She stiffened. She didn't like him to talk that way, he thought. But she shifted on the bed and cupped her hand on him again.

"I would like it, too, if you said that to me," she whispered.

"Said what?"

"My darling."

"My darling," McCoy said, and flushed. It made him uncomfortable. "And I like to suck your teats," he added almost defiantly.

She stiffened again, and he wondered why he said that, knowing it would piss her off.

"I like the thought but not the vocabulary," she sighed. "Cows have teats, ladies have breasts."

"Pardon me," McCoy said.

"You're forgiven," she said.

"Move closer, so I can play with them," McCoy said.

"Why, you wicked little boy, you," she said, but she pushed herself closer to him, so that his hands and his mouth could reach her breast.

The "my darling" business was over, McCoy realized. First with relief, then with sadness.

She took her nipple from his mouth a moment later and kissed him lasciviously, then moved her head down his body. She was just straddling him when there was a knock at the door.

"Come back later," McCoy called in Chinese.

"It's Lieutenant Sessions, McCoy, open the door!"

Breathing heavily, Ellen reluctantly hauled herself off him and scurried around the room, picking up her clothing. McCoy watched her moves-lovely and graceful. She was the best-looking piece of ass he'd ever had, he had realized sometime during the last twenty-four hours. And the best.

He wondered how she was going to handle Sessions. She was not going to be able to holler rape, which was what usually happened when an American woman got caught fucking a Marine. Not only wouldn't she be able to get away with it (how could she explain being in his room?); but she had called him 'my darling' and he knew somehow that she meant it. He meant more to her than a stiff prick. She was not going to cause him any trouble, and he knew he didn't want to cause her any.

"Come on, Corporal, I have business with you!" Sessions called. McCoy waited until she'd gone into the bathroom, then pushed himself out of the bed and went to the door, pulling

on his shorts en route.

Lieutenant Sessions wore two days' growth of beard, and his seersucker suit was badly soiled. The Japanese knew that it embarrassed Americans not to be clean-shaven, so razors were not made available. And there was evidence of an "accident" at a meal. McCoy was amused at the Japanese skill in embarrassing their unwanted guests (and so was Captain Banning), but it was apparent that Lieutenant Sessions

was not.

"Sergeant Zimmerman said he had no idea where you were," Sessions accused as he pushed past McCoy into the room.

McCoy didn't reply.

"I presume that you have reported our detention by the Japanese to Shanghai?" Sessions asked.

"No, sir," McCoy said.

"Why not, Corporal?" Sessions asked angrily.

"I thought I'd wait to see what the Japs decided to do,"

McCoy said.

"You 'thought you'd wait'?" Sessions quoted incredulously. "Good God! And it's pretty clear, isn't it, how you passed your time while you were waiting? What the hell have you been doing in here, McCoy? Conducting an orgy?" McCoy didn't reply.

"A round- the-clock orgy," Sessions went on, looking at the debris, food trays, bottles of beer, and towels on the floor. He sniffed the air. "It smells like a whorehouse in here. Is she still here, for Christ's sake?" McCoy nodded.

"Goddamn it, Corporal, in my absence you were supposed to take charge, not conduct yourself like a PFC on payday. You are prepared to offer no excuse at all for not getting in touch with Shanghai and reporting what had happened to us?" "I was trying not to make waves," McCoy said. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" The bathroom door opened and Ellen Feller came into the room. She was in her bathrobe, and her hair fanned down her shoulders.

She looked directly at Lieutenant Sessions as she walked through the room and out the door.

"Well, that really does it," Sessions said coldly, almost calmly, when she had gone. "Instead of doing your duty… Jesus Christ! I'm going to have your stripes for this, McCoy. I'd like to have you court-martialed!"

McCoy walked across the room to the chest of drawers and picked up the Leica camera.

"Goddamnit, Corporal, don't you turn your back on me when I'm talking to you!" Sessions said furiously.

McCoy rewound the film, opened the camera, and slipped the film out. He held the small can of film between his thumb and index finger and turned to face Lieutenant Sessions.

"I hope you didn't lose your temper like that in Yenchi'eng," McCoy said. "So far as the Japs are concerned, you lose a lot of face when you lose your temper.''

"How dare you talk to me that way?" Sessions barked, both incredulous and furious.

"Lieutenant, as I see it, you have two choices," McCoy said. "You can make a by-the-book report of what happened: That against my advice, you went to Yenchi'eng and got yourself caught, and that when you came back here, you found out that I hadn't even reported that the Japs had you…"

" 'Had completely abandoned your obvious obligations' would be a better way to put it," Sessions interrupted.

"And had 'completely abandoned my obvious obligations' " McCoy parroted.

"That's Silent Insolence (Prior to 1948 the Universal Code of Military Justice included the offense "Silent Insolence." Among the offenses therein embraced was a "mocking attitude" to military superiors) on top of everything else!" Sessions snapped.

"And that you found Mrs. Feller in my room," McCoy said.

"What the hell were you thinking about in that connection?" Sessions fumed. "Good God, man, her husband is a missionary!"

"Who will say that his wife was in here reading the Bible to me," McCoy said calmly. "He's a faggot."

Surprise flashed over Sessions's face.

"She is a married woman, and you damned well knew she was," Sessions said, somewhat lamely. This confrontation was not going at all the way he had expected it would.

"The other choice you and Lieutenant Macklin have," McCoy said, "is to report that you have proof the Japs don't have any German PAK38 50-mm cannons, at least not in the 11th Division." That caught Sessions by surprise.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "What proof?"

"If they had German cannon, they would have turned in their Model 94s," McCoy said. "They didn't." He held up the can of film. "I took these at first light yesterday morning," he said. "I was lucky: The Japs were up before daylight lining them up and taking the covers off. Probably weekly maintenance, something like that."

It took Sessions a moment to frame his thoughts.

"So you went yourself. And of course didn't get caught. That was very resourceful of you, McCoy," he said.

McCoy shrugged.

"How the hell did you do it?" Sessions asked.

"The German's got a truck," he said.

"German? Oh, you mean the man who owns the hotel?"

McCoy nodded.

"You just borrowed his truck and drove into Yenchi'eng, that's it?"

"Not exactly," McCoy said. "I went into Yenchi'eng last night. On a bicycle. I told the boy who drives the German's truck there was a hundred yuan in it for him if he picked me up at a certain place on the road at half-past six yesterday morning."

"And then he just brought you back?"

"No, we had to go into town first. He picks up stuff- vegetables mostly, sometimes a pig and chickens. I had to go in with him."

"How did you keep from being seen?"

"I didn't," McCoy said. "When I'm around the Japs, I play like I'm an Italian."

"How do you do that? Do you speak Italian?"

McCoy nodded.

"Christ, you're amazing, McCoy!" Sessions said.

"It was stupid, me going in there like that," McCoy said. "I should have known better."