STOCKADE

Stockade is bloodier than an Elizabethan tragedy and features several murders, two rapes, sadism, perversion, VD, a lengthy courtroom drama, voyeurism, degeneracy, race hatred, and an acidulous attack on military justice. It's not dull. On the other hand, it's not quite as convincing in its horrors as those in the recent off-Broadway play The Brig, which was a living document. The central story concerns Ed Remington, who is stationed at Camp Stark on the Texas desert and who shoots the head off of the sadistic commandant of the stockade. This murder is eminently justified, though Pfc. Remington is not acquitted. The commandant is a pervert in dark glasses who tortures, whips and clubs prisoners with complete impunity. He has a younger sister who lives in the stockade with him and is an exhibitionist in bikinis and who tries to rape a Negro soldier. She fails but is in turn raped, and the Negro is arrested anyway. The commandant tortures the Negro under the hot sun and orders Remington to shoot him dead if he so much as moves out of a tiny circle. The guard shoots the commandant instead...The novel is alternately serious and then meretricious, but it certainly attacks the Army's legal system with both fists.