Over and Out Read online

On this occasion it was German intelligence that failed. They might, perhaps, be forgiven for having overlooked the swarm of light tanks that General Mangin had concealed in the forest of Villiers Cotteret. But they should surely have taken some note of the twenty-five divisions which he had concentrated behind them. Possibly the recent performance of the French led them to underrate the danger. There was no opening bombardment. Surprise was maintained and the French went forward behind a creeping barrage, smashed the first and second German lines and advanced for four miles.

  It sounded the preliminary notes of a crashing finale which peaked on 8 August – ‘a black day for Germany’, said Ludendorff. Although it did not lead to any immediate collapse of the German Army, this was the moment of balance, the moment when the German tide, having reached its high water-mark, stopped flowing and started, imperceptibly, to ebb.

  Both sides were feeling the strain and feeling it not only at the battle front, but at home as well.

  Clemenceau, no alarmist, was so disturbed by the state of industrial France that, at his insistence, four divisions, which would have been of critical use in the front line, were held back to deal with revolutionary outbreaks.

  In Great Britain, with its long adherence to the democratic principle of free speech, the danger was more subtle and more potentially deadly.

  At the end of 1917, Sir Edward Carson was telling the House of Commons that ‘the amount of subterranean influence of a pernicious and pestilential character that had developed, particularly within the last few months, goes far beyond anything that has been previously described to this House’.

  Even Sir Basil Thomson, since 1913 head of CID and the Special Branch, and normally an optimist, was becoming apprehensive.

  Two factors, the introduction of food rationing in January 1918 and the Manpower Bill which, in February extended the call-up to older men and married men, operated jointly in favour of the pacifists who were, as Thomson reported in his sardonic way, ‘busy tearing off their disguise and reappearing in their proper garb—as revolutionaries’.

  The growing unease in London and in Paris was echoed on the other side of the line. Both in Berlin and in Vienna the authorities were alive to the danger of revolution, sponsored by Bolshevism.

  None of the men in power slept easily.

  Tom Braham, in his role of intelligence officer, had kept himself fully informed about these insidious and unhappy possibilities. By this time, in mid-August, a certain disparity in his and Luke’s views had become apparent.

  Luke said, ‘For God’s sake, you keep talking about what might happen later on this year, or next year, or the year after. You don’t seem to worry about what’s happening here and now. And I don’t only mean the unpleasantness that’s in store for Sergeant Britain—’

  ‘Brought on his own head entirely,’ said Tom.

  Agreed. But speaking personally what worries me is the thought of what could happen, in the next few weeks, to our humble fishermen friends. If Rudi Naroch brings in his heavy brigade he could stamp them into the ground. Bernardin tells me that the maximum support he’s been able to whip up is the attachment, temporary and provisional, of two or three men from each of the area sub-stations, Béthune, Hazebrouck, Bailleul and Cassel. Add four or five men from his own unit, and that makes a round dozen. Not all of them front-line fighters.’ He was running his eye down the list. ‘Tim Evenden is a fingerprint expert and Charlie Evans is a photographer—’

  ‘Two doughty scrappers here,’ said Tom. All the same, being a coward, my hope is that, if we don’t provoke Rudi, it may not come to a showdown. Time’s on our side. We’re going to win the war. With America in, it’s a stone-cold certainty, I can assure you of that. When that happens, Rudi’s background support withers. And even if he doesn’t go under, he’ll be forced to behave himself.’

  ‘All right,’ said Luke. ‘Long-term prospects fine. Short-term prospects dicey. And the curtain goes up on the next act when Britain comes back off leave.’

  ‘It’ll be action stations for all of us then,’ agreed Tom.

  ‘And I suppose I shall have to do what the rector wants, shan’t I?’

  Tom thought about this, but side-stepped the direct question. He said, ‘If it comes to a court martial, and I think it must, and the prisoner asks for a specific officer to defend him, I’ve never known the request to be refused.’

  ‘I wish he’d asked for you. You’re a lawyer.’

  ‘I was one, once,’ agreed Tom sadly. ‘When I get back, I suppose I shall pick it up again. If I’ve got any clients left.’

  ‘Even if you’re not going to do it, there’s no reason you shouldn’t coach me behind the scenes.’

  ‘Certainly. What can I tell you?’

  ‘To start with, you might explain who does what?’

  ‘The whole thing is handed over to the officer commanding the accused’s unit, who sets up a Field General Court Martial, and chooses the three officers who will form the court. Three’s a concession to active service conditions. In peacetime, it was five officers. The senior one is usually a colonel or a major. The other ones are captains or even subalterns. It depends who’s available. The adjutant acts as prosecutor. If the case is complicated he can have a member of the judge advocate’s department to help him.’

  ‘That sounds unfair. Here am I, an inexperienced amateur, and you’re putting me in to bat against professional bowling.’

  ‘Under the rules of procedure the defence also has the right to employ professional counsel. But there’s a snag. If they do, it always seems to prejudice the court against the prisoner.’

  ‘Why should it?’

  ‘It puts their backs up. Simple soldiers being bamboozled by crafty lawyers. That sort of thing. I’ve been studying some recent cases, and it does seem to me that the best results have been obtained when one of the prisoner’s own friends was simply prepared to speak up for him.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ said Luke. He was apprehensive about the idea of performing in public.

  ‘I do think it represents Britain’s best chance. Friend of his youth standing up to speak for him, at the request of the vicar. There’s a respectable sound about that. And I’ve had an idea that might help you. I happen to know the CO of the Third Bedfords. Colonel Farr. Not well, but the head of my old chambers appeared for him in a debt-collecting action. I sat in on one of the conferences. He struck me as an orthodox regular soldier, but not an entirely unreasonable man. Why not have a word with him?’

  ‘First thing he’ll ask is how I come into the matter.’

  ‘Show him Millbanke’s letter. If the police have been as active as the rector says, you can be sure that a full account of Britain’s indiscreet speeches will have reached him already. Which means that he’s heard one side of the story. It’s up to you to tell him the other side.’

  ‘Is there another side?’

  ‘You’ll find that out when you speak to Britain.’

  ‘If I’m allowed to.’

  ‘As his defending counsel I hardly see that they can refuse it. Or even want to refuse it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Luke dismally. ‘And the trouble is we haven’t got much time. Let’s see. When did Britain depart on leave?’

  ‘On 20 July. Add the two weeks of his original leave and the thirty days’ extension, that takes you to the first week in September. Which means that he’ll be back any day now.’

  Joe, who had joined them at the last moment, and had kept unusually quiet, said, ‘You’re behind the times. He got back this morning and was clapped straight under close arrest.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colonel Farr. ‘I remember being advised by Mr Brayne. A KC now, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Luke. ‘He took silk in 1914.’

  ‘As an officer of the court, and an upright citizen, I doubt if he’d appreciate the role you’ve undertaken.’

  ‘It has been rather forced on me, sir.’

  ‘So I understand from the
letter you showed me. The one from the rector.’

  ‘Normally,’ he continued – and Luke was able to read into the way he pronounced that word a clear indication of his thinking. What was normal was right. Anything abnormal was wrong. ‘Normally, you understand, a prisoner’s friend confines himself to giving the court his opinion—his personal opinion—of the character of the accused.’

  ‘And how does that help to determine the question of his guilt or innocence?’

  The colonel restrained – with some difficulty – the comment that rose to his lips. It was the sort of comment with which he would have greeted an ill-judged effort by a subaltern to air his opinions in mess.

  What stopped him was his recollection of something that had happened on the previous day.

  It had started with a message from his adjutant, Captain Raven, that the divisional commander, Major General Rees-Roberts wished to see him at 1500 hours that same afternoon. When Colonel Farr had presented himself at divisional headquarters, the general, who had been studying a sheaf of papers, pushed them to one side and motioned Farr to sit, which was a relief. If he had been summoned to receive one of the general’s famous rockets he would have remained standing, at attention, like the sentry at Pompeii who stood to his post whilst the lava of Vesuvius poured over him.

  However, it seemed that this was to be an informal occasion. The general was handing out advice, not reproof.

  He said, ‘I have seen the details of a projected charge of treason against one of your men, Sergeant Robert Britain. You are aware of his recent … er … activities?’

  ‘I am, sir. He was placed under arrest as soon as he returned.’

  ‘I have here a preliminary report from the judge advocate general. He summarises the evidence available against Britain on a charge under the Statute of Treasons, 1351. I won’t go into all that now. You can have a copy of the report. What I wanted to emphasise is that this is likely to be an important case and liable to provoke public discussion. It may even be the subject of questions in Parliament.’

  The look on the general’s face as he said this was the look of a man forced to swallow a bitter draught, but standing up bravely to the ordeal.

  ‘You will realise, therefore, that every step you take must be governed strictly by the rules of procedure. You have studied them, no doubt.’

  Farr was tempted to lie, but saw the danger. Instead he said, ‘My adjutant, Captain Raven, has a copy of the rules. I have not had the time, recently, or the opportunity to study them in any detail myself.’

  ‘But you have been concerned in—let me see—yes, three cases of desertion in the last nine months. The proceedings were under your control. If difficult questions arose it would have been for you to deal with them.’

  Farr grasped this life-line thankfully.

  He said, ‘In fact, sir, no difficult questions did arise. The cases were quite straightforward. In two of them the accused had been sheltering with a French family for several weeks. In the third, he was apprehended as he tried to board a Swedish vessel at Calais. There was really no defence to the charge of desertion.’

  ‘I understand that. But I hope you appreciate that Sergeant Britain’s case is different. And will not be simple. So—follow the rules and watch your step.’

  Farr had promised to watch his step, and had spent a furtive evening reading up the rules. They seemed designed to favour the accused at almost every point.

  With all this in mind, instead of jumping on Luke’s question about the effectiveness of a defending officer who was confined to character evidence, the colonel said, ‘I think that, for the moment, the less we go into details the better. As Britain’s best friend you will be given a full copy of the charges and will be allowed to discuss them with the accused. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Entirely,’ said Luke, who, ignorant of what lay behind this affability, was as satisfied as he was surprised.

  ‘One final point, then: I see that the defendant has the right to be represented by a professional lawyer. Do you wish to exercise that right?’

  ‘We considered it, sir, but decided that I could put Sergeant Britain’s case adequately.’

  For the first time a gleam of approval appeared in the colonel’s eye.

  He said, ‘Very good,’ and sounded as though he meant it.

  Luke found the adjutant, Captain Raven, a lot easier to deal with than his commanding officer. To start with, it was evident that he approved of Sergeant Britain.

  He said, ‘We came across to France together in January 1915. I was a newly commissioned subaltern, wet behind the ears. Britain was my platoon sergeant. I wonder—do you remember just how short of shells we were at that time?’

  ‘I saw something in the papers about it.’

  ‘We were so short that a gunner officer was liable to be put on a charge if he fired off more than three shells a day. Hardly enough to keep the Germans awake. Not even enough to calibrate our own guns properly. When we went over the top—that was at Aubers Ridge—we found that we had barely scratched the German wire. Their machine-guns were well sited and quite unhurried. In that attack we lost more than half our effective strength. Not all killed, of course. There were wounded men who managed to crawl into the shell holes. Some of them were killed later, by our own uncalibrated guns.’

  Remembrance of that bloodstained and pointless fiasco was still engraved in Raven’s face. He had learned a great deal in three years on the Western Front. Among other lessons, he had learnt to know the value of a man like Britain.

  ‘I really think that without him the platoon would have fallen to pieces. He was everywhere. Encouraging the men, making them laugh. He exposed himself recklessly. It was a daily miracle that he survived. When our tattered remnant was, at last, brought back into reserve he was offered an immediate commission.’

  ‘Which he refused.’

  ‘He did. He also refused the award of a decoration on two separate occasions. “I can’t stop you putting me up for it”, he used to say, “but I’ll chuck the bloody thing back at the general who tries to pin it on me”. I’m telling you all this—not boring you, I hope—’

  ‘Far from it.’

  ‘I wanted to make it clear how relieved I was when it was decided that the prosecution would be handled by the JAG and not by me.’

  ‘I’m really very much obliged to you for speaking so frankly,’ said Luke. ‘If I decided to call you as a witness I could always make it easier for you by serving you with a subpoena—’ This was a recollection of something Tom had told him. ‘Then it would be clear to everyone that you were a pressed man, not a volunteer.’

  ‘Do it that way, then. If you must do it at all.’

  ‘And any other examples of Britain’s leadership and courage will be useful.’

  ‘The trouble is that if I gave you a list of all the occasions on which he behaved with an almost insulting disregard for enemy fire you might come to the conclusion that he was the victim of a death wish.’

  Whilst Luke was digesting this uncomfortable idea, he said, ‘Shall we look at the charges?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Originally there were three of them. The first, and by far the most serious, stemmed from his recent outspoken condemnation of his own side. The upper ranks in particular. This was at a number of supposedly secret meetings, organised whilst he was home on leave, by one or other of the peace-at-any-price crowd.’

  ‘The SOBH?’

  ‘They seem to have been the most active, but there were others. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could keep under hatches. The Special Branch got to know about the meetings and infiltrated them. As soon as Britain started talking, their men started scribbling. We’ve got copies of their reports which you can have. They make almost unbelievable reading. The speaker is clearly calling on soldiers to cast off the last restraints of discipline and come out into the open as opposing the war being carried on any further.’

  ‘In fact, he was inciting mutiny.’
r />   ‘Certainly. Or very close to it. You’ll have to consider individual passages and make your own mind up.’

  ‘It seems odd, in the face of such a plain and serious charge, that they bothered to tack on the other two.’

  ‘Of course the first charge is the one that matters. I believe the JAG only kept in the second charge, of attempted desertion, because it formed an answer to a possible line of defence.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘It could be argued that a serving soldier would only have said the things he was alleged to have said if he’d made arrangements to desert to the Germans as soon as he got back to France.’

  ‘And what evidence had they of that?’

  ‘The fact that he brought back from leave a packet of money, in francs, equivalent to two hundred and fifty pounds.’

  ‘Not conclusive evidence of intended desertion.’

  ‘Not by itself. But they found, scribbled on the package, a sequence of numbers—I’ve jotted them down for you.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Luke. ‘16987171082694.’

  ‘Dead right. The same numbers that they found on the package of money carried by Mick Donovan. Have you deciphered them?’

  ‘Our brains have been addled for three months or more in an attempt to do so. No success as yet.’

  ‘Two other pieces of evidence came to light when we searched Sergeant Britain’s locker—which we did as soon as he had been arrested. One was a complete set of civilian clothes, suit, shirt, shoes, the lot. Clearly a recent purchase. Soldiers on leave are allowed to wear civilian clothes, so it seemed odd that these should have been left behind.’

  ‘Odd, but far from conclusive. You mentioned two items.’

  ‘The second one really was curious. It was a roughly typed copy—seemingly the work of someone who was either in a tearing hurry, or perhaps was not too used to using a typewriter—of a restricted document recently circulated by the corps commander to all officers commanding units in the corps. It covered a number of highly sensitive points. The need for bolstering morale in the face of recent German successes, the alleged failure of our Air Force to support the man in the front line, and the necessity of curbing criticism of our allies, particularly of the French.’