As the decorated war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith sat quietly in the back of a Sydney courtroom, bombshell evidence from his former comrades began to arrive.
After a six-month pandemic-related delay, the Victoria Cross recipient's defamation battle against three newspapers resumed this week with evidence from two of Australia's most-elite soldiers.
Called by publisher Nine Entertainment in its bid to establish a truth defence and anonymised by codenames, they are witnesses who can be heard but never seen on the court's video link.
The pair provided an extraordinary insight into not only two missions in Afghanistan, but mateship and fallings-out within their secretive Special Air Service Regiment (SAS).
Two words, attributed by these men to Mr Roberts-Smith, illustrated some of the most-serious allegations he faces: "Shoot him".
Allegations of involvement in unlawful killings in Afghanistan — which he denies — were contained within 2018 stories published by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times, prompting Mr Roberts-Smith to launch his defamation case.
According to the first SAS witness, Person 41, Mr Roberts-Smith spoke those two words in a Taliban compound dubbed "Whiskey 108" on Easter Sunday, 2009.
He was in a courtyard, instructing a rookie colleague to execute an older Afghan man nearby, claimed Person 41, who stepped into another room.
When he returned, his colleague was "in a bit of shock" and the man was lying dead on the floor, blood flowing from a head wound, the trial heard.
Person 41 told Justice Anthony Besanko that he also witnessed Mr Roberts-Smith "frogmarch" a second Afghan captive outside and shoot him in the back, before asking him: "Are we all good?"
Ben Roberts-Smith insists an enemy he killed that day was armed and rounding a corner of the building.
That man had a prosthetic leg and the court was told the leg was later seen by the second SAS witness, Person 14, "wedged in" to the plate carrier of another colleague, Person 6.
Person 14 said it became a drinking vessel in the soldiers' unauthorised bar in Afghanistan before then appearing in barracks in Australia.
In court, Person 41 faced more than a day of cross-examination — by one of Mr Roberts-Smith's barristers, Arthur Moses SC — that was peppered with tense exchanges.
In a steady, deep voice, Person 41 rejected suggestions that his account of Whiskey 108 was dishonest, that he was a "coward" for failing to report the incidents if they even happened, and that he was lying to himself because he couldn't "cut it" that day as a soldier.
Person 41 conceded that he felt some guilt and shame for his failure to report — but insisted his silence was due to fear of being robbed of an elite career, even sent back to Australia with comrades knowing he'd "dobbed in".
While he considered Mr Roberts-Smith "brave", he also described how three colleagues, in particular, harboured a dislike for the war veteran, variously believing he was "arrogant" and undeserving of the Victoria Cross.
The second time the words "shoot him" were attributed to Mr Roberts-Smith was by Person 14, who detailed a separate mission in Khaz Oruzgan in October 2012.
He claimed that Mr Roberts-Smith was among a group questioning a local Afghan man as Australians waited for helicopters to extract them, alongside Afghan partner force soldiers.
After Person 14 kicked a wall, revealing a secret weapons cache of bullets, binoculars and rifles, he told the court, the "mood changed".
The witness claimed Mr Roberts-Smith directed an interpreter to translate to an Afghan partner force colleague, saying: "Tell him to shoot him or I will."
After a discussion in an Afghan dialect between the interpreter and the partner force colleague, the Afghan captive was shot by another, balaclava-clad soldier in the room, the witness claimed.
"I was perplexed," Person 14 told the court, "but didn't say anything."
Years later, in 2018, Mr Roberts-Smith would request a coffee meeting with Person 14 in a Canberra cafe amid the brewing defamation showdown.
Person 14 claimed that Mr Roberts-Smith showed him documents about alleged events in Afghanistan, to which he recalled replying: "Actually, that's how I remember it."
According to his evidence, Mr Roberts-Smith said: "Oh, so it's going to be like that is it?"
Person 14 said he told his former comrade he thought he'd been "pretty loose" and spoke about Whiskey 108 and the 2012 mission.
"I said to Ben, 'There's no way I am going to get up on a stand and lie and I hope nobody else does'," he told the court.
"There was a massive pause of quietness and he was looking out the window, after about 30 seconds he said, 'I don't even know what to say'.
"I stood up and said, 'Thanks for the coffee' and walked away."
Person 14's cross-examination will continue on Monday.
