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Gentlemen, Your Verdict Micheal Bruce 1. Survival is the main job of the captain of the ship. As a captain I would do the same thing that Lieutenant- Commander Oram did. Oram decided that twenty men would survive with the amount of oxygen for less than three days but the same oxygen could last five men, seven days, which was when the rescue would come. Oram decided the men with families would live which was five: lieutenant Paul, Preece, Nordin, Speer and Jenvey. The rest of the crew was poisoned and Oram committed suicide after writing a repot to join his deceased crew. If the captain did not poison the rest of the crew, no one would have survived because of the limited time and oxygen supply. All twenty men would have died with no survivor. At least five men out of twenty were able to survive because of the captains difficult but courageous decision. I would choose the married men to survive because they have a wife and possibly kids worried about them. They need men to support them. Whereas the other men may have loved ones but no one to support, no one as worried as wives or kids would be about their husbands or dads. One of the maritime concept as tradition that a sea captain holds is that the “captain goes down with the ship” and that he is responsible for everyone aboard. As sacrificing himself for the long life of some of the men, he fulfilled his duty as a captain. That is why I would do the same thing that Lieutenant-Commander Oram did. I believe he made the right call; as would any other loyal and courageous captain would. 2. The point of view in this short story was third person objective. It provides an unbiased point of view, which is effective because this story is told in the court where it must be unbiased. I know it was unbiased because the speaker – Preece does not use descriptive or characteristic words for the characters in the story. 3. The setting of this story takes place in the courtroom but the flashbacks send the reader back to the time of the submarine underwater. The atmosphere for the courtroom was tense and worry hence it is a courtroom where every word can be used against you to determine whether you are guilty or not and “…the courtroom was tense and silent around him, all he could see was the long compartment with fifteen men lying dead on the floor and five men staring stricken in silence”. In the submarine, the atmosphere showed fear and helplessness hence the sunken submarine and the inevitable death that followed – “Lieutenant-Commander Oram’s face paled” and “The voice faded out, and Lieutenant Paul tried to swallow the lump in his throat”. 4. The author uses flashbacks in the story to show present versus past. In the beginning they are in the courtroom so what happened before must be told in some descriptive way. Another reason the author chose to incorporate flashbacks in his story is to have the actual story told rather than insufficient details coming from one just the view of one person unclearly.

5. Lieutenant-Commander Oram’s dilemma was that as the captain of the ship he had to do everything in his power to make sure at least some people survived. Although he appreciated and cared for all his crewmembers he knew the only way to allow survivors was to sacrifice him and fifteen other men. Oram dealt with situations where he had to decide who lives and who doesn’t, sinking ship, reduced oxygen supply, the expectation that he should’ve sank with the ship because it was part of his duty. 6. In a sense of finding who is guilty, the jury’s verdict matters because it is based on evidence provided and it will help the judge decide what is to come of the situation. In a sense of deciding whether what happened was ethically correct in a personal opinion, no. The jury was not present at the time of the incident and possibly cannot understand the difficulty and crucial need of sacrificing to allow survivors. 7. *basically everything in question 1, (no one is to be found guilty it was man vs nature dilemma) 8. I can relate this story to the course theme: moral and ethical decision-making. Lieutenant-Commander Oram made the decision to kill fifteen men including himself in order to save five. Morally Oram made the right decision because it is better to be able to save five people than none. Ethically, he was wrong because it is still mass murder. He plays the role of god by deciding their fate for them, which is wrong....