The Deputy Judge-Advocate-General and his representatives with the Armies are legal advisers to the Staff in the proceedings of courts-martial.  The Judge-Advocate attends every trial and coaches the Court in everything, from the etiquette of taking off your cap when you are taking the oath to the duty of rejecting “hearsay.”  He never prosecutes—­that is always the task of some officer specially assigned for the purpose—­but he may “sum up.”  Officers are not usually familiar with the mysteries of the Red Book,[29] however much they may know of the King’s Regulations; and a Court requires careful watching.  One Judge-Advocate whom I knew, who was as zealous as he was conscientious, instituted a series of Extension lectures for officers on the subject of Military Law, and used to discourse calmly on the admissibility and inadmissibility of evidence in the most “unhealthy” places.  Speaking with some knowledge of such matters, I should say that court-martial proceedings are studiously fair to the accused, and, all things considered, their sentences do not err on the side of severity.  Even the enemy is given the benefit of the doubt.  There was a curious instance of this.  A wounded Highlander, finding himself, on arrival at one of the hospitals, cheek by jowl with a Prussian, leapt from his bed and “went for” the latter, declaring his intention to “do him in,” as he had, he alleged, seen him killing a wounded British soldier in the field.  There was a huge commotion, the two were separated, and the Judge-Advocate was fetched to take the soldier’s evidence.  The evidence of identification was, however, not absolutely conclusive—­one Prussian guardsman is strangely like another.  The Prussian therefore got the benefit of the doubt.

The prisoner gets all the assistance he may require from a “prisoner’s friend” if he asks for one, and the prosecutor never presses a charge—­he merely unfolds it.  Moreover, officers are pretty good judges of character, and if the accused meets the charge fairly and squarely, justice will be tempered with mercy.  I remember the case of a young subaltern at the Base who was charged with drunkenness.  His defence was as straightforward as it was brief: 

     I had just been ordered up to the Front.  So I stood my friends a
     dinner; I had a bottle of Burgundy, two liqueurs, and a brandy and
     soda, and—­I am just nineteen.

This ingenuous plea in confession and avoidance pleased the Court.  He got off with a reprimand.

The liaison officers deserve a chapter to themselves.  Their name alone is so endearing.  Their mission is not, as might be supposed, to promote mariages de convenance between English Staff officers and French ladies, but to transmit billets-doux between the two Armies and, generally, to promote the amenities of military intercourse.  As a rule they are charming fellows, chosen with a very proper eye to their personal qualities as well as their proficiency in the English