W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

McCoy opened the Bronze Star box, glanced inside, and then closed it.

"For the time being, McCoy, you are not to wear either of those medals," Rickabee said.

"Sir?"

"Something has come up which may keep you from going to COI," Rickabee said. "Which is why I was forced to cancel your recuperative leave."

McCoy looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

"You're up, Ed." Rickabee said to Captain Sessions.

"When you were in China, McCoy," Sessions began, "did you ever run into Major Evans Carlson?"

"No, sir," McCoy said. "But I've seen his name." And then memory returned. "And I read his books."

"You have?" Rickabee asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. "Captain Banning had them. And a lot of other stuff that Carlson wrote. Letters, too."

"And Captain Banning suggested you read the books?" Sessions asked.

"Yes, sir, and the other stuff."

"What did you think?" Rickabee asked, innocently.

McCoy considered the question, and then decided to avoid it. "About what, sir?"

"Well, for example, what Major Carlson had to say about the Communist Chinese Army?" Rickabee asked.

McCoy didn't immediately reply. He was, Sessions sensed, trying to fathom why he was being asked.

"Just off the top of your head, Ken," Sessions said.

McCoy looked at him, and shrugged. "Out of school," McCoy said. "I think he went Chink."

"Excuse me?" Rickabee said.

"It happens," McCoy explained. "People spend a lot of time over there, China gets to them. That 'thousands of years of culture' crap. They start to think that we don't know what we're doing, and that the Chinks have everything figured out. Have had it figured out for a thousand years."

"How does that apply to what Carlson thinks of the Chinese Communists?" Rickabee asked.

"That's a big question," McCoy said.

"Have a shot at it," Rickabee ordered.

"There's two kinds of Chinese," McCoy said. "Ninety-eight percent of them don't give a damn for anything but staying alive and getting their rice bowl filled for that day. And the other two percent try to push the ninety-eight percent around for what they can get out of it."

"Isn't that pretty cynical?" Rickabee asked. "You don't think that, say, Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kai-shek-or Mao Tse-tung- have the best interests of the Chinese at heart?"

"I didn't mean that all they're interested in is beating them out of their rice bowls," McCoy said. "I think most of them want the power. They like the power."

That's simplistic, of course, Sessions thought. But at the same time, it's a rather astute observation for a twenty-one-year-old with only a high school education.

"Then you don't see much difference between the Nationalists and the Communists?" Rickabee asked.

"Not much. Hell, Chiang Kai-shek was a Communist. He even went to military school in Russia."

I wonder how many of his brother officers in the Marine Corps know that? Rickabee thought. How many of the colonels, much less the second lieutenants?

"What about the Communist notion that there should be no privileges for officers?" Rickabee went on.

"They got that from the Russians," McCoy said. "Everybody over there is 'comrade.' Chiang Kai-shek's copying the Germans. The Germans were in China a long time, and the Germans think the way to run an army is to really separate the officers from the enlisted men, make the officers look really special, so nobody even thinks of disobeying an officer."

"And the Communists? From what I've heard, they almost elect their officers."

"I heard that, too," McCoy said. "We tried that, too, in the Civil War. It didn't work. You can't run an army if you're all the time trying to win a popularity contest."

Sessions chuckled. "And you don't think it works for the Chinese Communists, either?"

"You want to know what I think the only difference between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists is?" McCoy asked. "I mean, in how they maintain discipline?"

"I really would," Sessions said.

"It's not what Carlson says," McCoy said. "Carlson thinks the Communists are… hell, like they got religion. That they think they're doing something noble."

"What is it, then?" Rickabee asked.

"Somebody gets an order in the Nationalists and fails to carry it out, they form a firing squad, line up the regiment to watch, and execute him by the numbers. Some Communist doesn't do what the head comrade tells him to do, they take him behind a tree and shoot him in the ear. Same result. Do what you're told, or get shot."

"And the Japanese?"

"That's another ball game," McCoy said. "The Japs really believe their emperor is God. They do what they're told because otherwise they don't get to go to heaven. Anyway, the

Japs are different than the Chinese. Most of them can read, for one thing."

"Very interesting," Rickabee said. "You really are an interesting fellow, McCoy."

"You going to tell me why all the questions?" McCoy asked, after a moment.

Rickabee dipped into his briefcase again and came up with a manila envelope stiff with eight-by-ten inch photographs of the Roosevelt letter. He handed it to McCoy.

"Read that, McCoy," Rickabee said.

McCoy read the entire document, and then looked at Rickabee and Sessions.

"Jesus!" he said.

"If the question in your mind, McCoy," Rickabee said, "is whether the Marine Corps intends to implement that rather extraordinary proposal, the answer is yes."

McCoy's surprise and confusion registered, for just a moment, on his face.

"Unless, of course, the Commandant is able to go to the President with proof that the source of those extraordinary suggestions is unbalanced, or a Communist," Rickabee added, dryly. "The source, of course, being Evans Carlson and not the President's son. I don't know about that-about the unbalanced thing or the Communist thing-but I think there's probably more to it than simply an overenthusiastic appreciation of the way the Chinese do things."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but why are you showing me all this stuff?" McCoy asked.

"It has been proposed to the Commandant that the one way to find out what Colonel Carlson is really up to is to arrange to have someone assigned to his Raider Battalion who would then be able to make frequent, and if I have to say so, absolutely secret reports, to confirm or refute the allegations that he is unbalanced, or a Communist, or both."

"Named McCoy," McCoy said.

"The lesser of two evils, McCoy," Rickabee said. "Either intelligence-which I hope means you-does it, or somebody else will. There's a number of people close to the Commandant who have already made up their minds about Carlson, and whoever they arranged to have sent would go out there looking for proof that he is what they are convinced he is."

"So I guess I go," McCoy said.

"There are those in the Marine Corps, McCoy," Rickabee said dryly, "who do not share your high opinion of Second Lieutenant McCoy; who in fact think this is entirely too much responsibility for a lowly lieutenant. What happens next is that a colonel named Wesley is coming to dinner. He will examine you with none of what I've been talking about entering into the conversation. He will then go home, call a general officer, and tell him that it would be absurd to entrust you with a job like this. Meanwhile, General Forrest, who is one of your admirers, will be telling the same general officer that you are clearly the man for the job. What I think will happen is that the general will want to have a look at you himself and make up his mind then."

"Sir, is there any way I can get out of this?"

"You may not hear drums and bugles in the background, McCoy," Rickabee said, "but if you will give this a little thought, I think you'll see that it's of great importance to the Corps. I don't want to rub salt in your wound, but it's a lot more important than what you were doing in the Philippines."