Like A Charm

CORNELIUS JUBB by Peter Robinson

Most of us around these parts had never seen a coloured person until Cornelius Jubb walked into the Nag's Head one fine April evening in 1943, bold as brass and black as Whitby jet.

Ernie the landlord asked him if he had a glass. Glasses being in short supply, most of us brought our own and guarded them with our lives. He shook his head. Ernie's not a bad sort, though, so he dug out a dusty jam jar from under the bar, rinsed it off and filled it with beer. The young man seemed happy enough with the result; he thanked Ernie and paid. After that, he lit a Lucky Strike and just stood there with that gentle, innocent look in his eyes, a look I came to know so well, and one that stayed with him throughout all that was to happen in the following weeks, for all the world as if he might have been waiting for a bus or something, daydreaming about some faraway sweetheart.

Now, most of us up here in Leeds are decent enough folk, and I like to think we measure a man by who he is and what he does. But there's always an exception, isn't there? In our case it was Obediah Clough, who happened to be drinking with his cronies in his usual corner, complaining about the meagre cheese ration. Obediah was too old to go to war again, and he drilled the local Home Guard and helped out with ARP, though air raids had been sporadic since 1941, to say the least.

Obediah swaggered up to the young coloured gentleman with that way he has, chest puffed out, baggy trousers held up with a length of cord, and looked him up and down, an exaggerated expression of curiosity on his blotchy red face. His pals sat in the corner sniggering at his performance. The young man ignored them all and carried on drinking and smoking.

Finally, not used to being ignored for so long, Obediah thrust his face mere inches away from the other man's, which must have been terrible for the poor fellow because Obediah's breath smells worse than a pub toilet at closing time. Give him his due, though, the lad didn't flinch.

'What have we got here, then?' Obediah said, playing it up for his cronies.

Whether because he recognized the question as rhetorical, or because he simply didn't know the answer, the young man made no reply.

'What's your name, then?' Obediah asked.

The man put his glass down, smiled and said, 'My name's Jubb, sir. Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb. I'm very pleased to meet you.' He held out his hand, but Obediah ignored it.

'Jubb?' Obediah's jaw dropped. 'Jubb? But that's a Yorkshire name.'

'It's the name I was given by my parents,' said the man.

'Tha's not a Yorkshireman,' Obediah said, eyes narrowing. 'Tha's having me on.'

'No word of a lie,' said Cornelius Jubb. 'But you're right, sir. I'm not a Yorkshireman. I'm from Louisiana.'

'So what're you doing with a Yorkshire name, then?'

Cornelius shrugged. 'Maybe my ancestors came from Yorkshire?'

Cornelius had a twinkle in his eye, and I could tell that he was joking, but it was a dangerous thing to do with Obediah Clough. He didn't take well at all to being the butt of anyone's joke, especially after a few drinks. He looked over to his friends and gestured them to approach. 'Look what we've got here, lads, a black Yorkshireman. He must've come straight from his shift down t'pit, don't you think?'

They laughed nervously and came over.

'And what's that tha's got on thy wrist?' Obediah said, reaching towards some sort of bracelet on the GI's right wrist. He obviously tried to keep it out of sight, hidden under his sleeve, but it had slipped out. 'What is tha, lad?' Obediah went on. 'A bloody Nancy-boy? I've got a young lady might appreciate a present like that.' The young man snatched his arm away before Obediah could grab the bracelet.

'That's mine, sir,' he said, 'and I'd thank you to keep your hands off it.'

'Doesn't tha know there's a price for coming and drinking in here with the likes of us?' Obediah went on. 'And the price is that there bracelet of thine. Give us it here, lad.'

The boy moved a few inches along the bar. 'No, sir,' he said, adopting a defensive stance.

I could tell that things had gone far enough and that Obediah was about to get physical. With a sigh, I got to my feet and walked over to them, putting my hand gently on Obediah's shoulder. He didn't appreciate it, but I'm even bigger than he is, and the last time we tangled he came out with a broken rib and a bloody nose. 'That's enough, Obediah,' I said gently. 'Let the lad enjoy his drink in peace.'

Obediah glared at me, but he knew when he was beaten. 'What's he think he's doing, walking into our pub, bold as you like?' he muttered, but his heart wasn't in it.

'It's a free country, Obediah,' I said. 'Or at least Mr Hitler hadn't won the war last time I checked.'

This drew a gentle titter from some of the drinkers, Obediah's cronies included. You could feel the tension ease. As I said, we're a tolerant lot on the whole. Muttering, Obediah went back to his corner and his pals went with him. I stayed at the bar with the newcomer.

'Sorry about that, lad,' I said. 'He's harmless, really.'

The GI looked at me with those big brown eyes of his and nodded solemnly.

Now that I was closer, I could see that the object Obediah had referred to was some sort of gold chain with tiny trinkets suspended from it, a very unusual thing for a man to be wearing. 'What exactly is that?' I asked, pointing. 'Just out of curiosity.'

He brought his arm up so I could see the chain. 'It's called a charm bracelet,' he said. 'My lucky charm bracelet. I usually try to keep it out of sight.'

Everything on the chain was a perfect miniature of its original: a gold locket, a cross, a monkey, an angel, a golden key, a tiny pair of ballet slippers, a lighthouse, a tiger and a train engine. The craftsmanship was exquisite.

'Where did you get it?' I asked.

'Fishing,' Cornelius said.

'Pardon?'

'Fishing. Caught it fishing in the Mississippi, down by the levee, when I was boy. I decided then and there it would be my lucky charm.'

'It's a beautiful piece of work,' I said. I held out my hand. 'Richard Palmer. Dick to my friends.'

He looked at my outstretched hand with suspicion for a moment, then slowly he smiled and reached out his own, the palm as pink as coral, and shook firmly. 'Pleased to meet you, Mr Palmer,' he said. 'I'm Cornelius Jubb.'

I smiled. 'Yes, I heard.'

He glanced over at Obediah and his cronies, who had lost interest now and become absorbed in a game of dominoes. 'And I don't know where the name came from,' he added.

I guessed that perhaps some Yorkshire plantation owner had given it to one of Cornelius's ancestors, or perhaps it was a contraction of a French name such as Joubliet, but it didn't matter. Jubb he was, in a place where Jubbs belonged. 'You don't sound Southern,' I said, having heard the sort of slow drawl usually associated with Louisiana on the wireless once or twice.

'Grew up there,' Cornelius said. 'Then I went to college in Massachusetts.'

'What are you doing here all by yourself?' I asked. 'Most American soldiers seem to hang around with their mates, in groups.'

Cornelius shrugged. 'I don't know, really. That's not for me. They're all… y'know… fighting, cussing, drinking and chasing girls.'

'You don't want to chase girls?'

I could have sworn he blushed. 'I was brought up to be a decent man,' he said. 'I'll know when the right girl comes along.' He gestured to the charm bracelet again and smiled. 'And this is for her,' he added.

I could have laughed at the naivety of his statement, but I didn't. Instead, I offered to buy him another drink. He accepted and offered me a Lucky. That was the beginning of what I like to think of as an unlikely friendship, but I have found that war makes the unlikeliest of things possible.

You might be wondering by now why I wasn't at war with the rest of our fine lads. Shirker? Conchie? Not me. I saw enough carnage at Ypres to last me a lifetime, thank you very much, but the fact of the matter is that I'm too old to be a soldier again. After the first war I drifted into the police force and finally rose to the rank of Detective Inspector. Now all the young men have gone off to fight, of course, they need us old codgers to carry the load back home. Just as I was getting ready to spend my twilight days reading all those books I never read when I was younger – Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Hardy, Trollope. Ah, well, such is life, and it's not a bad job, as jobs go. At least I thought so until events conspired to prove me wrong.

Cornelius, as it turned out, was one of about three hundred coloured persons – or Negroes, as the Yanks called them – in an engineering regiment transferred up from the West Country. During our conversations, mostly in the Nag's Head, but often later at my little terraced back-to-back over carefully measured tots of whisky, no longer readily available, I learned about hot and humid Louisiana summers, the streets, sounds and smells of New Orleans and the nefarious ways of the colour bar and segregation. I had already heard of problems between white and coloured GIs in other parts of the country. Apparently, the American military command wanted to institute the same sort of colour bar they had at home, but we British didn't want that. I had also heard rumours that in some towns and villages a sort of unwritten code had grown up, fostered by whispering campaigns, as regards which pubs were to be frequented by Negroes and which by whites.

I also learned very quickly that Cornelius was a shy young man, a bit of a loner, but no less interesting or intelligent for that. His father was a Baptist minister, and he had wanted his son to go to college and become a schoolteacher, where he might have some positive influence on young men of the future. Though Cornelius had instead followed a natural interest in and flair for the more practical and mechanical aspects of science, he was remarkably well travelled and well read, even if there were great gaps in his education. He had little geography, for example, and knew little beyond the rudiments of American history, yet he spoke French fluently – though not with any accent I'd heard before – and he was well versed in English literature. The latter was because of his mother, he told me. Sadly deceased now, she had read children's stories to him from a very early age and guided him towards the classics when she thought he was old enough.

Cornelius was homesick, of course, a stranger in a strange land, and he missed his daddy and the streets of his hometown. We both had a weakness for modern music, it turned out, and we often managed to find Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman broadcasts on the wireless, even Louis Armstrong if we were lucky, whenever the reception was clear enough. I like to think the music helped him feel a little closer to home.

All in all, I'd say that Cornelius and I became friends as that spring gave way to summer. Sometimes we discussed currents events – the 'bouncing bombs' raid on the Eder and Möhne dams in May, for example, which he tried to explain to me in layman's terms (without much success, I might add). We even went to the pictures to see Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush with a couple of broad-minded Land Girls I knew. That raised more than a few eyebrows, though everything was above board. As far as I could tell, Cornelius stayed true to his word about waiting for the right girl to come along. How he knew that he would be so sure when it happened, I don't know. But people say I'm married to my job, which is why my wife left me for a travelling salesman, so how would I know about such things?

One August night, just after the Allies had won the battle for Sicily, the local GIs all got a late pass in honour of Patton's role in the victory. After an evening in the Nag's Head drinking watery beer, Cornelius and I stopped up late, and after he left I was trying to get to sleep, my head spinning a little from a drop too much celebratory whisky, when there came a loud knocking at my door. It was a knocking I wish I had never answered.

Brimley Park was a thick wedge of green separating the terraces of back-to-backs on the east side and the more genteel semi-detached houses on the west. There was nothing else but a few wooden benches and some swings and a slide for the kiddies. Chestnut trees stood on three sides, shielding the heart of the park from view. There used to be metal railings, but the Ministry of Works appropriated them for the war effort a couple of years ago, so now you could make your way in between the trees almost anywhere.

Harry Joseph, who had been dispatched by the beat constable to fetch me, babbled most of the way there and led me through the trees to a patch of grass where PC Nash and a couple of other local men stood guard. It was a sultry night and the whisky only made me sweat more than usual. I hoped they couldn't smell it on me. It was late enough to be pitch dark, despite double summer time, and, of course, the blackout was in force. As we approached, though, I did notice about eighteen inches of light showing through an upper window in one of the semis. They'd better be quick and get their curtains down, I thought, or Obediah Clough and his ARP men would be knocking at their door. The fines for blackout violations were quite steep.

Harry had babbled enough on the way to make me aware that we were approaching a crime scene, though I never did manage to find out exactly what had happened until I got there. PC Nash had his torch out, the light filtered by the regulation double thickness of white tissue paper, and in its diffused milky glow I could see the vague outline of a figure on the grass: a young woman with a Veronica Lake hairstyle. I crouched closer, careful not to touch anything, and saw that it was young Evelyn Fowler. She was lying so still that at first I thought she was dead, but then I noticed her head move slightly towards me and heard her make a little sound, like a sigh or a sob.

'Have you called an ambulance?' I asked PC Nash.

'Yes, sir,' he said. 'They said they'll be here straight away.'

'Good man.'

I borrowed Nash's torch and turned back to Evelyn, whispering some words of comfort about the doctor being on his way. If she heard me, she didn't acknowledge it. Evelyn wasn't a bad sort, as I remembered. Around here, the girls were divided into those who didn't and those who did. Evelyn was one who did, but only the morally rigid and the holier-than-thou crowd held that against her. It was wartime. Nobody knew which way things were going to go, how we would all end up, so many lived life for the moment. Evelyn was one of them. I remembered her laugh, which I had heard once or twice in the Nag's Head, surprisingly soft and musical. Her eyes might have been spoiled for me by that cynical, challenging look that said, 'Go on, convince me, persuade me,' but underneath it all, she had been easily enough persuaded.

There was no mistaking what had happened. Evelyn's dirndl skirt had been lifted up to her waist and her drawers pulled down round her ankles, legs slightly spread apart at the knees. She was still wearing nylons, no doubt a gift from one of our American brothers, who seemed to have unlimited supplies. Her lace-trimmed blouse was torn at the front and stained with what looked like blood. From what I could see of her face, she had taken quite a beating. I could smell gin on her breath. I looked at her fingernails and thought I saw blood on one of them. It looked as if she had tried to fight off her attacker. I would have to make sure the doctor preserved any skin he might find under her nails.

I averted my gaze and sighed, wondering what sad story Evelyn would have to tell us when, or if, she regained consciousness. Men had been fighting a deadly campaign in Sicily, and even now, as we stood around Evelyn in Brimley Park, they were still fighting the Germans and the Japanese all over the world, yet someone, some man, had taken it into his mind to attack a defenceless young woman and steal from her that which, for whatever reason, she wouldn't give him in the first place. And Evelyn was supposed to be one of those girls who did. It didn't make sense.

My knees cracked as I moved. I could hear the ambulance approaching through the dark, deserted streets of the city. Just as I was about to stand up, the weak light from the torch glinted on something in the grass, half hidden by Evelyn's outstretched arm. I reached forward, placed it in my palm and shone the torch on it. What I saw sent a chill down my spine. It was a tiny, perfectly crafted tiger. The very same one I had seen so many times on Cornelius Jubb's 'lucky' charm bracelet.

It was with a heavy heart that I approached the US army base in a light drizzle early the following morning, while Evelyn Fowler fought for consciousness in the infirmary. It was a typical enough military base, with Nissen huts for the men, storage compounds for munitions and supplies, and the obligatory squad of men marching round the parade ground. Along with all the Jeeps and lorries coming and going, it certainly gave the illusion of hectic activity.

My official police standing got me in to see the CO, a genial enough colonel from Wyoming called Frank Johnson, who agreed to let me talk to Lieutenant Jubb, making it clear that he was doing me a big favour. He specified that army personnel must be present and that, should things be taken any further, the matter was under American jurisdiction, not that of the British. I was well aware of the thorny legal problems that the American 'occupation', as some called it, gave rise to, and had discovered in the past that there was little or nothing I could do about it. The fact of the matter was that on the 4th of August, 1942, after a great deal of angry debate, the Cabinet had put a revolutionary special Bill before Parliament which exempted US soldiers over here from being prosecuted in our courts, under our laws.

The colonel was being both courteous and cautious in allowing me access to Cornelius. The special USA Visiting Forces Act was still a controversial topic, and nobody wanted an outcry in the press, or on the streets. There was a good chance, Colonel Johnson no doubt reasoned, that early collaboration could head that sort of thing off at the pass. It certainly did no harm to placate the local constabulary. I will say, though, that they stopped short of stuffing my pockets with Lucky Strikes and Hershey Bars.

I agreed to the colonel's terms and accompanied him to an empty office, bare except for a wooden desk and four uncomfortable hard-backed chairs. After I had waited the length of a cigarette, the colonel came back with Cornelius and another man, whom he introduced as Lieutenant Clawson, a military lawyer. I must confess that I didn't much like the look of Clawson; he had an arrogant twist to his lips and a cold, merciless look in his eye.

Cornelius seemed surprised to see me, but he also seemed sheepish and did his best to avoid looking me directly in the eye. Maybe this was because of the scratch on his cheek, though I took his discomfort more as a reflection of his surroundings and hoped to hell it wasn't an indication of his guilt. After all, we were on his home turf now, where the coloured men had separate barracks from the whites and ate in different canteens. Already I could sense the gulf and the unspoken resentment between Cornelius and the two white Americans. It felt very different from Obediah Clough's childish attempts at bullying; it ran much deeper and more dangerous.

'Tell me what you did last night, Cornelius,' I said, the words out of my mouth before I realized what a mistake I had made calling him by his first name. The colonel frowned and Lieutenant Clawson smiled in a particularly nasty way. 'Lieutenant Jubb, that is,' I corrected myself, too late.

'You know what I did,' said Cornelius.

The others looked at me, curious. 'Humour me,' I said, feeling my mouth become dry.

'We were celebrating the victory in Sicily,' Cornelius said. 'We drank some beer in the Nag's Head and then we went back to your house and drank some whisky.'

The colonel looked surprised to hear Cornelius talk, and I guessed he hadn't heard him before. Where you were expecting some sort of barely comprehensible rural Louisiana patois, what you got in fact was the more articulate and refined speech of the New Englander, a result of the time Cornelius had spent in the north.

'Were you drunk?' I asked.

'Maybe. A little. But not so much that I couldn't find my way home.'

'Which way did you go?'

'The usual way.'

'Through Brimley Park?'

Cornelius hesitated and caught my eye. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's a good shortcut.'

'Did you notice anything there? Anyone?'

'No,' he said.

I got that sinking feeling. If I could tell that Cornelius was lying, what would the others think? He certainly wasn't a natural liar. And why was he lying? I pressed on, and never had my duty felt so much of a burden to me before.

'Did you hear anything?'

'No,' said Cornelius.

'Do you know a girl by the name of Evelyn Fowler?'

'Can't say as I do.'

'About five foot three, good-looking girl. Wears nice clothes, makes a lot of them herself, has a Veronica Lake hairstyle.'

'Who doesn't?' said Cornelius.

It was true, there were plenty of Veronica Lake lookalikes walking around in 1943. 'She's been in the Nag's Head a couple of times,' I added.

'I suppose I might have seen her, then,' said Cornelius. 'Why?'

'She was raped and beaten last night in Brimley Park.'

Now, for the first time, Cornelius really looked me in the eye. 'And you think I did it?' he asked.

I shook my head. 'I'm only asking if you saw anything. It was around the time you left. And,' I dropped the tiger softly on the table, 'I found this near the scene.'

Cornelius looked at the charm, then turned up his sleeve and saw the missing spot on his bracelet. Clawson and the colonel both stared at him gravely, as if they knew they'd got him now and it was just a matter of time. I wasn't so sure. I thought I knew Cornelius, and the man I knew would no sooner rape and beat Evelyn Fowler than he would sully the memory of his own mother.

Finally, he shrugged. 'Well,' he said, 'I did tell you I walked through the park. It must have dropped off.'

'But you saw and heard nothing?'

'That's right.'

'Bit of a coincidence, though, isn't it? The timing and all.'

'Coincidences happen.'

'Where did you get that scratch on your cheek?' I asked him.

He put his hand up to it. 'Don't know,' he said. 'Maybe cut myself shaving.'

'You didn't have it last night when you left my house.'

He shrugged again. 'Must have happened later, then.'

'When you were attacking Evelyn Fowler?'

He looked at me with disappointment in his eyes and shook his head. 'You don't believe that.'

He was right; I didn't. 'Well, what did happen?' I asked.

'I think that's about enough for now,' said Lieutenant Clawson, getting to his feet and pacing the tiny room. 'We'll take it from here.'

That was what I had been afraid of. At least with me Cornelius would get a fair deal, but I wasn't sure how well his countrymen would treat him. I was the one who had brought the trouble, the one who couldn't overlook something like the little tiger charm found at the crime scene, even though I never suspected Cornelius of rape. But these men… how well would he fare with them?

'This girl who was attacked,' Clawson went on, 'is she still alive?'

'Evelyn Fowler? Yes,' I said. 'She's unconscious in hospital, but she's expected to pull through.'

'Then maybe she'll be able to identify her attacker.'

I looked at Cornelius and saw the despair in his face.

I thought I knew why. 'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps she will.'

Within two days, Evelyn Fowler was sitting up and talking in her hospital bed. Before the Americans arrived, I managed to persuade Dr Harris, an old friend, to give me a few minutes alone with her.

Not surprisingly, she looked dreadful. The Veronica Lake hair lay limp and greasy around her heart-shaped face. She was still partially bandaged, mostly around the nose, but the dark bruises stood out in stark contrast to skin as pale as the linen on which she lay. Her eyes had lost that light, cynical, playful look and were filled instead with a new darkness. When she tried to smile at me, I could see that two of her lower front teeth were missing. It must have been a terrible beating.

'Hello, Inspector Palmer,' she said, her voice oddly lisping and whistling, no doubt because of the missing teeth. 'I'm sorry, it's a right mess you see me in.'

I patted her hand. 'That's all right, Evelyn. How are you?'

'Not so bad, I suppose, apart from my face, that is. And a bit of soreness… you know.'

I did know.

'He must have been disturbed or something,' she went on. 'I suppose I was lucky he didn't kill me.' She tried another smile and some of her natural sweetness and playfulness came through.

'Did you see your attacker at all?' I asked, a lump in my throat.

'Oh, yes,' she said. 'I mean, you can't help it, can you, when a great hulking brute's on top of you thumping you in the face? I saw him all right.'

'Did you recognize him?'

Here she paused. 'Well, it was dark, what with the blackout and all that. But I suppose in a way that's what made it easier.'

'What do you mean?'

'The blackout. His face, it just blended right in, didn't it?' She lowered her voice to a whisper and turned her head towards me. 'He was a nigger.'

'Evelyn, that's not a polite word to use.'

'Well it wasn't a polite thing he did to me, was it?' She pouted. 'Anyway, Jim, that's my sweetheart, Jim's a GI and he says them niggers are good for nothing and they have their way with white women at the drop of a hat. Said they're hanging them over there for it all the time. They're not the same as us. Not as intelligent as us. They're just like big children, really. They can't control themselves. I know what folks thought of me, that I'd go with anybody, but I wouldn't go with a nigger, not for a hundred pounds. No, sir.'

'Was it someone you recognized?'

'I'd know him if I saw him again.'

'But you'd never seen him before?'

'I didn't say that. My head still aches. I can't think clearly.'

'Did you scratch him?'

'I certainly tried hard enough… Funny thing…'

'What is?'

'Well, it's just a feeling I got, I don't know, just about when I was passing out, but at one time I could have…'

'What?'

'Well, I could have sworn that there were two of them.'

Apart from one or two brief consultations with Lieutenant Clawson and another US military lawyer called William Grant, the case was taken out of my hands, and whatever investigation was done was carried out by the US military. It's a sorry state of affairs indeed when a British policeman has no powers of investigation in his own country.

Naturally, the Americans were tight-lipped and I could discover nothing from them. Evelyn came out of hospital after a week and soon got back to her old self, and her old ways, though she seemed to be avoiding me. At least, she never came to the Nag's Head any more, and I got the impression that whenever she saw me approaching in the street she crossed over to the other side. I guessed that perhaps the Americans had found out about our little chat and warned her off. Whatever the reason, they were keeping everything under wraps and hardly a snippet of information even got out to the papers.

Of poor Cornelius, I had no news at all. I didn't see him again until the general court martial at the base. As he sat there, flanked by a guard and his lawyer, he seemed lifeless and mechanical in his movements and the sparkle had gone from his eyes, though the look of innocence remained. He seemed resigned to whatever fate had in store for him. When he looked at me, it seemed at first as if he didn't recognize me, then he flashed me a brief smile and turned back to examining his fingernails.

I had never been to an American GCM before and I was surprised at how informal it all seemed. Despite the uniforms, there were no wigs in evidence and the language seemed less weighty and less full of legal jargon than its British equivalent. There were twelve members of the court, all officers, and by law, because this was the trial of a Negro, one of them also had to be coloured. This turned out to be a young First Lieutenant, new to command, who seemed nervous and completely intimidated by the other eleven, all of whom had higher ranks and much greater seniority.

Cornelius pleaded not guilty and his defence was that he had interrupted the attack and chased off the attacker, whom he had not recognized because of the blackout. When he realized he was a coloured American GI standing alone in a deserted park after nightfall with a raped and beaten white girl, he did what any coloured man would do and hurried back to camp.

Naturally, I was called quite early in the proceedings to present my evidence, much as I would have been in an ordinary court. I described how I had been woken up and led to Brimley Park by Harry Joseph, what I had seen there and what I had found in the grass beside Evelyn Fowler. I was then asked about my relationship with the accused and about how we had spent the evening drinking previous to the attack. The problem was that whenever I tried to expand on Cornelius's good character, his virtues, and to emphasize that, drunk or sober, he was not the sort of man who could have carried out such a brutal rape, they cut me off. Even Cornelius's lawyer never really let me get very far. As a policemen, of course, I was used to giving evidence for the prosecution, not for the defence, but this time the limitations galled me.

Evelyn Fowler was a revelation. In court, she looked a lot more demure than she ever had in the Nag's Head: no dirndl skirts, bolero dresses or Veronica Lake hairstyles for Evelyn today, only a plain Utility dress and her hair tied loosely behind her neck.

Lieutenant Clawson proceeded gently at first, as if afraid to stir up her feelings and memories of the events, but I guessed that his apparent sympathy was merely an act for the court. When he got to the point, he made it brutally and efficiently.

'What were you doing in the park that night, Miss Fowler?' he asked.

'I was walking home from a dance,' she said. 'My friends wanted to stay but I had to get up early for work. It's a shortcut.'

'And what happened?'

'Someone grabbed me and threw me to the ground. He… he punched me and tore my clothing off.'

'And he raped you. Is that correct?'

Evelyn looked down at the handbag clasped on her knees. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'He raped me.'

'Miss Fowler, do you see the man who raped you and beat you here in this courtroom today?'

'I do,' she said.

'Can you please point him out to the court?'

'That's him,' she said, pointing at Cornelius without a moment's hesitation. 'The accused. That's the man who raped me.'

'You have no doubt?'

'Not a shred,' said Evelyn, her lips set in a determined line. 'That's him.'

And did Cornelius's lawyer attack her evidence? Not a bit of it. Did he challenge her character and question how she had arrived at her identification? Not at all. I knew that Evelyn hated and feared coloured people, and that she had been well versed in this by her beau, GI Jim, but did the lawyer ask her about her feelings towards Negroes? No, he didn't.

I was willing to bet, for a start, that Evelyn hadn't picked Cornelius out of a line-up of similar physical types, and that as far as she was concerned one Negro looked very much like another. And Cornelius did have a scratch on his face, after all. I wouldn't even have been surprised if she had been told in advance that a charm from his bracelet had been found right beside her arm after the attack. She had told me that at one point she had sensed two men. Couldn't one of them have been Cornelius fighting off her attacker? But neither lawyer asked about that.

All in all, it was a disappointing affair, one-sided and sloppy in the extreme. I spent the entire time on the edge of my seat biting my tongue. On several occasions I almost spoke out, but knew they would only expel me from the courtroom if I did so. I could only pray for Cornelius now, and I wasn't much of a believer in prayer.

After a short recess for lunch, which I spent smoking and trying, unsuccessfully, to gain access to Cornelius's lawyer, there was little else to be done. Dr Harris gave evidence about Evelyn's condition after the attack, not forgetting to mention that the small piece of skin found under one of her fingernails was black.

In the end, it was an easy decision. Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb admitted to being in Brimley Park on the night in question, around the exact time the attack occurred. It was a particularly brutal attack, and Cornelius and Evelyn, while they might have recognized one another in passing, had no earlier acquaintance, which might have earned the court's leniency. A charm from a bracelet the accused was known to wear habitually was found at the scene. He had a scratch on his face and she had black skin under her fingernail. His defence – that he had seen a woman in trouble and come to her rescue – was too little, too late. They might as well have added that he was coloured, but they didn't go that far.

But when the verdict finally came, it took the breath out of me: Lieutenant Cornelius Jubb was found guilty of rape and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.

That was the one little detail I had forgotten, and I cursed myself for it: under US Article of War 92, rape is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death, which is not the case under British law. They wanted to make an example of Cornelius, so they went for the death penalty, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. In a way, I had got him into this, through my bloody devotion to my job, to duty. I could have hidden the tiger charm. I knew Cornelius wasn't a rapist, no matter what happened in Brimley Park that night. But no, I had to do the right thing. And the right thing was going to get Cornelius Jubb hanged.

They let me see Cornelius the night before his execution. He seemed comfortable enough in his tiny cell, and he assured me that he had been well treated. In the dim light of a grille-covered bulb, the small windows obscured by blackout curtains, we smoked Luckies and talked for the last time.

'What really happened that night, Cornelius?' I asked him. 'You didn't touch that girl, did you?'

He said nothing for a moment, just sucked in some smoke and blew it out in a long plume.

'I know you didn't,' I went on. 'Tell me.'

Finally, he looked at me, the whites of his eyes big and round. 'It was a good night,' he said. 'One of the best. I enjoyed our talk, the whisky. I always enjoyed our talks. You treated me like a human being.'

I said nothing, could think of nothing to say.

'It was a fine night outside. Hot and humid. It reminded me a bit of home, of Louisiana, and I was walking along thinking about all those years ago when I was a kid fishing off the levee, hooking the bracelet. When I got to the park I heard some sounds, stifled, as if someone was being gagged. It was dark, but I could make out two figures struggling, one on top of the other. I'm not a fool. I knew what was happening. When I got closer I could see that he was… you know, thrusting himself in her and beating her face. I grabbed him and tried to drag him off but it took all my strength. The girl was nearly unconscious by then, but she managed to lash out and give me that scratch. Finally I pulled him loose and he ran off into the night.' Cornelius shrugged. 'Then I went back to the base.'

'Did you recognize him?' I asked.

For a moment, he didn't answer, just carried on smoking, that faraway look in his eyes.

'Yes,' he said finally. 'I recognized him.'

'Then why the hell didn't you say so?'

'What would have been the point?'

'The truth, Cornelius, the truth.'

Cornelius smiled. 'Richard, Richard, my friend.' He always called me Richard though everyone else called me Dick. 'You have the white man's trust in the truth. It's not quite the same for me.'

'But surely they would have investigated your claim?'

'Perhaps. But the man who did it is a really bad man. People are scared of him. The morning after it happened, even before you came to see me, he made it clear that he wasn't going to take the blame, that if I tried to accuse him everyone in his hut would swear he was back on base when the attack took place.'

'What about the guards on the gate?'

'They can't tell us apart. Besides, they don't even pay attention. They just sit in their gatehouse playing cards.'

'So he's just going to let you die instead of him?'

Cornelius shrugged. 'Well, I don't imagine he's too keen on dying himself. Would you be? It doesn't matter anyway. What happens to him. That's between him and God.'

'Or the Devil.'

Cornelius looked at me, a hint of the old smile in the turn of his lips. 'Or the Devil. But even if he hadn't managed to get it all fixed, they wouldn't have believed me anyway. They'd have simply thought it was another trick, another desperate lie. They had all the evidence they needed, then I came up with some crazy story about trying to save the girl. What would you think?'

'I know you wouldn't do what they accused you of.'

'But they don't know me. To them I'm just another no-good nigger. It's the sort of thing we do. If I'd given his name, it would have been just one more nigger trying to lie his way out of his just deserts by pointing the finger at another.' Cornelius shook his head. 'No, my friend, there's no way out for me.'

He lifted up his sleeve. 'At least I got my bracelet fixed and they let me have it back,' he said. 'No longer evidence, I guess.' Then he unfastened the clasp and handed it to me. 'I want you to have it,' he said. 'I know I said it was going to be for my girl, but I never did find her. Now I'd like my friend to take it.'

I looked at the bracelet resting in his palm. I didn't really want it, not after everything that had happened, but I couldn't refuse. I picked it up, feeling an odd sort of tingle in my fingers as I did so, and thanked him for it.

That was the last time I saw Cornelius Jubb. The morning they hanged him I walked and walked the length and breadth of the city, feeling as if I was the one living in a foreign country, and when I came to the biggest bomb site in the city centre I took out Cornelius's charm bracelet and threw it as far as I could into the rubble.