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 funny thing about it was that he wasn't mad. He was damned close to crying.

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 Banning, Lieutenant John Macklin marched in erectly, came to attention before Banning's desk, and said, "Reporting as directed, sir."

The formalities over, he stepped to the chair in front of Banning's desk, sat down in it, and crossed his legs.

"Getting hot already, isn't it?" he asked.

"I don't recall giving you permission to sit down, Lieutenant," Captain Banning said, almost conversationally, but with a touch of anger in his voice.

Macklin, surprised, took a quick look at Banning's face and then scrambled to his feet. When he was again at the position of attention, he said: "I beg your pardon, Captain."

"Lieutenant," Banning said, "I have carefully read your report of the Tientsin-Peking trip, paying particular attention to those parts dealing with your detention at Yenchi'eng and the incident at the ferry."

"Yes, sir?"

"I have read with equal care the report Lieutenant Sessions wrote on the same subjects," Banning said.

"Sir?" Macklin asked.

"There was a caveat in Lieutenant Sessions's report," Banning said. "He wrote that he was writing in the small hours of the morning because he hoped to finish it before he went home. Thus he was afraid there would be some small errors in it because of his haste."

"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?"

Banning's temper flared again when he recalled Macklin's report. It boggled his mind to think that the man blamed the detention at Yenchi'eng on McCoy's "cowardly refusal to do what duty clearly required"; and that the "tragic events" at the river crossing could have been avoided if only Lieutenant Sessions had heeded his warning that "Corporal McCoy clearly manifested paranoid tendencies of a homicidal nature and had to be carefully watched."

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 cannot be dismissed that Lieutenant Sessions acquiesced, if he did not actually participate, in the brutal slaughter of the wounded Chinese civilians."

Banning waited a moment for his temper to subside.

"You are a slimy creature, aren't you, Macklin?" Banning asked calmly. "How the hell have you managed to stay in the Corps this long?"

"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!" Banning shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice, and his loss of temper embarrassed him. Glaring contemptuously at Macklin, he took time to regain control before he went on.

"If I had my druthers, Lieutenant," Banning said, "I'd bring charges against you for conduct unbecoming an officer. Or for knowingly uttering a false official statement. But I can't. If I brought you before a court-martial, we would have to get into security matters. And we can't do that. What I can do, what I will do, is see that your next efficiency report contains a number of phrases which will suggest to the captain's promotion board that you should not be entrusted with a machine-gun crew, much less with command of a company. It will be a very long time before you are promoted, Lieutenant. You're a smart fellow. Perhaps you will conclude that it would be best if you resigned from the Marine Corps."

"Captain Banning," Macklin said after a moment. "There is obviously a misunderstanding between us."

"There's no misunderstanding, Macklin," Banning said, almost sadly. "What's happened here is that you have proved you're unfit to be a Marine officer. It's as simple as that. The one thing a Marine officer has to have going for him is integrity. And you just don't have any."

"I'm sure I'll be able to explain this misunderstanding to the colonel," Macklin said. "And that is my intention, sir." Banning looked at him for a moment and then picked up his telephone and dialed a number.

"Captain Banning, sir," he said. "I have Macklin in here. I have just informed him of the contempt in which I hold him. He tells me that he believes he can explain the misunderstanding to you."

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," Banning said, and replaced the telephone in its cradle.

"You're dismissed, Macklin," Banning said. "The colonel will see you, if you wish."

Macklin did an about-face and marched out of his office.

Banning knew what sort of a reception Macklin was going to get from the colonel. He had had to argue at length with him to talk him out of a court-martial. It was only Banning's invocation of the Good of the Corps that finally persuaded the colonel to reluctantly agree that the only way to deal with the problem was to immediately relieve Macklin of duty until such time as he could be sent home.

(Five)

Headquarters, First Battalion, 4th Marines

Shanghai, China 12 June 1941

The first sergeant sent a runner into town to McCoy's apartment by rickshaw. Liberty or no liberty, the first sergeant wanted to see him right away.

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 Kenneth J. MCCOY 32875 USMC