W Griffin - The Corps I - Semper Fi

"Christ, I hope both the Reverend and you are wrong about us getting into a war with the Japs," he said.

Sessions looked at him in surprise. It was not the sort of remark he expected from a Marine officer.

"Lieutenant," Banning said, patiently, "certainly you can understand what a logistic horror it would be to attempt to field one division over here. This isn't Nicaragua. China could swallow the entire World War I American Expeditionary Force without a burp."

"I've thought about that, sir," Sessions said.

Banning looked at Sessions with annoyance. Another Always-Agree-with-the-Superior-Officer ass-kisser like Macklin. Then he changed his mind. Sessions was just saying what he was really thinking.

"Have you?" Banning asked.

"Eventually, we may have to face that logistic horror," Sessions said. "I really thought we were going to take action when the Japanese sank the Panay."

(The U.S.S. Panay, a gunboat of the Yangtze River Patrol, was attacked and sunk, with many Americans killed and wounded, by Japanese aircraft in 1937).

"Tell me more about the Reverend Feller," Banning said. There was no point in discussing whether a force large enough to do any good could be deployed in China with an officer who had just gotten off the boat.

"He is willing to help us in any way he can," Sessions said, "consistent, of course, with his religious principles."

Banning thought, but did not say, that there was very little then that the good Reverend would be able to do. The principles of religion seemed to disagree almost entirely with the principles and practice of gathering intelligence. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was likely that the Reverend Feller's motive in returning to China had less to do with patriotism than it did with transporting a case, or cases, of Chinese antiques back to the States.

"As a practical matter, Lieutenant," Banning said, "I am more concerned with the Reverend Feller's reaction to Corporal McCoy."

"I don't think I follow you."

"For one thing, on the way back and forth to Peking, McCoy spends a lot of time drunk, usually in brothels. I don't want the Reverend, or anyone else, interfering with that. Or anything else that McCoy might do."

"I understand, sir," Sessions said immediately.

Banning looked at him and was somewhat surprised to see that he did, in fact, understand why McCoy spent a lot of time in brothels.

"Did the missionaries weather the trip well?" Banning asked. "How soon can they be ready to start?"

"They're in the Hotel Metropole," Sessions said. "They can leave just as soon as their vehicles have been serviced."

"I'll send McCoy over to the hotel in the morning," Banning said. "The Japanese will hear of it immediately, of course. But they won't think anything about it after I tell them that he will be taking your missionaries with him to Peking. What he'll do at the hotel is what he would be expected to do."

"Which is?"

"Get the missionary vehicles in condition to roll. Tell the Reverend Feller that it will be his responsibility to bring his vehicles here to be examined and to provide two extra wheels and four extra tires and tubes for each of them. That sort of thing."

"Where is Feller going to get wheels and tires?"

"You can buy anything you want in Shanghai," Banning said.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to have Corporal McCoy get the wheels and tires for him? I have some funds…"

"The only reason a corporal of Marines would go shopping for a missionary," Banning said, "would be if he were ordered to. And the Japanese would then wonder why the Marines were going out of their way to be nice to a couple of missionaries-why these missionaries were different from any of the others."

Sessions winced, and exhaled audibly.

"I've got a lot to learn, don't I?"

"I'm sure that Corporal McCoy will be happy to point out the more significant rocks and shoals to you," Banning said.

"The most dangerous shoal would be getting caught in a compromising position," Sessions said. "What would happen if the Japanese detain or arrest me and charge me with espionage?"

"The thing to do, of course, is not get yourself arrested. And the way to do that is to listen to Killer McCoy. If he says -don't go somewhere, don't go somewhere."

(One)

The Metropole Hotel Shanghai, China 12 May 1941

None of his peers was surprised when Corporal Kenneth J. "Killer" McCoy, USMC, took an off-the-compound apartment immediately after his return from the first "Get Him out Of Sight" trip to Peking.

He was now a corporal, and most of the noncommissioned officers of the 4th Regiment of Marines in Shanghai had both a billet and a place where they actually lived. McCoy's billet, appropriate to a corporal, was half of a small room (not unlike a cell) in one of the two-story brick buildings that served the Headquarters Company, First Battalion, as barracks. It was furnished with a steel cot (on which rested a mattress, two blankets, two sheets, a pillow and a pillow case), a wall locker and a footlocker filled with the uniforms and accoutrements prescribed for a corporal of Marines.

With the exception of an issue mirror mounted to the door, that was all. There was not even a folding chair.

McCoy shared his billet with a staff sergeant assigned to the office of the battalion S-4 officer (Supply). The two of them split the cost of a Chinese room boy (actually a thirty-five-year-old man) who daily visited the room, polished the floor, washed the windows, tightened the blankets on the bunks, touched up the gloss of the boots and shoes, polished the brass, saw that the uniforms and accoutrements were shipshape, and in every way kept things shipshape.

Before inspections that Corporal McCoy and Staff Sergeant Patrick O'Dell were obliged to attend (and there was at least one such scheduled inspection every month, on payday) Chong Lee, the room boy, would remove from the wall locker and the footlocker those items of uniform and accoutrements that were required by Marine regulation and lay them out on the bunks precisely in the prescribed manner.

To prepare for the monthly inspection of personnel in billets, it was only necessary for Staff Sergeant O'Dell and Corporal McCoy to go to the arms room and draw their Springfield Model 1903 rifles and the bayonets for them, ensure they were clean, and proceed to their billet.

The gunnery sergeant of Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 4th Marines, was a salty old sonofabitch who drew the line at some fucking Chink having access to the weapons. His men would fucking well clean their own pieces.

The assignment of Staff Sergeant O'Dell and Corporal McCoy to the same room was a matter of convenience. They did not like each other. And sometimes the only time they spoke was when they met, once a month for the scheduled inspection. The only thing they had in common was that neither of them had responsibility for the company supervision of subordinates. The six other enlisted men assigned to battalion S-4 were supervised outside the office by the assistant S-4 corporal, Corporal Williamson.

After his promotion and return from the first "Get Him out of Sight" trip to Peking, Corporal McCoy had been officially transferred from Dog Company to Headquarters Company and assigned to the motor pool.

Whether- as some reasoned-it had been decided to continue to keep him out of sight of the Italians, or whether-as others reasoned-that to get right down to it McCoy didn't know his ass from left field about being a motor pool corporal, he had been given the more or less permanent assignment of riding the supply convoys to Peking.

That kept him out of town more than he was in Shanghai. The result was that since he didn't have a shack job and since he was gone so often, the first sergeant and the gunny had decided there was no sense in putting him on duty rosters if more often than not he wouldn't be around when the duty came up.