Collins once more bowed to his lordship. ‘I see you have also said when sworn before the magistrates that Captain Dudley was a good skipper and you found him a kind and good captain.’
‘Yes.’
Huddleston was now drumming his fingers on the bench.
‘You told us that you yourself dissented from the casting of lots,’ Collins said.
‘Yes, I could not agree to it. My heart would not let me. I said, “Let us all die together. I should not like anyone to kill me, and I should not like to kill anyone else”.’ The numerous repetitions of his story for freak-show customers had greatly improved Brooks’ delivery, which was now much more fluent than it had been in the Falmouth courtroom.
‘Did the boy consent to it, or was he asked?’
‘I am sure I could not say now.’
‘But there were no lots drawn?’
‘No.’
‘The boy had been at the bottom of the boat some hours, I believe. Did he appear to be dying?’
‘He was very bad. He was very quiet in the boat, he did not say anything at all scarcely.’
‘You said before the magistrates — and I suppose it is true — that to the best of your judgement he appeared to be dying. He was lying with his face on his arm, I believe, not speaking or taking any notice of anything for a great many hours. Did it appear to you that the boy was likely to die sooner than any of you other three?’
‘He seemed weakest. I could not say.’
‘When you saw the captain putting the knife into the boy, I take it for granted there was no sail in sight?’
‘No, there was not.’
Collins paused and raised an eyebrow. Brooks had not argued with his assertion that he had seen Tom put the knife into the boy, but the lawyer did not pursue the point. It was a strange omission; if he could have shown that Brooks was as complicit as Stephens in the act, one of the pillars of the prosecution case would have fallen.
‘You could not resist the sight of the blood,’ Collins said. ‘I believe you asked for some, you were in such a state?’
‘I could not, I was obliged to ask for some.’
‘Horrible as it was, you were obliged to have some?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were reduced to feeding upon the heart and the liver of the boy. And for those four days was life kept in you by this unfortunate boy’s body?’
‘Yes, no doubt it was, sir. I believe so.’
Huddleston had been growing increasingly restive at Collins’s tone and line of questioning, and his patience was now exhausted. He interrupted again: ‘Mr Collins, we have covered this ground already in ample detail. Can we now move on?’
Collins lips tightened, but he kept his voice even. ‘As Your Lordship pleases.’ He bowed and resumed his seat.
After Brooks had left the witness box, one of the sailors from the Moctezuma was called to give his evidence. Their ship had received orders and sailed for Hamburg two weeks previously but Julius Wiese and Christopher Drewe, the two crewmen who had examined the dinghy after it was brought on board, were required as Crown witnesses and had been left behind.
‘I saw in the dinghy some small pieces of flesh and one little piece of a rib,’ Wiese said. ‘I could not tell what sort of flesh or bone it was. We were ordered by Captain Simonsen to throw everything overboard.’
Huddleston curtailed Wiese’s evidence and Christopher Drewe was not called at all. The Falmouth pilot, Gustavus Lowry, then began to testify to what Dudley had told him on board the Moctezuma. ‘I asked him who had killed the boy, Dudley said, “I did”, and before he did it he offered up a prayer to the Lord to forgive him if he did any rash act. I asked how he killed him. He said by putting the knife under the ear. They had about a quart of blood. He and a mate had the first drink then he looked around and saw the other man coming for his share. They cut the boy’s clothes off and opened him, took out and ate his heart and liver, and lived on him until they were picked up.’
Huddleston leaned forward. ‘I think it is superfluous to go into all these unnecessary repetitions unless there are variations from the captain’s statements.’
Lowry was followed into the witness box by the collector of customs, Robert Cheesman, who lasted only slightly longer. He described the conversation he had with Dudley in the Long Room of the Customs House. ‘…“the blood spurted from the wound and we caught it with the baler,” Dudley said, “and I and Stephens drank some of it immediately. We then stripped the body and cut it open —”’
‘You need not go any further,’ Huddleston said.
The clerk of the court then read the depositions of Dudley and Stephens into the record.
Richard Hodge, the waterman who had brought the items from the dinghy ashore in Falmouth, was called to testify that they included Dudley’s papers, but before he could even open his mouth, Huddleston once more intervened: ‘Mr Charles, is there any necessity for this man to give evidence when the facts are already so well established?’
Hodge retreated, showing the same mixture of relief and resentment as his predecessors in the witness box.
Sergeant Laverty was the final prosecution witness. He rushed through his statement, running his words into each other, as if fearing that Huddleston would seize on any gap to dismiss him. ‘I received the clothes from Hodge and in the borough lock-up in front of Superintendent Bourne, Dudley admitted the documents they contained were in his handwriting and contained further versions of the sinking of the Mignonette and the subsequent events. He told me they were his private papers. I heard Captain Dudley say that the knife produced in court was the knife with which he did the killing.’
‘The papers may be put into the record,’ Huddleston said, ‘but there is no necessity to read them. It is only right to say that Captain Dudley has never varied in his story and has never attempted to conceal anything.’ He paused. ‘Mr Charles, has the prosecution any further witnesses to call?’
Charles rose to his feet. ‘No, My Lord. That is the case for the prosecution.’
Huddleston pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. His face registered disappointment and he exchanged a look with his wife at the side of the court. ‘We will hear from you now, Mr Collins.’
Collins called no witnesses and raised only two obscure legal points. The first was the question of jurisdiction, the right of the court to hear the case at all. His argument depended on the Mignonette’s dinghy not being regarded as a British ship. Huddleston graciously conceded that the Special Verdict he was proposing could be widened to include discussion of this point.
Collins then sought the final right of reply after the prosecution’s summing-up. Having called no witnesses, it was normally the defence’s right to do so, but Charles claimed that the precedent in cases where the prosecution appeared on the instructions of the Treasury solicitor, gave them the right to the last word. At the time it was a contentious issue in the courts.
‘I will hear both of you before I decide,’ Huddleston said, ‘but I have an opinion of my own upon it.’
Collins’s expression suggested that he already knew what that opinion would be. After making his case, he showed no surprise when Huddleston ruled against him.
Collins turned to address the jury. ‘May it please Your Lordship, gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to make a grievance about the decision which My Lord has just given. I know my friend Mr Charles too well to believe that he would take any unfairness from the decision, and if there was any unfairness taken, I know perfectly well that My Lord who presides in this court would soon put it right with you.’