The Wilson Deception Read Online Free PDF

are a luxury that frontline soldiers like Sergeant Cook don’t often enjoy.
    â€œMy colleague, though, has no explanation for a key part of the testimony given by those military policemen who are the key to his case. When Sergeant Cook was arrested, he and his men each carried two haversacks jammed with food, enough for an entire platoon. If they were running away, if they had decided to flee danger and abandon their comrades, why would they carry heavy loads? Why wouldn’t they travel as light as they possibly could and get away as fast as possible? And why would all three of them stay together? Had they split up, each might have fallen in with some stevedore unit or a trench-digging unit. Several colored units were working behind the lines in that sector. After all his time at the front, Sergeant Cook certainly knew how to avoid battle if he wanted to. But that’s not what he was doing. He was gathering supplies, desperately needed supplies, for his comrades.
    â€œThe prosecution of this fine soldier doesn’t hold together. It’s contrary to his record and it’s not supported by the evidence or the experience of war. I urge the court to return a verdict of not guilty and send Sergeant Cook back to the duties he performs so well.”
    The guards took Joshua outside while the judges conferred. He was grateful for the chance to smoke. War had taught him the virtues of tobacco. It can be smoked most anywhere. It never loses its power to distract from the unpleasantness of the moment. During a shelling, burrowed into a dugout, he could focus his entire mind on the rising smoke from a cigarette tip, its lazy, curving ascent a graceful helix just inches from his face.
    He indulged in a trace of a smile. In fat times and thin, cigarettes deliver the same subtle message: the world is unchanged, whatever you experienced before is the same. He remembered what Nash had said. Not the moment for philosophy. What was the moment for?
    It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes when word came to return to the courtroom. Nash had said a quick verdict would be a good one. Joshua pinched off his cigarette. He pocketed the stub.
    After the court delivered its verdict of acquittal, after he stood at attention and saluted the judges, Nash sat him down again. Neither man was smiling.
    â€œYou remember what I told you,” the lawyer said.
    â€œGeneral Parkman.”
    â€œRight. He reviews the verdict, and he’s the worst son of a bitch in the army. He can sustain it or vacate it and order a retrial.”
    â€œYou think he’ll vacate it?”
    â€œI do, sergeant. He’s death on deserters and just itching to make another example. And he’s no friend to the Negro soldier.”
    â€œThen I get retried again?”
    â€œYup. But without me. They’re shipping me out next week.” Nash started to stuff his papers into a valise. “Even if the Germans don’t sign a peace treaty, the army figures it doesn’t need a lot of lawyers over here any more.” He sat back and passed a hand over his short brown hair. He looked like his stomach hurt. “Listen, after eighteen months I still haven’t got the army figured out. But I’m going to tell you that something bothers me. I don’t know anything specific. It’s little things. The way people in my office act, the way they talk to me about your case. I don’t think we were supposed to win today.” He looked up directly at Joshua. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I wish you luck.”
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    Tuesday, December 24, 1918
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    Joshua was glad to have any visitor on Christmas Eve, even a stranger like Sergeant Virgil Carr. Though Carr was also from the Ninety-third Division, Joshua didn’t know the name.
    Last Christmas had been miserable enough. They had been on board a converted freight ship so decrepit that it had to return to port twice for repairs. Out on the Atlantic, he had expected any