Duty v. Domesticity

In the cramped wardroom of Admiral Horatio Nelson's 187-year-old flagship Victory last week, a court martial sat in judgment on another British naval hero whose duty was dogged by domestic complications. Lieut. Commander Alastair Campbell Gillespie Mars, 37, had neither the rank nor the romantic inclinations of his great predecessor, but during World War II he was one of Britain's ace submarine commanders. His part in sinking some 30,000 tons of Axis shipping earned him both the D.S.O. and the D.S.C. and bar.

"If you go to sea under Mars," said one of his crew the day Mars got the D.S.O. at Buckingham Palace, "you know you're all right." After the war Mars himself was less confident. In peacetime, he soon found, shoal waters and depth charges are not the only perils that beset a submariner. There was, for instance, the problem of how to make a home for his wife and two children on navy pay ($39 weekly).

Commander Mars tried to solve the problem by asking for shore duty in England. The Admiralty sent him instead to New Zealand. With no married quarters available, Mars settled his family on an abandoned riverboat which he rented for half his pay. An extra living allowance was held up four years while the Admiralty in London and the government in New Zealand argued over who was to pay it. Mrs. Mars fell sick and once again her husband asked for duty in Britain. The Admiralty sent him to Hong Kong. His living allowance there failed to cover even the single hotel room he had been able to rent. Mars went deeper in debt and openly cursed all governments. At last, he himself fell ill and was sent back to England to the hospital.

By the time he recovered, Mars was so deeply in debt that he asked the Admiralty for leave. The request was turned down. When Mars was ordered to report for duty at Portsmouth Harbor, he sat down and wrote a letter to his superiors, refusing the command, requesting his retirement and venting all his pent-up spleen. "I do not wish to plague My Lords with a mass of detail mainly repugnant to them," he wrote. "It should be sufficient to say that I have lost faith in the present governmental hierarchy and all that goes with it. Also I have never had any feeling but mistrust for the Americans who now appear to rule us." On the day a week later when Lieut. Commander Mars was supposed to report at Portsmouth, he stayed at home in London with his sick wife.

At a naval court martial, an accused officer's sword must lie before his judges to point the way to innocence or guilt at the trial's end. If the sword is presented hilt forward, he may pick it up and resume his duties. If the point is forward, he has been judged guilty. Last week, in the musty wardroom where Hero Mars stood trial for insubordination and absence without leave, the sword was placed point forward. Penalty: dismissal.

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