“Now, be careful in answering. Can you tell the jury who were with you when you landed?”
“Yes.” He named without hesitation the men in the dock.
“Were there any others?”
“Yes. Carlyon, the leader, a man we called Cockney Harry and Joe Collier.”
“Do you know where these men are now?”
Again his eyes met the eyes in the gallery. Again his enemy’s were full of terrified appeal. Andrews smiled. He was sure of himself now. “No,” he said.
“While you were hiding how many shots did you hear fired?”
“I don’t know. They were all together and confused.”
“More than one man was firing in fact?”
“Yes. Several.”
“It has been suggested that one of your companions had a personal quarrel with the man Rexall. Do you know anything about that?”
“No.”
“Thank you. That will do.”
As Sir Henry Merriman sat down, Mr. Braddock reentered the Court.
He smiled a little maliciously at Sir Henry and began his cross-examination.
“How long have you been associated with the crew of the Good Chance?”
“For three years.”
“Have your relations with them been friendly?”
“In a way.”
“What do you mean by ‘in a way’?”
Andrews narrowed his eyes and answered not to counsel but to the men in the dock. “I was on sufferance,” he said, “treated with contempt. My opinion was never consulted.”
“Why didn’t you leave them?”
“Mr. Braddock, is this relevant?” Sir Edward Parkin asked, with a note of petulance.
“My lord, in my submission, highly. If your Lordship will have patience—”
“Very well then, go on.”
“Why didn’t you leave them?” Mr. Braddock repeated fiercely. Andrews turned his eyes away from the familiar faces in the dock and gazed at the red choleric face of counsel. It amused him to think that a man with a face like that should question him on such shadowy things as motives. Facts, hard and firm as chips of wood, were the only things that he would appreciate.
“I had nowhere to go,” he said, “and no money.”
“Did it ever occur to you to work honestly for your living?”
“No.”
“Did you have any other motive in remaining with the Good Chance for three years?”
“Yes, friendship for Carlyon.”
“Why did you first join?”
“Friendship for Carlyon.”
“The man whom you have betrayed?”
Andrews reddened and felt his cheek with the tips of his fingers. “Yes.”
“What were your motives for laying information with the Revenue?”
“Do you really want to know that?” Andrews asked. “Isn’t it wasting your time and the time of the Court?”
“Don’t make speeches,” Sir Edward Parkin snapped in his high, supercilious voice. “Answer the questions put to you.”
“It was because I had a father whom I hated and he was always being put before me as a model. It made me mad. And I’m a coward. You all know that.” Andrews gripped the edge of the box and leant forward, his voice angry, his face red and ashamed. “I was afraid of being hurt and I hated the sea and the noise and the danger. And unless I did something it would have gone on for always and always. And I wanted to show those men that I was someone to be considered, that I had the power to smash all their plans.”
“And to hang them?”
“I never thought of that. I swear it. How could I tell they’d fight?”
“And your friend, the man Carlyon? Did you do nothing to warn him?”
“It was a case of him or me.”
A bearded man called Hake in the second row of the prisoners sprang to his feet and shook his fist at Andrews. “It’s him or you still,” he cried. “He’ll get you for this.” A warder pulled him down.
The Court was growing unbearably stuffy. The judge and the ladies in the gallery were fluttering scented handkerchiefs. Andrews’s forehead was hot and sticky with sweat. He wiped it with the palm of his hand. He felt as though he had been standing for hours exposed to the gaze of the Court. His lips were dry and he longed for water. Give me strength to go through with this, he implored silently—not of God but of the image which he carried in his heart and behind which he tried to hide the faces that watched him.
“Where is your father?” Mr. Braddock asked.
“In hell I hope,” Andrews answered, and a burst of laughter from the gallery came like a breath of cool spring wind to a tropic night. No relief of cool winds was allowed in a court of justice. Laughter was suppressed by the usher’s cries.
“Do you mean that he is dead?”
“Yes.”
“And it was jealousy of a dead man which impelled you to betray comrades of three years’ standing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you expect the jury to understand that?”
“No.” Andrews’s voice drooped wearily. He felt a sudden longing to explain to this red-faced counsel who plagued him so with questions that he had not slept all night. “I don’t expect anyone to understand,” he said. In his heart he added—save Elizabeth—and Carlyon.
“Do you expect the jury to believe it?”
“It is true.”
The red face came at him again with the persistence of an insect.
“I suggest to you that your whole story is untrue?”
Andrews shook his head, but he could not shake off that voice which came at him again and again and again.
“That you never laid any information?”
“I did.”
“That you are telling this story to save yourself from the dock?”
“No.”
“That you never landed with a cargo on the night of February 10?”
“I did, I tell you.”
“That you were with a woman, a notorious woman?”
“No. It’s untrue.”
Andrews’s weariness grew on him. He held the sides of the witness box as a support. I could sleep now, he said to himself.
“Will you stand there on your oath and tell the jury that you have not been keeping company with a loose woman?”
“No, I refused,” he said wearily. He could not understand how this red bladder with the bullying voice was so well aware of his movements.
“What do you mean you refused?”
“I was in the Sussex Pad at Shoreham when the girl came up to me. But I wouldn’t have her. Carlyon came in to drink
