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There were sighs around the room. A woman sobbed.
On the bench Antrobus leaned forward and ordered the usher to fetch a chair for Kittering. Brancaster helped him onto it, propping the crutches beside him where he could reach them.
“Thank you, Major Kittering,” Brancaster said gravely. “We mourn the loss of Captain Stanley, and all the other nearly two hundred men and women who drowned in the Thames that night. We also mourn those innocent people who lost their lives in Egypt, due to the arrogance and ill-temper of a British renegade officer who would not be counseled.” He turned to Pryor. “Your witness, sir.”
Pryor stood up. Perhaps he was at last aware that the entire room was against him. They were numb with horror at the tragedy, and the mindless evil of it all. They looked at Kittering, his pain and his shame for his brother officers written indelibly in his face. They waited for Pryor to attack him.
Pryor was too wise and, Rathbone thought, also too self-serving, to make such an error.
“I will not keep you long, Major Kittering. I regret having to trouble you at all.”
Kittering nodded.
“When and where did Captain Stanley tell you about this appalling event?”
“When he came to see me, on returning home,” Kittering answered. “It was at the beginning of May. Two days before the sailing of the Princess Mary.”
“And you believed his account, word for word?” Pryor did not invest his voice with doubt; he knew better than that.
“Yes. I knew Stanley, and I know of the officer in command, a man called Wilbraham, by repute. I knew the massacre had occurred because I knew men who saw the place two or three days after. Many bodies were unburned and the stench of blood was still in the air.”
“Perhaps you are fortunate you were not able to be on the Princess Mary?” Pryor left only a suggestion of disbelief in the air.
“Why?” Kittering said, twisting his mouth in a grimace of misery. “I wasn’t actually there, after all.”
“Indeed you were not,” Pryor agreed. “It seems you have a very partial knowledge of a horrific incident, and a great deal of loyalty to a dead friend who may well have been to blame for it.”
Kittering was so white that Brancaster rose to his feet, not to object but to help him physically if he should faint in the chair and fall sideways onto the floor. Even Rathbone was poised to rush forward if that should happen.
Everyone else in the room was motionless.
Pryor broke the spell.
“It seems from your story, Major Kittering, that you believe Gamal Sabri took a fearful vengeance on the man who destroyed his village, and some two hundred of his fellow countrymen. An appalling act, but one I dare say many of us here would at least understand. If someone hacked to death every man, woman, and child in the village where I grew up, I cannot swear that I would forgive, or trust in a powerless law to avenge such an act. What I do not understand is why you appear to defend Stanley. If your story is true, perhaps you will explain that to us?” He stood with a helpless, confused expression, waiting for Kittering to answer.
Kittering took several long, deep breaths. Clearly he was exhausted and in some considerable physical pain.
Brancaster remained standing.
Antrobus looked at Kittering with some concern, but he did not intervene.
Rathbone felt as if each second dragged by, but there was nothing he could do to help.
“You have misunderstood, sir,” Kittering said at last. “Perhaps that is your job. It appears to be. Stanley did not commit the massacre at Shaluf et Terrabeh. He tried to stop it and was nearly killed for his efforts.” He stopped, struggling to keep his composure.
Pryor seized the chance to interrupt. “That makes no sense, sir. If Stanley was not guilty, why on earth would Gamal Sabri sink an entire ship of people just to be sure of killing him? It is absurd! You cannot expect this court to believe that. Perhaps your own injury has … affected your memory.” He said it in a conciliatory tone, but it did not disguise his contempt. “May I put it to you, Major Kittering, that it was Stanley who led the atrocity against the village, and you yourself who were severely injured in trying to prevent it?”
There was a stirring in the gallery; whether out of pity, disgust, or fear, it was hard to tell.
“They were mercenaries,” Kittering said with weary patience, as if speaking to someone slow of wits. “There will be no military record of them. But I am a regular soldier. It would be perfectly simple to check that I was nowhere near Shaluf et Terrabeh at this time, if you were interested in the truth. And I did not say that Sabri sank the Princess Mary to kill anyone in revenge, although I dare say he was willing enough. God knows what we have done to his people. Of course it makes no sense to kill Stanley. I don’t suppose he knew Stanley was on board …”
Pryor rolled his eyes.
Kittering kept his patience with an effort. “He was paid to sink the ship,” he said quietly, his voice fading as his strength drained away. “Stanley was the one man who could have testified against Wilbraham, and would have if he could be brought to trial.”
The court was silent. No one moved in the jury box, or in the body of the gallery. Even Antrobus was momentarily lost for words.
Pryor turned one way, then the other, but for once he could think of nothing wise or clever to say.
