Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  Harry glanced at his watch. “I wish you’d come to your epiphany a little earlier. We’re due in court in a few minutes.”

  “We could ask for a delay,” Ricks suggested.

  Harry asked Sergeant Barham to excuse us, and after the stenographer had retired and the door closed behind him, issued his edict: “A recess until tomorrow. Say we’re reviewing the record which is true, but nothing about this. Remember Ryan’s rules? If we go talk to this kid, we have to inform Ryan and Courie. This late in the game, Courie’d sure as hell be suspicious and you can be damned sure he’s going to want to be there. But if Eddie here goes to talk to him just because he wants to clarify a point or two for a story he’s writing…”

  “Nobody has to be told about that,” Ricks said, completing the thought.

  Then Harry looked to me with an apologetic look, regretting he’d presumed so much of me before asking. “I’m sorry, Eddie. Would you be ok doing that for us?”

  I bowed. “Your obedient servant.”

  “Get him to confirm this, Eddie. He’s got to be sure this is the way it was, and swear to it up and down.”

  “Swear to what?” puffed Sisto with growing exasperation.

  “I understand, Harry.”

  “If this works for us, we’ll put this kid on the stand first thing tomorrow morning and get him on the record.”

  “And then?”

  “The possibility is there; if we can blindside Courie with this, we might be able to close this thing today.”

  I couldn’t help a rather malignant chortle. “By Christ, Harry, for someone who claims to find this sort of courtroom chicanery distasteful – ”

  His response was a good–natured grin and he touched his fingertip to his lips. But I saw beyond the grin. A discomfort. A pain. And I wished then I could have recalled the comment.

  “Hey, uh, excuse me, fellas,” Sisto called, affecting a meek raising of his hand. “Does anybody mind telling me – ” and then a venting, frustrated rush “ – what the fuck you’re talking about?” A resumption of calm: “I mean, let’s face it, guys, of all of us, I’m the one’s got the real interest in all this.”

  As I exited for the witness billets, I heard one last comment from Harry before the door closed behind me: “Dominick, if you ever so much as get called out for chewing gum in formation after this, you’re on your own!”

  *

  While Harry and Peter Ricks went to the morning session to secure a recess for the day, I did as I’d been told, then rendezvoused with them again in Sisto’s quarters and debriefed them on my exchange in the witness wing. As per usual, my withdrawal was requested from their conference while they went about their legal business. I toddled down the hall feeling quite accomplished and proud of myself. All that self–assurance faltered when I opened the door to my own apartment and found la comtesse sitting primly on the edge of my bed in a display of infinite patience.

  She needed no explanation of my absence from the morning session. “This thing you look for to help your friend…Voila.”

  “I’ve found something.”

  “So…” A ghost of melancholy. “C’est fini, eh?”

  “We’ll know tomorrow.”

  Quite droll, now: “It will move the world?”

  “Perhaps a smidgen.”

  She stood and posed herself with all her usual regality. “I have the wish for you to join me for dinner tonight. If you are, um, I think you say, if you are not occupied.”

  “I am not occupied.”

  She held out her arm, I took it, and she escorted me to the other side of the chateau and then up a screw stair toward the cramped apartments which had, in a better time, been the servants’ quarters. It was, evidently, an unoccupied part of the chateau, and the doors to the small rooms stood open, the empty chambers testifying that even the modest comforts of the help had not escaped the scavenging of armies.

  One door at the end of the corridor stood closed and locked. La comtesse produced a key, I allowed her to enter first, then followed her inside.

  It was larger than the other rooms; in fact, it consisted of two rooms – a small parlor, and the bedroom, the comparative luxury usually accorded the head of the household staff. The rooms were cluttered with a variety of oddments salvaged from that better time: several ornately framed paintings, a few small sculptures, hand–painted vases, a few minor bits of furniture, and the like. By any standard, the artifacts made the limiting confines of the rooms even closer, but compared to the rest of the barren corpus of the chateau, these rooms here possessed a near–Victorian opulence. And yet…

  Close, yes, unable to turn without barking a shin on some piece or another or toppling over some piece of bric–a–brac, there was still the warmth of home, for as she spoke of each item that brushed up against me, it was evident they had not been picked for saving at random. There was the near translucent bit of bone china, a plate, all that remained of a set her husband had brought back from a business excursion to points east; a valueless pewter water pitcher which had caught the eye of her son, then still a boy, who had – for God knows what reason – thought she might like it; the leather–bound, gilt–edged volume of Baudelaire her daughter had found in a small antiquarian shop in Brussels, a birthday gift presented during the last year of peace. They all had a story, each of them a piece in an expansive rebus now missing so many pieces, the picture they had once formed only able to be hinted at by these few pieces. She had horded those yesterdays, kept them to herself, and I felt…frankly, I felt unworthy to be admitted to the trove.

  As she spoke, she trundled out a tea trolley upon which sat a tarnished but nonetheless striking chafing dish.

  “Too many of the ingredient, they come from the American cook, comprenez?” she said as she lit the flame. “So you must excuse if the taste is not – …” She shrugged apologetically, and I nodded in gracious understanding.

  “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  It was a simple meal of tinned beef from the mess, but which she’d managed to season to palatability along with the rehydrated potatoes and a smattering of fresh vegetables. She served it on two fine Wedgewood plates laid on a teak coffee table set before the parlor’s settee, accompanied with heavy silverware, a crystal decanter of a rather nice wine she’d squirreled away and which she poured into long–stemmed tulip glasses.

  Afterward, sated with tasty food and warmed by the wine as well as the room’s grate, I returned her generosity with an American cigarette, an indulgence in which I joined her.

  “Do you read en francais?”

  “Nae, I regret to say.” I began to clear away the dishes, but she held out a restraining hand, holding me to the settee.

  “It will wait,” she said. “I have this for you.” She handed me the volume of Baudelaire. “Perhaps some day you will be able to learn.”

  “I thought this was a gift to you from your daughter.”

  “Ah, well, my daughter…” A prosaic shrug and a huff; presto, gone. “The Baudelaire, I think of you. Do you know him?”

  “I’m afraid poetry has never been my forte.”

  She reclined on the settee, her eyes – soulful and sad so much of the time – grew warm as they fixed me while she recited:

  “Lovers of prostitutes, in crowds

  are sated and content and cheery,

  But as for me, my arms are weary

  Because I have embraced the clouds.

  Thanks to the stars – O peerless ones! –

  That flame deep in the boundless sky.

  My burned–out eyes can now descry

  Only the memories of suns.

  In vain I sought to trace and fit

  Space in its mid and final stance,

  I know not under what hot glance

  My wings are crumbling bit by bit.

  The love of beauty sealed my doom,

  Charred, I have not been granted this:

  To give my name to the abyss

  That is to serve me as a tom
b.”

  She smiled. “C’est tu. I read this and I think of you. So I think you should have it.”

  “It’s a beautiful book,” I said, running my fingers over the hand–sewn leather. “And a beautiful poem. Beautifully rendered. Merci beaucoup, Madame.”

  She nodded. “Je m’appelle Adrienne, Monsieur.”

  “Il es tres jolie.”

  “Et vous?”

  “Edouard.”

  “Ah, bon. Edouard.”

  How it came to be thereafter, I could not tell you for I have no precise recollection. I spent the night though not in the intimate way you might surmise. She simply wanted company in her bed; a warm body beside her.

  There is a degree of loneliness in which just that little thing gains an intimacy and sense of communion no carnal act can match. And as I lay there with her – after she helped me remove my prosthesis so I might be more comfortable – I felt that particular loneliness, realized it had been gnawing at me for quite some time, and then gratefully understood that, at least for the moment, it had abated.

  It was as sound a sleep as I’d had in years. No nightmares, no cries in the night, no tossing about. Quiescent. Deep. And, as a good sleep should be, renewing.

  *

  “Colonel Ryan, if there’s no objection, at this time the Defense would like to recall Private Avram Kasabian.”

  Ryan somehow managed to give the impression of having rolled his eyes without actually rolling his eyes. “Captain Courie?”

  “The Court knows the Prosecution’s feelings on repetitive, cumulative testimony, although the Court and I seem to be of two different opinions on what constitutes repetitive, cumulative testimony.”

  “And the Prosecution should know the Court’s feelings about sarcasm regarding the Court. Colonel Voss, what are we looking at here?”

  “Just a few questions to clarify Private Kasabian’s earlier testimony.”

  “A few questions?”

  “I promise he won’t be testifying for the Defense for more than a few minutes.”

  Ryan looked to Courie, Courie flapped his arms helplessly, and Ryan gave a reluctantly approving nod.

  If Ryan and Courie were less than enthralled with Kasabian’s reappearance, the private himself seemed positively in dread. Obviously of the mind that a recall signified he’d somehow stepped afoul in his previous appearance, Kasabian walked the length of the chapel to the witness stand with the face of a student called before the headmaster. Ryan reminded the private that he was still under oath.

  “Relax, Private,” said Harry, smiling soothingly over the tops of his reading spectacles as he fondled a fresh batch of note cards. “I just want to clear up a point or two concerning what you testified to the other day.”

  “I’m not in trouble, am I, Sir?” Kasabian’s dark face flinched toward the array of brass at the jury tables.

  “No, Private, not at all.”

  “I told it as best I could.”

  “Before you get yourself worried to death, Private, why don’t you wait for the questions, ok?”

  The young soldier, sheepish at having allowed himself to get so grimly carried away with his worst fears, nodded.

  “I’m going to have Sergeant Barham read back a portion of your earlier testimony. Just listen carefully, all right? Go ahead, Sergeant. That first marked section, please.”

  Barham turned to a spool of paper tape already unrolled to a indicated section: “‘Question: Private Kasabian, you told Captain Courie that Major Joyce threatened to relieve Lieutenant Tully and bring him up on charges?’

  “‘Answer: Yes, Sir, said he’d do it right then and there.’

  “‘Question: But he didn’t do it right then and there. He didn’t do it at all.’

  “‘Answer: Well, the lieutenant, like I told the captain, Sir, the lieutenant got killed.’

  “‘Question: Yes, I know. I’m sorry, Private. But the lieutenant was killed later. You said Major Joyce told Lieutenant Tully he’d bust him at that moment if he didn’t move out, but he didn’t.’”

  “And then there was an objection from Captain Courie,” Harry interjected. “Do you remember that testimony, Private?”

  Still concerned, but now just as much curious, Kasabian nodded. “Yessir, sure.”

  “Then, after we dealt with Captain Courie’s objection, I came back to you.” Harry nodded to Barham and the recorder moved to another section of the tape.

  “‘Question: Check me out on this, Private, I want to be sure I’ve got your testimony to Captain Courie right. You told him Major Joyce gave Lieutenant Tully the order to move out. And then you said?’

  “‘Answer: I said Lieutenant Tully told him to go scratch. Forget it.’

  “‘Question: Major Joyce then threatened to relieve him and charge him.’

  “‘Answer: Right.’

  “‘Question: And you said the lieutenant said?’

  “‘Answer: He told him to take a leap.’”

  “Do you remember all that, Private?” Harry asked.

  “Yeah, yessir, like I said. That’s how it happened.”

  “Well, there’s a discrepancy, Private.”

  “Discrepancy, Sir?”

  “Prior to the trial, weren’t you questioned by Mr. Edward Owen in conjunction with this case?”

  Defensive, now: “Yessir, and that’s the story I told him, too!”

  “Take it easy, Private. There’s no discrepancy in the actions you described. I have here in Mr. Owen’s notes, your statement – ”

  “Objection!” as Courie rose. “Ex parte affidavits are not admissible evidence. I don’t have the specific citation on hand – ” He was making frantic hand motions toward Alth who was just as frantically flipping through the reference books on the prosecution table.

  “I believe the citation the Trial Judge Advocate has in mind is, ah,” and Harry took an outheld book from Ricks which the captain was already holding to the needed page, “um, page 536 of the 1912 Digest of Opinions of The Judge Advocate General of the Army. The prohibition is actually intended as a protection for the accused. Ex parte affidavits are admissible with the consent of the accused. However, this was more in the order of an interrogatory rather than a sworn affidavit, and, in any case, the accused is amenable. Offered into evidence as Defense Exhibit Number One.”

  “So entered,” Ryan replied and beckoned the bailiff to tag the report accordingly.

  “I have some copies we made last night,” Harry said as Ricks began handing out carbon flimsies to Courie, Ryan, and the jury panel. “It was a hasty typing job and I’m afraid the carbons aren’t all that clear, but if everyone would please pay attention to the marked section… Does everybody have one? Private, when you gave your testimony in court, you gave, as Lieutenant Tully’s response to Major Joyce, well, first you said – what was it?” Harry turned to his note cards. “‘Go scratch. Forget it.’ Then, you said the lieutenant told Major Joyce ‘to take a leap.’”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Sir.”

  “Well, which was it? What did Lieutenant Tully say? ‘Go scratch?’ ‘Forget it?’ ‘Take a leap?’”

  Kasabian shook his head, befuddled, and from what I could see, a number of the court members were equally fogged. “It’s all the same thing, Sir, isn’t it?”

  “When you were questioned by Mr. Owen a few weeks ago, you used another phrase. Do you recall it? Mr. Owen asked you if Lieutenant Tully had given a reason for his refusal to obey Major Joyce’s order, even under the threat of arrest. And you – ”

  “Oh!” The young private’s face glowed with enlightenment. That initial interview came back to him, joined with his recollection of the return engagement which had occurred the previous afternoon in my company, and produced understanding. “You mean like what were his exact words!”

  “That’s what I mean, Private. What exactly did Lieutenant Tully say to Major Joyce when the major threatened to relieve the lieutenant and have him brought up on charges?”
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  “The lieutenant said, ‘On whose authority?’ That’s how I remember it. I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.”

  “It’s important, Private. How sure?”

  “‘On whose authority.’ That’s what I remember the lieutenant saying.”

  “I would point out to the Court that the private’s recollection is consistent with what he reported in his interview with Mr. Owen. Thank you, Private. Nothing further.”

  Courie sat a long moment, his face wrinkled in consideration. He turn to Alth, there was an exchange of whispers. They both seemed unsure of what was about to happen (nor can I say any other member of the court appeared to have any better insight), but Courie was reluctant to let any shot from the Defense go unanswered. “Private, how come you didn’t quote the lieutenant when you were asked the other day, in this room, about what went on between him and Major?”

  “I got asked what happened, I told what happened. I didn’t know you had to get all the words down perfect.”

  “But you got them perfect for Mr. Owen?”

  “He was the only one who ever asked me exact.”

  Courie hesitated in the well, unwilling to let Kasabian go until he had parsed Harry’s strategy, but then he shrugged, sighed, and returned to his seat.

  Kasabian was dismissed. Ryan turned to Harry, awaiting his next move.

  A look went between Harry, Ricks, and Sisto, not too unlike – I surmised – the look between soldiers before they scurry out of their trenches for The Big Push. Harry scooped up another deck of cards and strode into the well. “Sir, at this time Defense calls for a quashing of all charges and specifications in the indictment.”

  Prepared as I was for a detonation from the prosecution table, I was taken aback by – instead – a slow, rising, derisive laugh issuing from Courie. He gave a few caustic claps of his hands. “Colonel Voss, you get an ‘E’ for effort. You just do not give up! Colonel Ryan, the Defense has already moved for dismissal once, and I don’t see that that much has changed since then. At least not enough to warrant even consideration of a dismissal.”

  “Let me clear up a few points for the Judge Advocate,” Harry said. “This isn’t a motion for a dismissal. I’m asking the charges be nullified. This isn’t a matter of whether or not the Trial Judge Advocate has made his case. These charges should never have been brought.”