Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes

"The Manual for Courts-Martial at that time-and now, for all I know-gave the accused the right to make an uncross-examined statement to the panel, immediately preceding closing arguments. The night before the hearing came to an end, I made my last effort to get your father to share his written account, urging him to consider submitting his memoir, or portions of it, to the court. My heart leaped when he came to the proceedings the next morning with what I judged to be the manuscript under his arm in two portfolios, but he kept them to himself. He made a brief statement to the court, saying simply that in releasing Martin he had meant no harm to the United States, whose service remained the greatest honor of his life. Only when the evidence was closed did he turn the folders over to me. It was meant as a generosity on his part, I think, to repay me for my efforts on his behalf, so that I could accept the result with peace of mind. He told me to read it all, if that was what I liked, and when I was done to return it to him. He said forthrightly that he was then going to set fire to the whole thing.

"Even at that stage, I remained hopeful that I'd find something recorded there that I might use to reopen the case. The court was recessed on Sunday. I spent the whole day reading, morning to night, and finished only instants before I arrived for court at eight a. M. on Monday,"

"And what did it say?" I was like a child listening to campfire tales, who wanted only to know what children always do: the end of the story.

Bear gave a dry laugh in response.

"Well, Stewart, there aren't many tales worth telling that can be boiled down to a sentence or two, are there?"

"But did you use it?"

Most assuredly not."

"Because?"

"Because your father was right. He was a good lawyer. A very good lawyer. And his judgment was correct. If the court-martial members knew the whole tale, it would only have made matters worse. Possibly far worse."

"How so?"

"There were many complications," he said, many concerns. As I say, I was fond of your father. That's not just prattle. But a trial lawyer learns to be cold-blooded about the facts. And I looked at this as trial lawyers do, the best case that could be made and the worst, and I realized that nothing good was going to come from revealing this to the court. Your father's cause, in fact, could have been gravely prejudiced."

"You're not being very specific, Justice. What was so bad?"

Bear Leach, not often short of words, took a second to fiddle with his vintage necktie, swinging like a pendant from the collar of his old shirt, which, these days, gapped a good two inches from his wattled neck.

"When I read your father's account, I realized he had been the beneficiary of an assumption that the trial judge advocate might well regard as ill founded, once the underlying facts were better known."

I tumbled my hand forward. "You're being delicate, Justice."

"Well, it requires delicacy, Stewart, no doubt of that. I'm speaking to a son about his father."

"So you warned me. I want to know."

Leach went through the extended effort it required to reposition the oxygen in his nose.

"Stewart, your father was charged with willfully suffering a prisoner to escape. The evidence, in sum, was that Robert Martin had last been seen by several troops of the 406th Armored Cavalry in your father's custody. Your father admitted he had allowed Martin to go, freed him from his manacles and leg irons and saw him out of the bivouac. The escape charge took it for granted that Martin had fled from there. But what your father had written suggested a far more disturbing possibility, one whose likelihood was enhanced, at least in my mind, by your father's rigorous silence."

"-What possibility?"

"Now, Stewart, let me caution that this was merely a thought."

"Please, Bear. What possibility?"

Leach finally brought himself to a small nod. "That your father," he said, "had murdered Robert Martin."

By the time Biddy and I had returned to the 18th from the Comtesse de Lemolland's, we found no one in General Teedle's tent. The MP outside said that both orderlies were off duty, and Teedle was surveying battalions. With time, I wandered down to the enlisted men's area again. The bombing at the Comtesse's had revived my curiosity about Billy Bonner's remark that I was investigating the wrong man.

The skies had closed in once more, leaving no chance for further air traffic. Freed from blackout restrictions, the men had built fires and were enjoying themselves amid the usual barroom atmosphere. Somebody had run Armed Forces Radio through a loudspeaker. Harry James was on Command Performance, and I stopped to listen as he blew his way majestically through "Cherry." It suddenly hit me how much I missed music, for which I'd once felt a yearning as keen as hunger. These days, that longing was dampened under piles of law books and by the frantic concentration required for seven-day weeks in court. Closing my eyes, for just one second, I caught the sure feel of Grace's waist beneath my hand while we were dancing.

I ran across Biddy unexpectedly. He was standing back with his camera, taking snaps of four men playing cards by lantern in a mess tent. They'd come inside to keep the invasion currency they were gambling with, French francs that had been printed in the U. S., from blowing off in the wind. Each man was straddling an empty cartridge case, while they used a crate emptied of bazooka rounds for a table.

"Jesus God almighty," one said. "Play a fucking card, won't you, Mickey. You're gonna be dead this time next month, and still wondering what you should have led for trump.), "Mortenson, don't talk like that."

"You think the Krauts are listenin?"

"No, but it's kind of like you're putting the evil, eye on me.

"Oh, shut your damn swill hole, Krautbait, will you, and play a card."

"Don't be a sorehead, Witkins."

"Yeah, take a bite of this."

"Several soldiers in line in front of me for that pleasure."

"Fuckin Mickey still ain't recovered from striking out with that Frenchy. Only because half the platoon had some ass with her and she still wouldn't come across for him."

"Half the platoon are doggone liars. That girl was a nice girl. I just wanted to buy her a Coke." "Coke ain't what you wanted her to swallow." "Geez, Mort, what kind of pervert are you?"

"Listen, kiddo, these French girls use their mouths.), "Not on me. That's strictly perverted."

"Would youse guys shut the fuck up. It's gonna be fuckin reveille by the time this slowpoke plays a card."

I enjoyed Tony Eisley, but there was none of this raw camaraderie among JAG Department officers. Not that I shared in it here. Twenty-nine was old to most of these boys, and the presence of an officer was unsettling, even resented. My visits to the enlisted men's quarters reminded me of coming home to DuSable from Easton, when neighbors asked about the "college man" in a tone that was not altogether admiring. I was going to make money, they thought. I was going to move away from there, and them. In the enlisted ranks these days, there were a fair number of college boys because early this year Congress had put an end to the Army Specialized Training Program that had sent recruits to college classes full-time. On the other end, a few enlisted men from the premobilization Army had been commissioned. For the most part, though, you might as well have put up signs over the enlisted men's and the officers' sides of camp that said POOR and RICH. I had not figured out yet why the Army thought discipline or any other military purpose was advanced by these disparities. Yet I knew, much as I had in basic, that here I was among the real soldiers. The generals' names might be remembered by historians, but it was these men who would fight the true war.