For they were just men, according to their views. They would do the thing conscientiously, and I could not have hoped for a better Court. But as judges they held the fatal military heresy, that the forms and procedure of Military Law are the best conceivable machinery for the discovery of truth. It was not their fault; they had lived with it from their youth. And since it is really a form of conceit, the heresy had this extension, that they themselves, and men like them, blunt, honest, straightforward men, were the best conceivable ministers for the discovery of truth--and they needed no assistance. Any of them would have told you, 'Damn it, sir, there's nothing fairer to the prisoner than a Field General Court-Martial'; and if you read the books or witness the trial of a soldier for some simple 'crime,' you will agree. But given a complex case, where testimony is at all doubtful, where there are cross-currents and hidden animosities, the 'blunt, honest' men are lost. To begin with, being in their own view all-seeing and all-just, they consider the Prisoner's Friend to be superfluous: and if he attempts any genuine advocacy they cannot stomach the sight of him. 'Prisoner's Friend be damned!' they will tell you, 'the Prosecutor does all that! and anything he doesn't find out the Court will.' Now the Prosecutor is indeed charged with the duty of 'bringing out anything in the favour of the Accused': that is to say, if Private Smith after looting his neighbour becomes afterwards remorseful and returns his loot to its owner, the Prosecutor will ask questions to establish the fact. In a case like Harry's it means practically nothing. The Prosecutor will not cross-examine a shifty or suspicious witness--dive into his motives--get at the secret history of the business, first, because it is not his job, and secondly, because being as a rule only the adjutant of his battalion, he does not know how. The Court will not do this, because they do not know anything about the secret history, and they are incapable of imagining any; because they believe implicitly that any witness, officer or man (except perhaps the accused), is a blunt, honest, straightforward man like themselves, and incapable of deception or concealment.