The Christian Missionary Alliance mission was in an ancient part of town, close to the Yangtze and within sight of the cranes on the docks. The mission covered a little more than two acres, which were enclosed by walls. Directly across from the gate a four-hundred-year-old granite-block building had been converted to a chapel. A wooden, gold-painted cross sat atop it.

There were two large wooden crates in the courtyard of the mission, obviously the household goods of the Fellers. Captain Banning had told McCoy of his suspicions about their contents, and now he wondered idly if the captain was right. Then, more practically, he wondered how they were going to load the crates onto the trucks. The damn things probably weighed a ton.

A woman who was almost certainly Mrs. Feller appeared in the courtyard as the truck and car drove through the gate. She was more or less what McCoy expected, a somewhat thinner, somewhat younger copy of Mrs. Moore-a well-scrubbed, makeup-free do-gooder. She even wore her hair the same way, braided and then pinned to the sides of her head. But unlike Mrs. Moore, McCoy noticed, she had good-looking legs, trim hips, and an interesting set of knockers.

She kissed her husband like a nun kisses a relative. On the cheek, as if a little uncomfortable with that little bit of passion.

When the Reverend Feller marched her over to the car and introduced her, McCoy was surprised that her hand was warm. He had expected it to be sort of clammy, like her husband's.

She had a boy show McCoy and PFC Everly (the tall, gangly hillbilly driving the missionary truck) where they were to sleep. Except for a Bible on a bedside table and a brightly colored framed lithograph of Jesus Christ gathering children around his knee, it was very much like McCoy's billet in the First Battalion compound in Shanghai. A steel cot, bedclothes, a chair, and nothing else.

Sessions came to the room shortly after the mission boy left them there.

"Could I have a word with you, Corporal McCoy?" he asked.

"Take a walk, why don't you, Everly?" McCoy ordered.

"Where am I supposed to go?"

"See if you can scout up a decent-looking place for us to eat. Come back in fifteen minutes."

When he was gone, Sessions said, "Mrs. Feller has asked you to supper, McCoy."

"Everly and I will get something," McCoy said.

"She meant the both of you, of course," Sessions said. "You're welcome, you understand? She's really a very nice person."

"Lieutenant, I didn't come here to eat supper with missionaries," McCoy said. "I'm going out on the town."

"In the line of duty, of course," Sessions said, sarcastically.

"The Corps's paying for it," McCoy said. "Why not?"

"Yes, of course," Sessions said. "Is there anything of interest here that I could credibly have a look at?"

"There's Kempei-Tai (The Japanese Security Police) watching this place. They're not going to think much if two Marines leave here to get their ashes hauled. They might get very curious if a newly arrived missionary did the same thing."

"I wasn't thinking of going to a brothel," Sessions replied, chuckling. "I was suggesting that it would be credible if the Fellers, while I was here, showed me the sights. And that while so doing, I might come across something of interest."

"If the Japs have German artillery, it's not going to be here in Nanking," McCoy said flatly. "And I think the less attention you call to yourself, the better it would be."

"McCoy, I am simply trying to do my job," Sessions said, annoyed at what he considered McCoy's condescension. He wondered what Captain Banning had told McCoy about him.

"That's all I'm trying to do, Lieutenant," McCoy said. "Captain Banning said I was to do what I could for you, and that's what I'm trying to do."

As the whores later confirmed, nothing was happening in Nanking. So at half past ten, McCoy decided that there wasn't anything more to be gained from spending the night in the whorehouse. He put on his clothes, paid off his girl, and went to the room Everly had taken.

"I'm heading back in," he told Everly, who was standing there in the doorway a little dazzled by the interruption. He had wrapped a towel around his middle. It threatened to fall.

"Do I have to?" he said.

"Just be at the mission at five o'clock," McCoy said, after a moment. Everly was a fucker, not a fighter; and he didn't drink dangerously. There was little chance that he would get in trouble. On the other hand, if he spent the night in the whorehouse, it would give the Kempei-Tai agents who had trailed them something to do. And the report they would write would state that a Marine had hired a whore for the night and stayed with her.

He returned to the mission and searched in vain through the small mission library for something that had nothing to do with Christianity. Then, disappointed, he retreated to his room, undressed to his skivvies, and took from his musette bag one of the copies of the Shanghai Post that had accumulated during his last trip to Shanghai. After he'd read it, he started in on the crossword puzzle.

Someone knocked at the door. Certain that it was the boy, he called permission to enter in Chinese.

It was Mrs. Feller, a very different Mrs. Feller from the tight-assed lady he had met that afternoon. She was wearing a cotton bathrobe over a silk gown; and her hair was free now, hanging halfway down her back. It was glossy and soft, as though she had just brushed it. Then he noticed-more than noticed-the unrestrained breasts under her thin night clothes… The Reverend was about to get a little, after what presumably was a long dry spell.

"Do you speak Chinese?" she asked, in Chinese.

"Some," McCoy said, in English.

"I just wanted to see if you or the other gentleman needed anything," she said.

"No, ma'am," McCoy said, chuckling. "We're fine, thank you."

"Why are you chuckling?" she asked, smiling.

"Hearing you call Everly 'the other gentleman,' " McCoy said.

"Where is he?" she asked.

When McCoy didn't reply, her face flushed.

"Mrs. Moore told me an incredible story about you," she said. "I can't believe it's true."

"What did she tell you?"

"Now I'm sorry I brought this up," she said. "I shouldn't have."

He nodded his acceptance of that.

"But do they call you 'Killer'? Or were they just teasing my husband and Mr. Sessions?"

"Some people call me that," McCoy said. "I don't like it much."

"But you're just a boy," she said, after deciding that the rest of the story was also probably-if incredibly-true.

"I don't like to be called a boy, either," McCoy said. "I'm a corporal in the Marine Corps."

"I'm really sorry I brought the whole thing up," she said.

McCoy nodded.

"Breakfast will be at six-thirty," she said. "My husband wants to get on the way early. Is that all right with you?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "We'll be there. Thank you."

"Then I'll say good night," she said.

He thought that he would really have liked to get a look at her teats. Chinese women, by and large, didn't have very big teats, and it had been a long time since he had seen an American woman's teats.

Come to think of it, he had seen very few American women's teats. Before he had come to China it had been a really big deal to get a look at a set of teats-not to mention actually getting laid. But getting laid in China was about as out-of-the-ordinary as blowing your nose. And in fact he had come to see there was no big difference between Chinese women and American (the story that their pussies ran sideward had turned out to be so much bullshit); but it would still be kind of nice to make it with a real American.

He would, come to think of it, really like to jump Mrs. Feller, though he immediately recognized that dream as the same kind of fantasy as wishing he would make sergeant next week… out of the goddamned question for two hundred different reasons.