Страница 31 из 86
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 fu
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 Ba
The formalities over, he stepped to the chair in front of Ba
"Getting hot already, isn't it?" he asked.
"I don't recall giving you permission to sit down, Lieutenant," Captain Ba
Macklin, surprised, took a quick look at Ba
"Lieutenant," Ba
"Yes, sir?"
"I have read with equal care the report Lieutenant Sessions wrote on the same subjects," Ba
"Sir?" Macklin asked.
"There was a caveat in Lieutenant Sessions's report," Ba
"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?"
Ba
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 ca
Ba
"You are a slimy creature, aren't you, Macklin?" Ba
"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!" Ba
"If I had my druthers, Lieutenant," Ba
"Captain Ba
"There's no misunderstanding, Macklin," Ba
"I'm sure I'll be able to explain this misunderstanding to the colonel," Macklin said. "And that is my intention, sir." Ba
"Captain Ba
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," Ba
"You're dismissed, Macklin," Ba
Macklin did an about-face and marched out of his office.
Ba
(Five)
Headquarters, First Battalion, 4th Marines
Shanghai, China 12 June 1941
The first sergeant sent a ru
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 Ke