Scuttlebutt had it that today's inspection was going to be a real bitch. The company commander, who was rough enough, was not on the base. Thus the inspection would be conducted for him by another officer, the battalion mess officer; and the scuttlebutt on him was that he had a corn cob up his ass and was a really a chickenshit sonofabitch.

McCoy was not particularly concerned. He knew that once you had prepared your gear and arranged it, the situation was out of your hands. If an inspecting officer decided to jump your ass, he would. He would find something wrong, even if he had to step on the toes of the boots under your bunk so that he could get you for unshined shoes. If you couldn't control the situation, there was no point in worrying about it.

When Pleasant barked, "Ten-hut on the deck!" McCoy came to attention, his toes at a forty-five-degree angle, the fingers of his left hand against the seam of his trousers, his right hand holding the Garand just below the bayonet lug.

He stared straight ahead and heard the clatter of the rifles as one by one the young gentlemen came from attention to inspection arms. While this was going on, he had speculated-a little unkindly-that with just a little bit of luck, one of the young gentlemen would catch his thumb in the Ml action during the inspection. That produced a condition known as M1 thumb.

If he howled in pain, that just might bring the inspection to a quick end.

But there was no such fortuitous happenstance. The sound of clattering rifles moved closer to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the inspection party approaching.

He shifted the Garand to a diagonal position in front of him, slammed the action open, bobbed his head over the action to insure that it was unloaded, and then looked ahead, waiting for it to be snatched from his hand.

He found himself looking into the face of First Lieutenant John R. Macklin, USMC.

There was no smile on Macklin's face, not even a flicker of recognition.

"This man is unshaven," Lieutenant Macklin said.

The gunny trailing him dutifully wrote this down on his clipboard.

Macklin snatched the Garand from McCoy's hand, looked into the open action, and then raised the butt high in the air, so that he could look into the barrel.

"And this weapon is filthy," Lieutenant Macklin said, before he threw the Garand back at McCoy so hard that it stung his hands and he almost dropped it.

The gunny dutifully wrote "filthy weapon" on his clipboard.

Lieutenant Macklin moved down the aisle to the next man. McCoy closed the action of the Garand and returned it to his side.

The Garand had been clean before McCoy had disassembled it and cleaned it, and he had shaved no more than two hours before.

There didn't seem to be much question any longer who believed that Killer McCoy belonged in the U.S. Naval Prison, Portsmouth, rather than in the Platoon Leader's Course at U.S. Marine Corps Schools, Quantico.

Captain Banning, McCoy concluded, had probably eaten Macklin's ass out for letting the Japs catch him at Yenchi'eng.

McCoy was summoned to the orderly room half an hour later.

The gunny was there, and Pleasant.

"Mr. McCoy," the gunny said, "there is no excuse in the Marine Corps for a filthy weapon."

McCoy brought the Garand from the position of attention- that is to say, with its butt resting on the deck beside his right boot-to the position of port arms. And then he threw it, like a basketball, to the gunny.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the gunny said, furiously. He had been so surprised he had almost failed to catch it.

"Look at it, Gunny," McCoy said.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what to do?" the gunny snapped, but he slammed the action open and looked into it, and then raised the butt so that he could look down the barrel.

"You want to feel my chin, Gunny?" McCoy asked.

"This weapon is filthy, Mr. McCoy," the gunny said, throwing the Garand back to him, "and you need a shave. Because Lieutenant Macklin says so. You get the picture?"

"I got the picture."

"Corporal Pleasant will now escort you to the barracks, where he will supervise your shave. Then he will supervise you while you clean your filthy weapon. When you have shaved, and your rifle is clean, he will bring you back here, and I will check the closeness of your shave, and the cleanliness of your rifle. That means I will have to stay here, instead of going to my quarters. That pisses me off, McCoy. My wife has plans for the weekend, and you have fucked them up."

McCoy knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

"And I'll tell you something else I agree with Lieutenant Macklin about, McCoy. I don't know how in the fuck a China Marine motor transport corporal with a reputation like yours got it in his head he should be an officer. Or how you managed to get yourself in here. Except that you had your nose so far up some officer's ass that your ears didn't show. I don't like brown noses, McCoy, and I especially don't like people with rabbis. You get the picture?"

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"Finally, Mr. McCoy, I would like to make sure you understand that participation in the Platoon Leader's Course is purely voluntary. You may resign at any time, and keep your stripes."

"I'm not about to quit, Gunny," McCoy said.

"If you bust out of here," the gunny said, "for misbehavior, or malingering, something like that, they ship your ass to some rifle company. It's something to think about, McCoy."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said.

"Corporal Pleasant," the gunny said. "I think the deck in the barrack could stand a sanding. Do you think it might help Mr. McCoy to remember to shave and to keep his piece clean if he spent the weekend doing that?"

Pleasant nodded his agreement. He looked a little embarrassed, McCoy thought, but he was going to go along with the gunny. He had no choice.

(Four)

Headquarters, 4th Marines

Shanghai, China

19 October 1941

Only a few people were made privy to all the details, actual and projected, of the removal from China of United States Military and Naval Forces. Among these was Captain Edward Banning, S-2 of the 4th Marines.

The Yangtze River Patrol, its gunboats and personnel, was to sail as soon as possible for the U.S. Naval Base at Cavite, on the tip of a narrow, four-mile-long peninsula sticking into Manila Bay. It was intended that the Yangtze River Patrol reinforce U.S. Naval Forces, Philippines. How much value the old, narrow-draft, lightly armed riverboats would be was open to question. There was even concern that should there be severe weather en route to Manila Bay the gunboats would founder and sink. They were designed to navigate a river, not the high seas in a typhoon.

Likewise, the small, old pigboats of SUBFORCHINA were as soon as possible to sail for Cavite, though they were subject to similar fears as to their seaworthiness, for they were old and small and designed primarily for coastal, rather than deep-sea operations. But unlike the riverboats, if it came to it, the pigboats could submerge for maybe five, six hours at a time, and ride out a storm.

The two battalions making up the 4th Marines were something else. They were Marines, which was to say they were trained and equipped to fight anywhere. But what they would be in fact, if war broke out, was infantry. The official role of the Marines was to make amphibious assaults on hostile shores. Two battalions of Marines without landing craft and without larger forces to reinforce them once a landing was made weren't going to make much of an amphibious assault force.

The advance party of the 4th Marines would sail from Shanghai aboard the U.S.S. Henderson, a Navy transport, on 28 October. The Henderson would then continue on to the United States, to on-load Army reinforcements for the Philippines. The U.S.S. Shaumont, the other U.S. Navy transport that normally served China, would similarly be involved in moving U.S. Army troops from the West Coast of the United States to reinforce the Philippines. The Navy had also chartered space aboard two civilian passenger liners. On 28 November, the President Madison would embark the First Battalion and the President Harrison the Second Battalion. If nothing went wrong, the 4th Marines would arrive in Manila during the first week of December. Then, either the Henderson or the Shaumont would be free to sail to Tientsin and pick up the Peking and Tientsin Marine detachments.