Karsh removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “In regard to this black whiskey, lieutenant, you could be excused for thinking we’re pounding a very small point into the ground. But there’s a reason for it, as you’ll see.” Replacing his glasses, Karsh adjusted the frames and said, “Let’s go back to December fifteenth, the night before the Germans launched their offensive. You were at D Battery’s headquarters that night, lieutenant. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you tell us why?”
“Three men in my gun section had been killed in a booby-trapped home in the town of Werpen, sir. I was at the battery CP to check their personal effects with a clerk from Graves Registration.”
“Not very easy duty, I’m sure,” Karsh said. “Now, after that business was taken care of, you went on to the battery’s motor pool. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you tell us what took place at the motor pool that night?”
Docker sensed a change in the attitude of Karsh and the other officers. They regarded him with a new intensity, a sharpened and more aggressive interest. Until this point. Docker had been unable to make out any pattern in their questions. The dusty olive grove still looked deceptively pleasant and inviting, but he was battle-smart enough to know that the questions about the black whiskey and filing the sears off their rifles had been a smoke screen for what was coming.
“We’re waiting, lieutenant.” Karsh’s voice was quietly insistent.
“One of my men, Corporal Larkin, was there, sir. He’d been drinking and I thought he might be in trouble.”
“Was Larkin’s behavior normally a source of concern to you?”
“Not usually, sir. But when he was drinking, yes.”
“Would you say Larkin had a drinking problem?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Would you describe him as a heavy drinker?”
“I think I’d have to, sir.”
“Did you ever report Larkin’s drinking to your officers?”
“No, sir.”
“I see.” Karsh made a note on his pad. “Tell me this, lieutenant: how would you describe your relationship with Corporal Larkin?”
Docker had told himself to keep a grip on his temper, but he realized now that would be difficult because these officers with their legal phrases and uniforms that smelled of soap and starch were inquiring into the lives of sweating, shat-upon men who couldn’t defend themselves at hearings like these because they were lying dead in the mud and snow they had been told were fields of honor, so to speak, to borrow the major’s bullshit phrase... He found it hard to channel his thoughts; it was the same feeling of disarray he’d experienced when they’d questioned him about Baird, because his sharpest memories of that youngster were of his outsized overcoat, the muddy boots with frozen laces, and the thin wrists burned raw with wind and sleet. And so what was the truth of Larkin, what did he remember about him... the cough you could hear night and day around the guns, the dark smudge of whiskers, the irreverent anger, the way he laughed when he checked and raised? Or was it in his bullying uncles, or the sick worry he felt about his job and his wife Agnes and the daughter he hadn’t seen in two years? How could he sum up what else there had been (“Describe your relationship, lieutenant...”) under the impersonal scrutiny of officers in a ballroom designed for string quartets and punch bowls full of wine and strawberries?
“Would you like Sergeant Corey to repeat the question, lieutenant?”
Docker let out his breath slowly. “I don’t need my memory refreshed about Larkin, sir. He was a good soldier and a good friend.”
“That’s a generous answer, lieutenant.” Opening a folder, Karsh said, “I will quote now from Corporal Haskell’s statement. ‘When Docker shot the lights out of that truck, I was scared as hell. There was no way to guess what he’d do next. With that gun and mad as he was, it was like he was out of his frigging head.’ ”
Karsh marked his place with the tip of a pencil. “Is that an accurate description of how you behaved that night, lieutenant?”
“No, sir, it’s not.”
“Then I’d be pleased to hear your version.”
“Larkin was drunk,” Docker said. “Haskell had fifty pounds on him and was working him over. I told him to stop. I also told Haskell’s mechanics to turn off the headlights of their trucks because they were violating blackout security.”
“And when they didn’t, you shot out those lights?”
“Yes sir.”
“Wouldn’t you say that was a rather drastic overreaction?”
“I wouldn’t argue the point, sir,” Docker said, “but it got the job done.”
Karsh looked at him, his fingers drumming on the table. Captain Walton leaned forward to say something, but Karsh checked him. “We won’t digress now, captain.” He studied the open folder. “I’ll quote again from Haskell’s statement, lieutenant. ‘After he shot out the lights. Docker asked me how far I wanted to push this thing, how far I wanted to take it. I’d busted up Larkin, sure, because he’d called me things no white man would take. I got nothing to apologize for, but I’ll admit the way Docker looked scared me. Maybe he wouldn’t of used that gun, but plain, frigging common sense told me to back off. I ain’t sorry I did just that.’ ”
Karsh looked inquiringly at Docker. “Would you care to comment on Corporal Haskell’s testimony?”
“For the record, sir, I didn’t threaten him with a gun. I bolstered the forty-five before I asked him how far he wanted to take things.”
“And that’s your only comment?”
“Except, sir, that for a man with nothing to apologize for, I’d say Haskell’s done a pretty damn good job of doing it.”
The rictus flared on Karsh’s face but no other emotion showed in his expression as he closed Haskell’s folder. “We’ll recess for ten minutes, gentlemen.”
At Karsh’s words, the MP corporal came to attention and opened the doors of the ballroom. Sergeant Corey glanced at her watch and recorded the time in her notebook.
“Lieutenant Docker, this information is from the statement Captain Travolta took from a Paul Bonnard.” Captain Walton scanned an open file and absently stroked his wilted mustache. “According to Paul Bonnard, Corporal Larkin told you about the cellar full of liquor and foodstuffs at the castle near your gun position. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Larkin mentioned it to me, sir.”
Walton settled back in his chair, the bright overhead lights coating his glasses, and Docker saw in his expression then, in the expectant complacency of his smile, the outline of the land mines hidden in those still-quiet olive groves.
“Why, lieutenant? Or more to the point, what did Corporal Larkin have in mind?”
Docker remembered the bitterly cold morning they had talked about it, the two of them close to the fire in the cave on Mont Reynard, the wind pounding the tarpaulin over the entrance and Larkin coughing painfully, his face smudged with dirt and creased with bitterness, jabbing a finger at him for emphasis and talking of his job at Railway Express and Hamlin’s modest proposal to build decompression chambers for returning GIs...
Walton was saying, “Did you understand my question, lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Larkin wanted to sell those supplies on the black market. He wanted to use one of our trucks to haul them to Liège.”
“Let’s get this straight... Corporal Larkin asked you for permission to use one of Section Eight’s trucks. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him to forget it, sir.”
“Would you be more specific? You told him to forget about asking your permission? Or to forget about selling those supplies on the black market? Or what?”