The Case Against Owen Williams (15 page)

Throughout, Dorkin kept turning it all over in his mind, wondering, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?” And wondering also and more fundamentally, “Ought I to dare?” At officers' training, there had been much talk of initiative, but he had been in the army long enough now to know that in practice the exercise of initiative was a good way to get your ass burned and that the best way to have a quiet life was to do what you were told—certainly no less but certainly no more. When he got to Fredericton, he had still decided nothing.

If Meade had been impatient for his return, he was too polite to show it when Dorkin finally arrived in the early afternoon. He waved away Dorkin's salute at the door with a sweep of the arm as a thing unnecessary between them and motioned him to a chair. Then he summoned his cwac corporal and had coffee brought, offered Dorkin a cigarette, which Dorkin declined, lit one for himself, sipped his coffee judiciously, approved, and settled back in his swivel chair to listen.

Dorkin did his best to keep to essentials, but even so, it took him almost an hour to summarize the evidence that had been presented at the hearing and to report on his meetings with Thurcott and Williams's uncle while Meade sipped and smoked and swivelled thoughtfully now and then in his chair.

“The evidence is entirely circumstantial,” Dorkin said when he had finished, and only then recognized how much he had been colouring his account in Williams's favour.

“Most evidence is,” Meade said. “It isn't very often people are brought red-handed into a courtroom. And even when there are witnesses, you can't always be sure they're telling the truth. Or know what the truth is.”

Dorkin hesitated, drawing closer to the brink. He had said nothing yet of his conversation with MacCrae, of his own reconnoiterings of the site, of his second talk with Williams. He had the feeling that he was being carried forward against his better judgement, but he decided to go on. Sooner or later, Meade was going to hear about some of that from someone anyway. So in another half an hour, he gave Williams's later version of the events and what he had found out from his own investigations.

Meade stopped swivelling and sat with his chin in his hand watching him closely as he talked. When he had finished, there was a long silence that Dorkin broke himself.

“I don't think he did it,” he said.

“Then who did?” Meade asked.

“I don't know. Probably someone who was hanging around out-side the dance hall—someone the Mounties didn't check because they didn't even know he was there. There isn't even any real evidence that the body was left there that night. It could just as easily have been a night or two later. I suspect that she may have been dropped there out of a car.”

“And Williams's lies to the Mounties?”

“I believe what he said. The first time, he didn't know that there was anything at stake, and he was too embarrassed to talk about necking with the girl. The second time, Grant put the heat on him. He was confused, and he was afraid to admit that he had lied the first time. Assuming that Grant ever gave him the chance.”

“I suppose that's possible,” Meade said. “But those lies are going to be awfully hard to undo in court.”

“It's possible that they may not be admissible,” Dorkin said. “I'm not sure the Mounties were all that careful about warnings.”

Meade swivelled and thought.

“What do you think will happen about defence counsel?” Dorkin asked.

“Well, if the uncle or someone else in the family can't look after it,” Meade said, “the court will have to appoint a defence counsel.”

“Is there any possibility that the army could provide it?”

“It's never been considered so far as I know.”

“Suppose a request were made? Would it be possible?”

“In theory. But there would be some very strong opposition to it.”

Dorkin paused, gathered his courage, and not sure why he was doing what he was doing, and with a small voice deep inside telling him that he was a god-damned fool, he jumped.

“Assuming that Williams agrees, I would like to be allowed to act as his defence counsel,” he said. “I would like to request that, with respect.”

Meade considered.

“Well,” he said at last. “That might take some doing.”

“I understand that,” Dorkin said.

“And Whidden is a pretty tough customer. Not to mention McKiel.”

“I understand that too. But I don't think their case is that strong. What's more, I believe that Williams is innocent. I suspect that a counsel appointed by the court will not. I'm not sure he would even want to win given the fact that Williams is a Zombie.”

“I'm not sure I'd go that far,” Meade said, “but there may be something to what you say. But I thought you were anxious for an overseas posting.”

“It can wait another three months.”

“The war may be over by then.”

“I don't think so,” Dorkin said.

“No,” Meade said. “In spite of all Montgomery's big talk, I don't think so either. But that's another matter. There's a meeting tomorrow about the Williams case. I'm scheduled to report on what's happened, and I can convey your request. But I think that any final approval is going to have to come from Ottawa.”

He hesitated and then added, “You're a very capable young chap. That's why they've been hanging onto you at Utopia. I think I should warn you that taking this case may not do you any good no matter what the outcome is.”

“It doesn't matter,” Dorkin said. “I don't intend to pursue a military career.”

“I wasn't just thinking of the military.”

“I'll take my chances.”

“Okay,” Meade said. “If that's what you want, I'll put it to them tomorrow and see what I can do.”

CHAPTER
SIX

At the sound of the approaching engines, Dorkin turned and saw coming up over the tops of the trees at the edge of the camp a chunky little aircraft with a fuselage like a fat cigar and two fat, very noisy, radial engines—a Lockheed Hudson, one of the fleet that flew off the airbase at Pennfield Ridge two miles away to patrol the approaches to the Bay of Fundy for German submarines. Until a year before, the war zone had begun within sight of land here, and there had been one night in 1942 when people along the shore had spent hours watching a red glow like a stormy sunrise where a torpedoed ship was burning somewhere just over the horizon. The subs were operating further out now, but the Hudsons that had helped drive them there still flew off Pennfield in endless succession, varied now and then by training aircraft like Harvards and Ansons, more rarely by a wandering Lancaster or Mosquito, once by a Spitfire trailing its clouds of glory.

For two and a half weeks, Dorkin had gone about his usual duties, without hearing anything from Meade. As the days had gone by, he had become convinced that some other arrangement must have been made for Williams's defence, and he had begun to feel a sneaking sense of relief like that of a soldier who has volunteered for some more than ordinarily suicidal mission and has then been absolved from the consequences of his heroic folly by the mission's being scrubbed.

Then yesterday the signal from Meade had arrived. It read:

I have received permission from Ottawa to assign you the re
-
sponsibility of defending Private Williams, and he has agreed to
this. I have made all necessary arrangements for your temporary transfer to Fredericton HQ effective immediately, and for
your accommodation, etc., in Wakefield. To preserve you from
having your guts shaken out in a Jeep I am sending a staff
car to pick you up at your quarters at 0900 hours tomorrow,
Saturday, August 19. He will bring you here, and we can discuss further details then. Lt. Col. K. Meade.

And so, at 0855 hours, Dorkin was standing in front of the officers' quarters, shoes polished to a metallic sheen, trousers pressed to a razor crease, face carefully shaved, hair flawlessly parted, nails clipped and filed. He watched the Hudson climb and bank away towards the coast, and then promptly at 0900 hours, as if it had been lying in wait just out of sight, there appeared, not a drab, khaki-coloured staff car, but a shiny black Packard 120 with military plates. It slid to the curb, a corporal got out, circled the back of the car, and standing by the right rear door, snapped Dorkin an excessively smart salute.

“Lieutenant Dorkin, sir?”

Dorkin returned the salute.

“Corporal Bennett, sir. Colonel Meade has sent me to pick you up, sir, as was arranged.”

He opened the door, and Dorkin hesitated. He always rode in the front beside any driver of his own, but there was something emphatic in Corporal Bennett's manner that made it clear that in this car with this driver that kind of familiarity would have marked him as someone who was not quite all an officer should be. So Dorkin got into the back and the door was closed, with just the necessary firmness, behind him.

Three hours later, he was seated at Meade's special table in the officers' mess in Fredericton. They had finished lunch and were sipping coffee. Nothing had been said so far about the Williams case. It had all been very casual as if they were enjoying nothing more than a pleasant social occasion.

“So, tell me about yourself,” Meade was saying. “You're not married?”

“No,” Dorkin said.

“Anything on the horizon? Any flame burning?”

“Not now,” Dorkin said. “There was, but it broke up in the spring. She didn't want to marry and then sit around for years if I went overseas. And she didn't want to be widowed at twenty-three.”

“Too bad,” Meade said. “But I can see her point, I suppose. It's hard for them. What about you? Much hurt?”

“I thought I was for a few weeks,” Dorkin said. “But I'll live.”

“A good time for romance, wars,” Meade said, “but a bad time for marriages, I guess. Anyway, we should probably get down to business. Why don't we take a little walk down to the shore, and then I'll tell you what's been happening.”

There was a path above the river, which on the other side of a light screen of trees was as smooth as a lake, and they strolled back and forth while Meade smoked a cigarette. Behind the officers' quarters, some benches had been set up facing the river, and when Meade had finished his cigarette, they settled there.

“Well,” Meade said, “as you've probably guessed from the time all this has taken, there's been a good deal of debate here and in Ottawa about Williams and about your request. The movement to have Williams given an immediate dishonourable discharge hadn't given up by any means. It was obvious that this would represent a clear prejudgement of the case, but it still wasn't easy to get that into the heads of certain members of the officer class, and it all took time.

“Then there was the question of whether or not the army was responsible for providing Williams with a defence counsel. It seemed to me and others that so long as he was in the army, he was the army's responsibility, but in the end, it came down as much as anything to a matter of how things were going to look. It's a very political situation, and it's going to get more political every day this uproar about overseas conscription goes on. Anyway, the final consensus was that the best thing for the army to do in the circumstances was to present itself as putting the well-being of any soldier whatever, even a Zombie, above mere self-interest—unlike our esteemed Prime Minister. So it was finally arranged that you should be relieved of other duties and transferred directly to my command here. No one raised the question of assistant counsel, and I decided to take what I'd got and run. Needless to say, you can come to me for advice unofficially whenever you wish.

“I've also arranged a clerk for you from Fredericton. His name— believe it or not—is John Smith. I'm told he's a good typist and can run an office pretty well. He can also double as a driver. I've explained to him that this is a delicate case and that if he doesn't keep his mouth shut about it, he'll find himself shovelling snow on the Alaska Highway.