Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  “What happened then?”

  “At that point, that instant, even though the assault detail had yet to reach their objective, the hilltop, I was so concerned as to how long it would take the reinforcement company to reach them, that I ordered Lieutenant Tully to move out.”

  “Did he?”

  “He refused. He said his orders had been to wait for the, um, prescribed signal. Even as we were arguing, I could see through my field glasses that the assault team had gained the hilltop. Still, Lieutenant Tully refused my order. I tried to explain, the, um, uh, exigencies of the situation that mandated using our initiative, but I couldn’t get him to advance his troop.”

  “You went as far as to threaten the lieutenant with arrest, did you not?”

  “Yes, I said I would relieve him and place him under arrest. He remained adamant. While we were arguing, a runner from the battalion CP notified me that the ammo train had arrived. Even with the promise of cover fire from our Weapons Company, Lieutenant Tully refused to move his men out without the signal from the hill. I was on the verge of relieving him when we received a radio transmission from the hilltop detail that they were withdrawing.”

  “Who sent the radio message?”

  “I took the radio from Lieutenant Tully’s operator. Lieutenant Sisto was on the other end.”

  “Can you recall what he said? As close to the exact words as you can, please.”

  At this point, Joyce turned toward the defense table. I suppose the look was intended as a steely, accusing glare, but the young man simply could not muster the prerequisite intensity. It seemed a blank and pointless gesture. “Lieutenant Sisto said, as well as I can recall, he said, ‘We’ve had it. We’re coming down.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I asked him to repeat the message, he did, and then I ordered him to hold his position. I even repeated the order to make sure he’d received it and understood. That was when he told me they’d been ordered out by Colonel Porter. I asked that he put the colonel on the line, he said something to the effect – I’m sorry I can’t recall the precise, the exact words – something along the line that I could argue about it with the colonel when they’d returned to the woods. I naturally tried to press the issue but he broke contact.”

  “Did you receive any further contact from Lieutenant Sisto? Or any of the other commanders on the hill?”

  “No direct contact, not directly. Through Lieutenant Tully’s radio I could hear transmissions between the three rifle companies on the hill intermittently. That’s when I heard them arranging to bring the whole battalion entirely off the hill. I again tried to contact Lieutenant Sisto as he seemed to have taken charge up there. Since I could receive their signals, there seemed no reason he could not receive mine, so I presumed that he simply refused – he elected – not to respond.”

  “And then?”

  “Since there was nothing I could do to prevent the withdrawal, I sent a runner with orders to the Weapons Company to cover the withdrawal as best they could. I also passed the word to Lieutenant Tully’s people that wherever the lieutenant came into the line, he should be brought to me, which he was.”

  “You confronted him with the charge of disobeying your orders?”

  “I did.”

  “And his response?”

  “He continued to maintain he had been operating under Colonel Porter’s orders. I asked as to the whereabouts of the colonel and he indicated that he believed the colonel to be dead back on the hill. I asked him if anyone who’d been with him on the hill could substantiate his claim, he said no, and at that point I relieved him of his command and placed him under arrest. We then returned to the CP area where I had the lieutenant held in custody. That night, we received orders to displace behind the Kall River, and then back to Rott at which time I initiated charges.”

  “Thank you very much, Major. I have no further questions.” Courie closed his reference folder with a solemn finality, took a moment to face the jury gravely, another moment to turn toward the defense table – where he seemed to flash a look of quiet satisfaction – before returning to his seat.

  “All right, Colonel Voss,” Ryan called, “you’re up.”

  Harry stood. His note cards were fanned in three, long columns on the table before him. He slowly scooped up each fan, consolidated it into a deck, and set it back on the table. “Good afternoon, Major. You’ve been up there a long time. Can we get you anything? Would you like a glass of water? Coffee?”

  The small cordiality took Joyce by surprise. He blinked a few times, then, “Actually, I am a bit parched. Water would be fine, thank you, Sir.”

  Harry turned to Ryan with a questioning nod, Ryan called to one of the MPs to fetch the drink.

  “It’s all right, Major,” Harry soothed, “I’ll wait for the water.” Then, as if idly marking time, “That was a bad day.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “A bad fight.”

  “Very, Sir.”

  “I compliment you on how articulately you explained it all to us.”

  “Why, thank you, Colonel.”

  “Ah, here’s your water. Good enough?”

  “I appreciate this, thank you, Sir.”

  “Good.” Harry turned to the three decks of cards on his table. His hand hovered over them, hesitated, then scooped up one deck. “Make yourself comfortable, Major, I’m afraid Captain Courie has left us with a lot of ground to cover. Ready?”

  Joyce nodded.

  “I’m going to jump around a bit. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not a bit, Sir.”

  I heard a sigh from la comtesse. I took her hand in an offer of comfort. Her eyes were on the doll–like figure of Whitcomb Joyce. “Aussi.” She saw I hadn’t understood. “He is just a boy himself.”

  I looked from Joyce to the younger officers on the jury panel, to Peter Ricks and Dominick Sisto, to Leonard Courie’s minion Alth. So many of them are.

  “There was a word you used earlier to describe Dominick Sisto,” Harry began.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “You described him as ‘rough.’”

  “Well – ”

  “As in rough–around–the–edges? Knock–about?”

  “Yes, well, along those lines. You know.”

  “Tough guy.”

  “I don’t know that I’d put it in quite – ”

  “Vulgar? Coarse in some way? Is that how you meant it?”

  Joyce smiled patronizingly. “Well, Colonel, any line soldier, you know, it’s a pretty tough life they have up there. They’re not exactly drinking tea with pinkies extended.”

  “So it wouldn’t necessarily grate on your sensibilities for someone like the lieutenant to say to you, ‘Hey, Maj, how ‘bout passing me the effing salt?’”

  Chuckles about the room, even from the gruff Pietrowski.

  “I’m not even sure the word would register,” Joyce grinned.

  “Did you like the lieutenant?”

  “I didn’t know him that well. I mean, on a personal basis.”

  “Did you dislike him?”

  “As I said – ”

  “Major, I’m not asking if you two had a deep and abiding friendship. You bump into somebody in the elevator, you start talking. You get a good feeling, you keep talking. Something doesn’t hit you just so, you watch the floors go by instead.”

  “I really wasn’t acquainted well enough with the lieutenant in that fashion to have a personal opinion.”

  Harry’s eyebrows went up. “‘In that fashion.’” He nodded, as if impressed by the phrase.

  Joyce cocked his head, not quite sure whether Harry was mocking him or not.

  “And, of course, he was… ‘rough.’” A contemplative pause. “In all that time in the battalion together,” and he turned from one note card to the next, “there was the court–martial, the Silver Star business…I think you also said – didn’t you? – that he wound up an acting platoon leader? At least at times? Yes, you did. Then with his promotion…and I believe you al
so told Captain Courie that you found yourself dealing with the lieutenant more and more over time…But still you didn’t know him enough to – ”

  “I’ve always tried to keep a personal distance between myself and most of the men in the outfit, Sir.”

  “Even the officers?”

  “Especially the officers.”

  “A ‘personal distance.’”

  “I didn’t see the merit in creating relationships with men that would, most probably, be ordered into critical situations at one time or another.”

  “‘Critical situations.’ Meaning situations that could result in injury or death?”

  “Exactly, Sir.”

  I saw nods among the jury: prosaic from Pietrowski, soulful agreement from rifle platoon lieutenants Pomeroy and Kirkendall, from the artilleryman Pierce, and Littell, the combat engineer.

  “A fair point,” Harry said, nodding. “Better not to be too close to the men.”

  “You see what I mean, Sir.”

  “Yes. But still…”

  “Sir?”

  “After all that time, there must have been – … How could I put this? Putting aside the issue of dislike and like – ”

  “Thank God,” muttered Courie, warranting a rap of the gavel and reproving frown from Ryan.

  “ – was there anything about the lieutenant, a characteristic, that maybe rubbed you the wrong way?”

  “I try not to let myself be distracted by the petty idiosyncrasies – ”

  Harry held up a halting hand. “‘Petty idiosyncrasies.’ Look, Major, I’ve been in close contact with the lieutenant for a few weeks now and – I don’t know if you’d call this a ‘petty idiosyncrasy’ – but I think he can be pretty lippy.”

  “Excuse me, Sir?”

  “He has a sharp tongue.”

  “Oh, yes, he does have that, Sir.”

  “If he has something on his mind…”

  “Yes, Sir, he does not hesitate to express himself.”

  Again, that amused nod of Harry’s: “‘Hesitate to express himself.’”

  This tic of repetition was beginning to abrade on the captain. “Yes, well, what I mean – ”

  “Is that if you said, ‘Jump!,’ he isn’t exactly the type to say, ‘Yes, Sir! How high?’”

  “That’s a colorful way of putting it, Sir, but yes.”

  “You hardly ever give an order without him having a beef.”

  “Yes, Sir. He seems to think his combat experience entitles him to a certain, um…”

  “License?”

  “Yes, Sir, that it allowed him to be free with his opinions on operational orders. Even blatantly disrespectful.”

  “I guess over time that could be pretty annoying.”

  “Yes, Sir. I thought Colonel Porter should have taken a more firm stand with the lieutenant about his attitude.”

  “Gets to a point where you want to say, ‘For God’s sake, just once, can’t I give you an order without getting an argument?’”

  Joyce smiled at the understanding of his predicament. “Exactly, Sir!”

  “And then if the enlisted men hear him back–talking like this, well, what does that do for ‘good order and discipline’?”

  “That’s the problem succinctly, Sir. I don’t know that Colonel Porter quite appreciated that.”

  “Yes. ‘Succinctly.’ I imagine that kind of back–talk could be especially irritating in a real pressure cooker situation. Like at Hill 399. It sounds like nobody was happy with the operation, and then here’s the lieutenant indulging in a snit every time he’s told to do something...”

  “One doesn’t need additional headaches at a time like that.”

  “No, ‘one’ doesn’t,” Harry said, tapping the ‘one’ with an ever–so–slight depreciative note. “During the re–fit in England, it was the same way?”

  “Well, the circumstances were different. The gravity of a combat situation was, naturally, lacking.”

  “Naturally. But that didn’t stop his squawking.”

  “No, Sir, I’m afraid not.”

  “About?”

  “He didn’t seem to see the value of some elements of the training program.”

  “Such as?”

  “The usual routine items: inspections, parade formations – ”

  “Drills, and so forth.”

  “Yes, Sir. I don’t think anyone disputes that inspections and the like can be tedious, but I think the lieutenant failed to value how those kinds of activities build unit cohesion and discipline. With so many new men coming into the battalion we needed that.”

  “Felt he’d fought his way through Italy, he shouldn’t have put up with all this – …the men had a word for this kind of thing, didn’t they?”

  “Sir?”

  “Wasn’t there a word the veterans used for activities they thought were unnecessary? That they thought were pointless, useless…?”

  The major cleared his throat, looking insecurely toward the jury panel; toward Pietrowski . “Well, um…”

  Harry smiled broadly. “Come on, Major, we’re all over twenty–one here. They called that kind of thing ‘chicken shit,’ didn’t they?”

  I could tell from the looks on the panel that most of the military brotherhood were acquainted with the term.

  “I believe that was the word, Sir, the phrase.”

  “So, does this mean the lieutenant was easy on his men?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, Sir, no.”

  “If he didn’t have them doing drills, what did he have them doing?”

  “Nothing unusual, Sir. Tactical problems. He’d take them out in the field, set up situations. Cross–country hikes, obstacle course runs, live fire exercises, infiltration course exercises…aside from the more, um – ”

  “Tedious?”

  “Yes, tedious training routines, his program included many of the usual exercises.”

  “His stress seems to have been on training that dealt with actual combat situations.”

  “I suppose that’s how they could be characterized.”

  “And he pushed his men hard on them, didn’t he?”

  “I’d like to think we were all trying to toughen up the new men.”

  “Major Joyce, didn’t Colonel Porter call Lieutenant Sisto on the carpet at one point to tell him to ease up? That he thought the lieutenant was going too hard on that end of the training?”

  “I recall they’d had a discussion about training but as to the precise nature of that discussion – .”

  “‘Precise nature of the discussion.’ Hm. There were some injuries, weren’t there? Among Lieutenant Sisto’s men?”

  “I believe so, Sir, yes.”

  Harry flipped to another card. “Over the two–and–a–half months the battalion was in England, in Lieutenant Sisto’s platoon: two broken wrists, one broken ankle, a strained back, three cases of heat exhaustion, and one minor gunshot wound.”

  “While I was not party to the discussion you’re referring to, I do recall that the major wanted the lieutenant to temper the training a bit. It was the colonel’s opinion – and I agreed – that we’d have enough casualties in battle without inflicting them on ourselves.”

  “Maybe the lieutenant’s priority was better they happen in training than in battle.”

  Joyce fidgeted, feeling boxed in by the point, took a slow sip of his water. “That, I imagine, is a point worth debating.”

  “That court–martial, the Article 96...”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I understand what you told the court about the seriousness being not in the act, but in the breach of discipline. If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to be clear about some of the circumstances of that incident.”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “Now, you said the battalion was not on the line at the time, correct?”

  “We were in an operational area, Sir.”

  “But the lieutenant’s company…?”

  “Was being held in reserve.”
/>   “Any imminent danger of them being called into action?”

  “Well, Sir, that’s the kind of thing you can never anticipate. The idea of being in reserve is that you’re available for action if needed.”

  “Of course. But I mean there were no obvious signs of threat at the time?”

  “No, nothing obvious. Nothing, um, overt.”

  Harry nodded. “‘Overt.’ And over the course of the time the lieutenant’s company was in the reserve area, was it ever called into action?”

  “Fortunately, no, Sir.”

  At that point, Peter Ricks waved Harry over. They conferred for a brief moment, Harry nodded in agreement, then resumed his stand in the well, tapping a tooth thoughtfully. “The lieutenant was a squad leader at the time, correct?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “When the incident was discovered, his platoon leader did not call for charges, did he?”

  “No, Sir, he did not. I thought that constituted a lapse – ”

  “And his company commander did not call for them?”

  “No, Sir, he – “

  “Did Colonel Porter make the decision to press charges on his own?”

  “He was the battalion commanding officer.”

  “And you were his exec.”

  A pause, then reluctantly: “We consulted.”

  Harry took a moment, analyzing the response. “In this… ‘consultation’…you offered the opinion the colonel should press charges?”

  “Colonel Porter asked my opinion and I gave it.”

  Infinitely patient: “That he should press charges?”

  “Yes, Sir, and, as I said earlier this morning, it’s obvious from the subsequent change in the lieutenant’s conduct that the court–martial turned out to be productive discipline.”