Soldiers Three | Page 4

and some abject
barrack-sweeper would lose his head in cross-examination, and the
young barrister who always defended soldiers' cases for the credit that
they never brought him, would say and do wonderful things, and would
then quarrel with me because I had not reported him correctly. At the
last, for he surely would not be hanged, I might meet the prisoner again,
ruling blank account-forms in the Central Jail, and cheer him with the
hope of a wardership in the Andamans.

The Indian Penal Code and its interpreters do not treat murder, under
any provocation whatever, in a spirit of jest. Sergeant Raines would be
very lucky indeed if he got off with seven years, I thought. He had slept
the night upon his wrongs, and had killed his man at twenty yards
before any talk was possible. That much I knew. Unless, therefore, the
case was doctored a little, seven years would be his least; and I fancied
it was exceedingly well for Sergeant Raines that he had been liked by
his Company.
That same evening - no day is so long as the day of a murder - I met
Ortheris with the dogs, and he plunged defiantly into the middle of the
matter. "I'll be one o' the witnesses," said he. "I was in the verandah
when Mackie came along. 'E come from Mrs. Raines's quarters.
Quigley, Parsons, an' Trot, they was in the inside verandah, so they
couldn't 'ave 'eard nothing. Sergeant Raines was in the verandah talkin'
to me, an' Mackie 'e come along acrost the square an' 'e sez, 'Well,' sez
'e, ''ave they pushed your 'elmet off yet, Sergeant?' 'e sez. An' at that
Raines 'e catches 'is breath an' 'e sez, 'My Gawd, I can't stand this!' sez
'e, an' 'e picks up my rifle an' shoots Mackie. See?"
"But what were you doing with your rifle in the outer verandah an hour
after parade?"
"Cleanin' 'er," said Ortheris, with the sullen brassy stare that always
went with his choice lies.
He might as well have said that he was dancing naked, for at no time
did his rifle need hand or rag on her twenty minutes after parade. Still
the High Court would not know his routine.
"Are you going to stick to that - on the Book?" I asked.
"Yes. Like a bloomin' leech."
"All right, I don't want to know any more. Only remember that Quigley,
Parsons, and Trot couldn't have been where you say without hearing
something; and there's nearly certain to be a barrack-sweeper who was
knocking about the square at the time. There always is."

"Twasn't the sweeper. It was the beastie. 'E's all right."
Then I knew that there was going to be some spirited doctoring, and I
felt sorry for the Government Advocate who would conduct the
prosecution.
When the trial came on I pitied him more, for he was always quick to
lose his temper, and made a personal matter of each lost cause. Raines's
young barrister had for once put aside his unslaked and Welling
passion for alibis and insanity, had forsworn gymnastics and fireworks,
and worked soberly for his client. Mercifully the hot weather was yet
young, and there had been no flagrant cases of barrack-shootings up to
the time; and the jury was a good one, even for an Indian jury, where
nine men out of every twelve are accustomed to weighing evidence.
Ortheris stood firm and was not shaken by any cross-examination. The
one weak point in his tale - the presence of his rifle in the outer
verandah - went unchallenged by civilian wisdom, though some of the
witnesses could not help smiling. The Government Advocate called for
the rope; contending throughout that the murder had been a deliberate
one. Time had passed, he argued, for that reflection which comes so
naturally to a man whose honour is lost. There was also the Law, ever
ready and anxious to right the wrongs of the common soldier if, in deed,
wrong had been done. But he doubted much whether there had been
any sufficient wrong. Causeless suspicion over-long brooded upon had
led, by his theory, to deliberate crime. But his attempts to minimise the
motive failed. The most disconnected witness knew - had known for
weeks - the causes of offence, and the prisoner, who naturally was the
last of all to know, groaned in the dock while he listened. The one
question that the trial circled round was whether Raines had fired under
sudden and blinding provocation given that very morning, and in the
summing up it was clear that Ortheris's evidence told. He had contrived,
most artistically, to suggest that he personally hated the Sergeant, who
had come into the verandah to give him a talking to for insubordination.