Captain Sellon favoured him with a full-faced glare. Jock was grinning too hard to notice.
“I have just come from regimental surgeon’s training at Aldershot,” I said firmly. “All this is new to me. What on earth is a subalterns’ court-martial?”
The two lieutenants jostled each other a little and smiled politely. Captain Sellon intervened accusingly, as if I should have known better.
“A wholesome way of teaching a fellow manners, sir. I cannot condone it, but it may sometimes be the only way to avoid a regimental scandal. It is a court made up of junior officers to try a defendant privately. Let us leave it there.”
I found it odd that Sellon should be so touchy while Jock and Frank could hardly contain themselves. They had no wish to leave it there!
“Privately?” I asked.
“Mess jackets and medals at midnight,” said Frank with a helpful grin.
Sellon waved him aside. He proved to be the authority, but I noticed that he blushed a little as he spoke.
“Several years ago, doctor, there was a new young fellow in my brigade who thought himself a bit above the other lieutenants. He liked to swank and insisted on wearing a medal ribbon given for native Indian service. Not a British decoration. One does not wear such a trinket at a formal mess dinner. You understand that, no doubt. They warned him twice, to no avail. The third time, his junior comrades constituted themselves a court-martial and tried him in the mess at three o’clock in the morning. They sentenced him to have the letter ‘S’ for ‘swank’ shaved on the top of his head. It was done then and there. Two or three of them sat on him and another did the shaving. The hair grew back in a few weeks and no harm done. But they took the bounce out of him and he turned into a decent enough fellow. I promise you, he learnt his lesson.”
Jock leant forward.
“Before we came out from England, I heard of a man in the Brigade of Guards, no less. He was seen walking down the Strand in a boater that a fishmonger might wear, rather than a proper top hat. They tried him in the mess. Then they stripped him and made him run a circuit of the dinner room under the gauntlet of their belts. There were two other new officers, sprogs they call them in the guards. They refused to enter for the regimental sports. The same thing happened to them.”
Perhaps it was no more than I expected, but there was more to come from Captain Sellon, though he sounded impatient to have the thing over with.
“These things exist because of defects in the legal system. You know, I presume, that an ordinary regimental court-martial is only empowered to try non-commissioned officers and other ranks. Its officers have to be dealt with in public at a general headquarters court. A trial like that makes a lot of noise and does no good to morale. Have you not been taught that—doctor?”
“I can’t say I have been. Justice ought surely to be dispensed in open court.”
He gave a short exasperated sigh.
“To be sure. As it is in England. Out here, any public trial may smear the regiment in the eyes of our own people and the Indians as well. Let me show you. A crime need not be great in order to bring disgrace. Sometimes it is only military incompetence or perhaps insubordination. Of course it may be something more serious. A young officer as mess treasurer may embezzle part of the funds. Even worse, it might be some kind of offence against a woman. Imagine what the story would do to that woman if it were spread all over the native newspapers! Oh yes, doctor—there is a press for the Pandies out here as well as our own. The troublemakers know how to use it. Well, then, say a young man has gone wrong but simply needs a sharp lesson. A subalterns’ court-martial, junior officers who are his equals, administers that lesson to him in private. It is irregular, but it is found to be useful.”
“I have never heard of such a thing before,” I said. I did not add that the more I heard of it, the less I liked it.
“Did they teach you so little of Army life at Aldershot?” Sellon inquired.
He was quite right. No one at Netley Hospital had thought it necessary to inform me of these military curiosities during my medical training. He