While Shad gapes at the judge, Joe Elder says, “Mr. Avery, have you finished with this witness?”
“Not quite yet, Your Honor.” Quentin turns back to the witness box. “Colonel Eklund, did Private Cage receive the medal you recommended him for?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“The Medal of Honor requires three witnesses to the act of valor, and a lot of other things besides. We had the witnesses, though for a while it looked like none of us would make it out alive. And there was no question that Tom had earned it. In fact, a few weeks after I put him up for the award, I heard that President Truman was going to give it to Tom along with another boy from that same few days of fighting. I knew because they pull a man out of the line when he’s going to get the big one. In the old days, too many boys had gotten killed right after winning the Medal of Honor, and that was embarrassing to the service.”
“Was Private Cage in fact pulled out of the line?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I didn’t find out why right away. I just got word he was to stay on the line while we waited for replacements. But later on, my commanding general told me that the medal had been quashed for political reasons.”
“Political reasons?” Quentin echoes, emphasizing the word political enough to remind the jury of Major Powers’s story of the murder charges he’d brought against Dad and Walt. “Did he specify those reasons?”
“The general himself told me that an air force pilot had made accusations of murder against Private Cage and Private Garrity from our company. He claimed they’d killed some of our wounded during the retreat from the reservoir. Well, by that time the defeat at Chosin Reservoir had become a huge embarrassment for General MacArthur. The marines came out looking okay, but the army looked terrible. The last thing MacArthur wanted was accusations flying between the services about medics killing our own men. He wasn’t about to let something like that become a scandal, so Tom’s Medal of Honor vanished into the Big Nowhere along with the pilot’s accusations.”
Quentin seems content to let the jury chew on this for a while. After he figures they’ve digested the information, he says, “Colonel, have you heard about the charges Major Powers made again in this courtroom against Dr. Cage? About what happened that night in the wrecked ambulance?”
“I read it in the newspaper a few minutes ago, on my way to the courtroom.”
“What’s your opinion of those charges?”
“Objection,” Shad says with barely contained anger. “On multiple grounds. Opinion rule, for one. The witness has not been qualified as a military expert.”
“Your Honor,” says Quentin, “I submit that after thirty years of military service, in three wars, the colonel is qualified to give an opinion characterizing Private Cage’s actions in combat on that night or any other.”
“I’ll allow it.”
“I wasn’t in that ambulance,” Colonel Eklund says. “But a dozen factors play into every combat situation, especially in an emergency like that. How severely injured are your wounded? How has the enemy been treating your prisoners? Is there any reasonable expectation of aid? Are you obligated to stay with your wounded in the face of certain capture? That’s probably not even half of what went through those two medics’ heads during the first hour inside that ambulance, and they weren’t even twenty years old. I figure they were in shock, being wounded themselves. And there was no doubt about what would have happened if they were captured. I personally saw an American ambulance that the North Koreans had torched with living wounded inside it. Every man in the theater had heard those stories, I guarantee it.”
“So, knowing all those factors as you do, do you believe that Private Cage and Private Garrity committed murder on that night?”
“I guess I believe that what they did falls outside the boundaries of rules and regulations. All I can tell you is that I never saw Tom Cage act out of fear or selfishness. Not even when his life was at stake. At eighteen years old, the man did his job in all circumstances, regardless of the risk to himself. Whatever he did in that ambulance that night, he did for the welfare of the men under his care. I’d stake my life on that.”
“Thank you, Colonel. One last question. In your experience, did American pilots receive special treatment as compared to other prisoners taken by the North Koreans and Chinese?”
“Absolutely. That was common knowledge. The Chinese wanted to learn all they could about our fighter and bomber capabilities, so all enemy combatants and civilians knew to pass pilots up the chain for interrogation. I’m sure they suffered plenty in captivity—and a few got murdered with bamboo spears in one incident I know about—but unlike GIs and grunts, they weren’t shot out of hand, burned, starved, or left to die in the snow. Not as a rule, anyway.”
“Thank you, Colonel. No further questions.”
“This is when you find out how good a lawyer is,” I whisper to Rusty.
Rusty leans over to me. “If I were Shad, I’d cut my losses and get General Patton there off the stand as fast as possible.”
But Shad has no intention of retiring from the field. He stands and approaches Colonel Eklund without the slightest trepidation. “Colonel, how long had you known Private Cage before the Chinese hit you on the night of the twenty-fifth?”
“About four months.”
“Did you ever see him again after the morning of November twenty-sixth, 1950?”
“No.”
“Did you recognize him when you came into court today?”
Colonel Eklund smiles sadly. “No, I didn’t, I’m sorry to say. He looks a lot older than the gangly kid who served under me, but then we all do. I’m glad to see him, though, no matter how he looks.”
“Of course. But isn’t it fair to say that you never really knew him intimately?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“You only knew him for four months, you said.”
“Mr. Johnson, after the night of November twenty-fifth, I knew Private Cage better than most people ever get to know anybody.”
Shad steeples his fingers as he walks. “Because you served in combat together?”
“That’s right.”
“So one night of combat brings men closer than, say, a man and wife who live together for fifty years?”
“Have you ever served in combat?”
“No.”
“Well. If you had, you’d know that you can get closer to someone in fifteen hours of fighting for your life than you could in fifteen years of living in the same house with them.”
“A common belief. But there’s no way to prove that statement, is there?”
“I beg to differ. In combat, soldiers are asked to prove their love for their fellow men in ways that people in civilian life never are.”
This answer throws Shad off his rhythm.