Prescott’s case looked simple enough.  Nor did the judge-advocate of the court-martial need much time for his preparation of the case.  The judge-advocate of a court-martial is the prosecuting officer.  Theoretically he is also somewhat in the way of counsel for the defence.  It is the judge-advocate’s duty to prosecute, it is also his duty to inquire into any particulars that may establish the innocence of the accused man.

Mr. Topham at once consented to act as Dick’s counsel, and entered heartily into the case.

“But I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Prescott,” continued Lieutenant Topham, as he was talking the matter over with Dick in the latter’s room, “that both sides of the case look to me, at present, like blank walls.  It won’t be enough to clear you of the charge as far as the action of the court goes.  We must do everything in our power to remove the slightest taint from your name, or your position with your brother cadets will never be quite the same again.”

“I know that full well, sir,” Cadet Prescott replied with feeling.  “Though the court-martial acquit me, if there lingers any belief among the members of the cadet corps that I was really guilty, then the taint would not only hang over me here, but all through my subsequent career in the Army.  It is an actual, all-around verdict of ‘not guilty, and couldn’t be,’ that I crave sir.”  “You may depend upon me, Mr. Prescott, to do all in my power for you,” promised Lieutenant Topham.

CHAPTER XV

ON TRIAL BY COURT-MARTIAL

Tuesday was the day for the court-martial.

In the Army there is little patience with the law’s delays.

A trial must move ahead as promptly as any other detail of the soldier’s life.  Nothing can hinder a trial but the inability to get all the evidence ready early.  In Cadet Prescott’s case the evidence seemed so simple as to require no delay whatever.

The weather had been growing warmer within a short time.  When Dick and Greg awoke at sound of reveille, they heard the heavy rain no sign of daylight yet.

When the battalion turned out and formed to march to breakfast a more dispiriting day could not be imagined.  The rain was converting deep snow into a dismal flood.

But Dick barely noticed the weather.  He was full of grit, burning with the conviction that he must have a full vindication today.

It was when he returned to barracks and the ranks were broken, that Dick discovered how many friends he had.  Fully twoscore of his classmates rushed to wring his hand and to wish him the best kind of good luck that day.

Yet at 7.55 the sections marched away to mathematics, philosophy or engineering, according to the classes to which the young soldiers belonged.

Then Prescott faced a lonely hour in his room.

“The fellows were mighty good, a lot of them,” thought the accused cadet, with his first real sinking feeling that morning.  “Yet, if any straw of evidence, this morning, seems really to throw any definite taint upon me, not one of these same fellows would ever again consent to wipe his feet on me!”