“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.”