FOGARTY, USMC, COMMANDING.

"You must be McCoy," the first sergeant said. "You was due in day before yesterday."

"At Portsmouth they told me I had forty-eight hours to get here," McCoy said. "I'm not due in until noon tomorrow."

"What were you doing at Portsmouth?" the first sergeant said.

"I was in a squad of prisoner-chasers from Diego," McCoy said.

"Shit!" the first sergeant said. "Nobody told us anything about you going to Portsmouth. You went on the Morning Report as AWOL this morning. Now we'll have to do the whole fucking thing over."

Well, I'm stepping right off on the wrong foot. Not only did I have to take those poor bastards to Portsmouth, but it put me right on the first sergeant's shit list.

"We can submit an amended report," the company clerk said.

"When I want your advice, I'll ask for it," the first sergeant said. He looked at McCoy. "Sit," he said. "You know that campaign hat's nonregulation?" "No, I didn't," McCoy said.

"Well, it is," the first sergeant said. "And so are them chevrons,"

"I just got a violation written by the MP at the Main Gate," McCoy said. "For the hat. He didn't say anything about the stripes."

"It'll take a week, ten days, to come down through channels," the first sergeant said. "I don't know nothing about violations until the message center delivers them. And sometimes they get lost. You want a cup of coffee?" I'll be a sonofabitch, he's not entirely a prick. "Yes, please, thank you."

The first sergeant picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed a number.

Then, while it was ringing, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and spoke to the PFC: "You heard the corporal," he said. "Get him a cup of coffee and if they got any, a doughnut."

The PFC scurried from the orderly room.

"Sergeant-Major, this is Quinn," the first sergeant said to the telephone. "Corporal McCoy wasn't AWOL. They stuck him with a prisoner-chaser detail to Portsmouth. He just reported in a day early. I got him on the Morning Report as AWOL. How do you want me to handle it?"

Whatever the sergeant-major replied it didn't take long, for the first sergeant broke the connection with his finger and dialed another number.

"First Sergeant Quinn," he announced. "Is Lieutenant Fogarty there?"

A moment later. Lieutenant Fogarty apparently came on the line, for Quinn delivered the report that McCoy had arrived, that he wasn't AWOL, and that he'd caught the Morning Report before it left for Washington and was going to make out a new one.

"The Old Man says wait," First Sergeant Quinn said when he hung up. "You want to read the newspaper?"

He pushed a neatly folded Philadelphia Bulletin across his desk toward McCoy.

"Top," McCoy said, "what I'd really like is to get buyout papers filled out."

"What?"

"No offense, but I've have enough of the Corps."

The first sergeant laughed, not unpleasantly.

"All discharges have been frozen," he said. "Nobody's getting out of the. Corps except on a medical discharge. Didn't they know that in China?"

"Shit," McCoy said.

"There's some people thinks there's going to be war," the first sergeant said.

"I didn't know discharges had been frozen," McCoy said lamely.

Half an hour later, a young PFC came into the orderly room (without knocking, McCoy noticed).

"If you're Corporal McCoy," he said, "the Old Man's outside in the staff car."

McCoy looked at the first sergeant, who jerked his thumb in a signal for him to go with the driver.

The Old Man was about twenty-four, McCoy judged, a well-set-up, ex-football player-type. He returned McCoy's salute, motioned him into the backseat of the staff car, and then, as it moved off, turned to face McCoy.

"I'm glad it turned out you weren't AWOL, Corporal McCoy," he said. "That really would have disappointed a lot of people."

"Sir, I didn't volunteer to go to Portsmouth," McCoy said.

"I didn't think you did.'' Lieutenant Fogarty laughed.

They went back to the building where Pick Pickering had gone to deliver his college records to the Officer Procurement Board. That seemed a lot longer ago than an hour before, McCoy thought.

He followed Fogarty into the building and up two flights of stairs to the third floor. Fogarty pushed open a door and went into an office, holding the door open for McCoy. Then he spoke to a staff sergeant behind a desk.

"The not- really-AWOL Corporal McCoy," he said.

"You go right in and report to the captain, Corporal," the staff sergeant said. "He's been waiting for you."

Since I'm not going to be able to get out of the Corps, I'd better do what Captain Banning told me to do: Keep my nose clean in this truck platoon and hope that when he comes home from Shanghai, he'll remember his promise to see about getting me out of it.

That meant reporting according to the book. McCoy went to the closed door, knocked, was told to enter, and marched erectly in. Carefully staring six inches above the back of the chair that was facing him, so that whenever the captain spun around in it, he would be looking, as custom required, six inches over the captain's head. He came to attention and barked: "Corporal McCoy reporting to the captain as directed, sir!"

The chair slowly spun around until the captain was facing him.

"With that China Marine hat, Killer," Captain Edward Sessions, USMC, said, "I'm surprised they didn't keep you in Portsmouth. Aside from that, how was the trip?"

McCoy was literally struck dumb.

"You seem just a little surprised, McCoy," Sessions said, chuckling. "Can I interpret that to mean Captain Banning didn't guess what we had in mind for you?"

"What's going on here?" McCoy said.

"For public consumption, we're part of the administrative staff of the Marine Detachment, Philadelphia Navy Yard. And you were assigned to the 47th Motor Transport Platoon because that was a good way to get you to Philadelphia without a lot of questions being asked. What this really is-not for public consumption-is the Philadelphia Detachment of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, of the Marine Corps."

"I don't understand," McCoy said.

"I'm disappointed," Sessions said. "Two things, McCoy. The first is that my boss believes you know a lot about the Japanese in China that no one else knows, including Captain Banning; and we want to squeeze that information out of you. Secondly, he thought the Japanese would probably decide to do to you what you kept them from doing to me. Either reason would have been enough to order you home."

"So what happens to me here?"

"I hope you have a clear head," Sessions said. "Because there are two officers here who are about to pump it dry."

"And then what?"

"Then, there are several interesting possibilities," Sessions said. "We'll get into that later."

"When did you make Captain?" McCoy asked, and belatedly added, "Sir?"

"I was a captain all the time," Sessions said. "The orders were cut two days after I sailed for Shanghai." He leaned across his desk and offered McCoy his hand. "Welcome home, McCoy. Welcome aboard."