further questions for Colonel Pietrowski?”
“No, Sir, we find him acceptable. The jury panel now sitting is acceptable to the Defense.”
Ryan shook his head, again, then turned to Courie who was staring toward Harry as if he could somehow peer inside that grey–tempeled vessel and understand what in the bloody hell was about. “Captain Courie,” Ryan called, “you’re up.”
Courie stood quickly, his mouth cocked and ready to set forth, but then he froze. He turned back to Harry, his mouth slowly closed, and there was a nod of understanding. He sighed an unhappy sigh, his hands flapped limply at his sides. “Colonel Ryan, the Trial Judge Advocate finds the jury acceptable.”
“Gentlemen, it looks like we’re closing early today. The members of the jury pool who have not been called, you are dismissed with the Court’s thank
s. Transportation will be provided to return you to your units this afternoon. You are reminded not to discuss the affairs of this proceeding with anyone. The jury will stand, the members will raise their right hands. Captain Courie, would you please administer the oath to the members of the panel?”
Courie stood, held up his own right hand, announced the names of the seven panel members, then stated: “You do swear that you will well and truly try and determine, according to the evidence, the matter now before you, between the United States of America and the person to be tried, and that you will duly administer justice without partiality, favor, or affection, according to the provisions of the rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States, and if any doubt should arise, not explained by said Articles then, accustom of war in like cases; and you do further swear that you will not divulge the findings or sentence of the court until they shall be published by the proper authority or duly announced by the court, except to the Trial Judge Advocate and Assistant Trial Judge Advocate; neither will you disclose or discover the vote or opinion of any particular member of the court–martial upon a challenge or upon the findings or sentence, unless required to give evidence thereof as a witness by a court of justice in due course of law. So help you God.”
They so swore. Ryan then informed Lieutenant Colonel Pietrowski that, as senior ranking member of the panel, he would hold the post of President of the Court. Courie than provided Pietrowski with a typed sheet containing the oath he was to administer to the prosecution team:
“You, Captain Leonard Courie and Lieutenant Wilson Alth, do swear that you will faithfully and impartially perform the duties of a trial judge advocate, and will not divulge the findings or sentence of the court to any but the proper authority until they shall be duly disclosed. So help you God.”
From each: “I do.”
Thus ended the first day.
“I was just following through on what Pete had suggested,” Harry explained later as we gathered in Sisto’s quarters. “I don’t know how much like a soldier I can look, even in this get–up – ” a gesture toward his field kit “ – but I could get Courie to look more like a lawyer.”
Sisto was frowning with concentration, trying to decrypt the intricacies of courtroom strategy.
Ricks laid a friendly hand on Sisto’s shoulder. “They get to see Courie throw this one out, throw that one out, picking on your regimental brothers, they see him trying to do what a good trial counsel does; try to bend the jury into a favorable shape. Meanwhile, your friend the signor is up there saying, ‘You all look aces to me!’”
“Even that bulldog Pietrowski?” Sisto asked. “I mean, he just about said he’s Cota’s man.”
“And your esteemed lead counsel adjudged him a juror in good standing on just those grounds!” I was feeling quite effusive myself, impressed as I was with Harry’s voir dire conduct.
Sisto hadn’t understood my rendering any better than he’d understood completely what had gone on in the courtroom that morning, and it, again, fell to Ricks to translate. “Harry told him, ‘If you’re good enough for Norm Cota, than, by God, you’re good enough for me!’ And once he does that, Courie’s screwed. He’s stuck with this jury! Or else he keeps trying to bend it here, twist it there, and make himself look even worse!”
“You think that’s enough to keep Pietrowski honest?” Sisto asked. “Or any of them?”
Harry had been looking over the cards he’d drawn up on the final jury selectees. He shrugged; a response Sisto felt somewhat lacking in its ability to assuage his concerns. “Look, Dominick, a civilian jury is picked at random. Any time you bounce somebody from the jury, you have a 50–50 chance of doing better with a replacement. A court–martial jury is not a random spread. You may do a little better, you may do a little worse, but it’s not going to change all that much. If you were picking the pool, the chances are you’d say to yourself, ‘Well, hey, I consider myself a pretty fair guy,’ and that’d be your standard; you’d pick people you guessed think a lot like you. Based on what I know about Cota, I figured all fifteen of those officers to either be fair but kind of tough – ”
“Or tough but kind of fair,” we all chorused.
“This guy’s amazing!” Sisto said, his eyes bright with admiration as he gently grabbed Harry’s head by its grey temples and planted a kiss square atop his head.
But Sisto’s enthusiasm seemed only to breed a nagging discomfort in Harry. “If we win, it’s perceptive psychological insight on my part. If we – ” here he made a hand gesture signifying a sharp descent “ – then it’s, ‘Hey, Harry, what was all that psychology crap?’”
“Harry, I must ask you,” I said, drawing up a chair close to his, “that performance of yours was exquisite! The pauses, all that other hemming–and–hawing business…whatever inspired you?”
He was genuinely surprised. “Performance?” Then he laughed. “You know what that was? That was me not knowing what the hell to do next!”
*
While I can’t vouch for the validity of Harry’s alleged “psychological insights,” he did seem to be spot on in his estimation of the jury. In retrospect, he could have done considerably worse and would be hard put – despite some weak links – to have done much better.
Sitting left to right on the dais, they were:
Second Lieutenant Eric Bolander, 24, a product of Officer’s Candidate School (OCS). A junior officer with the G–1 (Personnel) section of General Cota’s HQ, he had never seen action first–hand. Harry considered him one of the weaker jurors.
First Lieutenant Simon Pomeroy, 23, commissioned through the Reserve Officer’s Training Course (ROTC). Called to replace one of the two officers from Sisto’s 103rd Regiment challenged by Courie, Pomeroy was a fortuitous catch as he, too, was from the 103rd. In fact, he had been the only other member of the 103rd remaining in the jury pool. An executive officer for a rifle company in the regiment’s 1st Battalion, his service with the battalion went back to their few months in Italy. Harry considered him one of his strongest assets on the panel.
Captain Barton Pierce, 24, another ROTC graduate. Though riflemen tended not to think of artillerymen as true combat troops, Harry felt the battery commander more a positive than a negative.
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislas Pietrowski. To my previous description I would only add that the West Point graduate (Class of ‘31) came by those rough edges I referred to earlier naturally, being the first in his family not to work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Perhaps it was his bluff manner that put most of us off, but it was usually the consensus among our clique that Harry had more faith in Pietrowski than any of the rest of us.
Major Oliver Littell, 28, alumnus of the Virginia Military Institute (Class of ‘39). The only other professional military man on the panel, Littell commanded a unit of the 28th’s combat engineers. Though Littell’s engineers had never engaged the Germans directly in battle, they had slogged through mud and rain and suffered German artillery barrages while they worked incessantly to clear mines and booby traps, and turn ribbons of mire into roads. Harry considered him generally a plus.
First Lieutenant Louis Martine, 21, OCS, assigned to the 28th’s HQ communications staff. Another weak link who had never been in combat.
First Lieutenant Nathan Kirkendall, 22, OCS. Harry considered himself extremely lucky to have this rifle platoon leader on the panel, and felt him as much an asset as Pomeroy.
Four years previous, excepting the military professionals Pietrowski and Littell, they had been as representative a group of young lads as any. Two had been in college: one to learn business, another with an eye to teaching. One had been a mailman, one had worked in his family’s grocery, another had worked in his father’s petrol station. Three were married, two had children, one had shipped out for Europe leaving a pregnant wife behind.
They had left their homes and their families and spent their transit of the North Atlantic dreaming of the end of the war. They would return bea
ring nightmares of a war that, in their minds, would last until they closed their eyes for the last time.
This was where Harry’s faith in them as jurors lay: Dominick Sisto was one of their own.
*
Only enough moon seeped through the unbroken ceiling of clouds to barely highlight the tops of the forest trees round the chateau, limn the crenellated walls and witch’s hat roofs of the castle. Dominick Sisto and I stood atop the walls and watched single isolated snowflakes waft earthwards on the cold eddies of the night wind.
It has always been my curse not to be able to enjoy a silence. There is always a question to ask, and I’ve never been able to keep from asking. “When I first arrived, I was wondering if you’d ever show an interest in the goings–on,” I said. “You seem to have become quite…avid…of late.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Sisto said. “But if it means what I think it means, I got myself to where I try not to think about things until I have to. Otherwise, on the line…I woulda went wacky.”
“And now you have to, eh?”
“Now I have to.”
“Worried, lad?”
“Kinda.” He held out his right hand, as if to weigh something. “Coupla years in Leavenworth.” Then, similarly, his other hand. “Getting’ my head torn off by a kraut MG 42.” The latter hand sank precipitously, while the other threatened to float away. “Not really the same thing. Who I’m worried about is my family. My mom. My pop’d gut it out, but she’s practically got a case of the permanent heebie–jeebies as it is.”