“Did you believe him?”
“Frankly, I’ve never been sure he went up that cliff at all. But that’s just my opinion.”
“What happened then?” Shad asks.
“Private Cage asked Garrity to go outside to hear his report, which he did. For privacy, I’m sure, but we all heard it. The two medics decided that help was unlikely to arrive before the wounded in the back expired.”
“You heard this conversation clearly?”
“Yes.”
“Could the other wounded men?”
“Yes. The iffy one had slipped into a coma while Cage was gone.”
“What was the reaction of the conscious soldiers?”
“Panic, among the two who were alert.”
“And your reaction?”
“I was praying, to be honest. Praying for strength. For myself and the medics.”
“What happened then?”
“One of the wounded called out to Private Cage. He begged not to be left behind.”
“Had Private Cage or Private Garrity made any mention of leaving the ambulance at that time?”
“No. But the situation was clear to everybody. I had a broken femur, and the others were worse off than I was. Climbing a cliff was out of the question. The medics were the only men who had a chance of getting out of that gorge under their own power.”
“All right. Go on.”
“The medics climbed back inside and gave us their version of the situation.”
“Which was?”
“Help was unlikely to arrive before the men died of their wounds or hypothermia. Capture by the enemy was highly likely. That might mean torture, if the rumors we’d been hearing were correct.”
“What happened next?”
“Both medics stated that they intended to leave the ambulance and try to reach an American unit. Their stated goal was to bring back assistance.”
I hear a collective intake of breath from the crowd behind me.
“Both medics?” Shad asks. “Not just one?”
“That’s correct.”
“Wasn’t it their duty to stay with the wounded?”
“I thought so. They obviously didn’t.”
“So they meant to abandon you where you lay?”
Powers sniffs. “They did offer to instruct me on how to inject morphine, which I already knew from survival training. They said they would place the other wounded within my reach.”
“That was nice of them.”
“Wasn’t it?”
When Quentin doesn’t object to this obvious sarcasm, I almost come out of my chair.
“What happened next?”
“One boy kept begging not to be left behind, but the other one had calmed down. He told the medics he’d rather be killed by his own men than captured by the enemy. I could tell that a lot of stories about torture had circulated among the ground troops.”
“So this soldier asked to be killed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the other?”
“I could see that once the idea was broached, the second boy began considering the same desperate choice.”
“What happened then?”
“I told the medics that I knew what they were thinking, and that they couldn’t do it. It would be murder. Cold-blooded murder.”
“What was their response?”
“Private Garrity said it was up to each soldier to make his own choice.”
“And then?”
Major Powers shakes his head slowly. “The two conscious boys chose to be injected with a fatal dose of morphine.”
Shad nods as though in grave appreciation of Powers having to relive this moment. “And the unconscious one?”
“He was from the same unit as one of the conscious boys. The same hometown. That boy said the one in the coma would choose the same fate if he could. Private Cage didn’t want to inject an unconscious man, but the two others persuaded him to do it. My words counted for nothing. I quoted scripture to them, but it fell on deaf ears.”
A black woman in the jury utters a sound I can only describe as lamentation.
“Were the soldiers in fact given a lethal dose of morphine?”
“They were.”
“Who injected them?”
“Private Cage.”
A muffled groan comes from someone in the jury. This time Judge Elder throws a glare at the jury box.
“All three men?” Shad asks.
“Yes. Garrity had a broken shoulder and felt he couldn’t do a professional job. But he was in full agreement with the decision.”
“Did the medics leave the ambulance immediately after Cage gave the injections?”
“No. They waited until all three men fell unconscious.”
“Did they say anything to you?”
“They said that if they made it out alive, they’d come back with help.”
“Did you say anything to them?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I told them they were both going to burn in hell, but that I would see them in Leavenworth first.”
Shad turns and looks straight at the jury, as though to be sure they have understood the full import of what has been related to them. “All right. What happened to you after Cage and Garrity left?”
“I watched those poor boys die. Then I slowly froze for about ten hours. Cage had piled some blankets on me, but I ended up losing four toes to frostbite anyway.”
“Who got you out?”
“The Chinese finally sent a patrol down to check the wreck. They hauled me up the cliff with a rope rig, then slowly passed me up the line to a Chinese prison camp for interrogation.”
“All right, Major. Were there ever any repercussions for what had happened in the ambulance?”
“Yes. After about a month in captivity, I was traded back to our side for a Chinese MiG pilot who’d been shot down. As soon as I got back to South Korea, I reported what had happened to my commander and filed a formal complaint against both Cage and Garrity.”
“What was the result of your efforts?”
“Nothing.”
Shad looks incredulous. “Nothing?”
“A lot of angry phone calls passed between the air force and army brass, but the long and the short of it was, the whole episode was swept under the rug for political reasons.”
“What political reasons?”
“General MacArthur had made a terrible blunder by pushing his forces so far north and triggering China’s entry into the war. His whole command was in disarray. He wasn’t about to let a scandal like what happened in that ambulance break in the stateside press. So he buried it. Cage and Garrity got off scot-free, and I was told to forget it ever happened.”
“And did you?”
Despite his rigid composure throughout his testimony, the major’s chin quivers now. He has been waiting fifty-five years for this moment. “I’ll see those poor boys on my deathbed, Mr. Johnson.”
Shad looks over at the jury as though asking if they have any questions, but the horror and disgust on their faces is plain. They have heard all they need to, it seems. I have questioned many witnesses in my time, and a few were like Major Powers. They’d lived for decades with a memory that had festered in them like an abscess, and then, unexpectedly, a chance presented itself for them to walk into a witness box and have a prosecutor lance that abscess for them. And in most of those cases, the testimony that came pouring out was devastating.
“Your witness, Mr. Avery,” Shad says, unable to disguise the triumph in his voice.
Quentin is whispering something in my father’s ear.