An Officer and a Spy

‘My God,’ replied Henry, exhaling a jet of smoke in a sigh of frustration, ‘it’s easy enough for you to say that. If only you knew how much specific evidence we have against that swine. We even have a letter from a foreign intelligence officer in which he’s identified as the traitor — can you believe it?’

‘Then use it.’

‘How can we? It would betray our most secret sources. It would do more damage than Dreyfus has caused already.’

‘Even with the hearing behind closed doors?’

‘Don’t be naïve, Picquart! Every word uttered in that room will leak one day.’

‘Well, then I don’t know what to suggest.’

Henry drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘How would it be,’ he asked, glancing around to check he was not being overheard, ‘if I came back into court and described some of the evidence we have on file?’

‘But you’ve already given your evidence.’

‘Couldn’t I be recalled?’

‘On what pretext?’

‘Couldn’t you have a word with Colonel Maurel and suggest it?’

‘What reason could I give him?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sure we could come up with something.’

‘My dear Henry, I’m here to observe the court martial, not interfere in it.’

‘Fine,’ said Henry bitterly. He took a last drag from his cigarette then dropped it on to the flagstone floor and ground it out with the toe of his boot. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

That second morning was devoted to a parade of officers from the General Staff. They queued up to denigrate their former comrade, to his face. They described a man who snooped around their desks, refused to fraternise with them and always acted as if he was their intellectual superior. One claimed Dreyfus had told him he didn’t care if Alsace was under German occupation because he was a Jew, and Jews, having no country of their own, were indifferent to changes of frontier. Throughout all this, Dreyfus’s expression betrayed no emotion. One might have thought him stone deaf or wilfully not listening. But every so often he would raise his hand to signal he wished to speak. Then he would calmly correct a point of fact in his toneless voice: this piece of testimony was wrong because he had not been in the department then; that statement was an error because he had never met the gentleman concerned. He seemed to have no anger in him. He was an automaton. Several officers did say a word or two in his defence. My old friend Mercier-Milon called him ‘a faithful and scrupulous soldier’. Captain Tocanne, who had attended my topography classes with Dreyfus, said he was ‘incapable of a crime’.

And then, at the start of the afternoon session, one of the judges, Major Gallet, announced he had an important issue to bring to the court’s attention. It was his understanding, he said gravely, that there had been an earlier inquiry into a suspected traitor on the General Staff, even before the investigation into Dreyfus began in October. If true, he regretted that this fact had been withheld from the court. He suggested that the matter should be cleared up right away. Colonel Maurel agreed, and told the clerk to recall Major Henry. A few minutes later, Henry appeared, apparently embarrassed and buttoning his tunic, as if he had been dragged from a bar. I made a note of the time: 2.35.

Demange could have objected to Henry’s recall. But Henry was putting on such a virtuoso performance of being a reluctant witness — standing bareheaded before the judges, fidgeting nervously with his cap — he must have gambled that whatever was coming might work to Dreyfus’s advantage.

‘Major Henry,’ said Maurel severely, ‘the court has received information that your evidence yesterday was less than frank, and that you neglected to tell us about an earlier inquiry you made into the existence of a spy on the General Staff. Is that correct?’

Henry mumbled, ‘It is true, Monsieur President.’

‘Speak up, Major! We can’t hear you!’

‘Yes, it’s true,’ replied Henry, loudly. He glanced along the row of judges with a look of defiant apology. ‘I wished to avoid revealing any more secret information than was necessary.’

‘Tell us the truth now, if you please.’

Henry sighed and stroked his hand through his hair. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If the court insists. It was in March of this year. An honourable person — a very honourable person — informed us that there was a traitor on the General Staff, passing secrets to a foreign power. In June he repeated his warning to me personally, and this time he was more specific.’ Henry paused.

‘Go on, Major.’

‘He said the traitor was in the Second Department.’ Henry turned to Dreyfus and pointed at him. ‘The traitor is that man!’

The accusation detonated in that little room like a grenade. Dreyfus, hitherto so calm he had seemed scarcely human, jumped up to protest at this ambush. His pale face was livid with anger. ‘Monsieur President, I demand to know the name of this informer!’

Maurel banged his gavel. ‘The accused will sit!’