If I were not what I am, Mr Justice Willis thought, it would be so simple. I would pick up the telephone on the desk and ask for Alan Maitland. When he answered I would simply say: Look at BC Reports, Volume 34, 1921, page 191, Rex vs Ahmed Singh. Nothing more would be needed. He is an astute young man and before the court Registry closes today he would be here with a habeas corpus writ.
It would prevent Henri Duval from sailing with the ship.
And I care, he thought. Alan Maitland cares. And so do I.
But because I am what I am, I cannot… directly or indirectly… do this thing.
And yet… there was the inarticulate major premise.
It was a phrase he remembered from law school long ago. It was still taught, though – in the presence of judges – seldom mentioned.
The inarticulate major premise was the doctrine that no judge, whatever his intention, could ever be impartial. A judge was human; therefore he could never hold the scales exactly even. Consciously or unconsciously his every thought and action were influenced by the events and background of his life.
Mr Justice Stanley Willis accepted the postularion. He also knew that he himself possessed a major premise. It could be summarized in one word.
Belsen.
It had been 1945.
The law career of Stanley Willis, like that of many others of his generation, had been interrupted by the years of World War II. As an artillery officer he had served with the Canadians in Europe from 1940 until the war's end. And, near its end. Major Stanley Willis, MC, liaison officer with the British Second Army, had accompanied the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment in its liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen.
He had remained at Belsen a month, and what he had seen had been the single most haunting experience of his life. For years afterwards, and sometimes even now, the horror of those thirty days could return to him in feverish, vivid dreams. And Stanley Willis – a scholarly, sensitive man beneath an austere facade – had departed from Belsen with an avowed intention: that, in the years left to him, whatever he could personally do to relieve the wretchedness of mistreated and afflicted human beings, that much he would do.
As a judge, it had not been easy. There had been occasions when despite inner misgivings he had been obliged to pass sentence on the guilty where instinct told him that society, and not individuals, was the principal 'offender. But, sometimes, some hapless miserable felon, dismissed by most as beyond salvation had received a light or mitigated sentence because a shadow of the past… the inarticulate major premise… had touched the mind of Mr Justice Willis.
As now.
The plight of Henri Duval, as it had before the nisi hearing, continued to stir him deeply.
A man was incarcerated. A man could be justly freed.
Between the one and the other stood the judge's honourable pride.
With humbled pride the lesson just, he thought. And he crossed to the telephone.
He must not call Alan Maitland directly; that much, discretion demanded. But there was another way. He could speak to his own former law partner, a respected senior counsel who was astute and would understand the implications of a conversation. The information conveyed would be relayed promptly, without revelation of the source. But his former law partner was also a man who held strong views on judges' meddling…
Mr Justice Willis sighed. In conspiracy, he thought, there was no perfect pattern.
The connexion was made. He announced, "This is Stanley Willis.' /
A deep voice on the telephone said affably, 'It's a pleasant surprise. Your Lordship.'
The judge interjected quickly, 'An informal call, Ben.'
A chuckle down the line. 'How are you Stan? It's been a long time.' There was a note of genuine affection.
'I know. We must get together sometime.' But he doubted if they would. A judge, by reason of his office, was forced to tread a lonely path.
'Well, Stan, what can I do for you? Is there somebody you'd like to sue?'
'No,' Mr Justice Willis said. He was never very good at small talk. 'I thought I'd have a word with you about this Duval case.'
'Oh yes; the stowaway affair. I read your ruling. A pity, but I don't see what else you could have done.'
'No,' the judge acknowledged, 'there was nothing else. All the same, young Maitland's a bright young lawyer.'
'I agree,' the voice said. 'I think he'll do the profession a lot of credit.'
'I hear there's been quite a search for precedents.'
'The way it was told to me,' the deep voice said with a chuckle, 'Maitland and his partner have turned the law library inside out. But they haven't had any luck.'
'I've been wondering,' Mr Justice Willis said slowly, 'why they haven't gone to Rex vs Ahmed Singh, BC Reports, Volume 34, 1921, page 191. I should think, on that, they could get habeas corpus without question.'
There was a silence at the other end of the line. The judge could imagine eyebrows raised, a sense of disapproval. Then, more coolly than before, the voice said, 'You'd better give me that reference again. I didn't get all of it.'
When he had repeated the reference and shortly afterwards hung up, Mr Justice Willis thought: there is a price we pay for all we do. But the information, he knew, would be passed on.
He glanced at his watch before returning to an accumulation of written judgements upon his desk.
Four and a half hours later, as darkness was descending on the city, the frail elderly Registry clerk, standing at the, door, announced, 'My lord, Mr Maitland has an application for habeas corpus.'
Chapter 4
Under bright, rigged floodlights the Vastervik was loading lumber.
Confidently, exultantly, Alan Maitland raced up the rusty iron gangway to the cluttered, dilapidated main deck.
The fertilizer smell had gone. Any traces of it remaining were being dispelled by a freshening breeze blowing from the sea. The clean-scented aroma of fir and cedar were wafting through the ship.
The night was cold, but overhead stars twinkled in a clear sky.
The third officer, whom Alan had seen on Christmas morning, approached him from the ship's forecastle.
'I'm here to see Captain Jaabeck,' Alan shouted along the deck, 'and if he's in his cabin I can find my way.'
The thin, wiry ship's officer came closer. 'Then you will find your way,' he said. 'And even if you did not know, you have the mood to find your way tonight.'
'Yes,' Alan agreed, 'I guess I have.' Instinctively he touched the pocket of his suit to ensure that the precious paper was still there.
Turning into the ship's interior, he called over his shoulder, 'How's your cold?'
'It will be better,' the third officer answered, 'as soon as we have sailed.' He added, 'Forty-eight hours more, that's all.'
Forty-eight hours. It had been close, Alan thought, but it looked as if they had made it in time. This afternoon he had been at his Gilford Street apartment when the message, relayed through Tom Lewis, had reached him: Look at Rex vs Ahmed Singh.
Deciding he must leave no chance untaken, but without much hope, he had gone to the law library. There, when he read the 1921 ruling, his heart had leaped. Afterwards it had been a feverish rush of drafting, typing, checking, and assembling the multiple affidavits and writs which the law required. Emergency or not, the monster's maw must be appeased with paper…
Then the race to the courthouse – to reach the Supreme Court Registry before closing. And he had made it, though barely, and a few minutes later had appeared before Mr Justice Willis, once again, today, the chambers judge.
The judge, austere and remote as always, had listened carefully then, after a few short questions, authorized an order for habeas corpus – the order absolute and not the minor nisi writ. It was a rare and quietly dramatic moment. The original writ, and a copy, were in Alan's pocket now: Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Canada and her other realms and territories. Defender of the Faith… command you immediately after the receipt of this our writ… to deliver the body of Henri Duval…