‘I quite understand, sir.’ The Defending Officer’s face was wooden and he rustled the papers in his hand as he faced the Court. ‘I will endeavour to follow your ruling, but I must point out that the officer I am defending faces very serious charges and my case rests to some extent on the clash of personalities that, I submit, was the direct and inevitable result of this somewhat, shall I say, unusual appointment. You have heard the evidence this morning of two brigadiers, both of whom briefed the accused following his appointment. Both have admitted that their instructions could be interpreted as making Major Braddock directly responsible for the success of the operation. However, if Colonel Standing’s behaviour is not to be referred to….’ He flung his papers on to the desk. ‘Mr Ross, you will now tell the Court what Captain Stratton said after he’d spoken to Colonel Standing.’
I hesitated, for I didn’t see how this could help Iain. But the Court was waiting and I said, ‘He didn’t say very much — just that Colonel Standing hadn’t known about the order and was angry.’
‘Angry? Because he’d been got out of bed in the middle of the night?’ I saw the President lean forward, but Selkirk was too quick for him. ‘Or was it because he didn’t know, at that time, that there was a landing craft grounded on the beach in Shelter Bay?’
‘I think it was because he didn’t know about the evacuation.’
‘Did he know there was a landing craft on the beach or not?’
‘He couldn’t have done.’
‘Did he know about the Met. Officer’s latest forecast?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘In other words, he was completely out of touch with the situation and it was Major Braddock …’
The Prosecuting Officer was on his feet, but the President forestalled him: ‘I must insist that you confine yourself to questions of fact and refrain from putting opinions of your own into the witness’s mouth.’
‘Very well, sir. But I would ask the Court’s indulgence. It is a little difficult to know who exactly was in command.’ Again he adjusted his glasses, leaning down to check his notes. ‘Now, about radio contact. In your deposition which I have here, you say you spoke to Mr Morgan yourself on R/T. What was the reception like?’
‘Very poor,’ I told him. ‘And Stratton said it was bad when he was talking to Colonel Standing.’
‘Was that the reason, do you think, that Captain Pinney wasn’t given a direct order by his superiors to get his men off the ship?’ And before I could reply, he went on, ‘Or would you say, from your own experience, that in a situation like this Major Braddock would be fully justified in leaving any decision like that to the men on the spot?’
‘I think by then,’ I said, ‘the situation was beyond the control of anybody at Base.’
He nodded, and after that he stood for a moment reading through his notes. I saw my brother’s attention wander to the door at the back of the court. He had done that several times. Major Selkirk had stepped back from his desk, head thrown up and his eyes fixed on me again. ‘Now we come to the loss of L8610 … the cause, or rather the twin causes, for there were two, weren’t there?’ And when I nodded, he went on, ‘These were covered very fully by Lieutenant Wentworth in his evidence, but I would like. to confirm one point with you — the failure of the steering. Do you remember Lieutenant Wentworth making a comment about the tiller flat? He says he told Captain Stratton that it was being flooded. Do you recall him making that report?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did he give a reason?’
I told them then how the stretcher party had taken McGregor’s body to the tiller flat and had failed to secure the hatch on leaving. ‘That was what caused the flooding.’
‘And it was the failure of the steering, was it not, that threw the ship on her beam ends and made it impossible to deal with the sea water in the ready-use tank?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that again was something that Captain Stratton couldn’t have foreseen?’
‘Nobody could have foreseen it,’ I said.
‘And certainly not Major Braddock, back at Base?’
‘No.’
And on that he sat down. There was a moment of shuffling relaxation in the court-room, and then the Prosecuting Officer rose to cross-examine me. He was a large, quiet man with a soft voice and a manner that was easy, almost friendly. ‘One or two small points, Mr Ross. We know that Captain Pinney virtually refused to take his men off the ship. But later, just before you got off the beach, I think I’m right in saying that Colonel Standing spoke to him on the R/T. Am I also right in saying that the result of that talk was a direct order from his Colonel to get his men disembarked?’
‘I believe so, but by then it was quite impossible.’ I knew what he was after. He wanted to show that Standing had not only countermanded the order, but had come very near to saving the situation. He was going to try and show Standing as a decisive man whose subordinate had let him down and who was making a last-minute effort to rectify the damage that had been done. I glanced at my brother, but his head was again turned towards the door, which was half open. A sergeant had come in and was just closing it. I turned to the President, determined not to have this point twisted to the advantage of the Prosecution. ‘The first contact Colonel Standing had with the ship was when he spoke to Captain Stratton. My impression is that he had already taken personal command; yet he gave no order for the disembarkation of the Laerg detachment. I agree he did eventually give the order to Pinney, but by then it was at least two hours too late.’
The President nodded. ‘And in your view the accused officer was not responsible at that time?’
‘That’s my impression — that Colonel Standing was in control.’
The Prosecuting Officer continued: ‘You mentioned that radio conditions were bad.…’ he was shifting his ground, but at that moment the sergeant came down the room, his footsteps loud on the bare boards. He handed the President a note. When he had read it, the President glanced quickly at me, and from me to Iain. He didn’t say anything, but after consultation with the Judge Advocate he cleared the Court.
Nobody has ever told me what was in that note. But I can guess, for Lane made a statement to the Court and this was supported by the man he had brought with him. After we had been kept waiting about half an hour, it was announced that the Court was adjourned until the following day.
Knowing what Lane would have told the Court, I was expecting every moment to be called to an interview. But nothing happened. Instead a rumour circulated that Major Braddock had collapsed and had been rushed unconscious to the Medical Reception. This proved correct. A statement was issued to the Press that night and the following morning my newspaper carried the story under the headline:
ACCUSED MAJOR BREAKS DOWN — LAERG COURT MARTIAL POSTPONED.
I read it over my breakfast and I was still drinking my coffee and wondering about it when the hotel receptionist came in to tell me that there was an Army officer waiting to see me. He was a young second-lieutenant and he had orders to take me to the hospital. It is not clear to me even now whether the Army had accepted the fact that Major Braddock and I were brothers. I think probably they had — privately. But the Army, like any other large organisation, is a community in itself with its own code of behaviour. As such it closes its ranks and throws a protective cloak over its members when they are attacked by the outside world. I suspect that Lane’s accusation was not accepted by the Court — officially, at any rate. In any case it was quite outside the scope of their proceedings.
To Lane it must have seemed nothing less than a conspiracy of silence. First the Army, and then the Press. I know he approached several newspapers, for they dug up the Duart Castle story, and in addition they wrote up Lane himself — not very kindly. But none of them referred to his accusations, other than obliquely. The law of libel made that too hot a story. There was another factor, too. Braddock’s collapse had to some extent swung public feeling. The disaster was now past history. It had happened more than three months ago and here was this man being hounded into a nervous breakdown.