“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.”