Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

Privately I shared his misgivings, and they grew as the week progressed. On the first day the witnesses were the six key men who had put together the case against Dreyfus: Gonse, Fabre and d’Aboville, Henry, Gribelin and du Paty. Gonse explained how easily Dreyfus could have got access to the secret documents handed over with the bordereau . Fabre and d’Aboville described his suspicious behaviour while serving in the Fourth Department. Henry testified to the genuineness of the bordereau as evidence retrieved from the German Embassy. Gribelin — drawing on police reports compiled by Guénée — painted a picture of Dreyfus as a womaniser and gambler, which I found frankly unbelievable. But du Paty insisted Dreyfus was driven by ‘animal urges’ and that he was canaille — lowlife — despite his rather prim appearance (Dreyfus simply shook his head at this). Du Paty also alleged the accused had made conscious changes to disguise his handwriting during dictation — an accusation gravely undermined when Demange showed him samples of Dreyfus’s hand, asked him to point out where these transitions occurred, and du Paty was unable to do so.

Taken together, it was not impressive.

At the end of my first report, when Mercier asked me how I thought the prosecution case was looking, I hummed and hawed. ‘Now then, Major,’ he said softly, ‘your honest opinion, please. That’s why I put you in there.’

‘Well, Minister, in my honest view, it’s all very circumstantial. We have shown beyond doubt that the traitor could have been Dreyfus; we have not proved definitely that it was him.’

Mercier grunted but made no further comment. However, the next day when I turned up at the court building for the start of the second day’s evidence, Henry was waiting for me.

He said in an accusing tone, ‘I hear you’ve told the minister our case is looking thin.’

‘Well, isn’t it?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Now, Major Henry, don’t look so offended. Will you join me?’ I offered him a cigarette, which he took grudgingly. I struck a match and lit his first. ‘I didn’t say it was thin, exactly, just not specific enough.’

‘My God,’ replied Henry, exhaling a jet of smoke in a sigh of frustration, ‘it’s easy enough for you to say that. If only you knew how much specific evidence we have against that swine. We even have a letter from a foreign intelligence officer in which he’s identified as the traitor — can you believe it?’

‘Then use it.’

‘How can we? It would betray our most secret sources. It would do more damage than Dreyfus has caused already.’

‘Even with the hearing behind closed doors?’

‘Don’t be naïve, Picquart! Every word uttered in that room will leak one day.’

‘Well, then I don’t know what to suggest.’

Henry drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘How would it be,’ he asked, glancing around to check he was not being overheard, ‘if I came back into court and described some of the evidence we have on file?’

‘But you’ve already given your evidence.’

‘Couldn’t I be recalled?’

‘On what pretext?’

‘Couldn’t you have a word with Colonel Maurel and suggest it?’

‘What reason could I give him?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sure we could come up with something.’

‘My dear Henry, I’m here to observe the court martial, not interfere in it.’

‘Fine,’ said Henry bitterly. He took a last drag from his cigarette then dropped it on to the flagstone floor and ground it out with the toe of his boot. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

That second morning was devoted to a parade of officers from the General Staff. They queued up to denigrate their former comrade, to his face. They described a man who snooped around their desks, refused to fraternise with them and always acted as if he was their intellectual superior. One claimed Dreyfus had told him he didn’t care if Alsace was under German occupation because he was a Jew, and Jews, having no country of their own, were indifferent to changes of frontier. Throughout all this, Dreyfus’s expression betrayed no emotion. One might have thought him stone deaf or wilfully not listening. But every so often he would raise his hand to signal he wished to speak. Then he would calmly correct a point of fact in his toneless voice: this piece of testimony was wrong because he had not been in the department then; that statement was an error because he had never met the gentleman concerned. He seemed to have no anger in him. He was an automaton. Several officers did say a word or two in his defence. My old friend Mercier-Milon called him ‘a faithful and scrupulous soldier’. Captain Tocanne, who had attended my topography classes with Dreyfus, said he was ‘incapable of a crime’.

And then, at the start of the afternoon session, one of the judges, Major Gallet, announced he had an important issue to bring to the court’s attention. It was his understanding, he said gravely, that there had been an earlier inquiry into a suspected traitor on the General Staff, even before the investigation into Dreyfus began in October. If true, he regretted that this fact had been withheld from the court. He suggested that the matter should be cleared up right away. Colonel Maurel agreed, and told the clerk to recall Major Henry. A few minutes later, Henry appeared, apparently embarrassed and buttoning his tunic, as if he had been dragged from a bar. I made a note of the time: 2.35.

Demange could have objected to Henry’s recall. But Henry was putting on such a virtuoso performance of being a reluctant witness — standing bareheaded before the judges, fidgeting nervously with his cap — he must have gambled that whatever was coming might work to Dreyfus’s advantage.

‘Major Henry,’ said Maurel severely, ‘the court has received information that your evidence yesterday was less than frank, and that you neglected to tell us about an earlier inquiry you made into the existence of a spy on the General Staff. Is that correct?’

Henry mumbled, ‘It is true, Monsieur President.’

‘Speak up, Major! We can’t hear you!’

‘Yes, it’s true,’ replied Henry, loudly. He glanced along the row of judges with a look of defiant apology. ‘I wished to avoid revealing any more secret information than was necessary.’

‘Tell us the truth now, if you please.’

Henry sighed and stroked his hand through his hair. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If the court insists. It was in March of this year. An honourable person — a very honourable person — informed us that there was a traitor on the General Staff, passing secrets to a foreign power. In June he repeated his warning to me personally, and this time he was more specific.’ Henry paused.

‘Go on, Major.’

‘He said the traitor was in the Second Department.’ Henry turned to Dreyfus and pointed at him. ‘The traitor is that man!’

The accusation detonated in that little room like a grenade. Dreyfus, hitherto so calm he had seemed scarcely human, jumped up to protest at this ambush. His pale face was livid with anger. ‘Monsieur President, I demand to know the name of this informer!’

Maurel banged his gavel. ‘The accused will sit!’

Demange grabbed the back of his client’s tunic and tried to tug him down into his seat. ‘Leave it to me, Captain,’ I heard him whisper. ‘That’s what you’re paying me for.’ Unwillingly, Dreyfus sat. Demange rose and said, ‘Monsieur President, this is hearsay evidence — an outrage to justice. The defence absolutely demands that this informant be called so that he can be cross-examined. Otherwise, none of what has just been said has any legal weight whatsoever. Major Henry, at the very least you must tell us this man’s name.’