The Twisted Patriot

by Pirate Irwin

  “Members of the jury, we have before us today, notwithstanding the revelations in recent years of Communist spies within the establishment, probably the most cynical case of treachery that this country has ever sadly had to withstand. On the surface, here is a man born into a good family, though fatherless, educated at the finest school and university and never lacking for anything. And yet he found it in himself to set out from his first day to destroy the very country that gave him these opportunities, betraying those closest to him, both friend and fellow soldier, until he sought to bear arms voluntarily for perhaps the most evil regime that has existed in history and certainly one that none of us within this court today could possibly imagine sympathizing with, let alone fighting for. You will hear claims of how he joined the German resistance to Hitler – well, really, was there ever such a thing?” he said with a suitably incredulous tone, which he noted, while totally untrue, had a good effect on the jury, several of whom looked at each other and shrugged.

  “You will hear of how he was incarcerated in a concentration camp – well, perhaps but it was not a death factory like some of the more infamous ones and he still emerged alive, when in fact if he really had been considered a serious insurgent he would never have lived to poison the bosom of our government and the one country that stayed defiant even in the darkest of times against the Nazis. Witnesses will bear testament to all this. I would just like you to mull this one thought over, before we present the case, of the cynicism it takes after a war record like that to then pursue a career in public office rather than seeking to lie low and retire into obscurity, the irony being that had he not done so he probably would not be standing in the dock today. However, as you shall see, such is his arrogance and misplaced self-belief that he thought he could carry it off. Well, let us hope the defendant comes to realize the error of those characteristics before the trial is over. I am afraid for him that will not be enough to save him from his ultimate fate – the death penalty, which has seen many better and truer men and women suffer it – and it lies in your hands,” with that Steiner looked each and every one of the 12 jurors and the two alternates in the eyes and sat down.

  The judge turned to Sebastian and motioned for him to make his opening statement. Sebastian was well prepared, having expected everything that Steiner had said and he had not wavered off the script. Bright, but oh, so predictable was Adam, thought Sebastian. “Mr Stuart?” interjected the judge, clearly getting impatient with the length of time Sebastian was taking to respond. Sebastian apologized and, breathing deeply so that his chest could be seen visibly rising, forcing his smart double-breasted pinstripe jacket to almost bursting point, he began his defence of what many considered to be a lost cause.

  “I am sure that several of you among the jury, unlike Mr Steiner, experienced what it was like to be in the midst of battle and the chaos of the retreat to Dunkirk,” opened Sebastian, enjoying the sight of Stiener shifting uneasily in his seat and even more so the look of disapproval directed at him by several of the older jurors.

  “Those were days of confusion, endless battles and constantly losing contact with your next door company and, which it is worth pointing out, that I did not flee into the arms of the enemy but instead climaxed with me being awarded the Military Cross,’ whereupon Sebastian stopped and let that information sink in.

  “Now, I am not going to enter into all the details of my war, and the apparent disgrace I have brought upon myself and the government I served these past two years, but all I will say is that contrary to what the prosecution alleges, not everything is that black and white. Yes, on the outside it looks that way and while I cannot present witnesses for various reasons, as they are either dead or disappeared in the aftermath of the war, I will still, I am sure, be able through the cross examination of the prosecution’s witnesses to prove that I am innocent of the charge of treason. I fully admit that I donned the uniform of the Wehrmacht and that I killed for them but it was under circumstances in which, while I would not want to pre-judge any of you sitting in that august box, you would have found it virtually impossible to resist the choice. It was a case of life or death and for better or for worse I chose the former. Cowardly, you may say. I would argue that it is easy to sit back and judge from the relative comfort of your home and say I would never have chosen such a dishonourable route, but I can tell you when it becomes reality even the bravest of souls wilts and I remain unrepentant about the judgement I made back in 1942,” and with that Sebastian sat down, remarking that there were several sharp intakes of breath from behind him in the public gallery and as he turned he saw sitting towards the back of the room Mirabelle, still as beautiful as she had been all those years ago, who looked at him and smiled warmly. Steiner noticed this exchange, which only served to fuel his fury at Sebastian’s remarks about his not serving in the army and the comfort of England.

  “I will call my first witness, M’lud, though I would like to say that the defendant’s detached sense of reality, rather like those he served in the latter part of the war, leads him to believe that living in England preserved us from death and destruction. Well, perhaps we could arrange a trip for him to the families in the East End who lost—”

  “Objection, your honour. Prosecuting council is making wild inferences, about a perfectly innocent statement, and which are totally unjustified,” interrupted Sebastian.

  “Sustained. Mr Steiner, please refrain from emotive remarks such as those you just made. Please call your first witness,” said the judge sharply. Sebastian resumed his seat, buoyed by the first decision from the judge going to him and realizing that perhaps his verdict was not cast in stone.

  Steiner was not happy but he consoled himself with the strong list of witnesses he had accrued and he was sure Sebastian was set to endure a very uncomfortable time with what they were going to relate. “The State calls Ludovic Ponsonby.”

  Sebastian was a little surprised at what on earth his distant cousin could contribute to Steiner’s case. Ponsonby entered the courtroom and age certainly hadn’t been kind to him; he was a lot thinner, he was stooped and his clothes bore signs of wear and tear which, given the affluent lifestyle he had enjoyed before the war, was a little surprising. He swore the oath and then Steiner went through the procedure of introducing him to the jury with some peremptory questions. None of the replies were of much interest to Sebastian as Ponsonby laid out how he had been high up in the Foreign Ministry but was now retired. Steiner then came to the main point of his having called Ponsonby as a witness. “You had occasion, did you not, Mr Ponsonby, to meet the defendant prior to the war?” Ponsonby replied yes without bothering to look at Sebastian and Steiner prodded him to go on and explain the circumstances. “He proved to be rather objectionable and brazen with me, considering that only because we were distantly related did I acquiesce to see him. I refused to make it an official appointment so I had him come round to my house in Pelham Crescent and the very least I would have expected was some form of courtesy but I am afraid I was not even to be afforded that, there again hardly surprising given his background,” sneered Ponsonby.

  “The witness will refrain from making unnecessary comments on the defendant’s background. His family is not on trial,” interrupted the judge sternly. Steiner was furious with Ponsonby for his aside, which would cast doubt on his further testimony given there was obviously antipathy between the witness and Sebastian. “Very well, Mr Ponsonby, and what was the discussion about?” Ponsonby stared down and observed his still very well manicured fingers before replying. “He came, he said, as an emissary from the resistance to Hitler within Germany and he proposed that if we raised merry hell over Danzig and threatened war then the Wehrmacht would rise up and strike down the Nazis.”

  “And what did you reply?”

  Ponsonby smiled the same patronising smile he had that day and answered. “I said it was out of the question because it was Government policy to allow Hitler some margin for manoeuvre and also we very much doubted that th
e army would rebel. After all, we had far better sources than the young man who was pleading with me in my study. Quite frankly, I thought he was some form of fantasist and that was before he jolted me out of my seat by saying he was in fact a double agent and was trying to root out the resistance so that Hitler could once and for all be able to relax at home and concentrate on his foreign exploits . . .”

  “That is a lie!” yelled Sebastian, to which the judge flashed an angry look at him and told him to be more restrained and he would have a chance to cross examine Ponsonby.

  “Go on, Mr Ponsonby,” purred Steiner.

  “Well, of course I was very annoyed that I had been duped into seeing him and the thought that I would help him in his escapade was, quite frankly, abhorrent. So I had him thrown out of the house and of course, at a later stage he succeeded in his devilish plan but I was powerless to stop him by that time,” said Ponsonby sadly.

  Sebastian objected on the grounds that Ponsonby couldn’t possibly know the circumstances of the later days of the resistance but the judge overruled him.

  Steiner was regaining his confidence after the earlier reverses and pressed on. “You were friends with Baron von Preetz and his wife Victoria when they were based at the embassy here in the ’30s, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, they were very good friends. And sadly I was powerless to stop their destruction by the defendant. He alleged that the Baron had sent him to me and while I acknowledge that to be true, it is clear he did not have the best interests of that honourable man at heart. His ultimate death at the hands of the Gestapo tells its own story. His son, too, died while serving alongside Stuart and as for Victoria, I believe she ended up servicing Soviet officers as a whore just so she could get by, and in the end was cast off onto the enlisted men where gang rape was the norm,” he said coldly and gave Sebastian a withering stare, while he wiped what looked like a tear from his eye. Sebastian didn’t bother to object as he would rather put him on the spot when he came to cross examine him, which arrived as soon as he had finished the farcical description of his part in the downfall of the von Preetz family.

  “Mr Ponsonby, did you not think to have me arrested following our discussion?” asked Sebastian firmly.

  “No.”

  “Why ever not? There you had, as you have testified, a Nazi double agent in your midst and you do nothing to have him stopped.” Ponsonby shrugged. “Answer the question,” chided Sebastian.

  “Well, you were family of a sort and besides, I thought once back in England you would lose your fanciful notions of supporting the Nazis as there was no question of you returning there,” he replied.

  Sebastian snorted derisively. “Ah yes, family, the one with that background as you put it earlier,” to which several of the jury laughed and a ripple of laughter emanated from the public gallery. “Very well, if the court is to accept that, then wouldn’t you say you abrogated your duty in not at the very least reporting me to the police and to keep an eye on me?”

  “Yes, I guess with what followed it would have been better if I had.”

  “I put it to you, Mr Ponsonby, that far from having anything to report me over, you did have me followed but not officially because you didn’t want me stirring up some sections of the government or backbenchers to urge support for the resistance.”

  “I see you haven’t lost your sense of the dramatic, Mr Stuart,” replied Ponsonby.

  Sebastian smiled thinly and went on. “Did you try and contact Baron von Preetz and warn him about me and what my real intentions were?” Ponsonby looked distinctly uncomfortable and shifted uneasily in the small confines of the witness box.

  “No, I didn’t,” he said tamely.

  “Another abrogation of duty, would you term it that way?” asked Sebastian sarcastically.

  “How the hell did I know that you were going to turn up in Berlin later in the war and destroy their lives,” retorted Ponsonby.

  “Well, at the very least, couldn’t you have let it be known through the friendly auspices of the then ambassador Theodor Kordt who was part of the resistance that his life was at risk? Even if I wasn’t returning, it was obvious if I was really a double agent that I had already put a marker on him and told the Gestapo. So why didn’t you?”

  Ponsonby was rattled and looked urgently at Steiner, who stared blankly back at him, knowing that he was proving to be a less than reliable witness and, if anything, was coming out of it even less trustworthy than the defendant. “I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. But you see, things were so frenetic in those days with all that was going on and Lord Halifax was a very demanding man so I must have forgotten about contacting Kordt, as you say, and then, well, I felt the Baron was an archetypal survivor and had the full confidence of von Ribbentrop that he would not suffer,” mumbled Ponsonby.

  “Well, the Gestapo certainly proved otherwise,” said Sebastian, which earned a look of disapproval from the judge. Sebastian hadn’t finished with the liar standing in the box yet and was going to try and be a bit bold in his next line of questioning, though he didn’t know how far he could take it. “If I could be so prying, Mr Ponsonby, but have you fallen on hard times since we last met?” A look of alarm flashed into Ponsonby’s eyes and Steiner tried to stem the flow of questions by objecting as to the relevance of the question. The judge enquired where Sebastian was going with this and accepted his answer that all would become clear, though Mainwaring warned him he would stop him if he thought it was not pertinent. Ponsonby sipped at a glass of water, and Sebastian could see his hand was unsteady. “So what has become of you since we met in your delightful house in Pelham Crescent and you were dressed in such a Wildean fashion?” asked Sebastian with an air of concern.

  “I don’t see why you should be so interested in what has become of me, Mr Stuart.”

  “The witness will answer the question,” ordered the judge.

  “I have met with some hard times. My wife left me and with it went the house,” he replied shakily. Sebastian knew he had been right about him and he wasn’t going to stand on ceremony when his life was on the line. If he had to destroy Ponsonby, so he got through the first round relatively unscathed, then so be it.

  “You should draw a nice fat pension, though, shouldn’t you?” Ponsonby swallowed nervously and tried to raise the glass to his lips but instead so shaky was his grip that the water sloshed out of the glass and wet his shoes.

  “I don’t get one.”

  “Oh and why is that? Apart from Burgess and Maclean for obvious reasons, I can’t think of many others who don’t receive their pensions after such loyal service and to such a demanding man as Lord Halifax,” said Sebastian drily.

  Ponsonby looked to be on the verge of breaking down, his brow was soaked in sweat, his hands were trembling, even as he rested them on the ledge of the box, and he was swallowing ever faster. “What, did you learn your techniques from the Gestapo, Stuart?” he screamed, which provoked the judge into ordering him brusquely to calm down and to Sebastian’s relief added he had to answer the question. Ponsonby wrung his hands and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, trying to steady himself. “There was an incident, which was misconstrued and despite my protestations of innocence I was not believed but while they said they would not prosecute me I was dismissed without my pension.”

  “What was the alleged incident?” asked Sebastian harshly. Ponsonby began to mouth his answer but his throat looked to have dried up, halting his ability to speak, and the judge ordered one of the court employees to help him drink some water. Having disgorged most of it onto his jacket, he replied. “I was caught in the men’s loos with a young man, but it was really nothing of the sort, you know. I am certain that I was set up by one of the Burgess ring because I was on to them, you know. I really was and yet they, the police, chose to believe the young lout’s story instead of mine. Imagine it. It would never have been the same result before the war but everything has changed and now a gentleman’s word is considered less worthy than th
at of a boy from the slums. That is Socialism for you,” he said with venom.

  However, his protestations of innocence once again fell on fallow ground as the gasps swirled round the public gallery, Sebastian felt a surge of euphoria circulate throughout his body, the judge felt disgust at this sorry figure of a man and Steiner just wished the ground would swallow him up and that Ponsonby should rot in hell for making him look a complete and utter fool. Mirabelle, though, laughed at the discomfort endured by her husband and revelled in Sebastian’s opening victory. She swore she would have to see him, it was only a case of how she could manufacture it but her desire still burnt deep, despite his savage behaviour all those years ago, and she would do anything to be with him again. Age, Shakespeare had written, had not withered Cleopatra and the years certainly had not dimmed Sebastian’s attraction; she just hoped it would be a less destructive ending for the hero.

  Sebastian returned home satisfied with his first day performance, particularly how he had overcome his early nerves to put in what he considered a measured and incisive cross examination of Ponsonby which had erased any credibility in his evidence and he had to question why Adam had called him without researching his background properly. A disgraced civil servant expelled for a homosexual encounter in a public lavatory would probably be viewed with more distaste than his alleged crimes. It showed Steiner was overly confident of winning and that he had not done his homework, though unbeknownst to the prosecution, Sebastian had been aided not so much by his intuition but by a visit from a retired detective called O’Callaghan. He had revealed how he had been detailed to follow him after his meeting with Ponsonby and how he had grown so sick of the highflying Foreign Office mandarin’s paranoid fantasies that eventually he turned the hunt onto him and voilà, as the plod had said to an amused Sebastian, “would you believe it, sir, there he be, sucking on this young man’s penis and then rubbing the semen into his face and letting the other feller lick it off his face. That is how everything became so clear to me then. For the young man in question was somebody I had to tail for him and unfortunately my information provided Ponsonby with the ammunition he required to force him into such a profane act. I duly informed his superiors and he was drummed out in disgrace, though as usual with these cases, he was not publicly exposed, if you forgive the expression, sir.” Sebastian had reflected, after the wizened old detective had departed, that perhaps the good spirit looking over him had returned after a brief rest – he was to be disabused of this notion the next day and in shocking fashion.