Semper Fi

Chapter Five

(One)

The Hotel am See Chiehshom, China 2215 Hours 18 May 1941

McCoy could not sleep. The smell of Ellen was inescapably on the sheets. And her image was no less indelibly printed on his mind.

Earlier, he found himself next to her at dinner. The moment he sat down, her knee moved against his.

There wasn't anything particularly sexy about her touch, and she didn't try to feel him up under the table-or he her-or anything like that. She just wanted to touch him. She didn't say two words to him either, except "please pass the salt." But she didn't take her knee away once.

All too soon, the Reverend Feller announced, "Well, we have a long day ahead of us." Ellen rose after him and followed him out… leaving McCoy with a terrible feeling of loss.

Later, McCoy and Zimmerman went to the European servants' quarters to make sure none of the drivers had shacked up in town. Afterward, Zimmerman asked matter-of-factly, "Sessions find out you're fucking the missionary lady?"

He had not been "fucking the missionary lady." It had started out that way, but it wasn't that way now. McCoy couldn't bring himself to admit he was in love, but it was more than an unexpected piece of ass, more than "fucking the missionary lady." And she had called him "my darling," and had meant it. And he had meant it, too, when she made him say it back.

"Yeah," McCoy said.

"And?"

"And what?"

"What's he going to do about it?"

"He's not going to do anything about it," McCoy said. "He's all right."

"You're lucky," Zimmerman said. "If that bastard Macklin finds out, McCoy, you 're going to find yourself up on charges.''

"One good way for him to find out, Ernie, is for you to keep talking about it."

"You better watch your ass, McCoy," Zimmerman said.

"Yeah," McCoy said. "I will."

Jesus Christ, what a fucking mess!

He turned the light back on and reached for the crossword puzzles from the Shanghai Post. He did three of them before he fell asleep sitting up. Then, carefully, so as not to rouse himself fully, he turned the light off, slipped under the sheet, and felt himself drifting off again.

When he felt her mouth on him, he thought he was having a wet dream-and that surprised him, considering all the fucking they had done. And then he realized that he wasn't

dreaming.

"I thought that might wake you up, my darling," Ellen

Feller said softly.

"What about your husband?"

"What about him? As you so obscenely put it," she said, "fuck him."

"You mean he knows?"

"I mean he sleeps in a separate bed, and when I left him, he was asleep."

"I had a hard time getting to sleep," McCoy said, "thinking about you."

"I'm glad," she said. She moved up next to him and put her face in his neck. "I would have come sooner," she said, "but he insisted on talking."

"About what?"

"That his being detained by the Japanese was a good thing, that it will probably make it easier to get the crates on the ship. Without having them inspected, I mean."

The thought saddened him. In nine days she would leave, and that would be the last he would ever see of her.

"You'd better set your alarm clock," she said practically. "I don't want to fall asleep in here."

He set the alarm clock, but it was unnecessary. They were wide awake at half-past four. Neither of them had slept for more than twenty minutes all through the night.

(Two)

Huimin, Shantung Province

27 May 1941

It took them another nine days to reach Huimin, nine days without an opportunity for McCoy and Ellen to be together.

The days on the way to Huimin were pretty much alike. They would start out early and drive slowly and steadily until they found a place where they could buy lunch. Failing that they stopped by the side of the road and picnicked on rice balls, egg rolls, and fried chicken from the hoods and running boards of the trucks and cars.

The road meandered around endless rice paddies. The inclines and declines were shallow, but the curves were often sharp, thus making more than twenty miles an hour impossible. Sometimes there was nothing at all on the road to the horizon, and sometimes the road was packed with Chinese, walking alone or with their families or behind ox-drawn carts. The Chinese were usually deaf to the sound of a horn. So when the road was narrow, as it most often was, it was necessary to crawl along in low gear until the road widened enough to let them pass the oxcarts. But sometimes at the blast of the horn, the slowly plodding pedestrians would jump to the side of the road and glower as the convoy passed.

When they had to picnic by the side of the road, McCoy tried to stop when there was no one else on the road. But most of the time, in spite of McCoy's intentions, they were surrounded by hordes of Chinese within five minutes. Some stared in frank curiosity, and others begged for the scraps.

Or for rides. And that was impossible, of course. If they allowed Chinese in the backs of the trucks, the beds would be stripped bare within a mile.

At Ssuyango, T'anch'eng, and Weifang, McCoy spent the hours of darkness trying to find out whether various Japanese units had indeed received German field artillery pieces. And at T'anch'eng, he somewhat reluctantly took Lieutenant Sessions with him.

Sessions skillfully sandbagged him into that. He came to McCoy's room after supper, while McCoy was dressing: black cotton peasant shirt, trousers, and rubber shoes, and a black handkerchief over his head. It was less a disguise than a solution to the problem of crawling through feces-fertilized rice paddies. A complete suit cost less than a dollar. He wore one and carried two more tightly rolled and tied with string that he looped and fastened around his neck.

When he came out of a rice paddy smelling like the bottom of a latrine pit, he would strip and put on a fresh costume. It didn't help much, but it was better than running around soaked in shit.

During the stopover at Ssuyango, McCoy made a deal with a merchant: five gallons of gasoline for eight sets of cotton jackets and trousers. When Sessions came to his room at T'anch'eng, he still had three left, not counting the one he was wearing.

Sessions was politely curious about exactly what McCoy intended to do, and McCoy told him. It wasn't that much of a big deal. All he was going to do was make his way down the dikes between the rice paddies until he was close to the Japanese compound. Then he would slip into the water and make his way close enough to the compound to photograph the artillery park and motor pool. Then he would make his way out of the rice paddie, change clothes, and come back.

"How do you keep the camera dry?" Sessions asked.

"Wrap it in a couple of rubbers," McCoy said.

Sessions laughed appreciatively.

"Do you go armed?"

"I have a knife I take with me," McCoy told him. "But the worst thing I could do is kill a Jap.

Sessions nodded his understanding. Then he said, "Tell me the truth, McCoy. There's no reason I couldn't go, is there? If you were willing to take me, I mean."

"Christ, Lieutenant, you don't want to go."

"Yes, I do, McCoy," Sessions had said. "If you'll take me, I'll go."

Then he walked to the bed and picked up the peasant suit.

"I'd like to have a picture of me in one of these," he said. "It would impress the hell out of my wife."

He looked at McCoy and smiled.

"I really would like to go with you, McCoy," he said. It was still a request.

"Officers are supposed to be in charge," McCoy said. "That wouldn't work."

"You don't have to worry about that," Sessions said. "You're the expert, and I know it. It's your show. I'd just like to tag along."

"Once you get your shoes in a rice paddy, they'll be ruined," McCoy said. It was his last argument.

"Okay," Sessions said. "So I wear old shoes."

So he took Sessions with him. It went as he thought it would, and the only trouble they had was close to the Jap compound. Sessions panicked a little when he hadn't heard McCoy for a couple of minutes and came looking for him, calling his name in a stage whisper.

They didn't find any German PAK38s, but neither did they get caught. And McCoy was by then convinced that the PAK38s existed only in the imagination of chairwarming sonsofbitches in Washington, bastards who didn't have to crawl around through rice paddies or fields fertilized with human shit.

Sessions was so excited by his adventure that when they got back to the Christian Missionary Alliance Mission, he insisted on talking about it until it was way too late to even think of getting together with Ellen for a quickie before breakfast.

After it was light, they killed the roll of film in the camera by taking pictures of each other dressed up like Chinamen.

McCoy hoped that the pictures of Sessions dressed up that way might get the guy off the hook in Washington. They might decide to forget that the Japs had caught him if they saw that he had at least tried to do what they'd sent him to do.

The next night, however, McCoy refused to take Sessions with him when he went to see what he could find near the mission at Weifang. It was a different setup there, the Japs ran perimeter patrols, and he didn't want to run the risk of the both of them getting caught. Sessions didn't argue. Which made McCoy feel a little guilty, because the real reason he didn't want to take Sessions along was that he slowed McCoy down. If Sessions wasn't along, maybe he could get back to the mission in time for Ellen to come to his room.

That hadn't done any good. When he got back, Sessions was waiting for him. Sessions kept him talking (even though there hadn't been any German cannon at Weifang, either) until it was too late to do anything with Ellen. It was really a royal pain in the ass doing nothing with her during the day but hold hands on the front seat for a moment, or touch legs under a table, or something like that. Or he would catch her looking at him.

He decided to take Sessions with him to look at a motorized infantry regiment, the 403rd, near Huimin, because it was the last chance they would have on this trip. If there were some of these German cannons at Huimin, Sessions might as well be able to say he found them. Otherwise-having gotten himself caught by the Japanese-he was going to come off this big-time secret mission looking like an asshole. The pictures of him dressed up like a Chinaman weren't going to impress the big shots as much as his report that he had been caught.

McCoy was beginning to see that Sessions wasn't that much of your typical Headquarters, USMC, sonofabitch. What was really wrong with him was that he didn't know what he was doing. And he could hardly be blamed for that. They didn't teach "How to Spy on the Japs" at the Officer School in Quantico. It was a really dumb fucking thing for the Corps to do, sending him over here the way they had; but to be fair, that was the Corps' fault, not his.

And at Huimin, they found PAK38s. The 403rd Motorized Infantry Regiment (Separate) of His Imperial Majesty's Imperial Fucking Army had eight of them. And the eight had the wrong canvas covers. So they'd taken covers from the Model 94s and put them over the PAK38s.

They didn't fit. The muzzle of the PAK38s, with its distinctive and unmistakable muzzle brake, stuck three feet outside the two small canvas covers. And with the Model 94s parked right beside them-looking very small compared to the PAK38s-there was absolutely no question about what they were.

McCoy shot two thirty-six-exposure rolls of 35-mm black and white film in the Leica, and then a twenty-exposure roll of Kodacolor, although he suspected that one wouldn't turn out. Kodacolor had a tendency to fuck up when you used it at first light-McCoy had no idea why.

Sessions was naturally all excited, and had a hard time keeping himself under control. But he didn't order McCoy, he asked him whether it would be a good idea to send somebody-maybe him, maybe Zimmerman-right off to Tientsin with the film. Or to take the whole convoy to Tientsin instead of making the other stops.

And Sessions just accepted it when McCoy told him that if he or Zimmerman took off alone with the film, the Kempei-Tai, who had been following them around since they crossed the Yangtze River, would figure there was something special up, and that would be the last time he or Zimmerman would ever be seen.

"Chinese bandits, Lieutenant," McCoy said. "Since there really aren't any, the Japs have organized their own."

"And similarly, taking the whole convoy to Tientsin right away would make them think something was out of the ordinary?"

"Yes, it would," McCoy said. "They probably would leave the whole thing alone, but you couldn't be sure. If we do what we told them we're going to do…"

"That would be best, obviously," Sessions concluded the sentence for him.

"Aye, aye, sir."

And it will give us another night on the road, maybe more if I get lucky and one of the trucks breaks down. And maybe that will mean maybe more than one other night with Ellen. Christ knows, I've done all the crawling through rice paddies I'm going to do on this trip.

He had no such luck. They spent the next night in a Christian Missionary Alliance mission, where he was given a small room to share with Sergeant Zimmerman. Since he was in a different building from the officers and missionaries, there was just nothing he could do about getting together with Ellen.

He wondered if he might get lucky in Tientsin. He hoped so. It would probably be the last time in his life he would ever have a woman like that.

It was about two hundred miles from Huimin to Tientsin. About halfway there, there was another ferry. This one crossed a branch of the Yun Ho River. It wasn't much of a river, maybe two hundred yards across, and the ferry was built to fit. He thought for a minute that he and Ellen were going to get to cross first, which meant they would be alone for a little while. There probably was no place where they could screw- except maybe the backseat of the Studebaker. But he would have willingly settled for that.

At the last minute, though, Sessions decided to go too, and climbed in the backseat. And then, as McCoy was about to drive down the bank onto the ferry, Sessions had another officer inspiration.

"Sergeant Zimmerman!" he called. "Would you come with us, please?"

A moment later, he leaned forward.

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to be all alone over there," he said, significantly. "Do you?"

"No, sir," McCoy said. "I guess not."

What does he think is going to happen over there? I shouldn't have told him about the Chinese/Japanese bandits. If I hadn't, he would have stayed behind, and I could have had fifteen, twenty minutes alone with Ellen.

When Ellen turned to smile at Ernie Zimmerman as he moved into the back beside Sessions, she caught McCoy's hand in both of hers, and held it for a moment in her lap. He could feel the heat of her belly.

On the other side of the river, he drove the Studebaker far enough up the road to make room for the convoy to reform behind it as they came off the ferry.

And then Lieutenant Sessions did something very nice.

"McCoy, you stay here in the car with Mrs. Feller. Sergeant Zimmerman and I will walk back to the river to wait for the others."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

He took Ellen's hand as soon as they were out of the car. She held it in both of hers and drew it against her breast.

McCoy watched the rearview mirror very carefully until Sessions and Zimmerman had disappeared around a bend. Then he turned to her and put his arms around her.

"What are we going to do?" Ellen asked against his ear.

"I don't know," he said. "At least I got to put my arms around you."

She kissed him, first tenderly, then lasciviously, and then she put her mouth to his ear as she applied her fingers to the buttons of his fly.

"I know what to do," she said. "Just make sure they don't suddenly come walking back."

After a moment, she sat up to let him reach down and open her dress. Then he slipped his hand behind her, unclasped her brassiere, and freed her breasts.

And then, all of a sudden, the hair on the back of his neck began to curl, and he felt a really weird sensation-of chill and excitement at once.

He was being a goddamned fool, he told himself. He was just scared that the two of them would be caught together doing what they were doing.

And with a strange certainty, he knew that wasn't it at all.

He lifted himself high enough on the seat to look in the backseat. Zimmerman's Thompson was on the floorboard. That left Zimmerman and Sessions with nothing but Zimmerman's pistol.

"What are you doing?" Ellen asked, taking her mouth off him.

"There's a Thompson in the backseat," McCoy said. "You grab it and run after me."

He pushed his thing back in his pants and took his Thompson from the floorboard.

"What's the matter?" Ellen asked.

"Goddamnit, just do what I tell you!" he snapped, and sprang out of the car. As he trotted down the road, he chambered a cartridge in the Thompson. ' I'm going to race the hell down there and find the two of them sitting on a bench waiting for the ferry. And they are both going to think I've lost my fucking mind.

But they weren't sitting on a bench when he trotted around the bend.

They were up against a steep bank, and there were twenty, twenty-five Chinese, dressed as coolies, crowding them.

The convoy would be broken in pieces in only one place between Huimin and Tientsin. The only place, therefore, where it could credibly be reported that Chinese bandits had attacked it. And the Japanese had damned well figured that out.

And they had handed the Japs the opportunity on a silver platter. Sessions and Zimmerman were isolated and practically unarmed. After the 'bandits' finished with them, they would have come to the car.

Zimmerman had the flap on his.45 holster open, but hadn't drawn it.

"Take the fucking thing out, for Christ's sake," McCoy called out.

The Chinese looked over their shoulders at him. Several of them took several steps in his direction. Several others moved toward Zimmerman and Sessions.

McCoy was holding the Thompson by the pistol grip, the butt resting against the pit of his elbow, the muzzle elevated. He realized that he was reluctant to aim it at the mob.

Goddamnit, I'm scared! If I aim it at them, the shit will hit the fan!

He pulled the trigger. The submachine gun slammed against his arm, three, four, five times, as if somebody was punching him. He could smell the burned powder, and he saw the flashes coming from the slits in the Cutts Compensator on the muzzle.

Everybody froze for a moment, and then the Chinese who had been advancing on Zimmerman and Sessions started to run toward them. After that the shit did hit the fan. Pistols were drawn from wherever they had been concealed. McCoy saw that at least two of the pistols were Broomhandled Model 98 Mausers, which fire 9-mm cartridges full automatic.

McCoy put the Thompson to his shoulder, aimed very carefully, and tapped the trigger. The Thompson fired three times, and one of the Chinese with a Broomhandle Mauser went down with a look of surprise on his face. McCoy found another Chinese with a Broomhandle and touched the trigger again. This time the Thompson barked only twice, a dull blam-blam, and the second Chinese dropped like someone who'd been slugged in the stomach with a baseball bat.

As he methodically took two more Chinese down with two-and three-round bursts from the Thompson, he saw Zimmerman finally get around to drawing his pistol and working the action.

A movement beside him startled him, frightened him. He twisted and saw that Ellen was standing a foot behind him. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. He had time to notice that she had her breasts back inside her brassiere, but that there was something wrong with her dress. Then he figured out that she hadn't gotten the right button in the right hole.

She had Zimmerman's Thompson in her hands, holding it as if she was afraid of it. And around her shoulder was Zimmerman's musette bag. The bulges told him there were two spare drum magazines in it. Her eyes were wide with horror.

He returned his attention to the mob, and fired again.

"Shoot, for Christ's sake!" McCoy shouted. Zimmerman looked baffled.

Sessions finally did something. He snatched the Colt from Zimmerman's hand. Holding it with both hands he aimed at the ground in front of the Chinese. He fired, and then fired again. McCoy heard a slug richochet over his head.

That dumb sonofabitch is actually trying to wound them in the legs!

He put the Thompson back to his shoulder and emptied the magazine in four- and five-shot bursts into the mob of Chinese. There was no longer time to aim. He sprayed the mob, aware that most of his shots were going wild. And then when he tugged at the trigger, nothing was happening. The fifty-round drum was empty.

Conditioned by Parris Island Drill Instructors to treat any weapon with something approaching reverence-abuse was the unpardonable sin-he very carefully laid the empty Thompson on the ground and only then took Zimmerman's Thompson from Ellen.

When he had raised it to his shoulder, he saw that the mob had broken and was running toward the ferry slip. For some reason that produced rage, not relief. Telling himself to take it easy, to get a decent sight picture before pulling the trigger, he fired at individual members of the now-fleeing mob. He was too excited to properly control the sensitive trigger, and the Thompson fired in four-, five-, and six-shot bursts until the magazine was empty. By then there were five more Chinese down, some of them sprawled flat on their faces, one of them on his knees, and another crawling for safety like a worm, his hands on the gaping wound in his leg.

McCoy ejected the magazine and went for the spares in the musette bag around Ellen's shoulders. He snared one on the first grab, but as he did so he dislodged the top cartridge from its proper position in the magazine. He put the magazine to his mouth and yanked the cartridge out with his teeth. Then he jammed the magazine into the Thompson and put it back in his shoulder. Two Chinese were rushing toward him, one with a knife, the other with what looked like a boat pole. He took both of them down with two bursts. One of the 230-grain.45 slugs caught the second one in the face and blew blood and brains all over the road.

And then it was all over. No Chinese were on their feet; and when he trained the Thompson on the ground, the ones down there seemed to be dead. Except one, who was doggedly trying to unjam his Broomhandle Mauser. McCoy took a good sight on him and put two rounds in his head.

There were more than a dozen dead and wounded Chinese on the ground. Some were screaming in agony.

Lieutenant Sessions ran over to McCoy, looking as if he was trying to find something to say. But nothing came out of his mouth for several moments.

"My God," he whispered finally.

McCoy felt faint and nauseous. But forced it down. Then Ellen slumped to her knees and threw up. That made McCoy do the same thing.

"What the hell was that all about?" Sessions finally asked.

"Shit!" McCoy said.

Ellen looked at him, white-faced, and he thought he saw disgust in her eyes.

"I guess the Japs decided you're not really a Christer, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

"Jesus Christ, the film!" Sessions said. "Where is it?"

"Goddamn it," McCoy said, and started to run back to the car.

He was halfway to the car when he heard shots and then a scream. He spun around. Zimmerman had finally got his shit together. He had put a fresh magazine in McCoy's Thompson and was walking among the downed Chinese, methodically firing a couple of rounds into each of them to make sure they were dead.

Ellen was doing the screaming, while Lieutenant Sessions held her, staring horrified at what Zimmerman was doing.

And McCoy saw the cavalry finally galloping to the rescue.

The ferry was in midstream. Lieutenant Macklin, who had found his steel helmet somewhere, stood at the bow with his pistol in his hand and a whistle in his mouth. Behind him were the two BAR men, and behind them the rest of the drivers, armed with Springfields. McCoy did not see the Reverend Mr. Feller.

He ran the rest of the way to the car. The film was where he had left it, in the crown of his campaign hat, concealed there by a skivvy shirt.

He got behind the wheel and backed up to where Ellen stood with Lieutenant Sessions. Sessions opened the back door, and she got in and slumped against the seat, white-faced and white-eyed.

The ferry finally touched the near shore, and Lieutenant Macklin, furiously blowing his whistle, led the cavalry up the road to them.

(Three)

Lieutenant Sessions learned quick, McCoy decided. You had to give him that. He took charge, the way an officer was expected to. Lieutenant Macklin was running around like a fucking chicken with his head cut off. The first thing he was worried about was that the Chinese would "counterattack." They were a bunch of fucking bandits, more than half of them were dead. Military units counterattacked. What was left of the Chinese were still running.

The second thing that worried Macklin was what the colonel would think. His orders were to avoid a "confrontation" at all costs. There had obviously been a "confrontation."

"There's sure to be an official inquiry," Macklin said. "We're going to have to explain all these bodies. God, there must be a dozen of them! How are we going to explain all these dead Chinese?"

"There's eighteen," McCoy said helpfully. "I counted them. I guess we're just going to have to say we shot them."

Both Sessions and Macklin gave him dirty looks. Sessions still didn't like it that McCoy was contemptuous of Macklin, who was after all an officer. And Macklin thought that Killer McCoy was not only an insolent enlisted man, but was more than likely responsible for what had happened.

What bothered Macklin, McCoy understood, was not that they had almost gotten themselves killed, but that he himself was somehow going to be embarrassed before the colonel. He was, when it came down to it, the officer in command.

"Corporal," Macklin snapped. "I don't expect you to understand this, but what we have here is an International Incident."

"You weren't even involved, Lieutenant," McCoy said. "You were on the other side of the river. By the time you got here, it was all over."

"That's enough, McCoy!" Sessions snapped.

"I'm the officer in charge," Macklin flared. "Of course, I'm involved!"

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

Macklin sucked in his breath, in preparation, McCoy sensed, to really putting him in his place.

Sessions stopped him by speaking first.

"The important thing, Macklin," he said, while Lieutenant Macklin paused to draw in a breath, "is to place the rolls of film McCoy took into the proper hands at Tientsin. That's the primary objective of this whole operation."

"Yes, of course," Macklin said impatiently, itching to launch into McCoy. "But-"

Sessions cut him off again.

"Next in importance is the physical safety of the Reverend and Mrs. Feller."

"Yes, of course," Macklin repeated.

"And as you point out, there is the problem of the bodies," Sessions said.

"Obviously," Macklin said. "McCoy's latest contribution to the death rate in China."

Sessions smiled at that.

"We can't just drive off and leave eighteen bodies in the road," Sessions said. "And I think McCoy and I should separate, in case something should happen to one or the other of us-"

Now Macklin interrupted him: "You do think there's a chance of a counterattack, then?"

"I think it's very unlikely," Sessions said, "but not impossible."

He's humoring the sonofabitch, McCoy thought.

"As I was saying," Sessions went on, "I think we should do whatever we have to, to make sure that either McCoy or I make it to Tientsin, to be a witness to the fact that there are German PAK38s in Japanese hands."

"I take your point," Macklin said solemnly. "What do you propose?"

Just as solemnly, Sessions proposed that McCoy, two Marine trucks, and all the extra drivers be left behind in a detachment commanded by Lieutenant Macklin, while he and Sergeant Zimmerman and everybody and everything else immediately left for Tientsin.

"I think that's the thing to do," Macklin solemnly judged.

McCoy was almost positive the Japanese would not try anything else. They would think the Americans had something else in mind-like an ambush-when they stayed behind with the bodies. The Japanese would have left the bodies where they fell, he knew, unless they felt ambitious enough to throw them into the river.

But just to be sure, he set up as good a perimeter guard as he could with the few men he had. Meanwhile Lieutenant Macklin relieved him of the Thompson submachine gun. He kept it with him where he spent the night in the cab of one of the trucks.

Early the next morning a mixed detachment of French Foreign Legionnaires, Italian marines, and Tientsin Marines showed up.

McCoy was a little uncomfortable when he saw the Italians, but if they knew who he was, there was no sign. Somewhat reluctantly, they set about loading the bodies on the trucks they had brought with them.

It was dark before they got to the International Settlement in Tientsin, and there was no way McCoy could get away to try to go see Ellen Feller in the Christian Missionary Alliance mission. The Tientsin officers kept him up all night writing down what had happened at the ferry.

Some of their questions made him more than uncomfortable.

First, they went out of their way to persuade him to admit that he had been more than a little excited. If he hadn't been a little excited (We're not suggesting you were afraid, McCoy. Nobody's saying that. But weren't you really nervous?) the "confrontation" could have been avoided.

"Sir, there was no way what happened could have been avoided. I was scared and excited, but that had nothing to do with what happened."

When they realized they weren't going to get him to acknowledge-even obliquely-that the incident was his fault, they dropped another, more uncomfortable accusation on him:

"Mrs. Feller tells us that you and Sergeant Zimmerman went around shooting the wounded, McCoy,',' one of them asked. "Was that necessary?"

McCoy had been around officers long enough to know when they were up to something. They were trying to stick it in Zimmerman. Zimmerman had a Chinese wife and kids. He couldn't afford to be busted.

"Nobody shot any wounded, Captain. Not the way you make it sound."

"Then why do you suppose both Mrs. Feller and Lieutenant Macklin both say that's what happened?"

"I don't know," McCoy said. "Lieutenant Macklin didn't even show up there until it was all over. So far as I know, Sergeant Zimmerman didn't fire his weapon. Lieutenant Sessions and I had to shoot a couple of them after they were down."

"Why did you feel you had to do that?"

"Because there was three of us and fifty of them, and the rest of the convoy was still across the river. Those guys that were down were still trying to fire their weapons."

"You don't say 'sir' very often, do you, Corporal?"

"Sir, no disrespect intended, sir," McCoy said.

"You say both you and Lieutenant Sessions found it necessary to shoot wounded men again?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mrs. Feller obviously confused you with Sergeant Zimmerman," the officer said, and McCoy knew that was the last anybody was going to hear about making sure the Chinese were really dead.

The next morning, a runner came after him while he was having breakfast in the mess. Lieutenant Sessions was waiting for him in the orderly room.

Sessions told him there that since the Japanese would by now suspect he was not a missionary, he had decided there was no point to his staying in China for the several months he had originally planned. So he was now going to take the President Wilson home with the Fellers.

"I'd like to say good-bye to her, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

"I'm not sure that's wise," Sessions said then. But in the end Sessions changed his mind and decided to be a good guy and told the Tientsin officers he wanted to speak to McCoy aboard the ship before he left.

On the way, he handed McCoy a thick envelope.

"This is for Captain Banning," he said. "I want you to deliver it personally."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said, wondering why he hadn't given whatever it was to Macklin to deliver-until he realized that whatever it was, Sessions didn't want Macklin to see it.

"It's a report of everything that happened on the trip, McCoy," Sessions said. When he saw McCoy's eyebrows go up, he chuckled and added: "Everything of a duty, as opposed to social, nature, that is."

"Thank you, sir," McCoy said.

"I was up all night writing it," Sessions said. "There just wasn't time for the other letter I want to write. But that's probably just as well. I'll have time to write it on the ship, and it would probably be better coming from someone more important than me."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

"You're going to get an official Letter of Commendation, McCoy," Sessions said. "For your record jacket. I'm going to write it, and I'm going to try to get someone senior to sign it. If I can't, I'll sign it myself."

"Thank you," McCoy said.

"No thanks are necessary," Sessions said. "You performed superbly under stress, and that should be recorded in your official records."

What Sessions meant, McCoy knew, was that without the sixth sense-or whatever the hell it was-that something was wrong, he wouldn't have shown up when he had, and Sessions would probably be going back to the States in a coffin in the reefer compartment of the President Wilson.

Sessions meant well, McCoy decided, but he doubted if there would be a Letter of Commendation. Even if Sessions really remembered to write one, he doubted if Headquarters, USMC, would let him make it official. From the way the officers here were acting (and the higher-ranking the officer, the worse it was), what had happened at the ferry was his fault. In their view he had "overreacted to a situation" which a more senior and experienced noncom would have handled without loss of life.

The letter report he was carrying to Captain Banning was nevertheless important. He trusted Sessions now: The report would tell it like it happened, and Banning would understand why he had done what he had.

At the gangplank of the President Wilson, Sessions got him a Visitor's Boarding Pass, and then asked the steward at the gangplank for the number of the Fellers' cabin.

When they reached the corridor leading to the Fellers' cabin, Sessions offered his hand.

"I'll say good-bye here, McCoy," he said. "I want to thank you, for everything, and to say I think you're one hell of a Marine."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," McCoy said. He was more than a little embarrassed.

"We'll run into each other again, I'm sure," Sessions said. "Sooner or later. Good luck, McCoy."

"Good luck to you, too, sir," McCoy said.

As he looked for the Feller cabin, he felt pretty good. He was beginning to believe now that there might be a Letter of Commendation. It would be nice to have something like that in the official records when his name came up before the sergeant's promotion board.

The good feeling vanished the moment Ellen answered his knock at her cabin door. The look on her face instantly showed she'd hoped she'd seen the last of him. Being the fucking fool he was, though, he didn't want to believe what he saw on her face and in her eyes. He told himself that what it was was surprise.

He started out by asking her if maybe she would write him. "Maybe, you never can tell, we'll be able to see each other again sometime." He ended up telling her he loved her. "I think it's still possible for me to buy my way out of the Corps," he went on. "I'll look into it, I have the money. And I do really love you."

She got stiff when he started talking, the way she did when he talked crude to her; and by the time he was telling her he loved her, her face was rigid and her eyes cold.

"How dare you talk to me like that?" she said when he had finished, with a voice like a dagger.

So what she wanted after all was nothing but the stiff prick her fairy husband couldn't give her. The funny thing about it was that he wasn't mad. He was damned close to crying.

He turned and walked out of her cabin, vowing that he would never make a fucking mistake like that again. He'd never mistake some old bitch with hot pants for the real thing. He didn't give a shit if she fucked Lieutenant Sessions eight time a day all the way across the Pacific. If she couldn't get Sessions, she'd grab some other dumb fucker. And failing that, she'd get herself a broomhandle.

(Four)

Headquarters, 4th Marines

Shanghai, China

11 June 1941

Once given permission to enter the office of Captain Edward Banning, Lieutenant John Macklin marched in erectly, came to attention before Banning's desk, and said, "Reporting as directed, sir."

The formalities over, he stepped to the chair in front of Banning's desk, sat down in it, and crossed his legs.

"Getting hot already, isn't it?" he asked.

"I don't recall giving you permission to sit down, Lieutenant," Captain Banning said, almost conversationally, but with a touch of anger in his voice.

Macklin, surprised, took a quick look at Banning's face and then scrambled to his feet. When he was again at the position of attention, he said: "I beg your pardon, Captain."

"Lieutenant," Banning said, "I have carefully read your report of the Tientsin-Peking trip, paying particular attention to those parts dealing with your detention at Yenchi'eng and the incident at the ferry."

"Yes, sir?"

"I have read with equal care the report Lieutenant Sessions wrote on the same subjects," Banning said.

"Sir?" Macklin asked.

"There was a caveat in Lieutenant Sessions's report," Banning said. "He wrote that he was writing in the small hours of the morning because he hoped to finish it before he went home. Thus he was afraid there would be some small errors in it because of his haste."

"I wasn't aware that Lieutenant Sessions had made a report, sir," Lieutenant Macklin said. "May I suggest that it might be a good idea if I had a look at it, with a view to perhaps revising my own report?"

Banning's temper flared again when he recalled Macklin's report. It boggled his mind to think that the man blamed the detention at Yenchi'eng on McCoy's "cowardly refusal to do what duty clearly required"; and that the "tragic events" at the river crossing could have been avoided if only Lieutenant Sessions had heeded his warning that "Corporal McCoy clearly manifested paranoid tendencies of a homicidal nature and had to be carefully watched."

And then, in the presumption that Sessions was on the high seas and safely removed from rebuttal, he'd even gone after him:

"The possibility cannot be dismissed that Lieutenant Sessions acquiesced, if he did not actually participate, in the brutal slaughter of the wounded Chinese civilians."

Banning waited a moment for his temper to subside.

"You are a slimy creature, aren't you, Macklin?" Banning asked calmly. "How the hell have you managed to stay in the Corps this long?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Macklin said.

"You know what a slimy creature is, Macklin. In the Marine Corps, a slimy creature is an officer who tries to pass the blame for his own failures onto the shoulders of a brother officer. I don't know of a phrase obscene enough to describe an officer who tries to cover his own ass by trying to blame his failures on an enlisted man. And you probably would have gotten away with it, you slimy sonofabitch, if Sessions hadn't spotted you for what you are and sent his report back with McCoy."

"There may be, Captain, some minor differences of judgment between the two reports, but nothing of magnitude that would justify these insulting accusations-"

"Shut your face, Lieutenant!" Banning shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice, and his loss of temper embarrassed him. Glaring contemptuously at Macklin, he took time to regain control before he went on.

"If I had my druthers, Lieutenant," Banning said, "I'd bring charges against you for conduct unbecoming an officer. Or for knowingly uttering a false official statement. But I can't. If I brought you before a court-martial, we would have to get into security matters. And we can't do that. What I can do, what I will do, is see that your next efficiency report contains a number of phrases which will suggest to the captain's promotion board that you should not be entrusted with a machine-gun crew, much less with command of a company. It will be a very long time before you are promoted, Lieutenant. You're a smart fellow. Perhaps you will conclude that it would be best if you resigned from the Marine Corps."

"Captain Banning," Macklin said after a moment. "There is obviously a misunderstanding between us."

"There's no misunderstanding, Macklin," Banning said, almost sadly. "What's happened here is that you have proved you're unfit to be a Marine officer. It's as simple as that. The one thing a Marine officer has to have going for him is integrity. And you just don't have any."

"I'm sure I'll be able to explain this misunderstanding to the colonel," Macklin said. "And that is my intention, sir." Banning looked at him for a moment and then picked up his telephone and dialed a number.

"Captain Banning, sir," he said. "I have Macklin in here. I have just informed him of the contempt in which I hold him. He tells me that he believes he can explain the misunderstanding to you."

There was a hesitation before the colonel replied. "I suppose he is entitled to hear it from me," the colonel said. "Send him over."

"Aye, aye, sir," Banning said, and replaced the telephone in its cradle.

"You're dismissed, Macklin," Banning said. "The colonel will see you, if you wish."

Macklin did an about-face and marched out of his office.

Banning knew what sort of a reception Macklin was going to get from the colonel. He had had to argue at length with him to talk him out of a court-martial. It was only Banning's invocation of the Good of the Corps that finally persuaded the colonel to reluctantly agree that the only way to deal with the problem was to immediately relieve Macklin of duty until such time as he could be sent home.

(Five)

Headquarters, First Battalion, 4th Marines

Shanghai, China 12 June 1941

The first sergeant sent a runner into town to McCoy's apartment by rickshaw. Liberty or no liberty, the first sergeant wanted to see him right away.

McCoy shaved and put on a fresh uniform and went to the compound.

"I hope you're packed, McCoy," the first sergeant said when he walked into the company office. Then he handed him maybe twenty copies of a special order, held together with a paper clip.

HEADQUARTERS 4th Regiment, USMC, Shanghai, China

10 June 1941

Subject: Letter Orders

To: Cpl Kenneth J. MCCOY 32875 USMC

Hq Co, 1st Bn, 4th Marines

1. Reference is made to cable message, Hq, USMC, Washington, DC, subject, "McCoy, Kenneth J., Transfer Of', dated 4 June 1941.

2. You are detached effective this date from Hq Co 1st Bn, 4th Marines, and transferred in grade to 47th Motor Transport Platoon, USMC, U.S. Navy Yard, Philadelphia, Penna.

3. You will depart Shanghai aboard the first available vessel in the Naval service sailing for a port in the United States. On arrival in the United States you will report to nearest USMC or US. Navy base or facility, who will furnish you with the necessary transportation vouchers to your final destination.

4. You are authorized the shipment of 300 pounds of personal belongings. You are NOT authorized the shipment of household goods. You are NOT authorized delay en route

leave. You will carry with you your service records, which will be sealed. Breaking the seal is forbidden.

5. You will present these orders to the officer commanding each USMC or USN station or vessel en route. Such officers are directed to transmit by the most expeditious means to Hq, USMC, Washington, D.C., ATTN Q3-O3A, the date of your arrival, the date and means of your transportation on your departure, and your estimated date of arrival at your next

destination.

BY DIRECTION:

J. James Gerber Major, USMC Adjutant

"What the hell is all this?"

"I guess the Corps wants to get you out of China, Killer, before they run out of people for you to cut up or shoot," the first sergeant said.

"Jesus Christ," McCoy said.

" "The first available vessel in the service of the U.S.'," the first sergeant quoted, "is the Whaley' (The US.S. Charles E. Whaley was a fleet oiler that regularly called at Shanghai to replenish the fuel supplies of the vessels of the Yangtze River Patrol and the half dozen small pigboats of SUBFORCHINA (US. Navy Submarine Force, China). She sails Friday morning. You will be aboard. You know the Whaley, McCoy?"

"I know the Whaley," McCoy said. "Fucking grease bucket."

"It's going to Pearl Harbor, not the States," the first sergeant said. "They'll put you aboard something else at Pearl. With a little bit of luck, you could spend two, three weeks in Pearl," the first sergeant said.

"Top, I don't want to go home," McCoy said. The first sergeant's reaction to that was predictable: "You don't want to go home?"

"You know what I mean, Top," McCoy said. "I just shipped over to stay in China."

"McCoy, I don't know how you got to be a corporal without figuring this out for yourself… I don't know, come to think of it, how you got be a corporal, period… but this is the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps the way it works is the Marine Corps tells you where you go, and when."

There really wasn't any point in arguing with the first sergeant, and McCoy knew it, but he did so anyway, thinking that maybe he could get an extra few days, an extra two weeks.

If he had that much time, maybe he could think of something. "For Christ's sake, Top, I got stuff to sell. I'll have to give it away if I have to get rid of everything by Friday. How about letting me miss the Whaley and catch whatever is next?''

"Like what, for instance, do you have to get rid of cheap? I'm always on the lookout for a bargain." "Come on, Top, you could fix it if you wanted to." "Fuck you, McCoy," the first sergeant said. "A little time on a tanker'll be good for you."

"Can I tell Captain Banning about this?" McCoy asked. "You go tell him, if you think it'll do you any good," the first sergeant said. "And then get your ass back here and start packing. When the Gunny tells me your gear is shipshape, then maybe I'll think about letting you go into town and see about selling your stuff."

Captain Banning waved him into his inner office as soon as he saw him coming through the door.

"I guess you've just got the word from your first sergeant?" he asked. "Yes, sir."

"Before you start wasting your breath, McCoy, let me tell you that not only is the colonel overjoyed at your departure, but he has told me to make sure, personally, that you get on the Whaley."

"I'm on his shit list, am I?"

"Let us say that you have been the subject of considerable cable traffic between here and Headquarters, Marine Corps, following the Shootout at the O.K. Corral. If you plan to make a career of the Marine Corps, Killer, you're going to have to restrain your urge to cut people up and shoot them."

"That's unfair, Captain," McCoy said.

"Yeah," Captain Banning said. "I know it is, McCoy. You didn't start that fight, and according to Sessions, you handled yourself damned well once it started. For what it's worth, I argued with the colonel until he told me to shut my face. But he's still getting crap from the Italians, and the Consul General's been all over his ass about you. I was there when he asked whether you were just a homicidal maniac, or whether you were trying to start World War II all by yourself."

"So for doing what I was told to do, keep Sessions and Macklin alive, I get my ass shipped home in disgrace."

"That's about the sum of it," Banning said. "But you don't have everything straight. First of all, the colonel's not shipping you home in disgrace or otherwise. I think underneath, he sort of admires you. You were ordered home by the Corps. I suspect that the Consul General had something to do with it-raised hell about you through the State Department, or something like that-but the colonel didn't do it. And you're not going home in disgrace. Not only do you get to keep your stripes, but your company commander is going to give you an efficiency report that makes you sound like Lou Diamond, Jr. (Master Gunnery Sergeant Diamond was a Corps-wide Marine legend, the perfect Marine). I know, because I wrote it."

McCoy was obviously puzzled by that, and it showed on his face.

"It doesn't say anything about your working for me, McCoy," Banning said. "You understand that you can't talk to anybody, in or out of the Corps, about that?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

"But it should impress the hell out of your new commanding officer," Banning said.

"I'm going to a truck company," McCoy said. "A goddamned truck company. I'm a machine-gunner."

"I'm going home in a couple of months myself," Banning said. "You keep your nose clean in the truck company, and when I get settled, I'll see what I can do for you. Either working for me, or doing something else interesting. Or, if you really want to, getting you back in a heavy-weapons company."

"Thank you," McCoy said.

"What are you going to do about the stuff in the apartment?"

"As soon as my Gunny decides my gear is shipshape, the first sergeant said I could go into town."

"I'll call your first sergeant and tell him I'm sending you into town," Banning said. "Take whatever time you need to do what you have to do. And then go back to your company. I want to put you aboard the Whaley first thing Friday morning. If you're not on her, McCoy, the colonel will have my ass."

"I'll be aboard her, sir," McCoy said.