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"Christ, I hope both the Reverend and you are wrong about us getting into a war with the Japs," he said.
Sessions looked at him in surprise. It was not the sort of remark he expected from a Marine officer.
"Lieutenant," Ba
"I've thought about that, sir," Sessions said.
Ba
"Have you?" Ba
"Eventually, we may have to face that logistic horror," Sessions said. "I really thought we were going to take action when the Japanese sank the Panay."
(The U.S.S. Panay, a gunboat of the Yangtze River Patrol, was attacked and sunk, with many Americans killed and wounded, by Japanese aircraft in 1937).
"Tell me more about the Reverend Feller," Ba
"He is willing to help us in any way he can," Sessions said, "consistent, of course, with his religious principles."
Ba
"As a practical matter, Lieutenant," Ba
"I don't think I follow you."
"For one thing, on the way back and forth to Peking, McCoy spends a lot of time drunk, usually in brothels. I don't want the Reverend, or anyone else, interfering with that. Or anything else that McCoy might do."
"I understand, sir," Sessions said immediately.
Ba
"Did the missionaries weather the trip well?" Ba
"They're in the Hotel Metropole," Sessions said. "They can leave just as soon as their vehicles have been serviced."
"I'll send McCoy over to the hotel in the morning," Ba
"Which is?"
"Get the missionary vehicles in condition to roll. Tell the Reverend Feller that it will be his responsibility to bring his vehicles here to be examined and to provide two extra wheels and four extra tires and tubes for each of them. That sort of thing."
"Where is Feller going to get wheels and tires?"
"You can buy anything you want in Shanghai," Ba
"Wouldn't it make more sense to have Corporal McCoy get the wheels and tires for him? I have some funds…"
"The only reason a corporal of Marines would go shopping for a missionary," Ba
Sessions winced, and exhaled audibly.
"I've got a lot to learn, don't I?"
"I'm sure that Corporal McCoy will be happy to point out the more significant rocks and shoals to you," Ba
"The most dangerous shoal would be getting caught in a compromising position," Sessions said. "What would happen if the Japanese detain or arrest me and charge me with espionage?"
"The thing to do, of course, is not get yourself arrested. And the way to do that is to listen to Killer McCoy. If he says -don't go somewhere, don't go somewhere."
Chapter Three
(One)
The Metropole Hotel Shanghai, China 12 May 1941
None of his peers was surprised when Corporal Ke
He was now a corporal, and most of the noncommissioned officers of the 4th Regiment of Marines in Shanghai had both a billet and a place where they actually lived. McCoy's billet, appropriate to a corporal, was half of a small room (not unlike a cell) in one of the two-story brick buildings that served the Headquarters Company, First Battalion, as barracks. It was furnished with a steel cot (on which rested a mattress, two blankets, two sheets, a pillow and a pillow case), a wall locker and a footlocker filled with the uniforms and accoutrements prescribed for a corporal of Marines.
With the exception of an issue mirror mounted to the door, that was all. There was not even a folding chair.
McCoy shared his billet with a staff sergeant assigned to the office of the battalion S-4 officer (Supply). The two of them split the cost of a Chinese room boy (actually a thirty-five-year-old man) who daily visited the room, polished the floor, washed the windows, tightened the blankets on the bunks, touched up the gloss of the boots and shoes, polished the brass, saw that the uniforms and accoutrements were shipshape, and in every way kept things shipshape.
Before inspections that Corporal McCoy and Staff Sergeant Patrick O'Dell were obliged to attend (and there was at least one such scheduled inspection every month, on payday) Chong Lee, the room boy, would remove from the wall locker and the footlocker those items of uniform and accoutrements that were required by Marine regulation and lay them out on the bunks precisely in the prescribed ma
To prepare for the monthly inspection of perso
The gu
The assignment of Staff Sergeant O'Dell and Corporal McCoy to the same room was a matter of convenience. They did not like each other. And sometimes the only time they spoke was when they met, once a month for the scheduled inspection. The only thing they had in common was that neither of them had responsibility for the company supervision of subordinates. The six other enlisted men assigned to battalion S-4 were supervised outside the office by the assistant S-4 corporal, Corporal Williamson.
After his promotion and return from the first "Get Him out of Sight" trip to Peking, Corporal McCoy had been officially transferred from Dog Company to Headquarters Company and assigned to the motor pool.
Whether- as some reasoned-it had been decided to continue to keep him out of sight of the Italians, or whether-as others reasoned-that to get right down to it McCoy didn't know his ass from left field about being a motor pool corporal, he had been given the more or less permanent assignment of riding the supply convoys to Peking.
That kept him out of town more than he was in Shanghai. The result was that since he didn't have a shack job and since he was gone so often, the first sergeant and the gu