Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

“I’ve no objection to answering,” Docker said. “If we’d tried to pull our cannon and get down that hill, the German tank would have had us in its sights in about sixty seconds. Some or all of us would have been killed.”

The major nodded and there was something in his expression that puzzled Docker; it was neither complacency nor resignation, but he couldn’t come any closer than that to defining it.

“I’ve no further questions at this time,” Karsh said.

Lieutenant Weiffel and Captain Walton did. Walton wanted to know in detail how Trankic had subdued Baird, how often he had struck him, whether the blows had been to the boy’s face or body, how much damage they had done. Weiffel, between sips of coffee, asked why it had been necessary to tie Baird’s wrists behind him. He opened a folder and read an additional segment of Harlan Farrel’s deposition into the record: “ ‘You can’t blame Trankic for hitting Baird, he was mad as hell. But he’s a powerhouse, he didn’t have to lower the boom that way. Sonny Laurel came right out and said it to him. Sonny told Trankic right on the spot he didn’t have to bust him up like that.’ ”

Captain Walton said, “Tell me this, lieutenant, when that tank fired into the side of the mountain and over your gun position, when shrapnel and rock fragments were exploding around you, was Baird lying helpless on the ground all that time, hands tied behind his back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What action did you take when the firing stopped?”

Fucking civilian. Docker thought, but he said, “I checked to see who was hurt. Then I told Chet Dormund and Sonny Laurel to untie Baird, put some sulfa on his cuts and get him under blankets.”

“And didn’t you also place him under arrest at that time, lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And detailed a man to stand guard over him?”

“Yes, sir. Private Farrel.”

“Then I’d like to point out a contradiction in your testimony. You told us you couldn’t arrest Corporal Larkin because you were short of men. Now you tell us you arrested Baird and in addition assigned a man to stand guard over him. How do you explain the inconsistency?”

Docker thought a moment, then said, “If you’d been there, captain, you wouldn’t need an explanation.”

“I’ve warned you once about your insolence, lieutenant.”

“It wasn’t my intention to be insolent, sir. But your line of questions forces me to be insultingly specific, just as I thought you were when you reminded me that my gun section’s actions on Utah Beach took place during the Allied landings at Normandy. You may know that from reading about it in the newspapers, sir. We knew about it because we were there—”

“Now I’ve had just about as much as I’m going to take—”

Major Karsh broke in, “Lieutenant, you will answer the questions as briefly and responsively as possible.”

“All right, I’ll try to, sir,” Docker said, but saying it realized that there was no way, no goddamn way to make them really see it, because how could he re-create the winds and the sounds of the cannon and the fear and pain around a damn conference table...?

“There wasn’t anything inconsistent about arresting Private Baird and not arresting Corporal Larkin,” he said. “When I arrested Baird an eighty-ton German tank was sitting a few hundred yards below our gun position. In a firefight against those odds I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about how a green, unstable soldier would handle himself. I’d rather be shorthanded than have to depend on anybody I wasn’t sure of.”

Karsh said, “Captain, I’d like to postpone this line of inquiry for a moment.” He turned back to Docker. “Lieutenant, let’s go directly now to your conversation with Jackson Baird on the night of December twenty-second. No one else was present at that time. Correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It was then, according to your deposition, that Baird finally told you the truth. Told you his father was Major General Jonathan Baird and that he’d deserted his post under fire on the first day of the German offensive.”

“Yes, that’s what he told me, sir.”

Karsh looked through several folders, frowning. “You’ve testified that on December seventeenth, the day Baird joined your section, you questioned him about his unit, how he’d been separated from it, and so forth. Then you and Corporal Trankic queried him again on related subjects on December twentieth. And on both occasions you testified that you believed his answers to be candid and credible. But here — the night of December twenty-second — after the boy had been through a dreadful ordeal, here you are hammering at him again.” Karsh looked steadily at Docker. “Why were you so convinced he was lying to you?”

Docker wished that the “truth” of this matter was as tangible, as demonstrable as the broken ring of enemy troops around Bastogne and the squadrons of Allied planes in the skies above the Ardennes. All he could say was, “Because his stories didn’t check out, sir.”

“I might ask you what stories, lieutenant, since you haven’t mentioned any so far that don’t hang together pretty well. But I won’t challenge that answer at this time.”

For what seemed the thousandth time to Docker, Major Karsh removed his glasses and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. This time, though, in the glare of the light from the chandeliers, it seemed to Docker that the major’s eyes had lost some of their coldness and intensity.

“According to strict rules of procedure it’s not our business to make assumptions,” the major said. “But let’s assume for the moment that Baird told you the truth the first time you questioned him, lieutenant. And let’s assume he told you the truth the second time. Now try to imagine that youngster’s mental and emotional frame of mind. He had been through a terrible ordeal. He had been knocked unconscious by Corporal Trankic, left helpless and exposed during a bombardment.” Karsh hadn’t raised his voice, but now its tone had become harder and more insistent... “Yet after that harrowing experience, he still had to face a third grilling from you, lieutenant. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Baird might have been so shaken by all this that he finally reversed his original story and told you the one he was convinced you wanted to hear?”

The question was unexpected and jarring in its implication. Docker hesitated, felt a stir of doubt as he thought back to that conversation with Baird, remembering not only the words but the cold wind tearing at the tarpaulin in front of the cave, the caked blood on the boy’s lips, the bruises on his face and the anguish and pain in his voice when he talked of his father and those absent friends in the Hall of Gentlemen. And Docker wondered if Karsh had come on the real truth at last, an ultimate “true” truth. Could it possibly be that simple? That Baird had given up hoping to be believed, was so in need of acceptance, which he’d never gotten from his father... where he’d needed it most... that he’d lied because he thought that was what was wanted of him? And if that were the case, it made a joke of his own noble conviction about what Baird would have wanted... He remembered with bitter distress his moralistic tone to the major at the beginning of these hearings, tiresome banalities about men respecting courage because they’d lost it, talk from survivors about what the dead would truly want... wasn’t that just a way of establishing black and white moral categories, damning this, praising the other, all stemming from — what had Karsh’s phrase been? — opinions based on subjective evaluations? Had he simply been too goddamn righteous in this whole business, exercising the German colonel’s last bequest, the arrogance of total conviction?