"If you drive down there, Lieutenant," McCoy said, "they're going to catch you, and you'll find yourself being entertained by the Japs for a couple of days."

"What do you mean by 'entertained'?"

"They'll take you on maneuvers," McCoy said. "Walk you around in the swamps all night, feed you raw fish, that sort of thing." He stopped, and then his mouth ran away with him: "Some of them have got a pretty good sense of humor. They had Lieutenant Macklin three days one time."

"That's quite enough, McCoy!" Macklin flared.

"Well then, we'll just have to make sure they don't catch us, won't we?" Lieutenant Sessions said.

"Lieutenant, I'm not going to Yenchi'eng with you," McCoy said. "I'm sorry."

"How long did you say it will take us to drive from Chiehshom to Yenchi'eng, Corporal?" Sessions asked.

"It's about a two-hour drive, maybe two and a half, with the roads like this."

"And you presumably can manage the road at night?"

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to Yenchi'eng with you," McCoy said.

"I didn't ask you if you had volunteered, Corporal," Lieutenant Sessions said reasonably. "The decision to go has been made by Lieutenant Macklin and myself. Your presence will lend your knowledge of the terrain to our enterprise. I don't have to remind you, do I, that despite your special relationship with Captain Banning, you still remain subject to the orders of your superiors?"

"Lieutenant," McCoy said, "you're putting me on a spot."

"The only spot you'll be on," Macklin flared, "is if you persist in your defiance."

McCoy looked at him, shrugged, and took an envelope from his hip pocket. He extended it toward Sessions.

"I think you better take a look at this, Lieutenant," he said.

"What is that?" Sessions asked.

"My orders, sir, in writing," McCoy said. "Captain Banning said I wasn't to give them to you unless I had to. I think I have to."

Sessions took the envelope, tore it open, and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. He glanced at the sheet and then shook his head.

"What is it?" Lieutenant Macklin asked.

"It's a set of letter orders," Sessions said, and then read it aloud: 'Headquarters, 4th Marines, Shanghai, 13 May 1941. Subject, Letter Orders. To Corporal Kenneth J. McCoy, Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 4th Marines. Your confidential orders concerning the period 14 May 1941 to 14 June 1941 have been issued to you verbally by Captain Edward Banning, USMC. You are reminded herewith that no officer or noncommissioned officer assigned or attached to the 4th Regiment, USMC, is authorized to amend or countermand

your orders in any way.' " Sessions looked at Macklin. "Corporal McCoy's letter orders are signed by the colonel."

"Well, I'll be damned," Macklin said. "I never heard of such a thing."

"Lieutenant," McCoy said to Macklin. "I wish you'd read those orders."

"Just what the hell do you mean by that?" Macklin snapped.

"With respect, sir," McCoy said. "I'd like to burn them."

"Go ahead and burn them," Macklin said coldly.

Sessions handed the orders back to McCoy, who ripped the single sheet of paper into long strips, which he then carefully burned, one at a time, letting the wind blow the ashes and unburned stub from his fingers.

"I presume your 'confidential verbal orders' forbid you to go to Yenchi'eng?" Macklin asked, when he had finished.

"No, sir, except that Captain Banning said I was to use my own judgment if you wanted me to do something like that."

"Then you have not been forbidden to go to Yenchi'eng? You've taken that decision yourself?" Sessions asked.

"That's about the size of it, sir," McCoy said.

A very self-confident young man, Sessions thought. Highly intelligent. He almost certainly believes in what he's doing. So where does that leave us?

"I presume you have considered, Corporal," Macklin said, icily, "that Lieutenant Sessions's interest in the cannon of the 11th Division is not idle curiosity? That he has been sent here by Headquarters, USMC?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. "Captain Banning told me all about that."

"And you are apparently unimpressed by my decision that knowing that for sure is worth whatever risk is entailed in going to Yenchi'eng?" Macklin asked, coldly furious.

"I'm convinced there's no way you could go there without getting caught," McCoy said. "You have to go by road. The first checkpoint you pass, they'll phone ahead to the Kempei-Tai, and that will be it."

"There are ways of getting around checkposts and the Kempei-Tai," Macklin said. "You have done so."

"That was different," McCoy said.

"That was different, sir," Macklin corrected him.

"That was different, sir," McCoy parroted.

"Well, then, perhaps you'd be good enough to tell Mr. Sessions and myself how you would go to Yenchi'eng."

"If I told you that, it would look like I thought you could get away with it, Lieutenant," McCoy said. * "So you refuse even to help us?" Macklin said, incredulously.

McCoy pretended he hadn't heard the question.

"And I don't see any point in taking the risk of going myself," he said. "If they had any German cannon, I'd know about it."

"Corporal," Lieutenant Macklin said, icily sarcastic, "I stand in awe of your self-confidence."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"You will, I hope, tell us what you can about the location of the artillery park?" Lieutenant Sessions asked conversationally. "How we can find it?"

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said. "I hope you'll make it clear to Captain Banning, sir, that I told you you're going to get caught?"

"Oh, yes, Corporal McCoy," Lieutenant Macklin said. "You can count on our relating this incident to Captain Banning in detail."

(Two)

Chiehshom, Shantung Province, China

15 May 1941

The three classes of accommodation at the Hotel am See at Chiehshom had (in descending order) been originally intended for Europeans, European servants, and Chinese servants. On McCoy's first couple of trips to and from Peking, all the enlisted Marines had been put up in the rooms set aside for European servants. But on the last couple of trips, like this one, the management had made quite a show of giving the noncoms "European" rooms-small ones, to be sure-in the main wing of the hotel.

McCoy realized that the proprietor had figured out that the sergeant, rather than the officer-in-charge, was the man who really decided (by speeding up or slowing down) where the convoy and its ten-man detail would stop for the night. That meant the sale of ten beds and twenty meals, plus whatever they all had to drink. There wasn't all that much business anyway.

McCoy really liked to stay at the Hotel am See. The food was good and the place was spotless. And even the small rooms they gave the noncoms had enormous bathtubs with apparently limitless clean hot water. He would take a bath at night, a long soak, and then a shower in the morning. It was the only shower he'd had in China that made his skin sting with the pressure. All the others were like being rained on.

After settling into his room, McCoy had hoped to have dinner with Ernie Zimmerman and be gone from the dining room before the officers and the Fellers came down for dinner. That would give him a chance both to avoid Lieutenants Macklin and Sessions and to steel himself for another meeting with them that was scheduled for after dinner. They wanted him to go over their route to and from Yenchi'eng. As pissed as the both of them were with him, that was going to be bad enough without having dinner in the same room (where they didn't think enlisted Marines had any right to be anyway) with them.

But Ernie Zimmerman got hung up somehow getting the other Marines bedded down and was ten minutes late. Zimmerman and McCoy had no sooner sat down in the dining room when the officers and the Fellers showed up. Mrs. Feller said something to the Reverend, and he came over and insisted that they all have dinner together.