The Winston Affair (8 page)

“The rain has a cooling effect. When the sun comes out, it feels hotter than it is. The contrast, you know.”

Adams nodded.

“Not a very nice picture of your client—”

“No.”

“Well, take it with a grain of salt. I just didn't like the man. What are your own impressions?”

“I haven't seen him yet,” Adams said.

“Oh?”

“I wanted to know him a little before I met him.”

“I see. You take this quite seriously, don't you?”

“As seriously as I would take the life or death of any human being put into my hands.”

“But his life or death isn't in your hands at all, Adams. He is going to hang. There is nothing on earth that you can do to stop that or to change it. In this case, the decision has already been made—and by very powerful people, if I may say so. Why can't you accept that and go through the formality of a defense?”

“Would you, sir?”

Kensington hesitated before he answered. “I deserve that. A physician is apt to forget about personal reservations. I'm a good deal older than you, Adams. It's easier for me to indulge a formality.”

“That's an evasion.”

“How the devil do I know what I would do in your place, Adams? Is this world so well ordered? Look around you at this happy land. It stinks of death! We're at war. Every day thousands of young men die—strong, alert young men, full of hope and love and vitality. Do you want me to weep and wax philosophical over one twisted, distorted and wretched human being? A confessed murderer. A mind warped with hatred and fear. A personality diseased and damaged beyond hope of repair. Do you doubt for a moment that Winston deserves to die?”

“I don't know who deserves to die,” Adams answered slowly.

“Now look, Adams,” Kensington said, marking his words with his pipe. “I am not a soldier. I am a physician, and for the big brass I have neither love nor admiration. But this war must be won. Even out here in this stinking backwash of jungle, that remains the central focus of my life. I console myself with the wee bit I contribute, and with the thought that this theater is a sort of pivot. In this pivot, my people and your people do not get along well. There is bad feeling. The Winston affair has brought that feeling to a head. If Winston's death can shorten this war even by moments, it becomes the only positive fact of his life.”

“How do you know?” Adams asked sadly.

“Know? Know what?”

“That his death would be the only positive fact of his life?”

Kensington stared at him, angrily at first—then uneasily. Then the major rose and stalked over to a window.

“You'll want some lunch before your train,” Kensington said. “I suppose you'll want to look about for a bit.” He didn't turn around.

“I want something else, sir.”

“What else?”

“I want you to testify at the court-martial.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel that your testimony is pertinent.”

“I don't feel that it is pertinent or of any importance.”

“You will have to let me decide that, Major.”

“You have Winston's confession. Sergeant Johnson has been called by the prosecution.”

“I feel that I require your testimony, sir.”

Kensington whirled on him. “Damn you, Adams, what are you trying to do?”

“What I have to do.”

Kensington said slowly, “Can't you understand what it would mean for me to repeat the things I said to you? Don't you understand that?”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

Kensington walked over to his chair and slumped into it. Outside, a steam whistle blew. “That's sick call,” Kensington explained with a sigh. “You'll have to excuse me for the time being.”

“I don't want to have to force you to appear, sir.”

“I'll come,” Kensington said. “When do you want me?”

“Monday morning. Nine o'clock—at the Judge Advocate Building.”

Thursday 4.20 P.M .

The narrow gauge was only twenty minutes late. When the train pulled into the Chaterje Station and the screaming mob rushed toward it and the constables beat them back with their long sticks, Barney Adams had a strange feeling of confusion and unreality. On the one hand, he felt that he had not been gone at all; and again, that he had been at Bachree a very long time. A sense of newness and strangeness had worn off.

Corporal Baxter was waiting with the jeep. When Barney Adams climbed in, Baxter asked him, did he want to eat now? Adams shook his head. “No, there's time for that, Corporal. Take me to the Provost now. After that, I'll go to my quarters and dean up.”

“Do you want me to wait, Captain?”

“I think so.”

Adams sat in silence as they drove to the Provost. Baxter made a few attempts to engage him in conversation, and then gave it up. Barney Adams ranged in his own thoughts. The memory of Bachree became more distant, more spacious.

The prison was an old one, an ugly building of yellow stone which the British had turned over to the American Command; but if it was damp inside, its heavy walls also gave it a certain amount of protection from the sun. There was a visiting room of sorts, where Barney Adams waited after he sent his name in. A Captain Freeman came out to take him to the prisoner.

As they walked down a long corridor of barred doorways—which reminded Adams of a medieval dungeon—Freeman explained that most of the cells were empty. “Only the worst cases. We keep the small-time offenders in the divisional guardhouses. We had a kid here who wrote home that he was languishing in a dungeon. It raised a real stink. What the hell, we have worse jails in the States.” He was a cheerful man of about thirty. “I hope this won't be long, Captain,” he said. “I'm to stay with you, but I got a date tonight.”

“It won't be too long.”

“You know, I been waiting all afternoon.”

“I'm sorry,” Adams said. “I'll try not to keep you any longer than I have to. But I want to see Winston alone. Can you wait outside?”

“My instructions are to be in the cell whenever a third party enters.”

“I don't think that applies to defense counsel.”

Freeman shrugged. They were at the cell now. A military policeman stood on guard duty at the door. “Open up,” Freeman said. “This is Captain Adams, defense counsel.”

The military policeman took a key from his pocket and opened the cell door. Adams entered with a curious sense of expectancy. Winston was sitting at a wooden table, his head in his hands. There was another chair in the cell, a cot, a tin basin of water on a stand, and a crockery chamber pot. A small bulb burned in a ceiling socket, and there was a small barred window, about seven feet up.

Winston looked up as Adams entered, but on his face there was neither anticipation nor curiosity. He was a skinny man, long-faced and balding. He had pale green eyes, and he wore metal-rimmed glasses. Adams' immediate impression was of a commonplace man, an unimaginative and not overly-intelligent man, but not a man marked by any stamp of brute or criminal. Sitting there in his coverall fatigues, he did not command attention; if the room had been filled with people, he would not have been noticed at all.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Winston,” Adams said. “I'm Captain Barney Adams. I've been appointed counsel for your defense.”

Winston watched him without interest or awareness.

“Did you hear me, sir?”

Still there was no response from Winston.

His voice hard and insistent, Adams said, “I am speaking to you, sir! You will reply when spoken to!”

Winston blinked his eyes and then clenched them shut. When he opened them, he said, “Leave me alone.”

“I don't intend to take up too much of your time, Lieutenant. But I must speak to you. I am counsel for your defense. You understand what you are charged with?”

“Damn it, don't try to make a fool of me!”

“I am only trying to help you as best I can.”

“You can't help me.”

“I can defend you in court. I must do that, and I propose to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because you are entitled to such defense. No matter what you have done, you are entitled to a fair trial and to an earnest and intelligent defense.”

“I killed a man, Captain. What defense is there for that?”

“Let me find a way to defend you,” Adams said more gently. “I'll find a way. I only want you to help me.”

“It too late. I can't help you or anyone.”

“No—it's never too late. I can help you, and you can help me by answering my questions—straightforwardly and truthfully. You must begin by trusting me.”

A long moment went by while Winston watched him—with fear, with doubt and with suspicion.

“Well?”

“What kind of questions?” Winston whispered.

“Did you kill Sergeant Quinn?”

“I told you I killed him.”

“Why did you kill him?”

“Because he had to die.”

“What do you mean by that? Why did he have to die?”

Winston shook his head tiredly.

“You said he had to die.”

“I knew about it then. I don't remember now.”

“Are you trying to remember, Lieutenant Winston? I told you that I am trying to help you. Are you trying to help me?”

“Yes, damn you!” Winston cried out.

“Then try to remember.”

Winston strained across the table toward Adams, and whispered hoarsely, “Will you believe me?”

“If you tell me the truth.”

Winston relaxed for the first time since Adams had entered the cell. Almost matter-of-factly, he said, “When Quinn left, I just waited until I was told. Then I did what I was told.”

“What were you told to do?”

“To kill Quinn.” He was picking at a pimple on the back of his hand, and examining it intently as he picked at it.

“Who told you to kill Quinn, Winston?”

“God,” he replied flatly, still picking at the pimple.

“God told you to?”

“Oh, yes. Yes.”

“Where was God when he told you this?”

“Where?” He glanced at Adams, almost in surprise. “In the same place.”

“And where is that place?”

“Here,” putting his hand on his side. “Right here. He stays here and burns. Not now. After I did it, he went away. It's the same damned thing, all the way down the line.”

“You know you are telling me something to make me believe you to be insane,” Adams said evenly.

“That's why I don't tell them,” Winston nodded, glancing at the door. “I'm not insane.”

“Did you tell this to Dr. Kaufman at the hospital?”

Suddenly excited, Winston cried, “I told that lousy Jew bastard too much. He was with them all the time. I should have known. Oh, Jesus Christ, I should have known.”

“What, Winston? What should you have known?”

“That he was with them! With them! All the time with them! God damn you to hell, mister, what are you? A lousy kike in disguise?”

Adams stared at Winston in silence now. The anger disappeared. The slight flush faded from Winston's sallow face. There seemed to be almost a physical process of deflation. The eyes saw nothing in particular. They began to blink.

“Is there anything else you wish to tell me, Lieutenant Winston?” Adams asked.

There was no response.

“Lieutenant Winston—”

Still no response. Then Adams saw that Winston was crying. His face did not move or change, but the tears rolled down the flat, sallow cheeks.

Adams turned around and left the cell.

Friday 9.20 A.M .

If Barney Adams had met Major Kaufman under other circumstances, it would not have entered his mind to consider whether or not Kaufman looked Jewish. Even with the name, the thought would not have presented itself to Adams. He was simply not concerned with whether or not any man looked Jewish or was Jewish. It did not resolve itself into a matter of principle or tolerance; the problem had been absent in his formative years, and in his maturity he did not approach it as anything that excited either his interest or his curiosity. He had never cared nor had he ever found any reason to care—until the last three days.