Meanwhile the Prosecutor was unfolding the charge in a clear, even voice, neither extenuating nor setting down aught in malice.  In a court-martial no Prosecutor ever “presses” the charge; he may even alleviate it.  Which shows that Assizes and Sessions have something to learn from courts-martial.  The case was simple.  Prisoner had gone out on the night of the 3rd with a patrol commanded by a subaltern.  An alarm was raised, and he and the greater part of the patrol had run back to the trenches, leaving the officer to stand his ground and to return later with his left arm shattered by a German bullet.

All this Stokes remembered but too well, though it seemed to have happened an immense time ago.  He remembered how the subaltern had warned him that the only thing to do when a German flare lit up the night was to stand quite still.  And he had not stood still, for one of the most difficult things for a man to believe is that to see suddenly is not the same thing as being seen; he had ducked, and as he moved something seared his right cheek like red-hot iron, and then—­but why recall that shameful moment?  A paradoxical psychologist in a learned essay on “the Expression of Emotion” has argued gravely that the “expression” precedes the emotion, that a man doesn’t run because he is afraid but is afraid because he runs.  Sergeant Stokes had never heard of psychology, but to this day he believes that it was his first start that was his undoing.  He had begun to run without knowing why, until he knew why he ran—­he was afraid.  Yes, that was it.  He had had, in Army vernacular, “cold feet.”  But why he ran in the first instance he did not know.  It was true he hadn’t slept for nearly three weeks, and that his duty as N.C.O. to go round every half-hour during the night to watch the men and stare at that inscrutable field, and to post and relieve, had made him very jumpy.  And then a young subaltern had died in his arms the day before that fatal night—­he could see the grey film glistening on his face like a clouded glass.  How queer he had felt afterwards.  But what had that to do with the charge?  Nothing at all.

And while the prisoner pondered on these things he was recalled by the voice of the President.  Did he wish to ask the witness any questions?  His company commander had been giving evidence.  No; he had no questions to ask.  And as each witness was called, and sworn, and gave evidence, all of which the Judge-Advocate repeated like a litany and duly wrote down with his own hand—­the prisoner always returned the same answer.

Now the prisoner’s friend, a young officer who had never played that role before, and who was both nervous and conscientious, had been studying Rule 40 in the Red Book with furtive concentration.  What was he to do with a prisoner who elected neither to make a statement nor to put questions to witnesses, and who never gave him any lead?  But he had there read something about calling witnesses as to character,