Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

1545 28 March 1943

No one had ever come up with a proper name universally accepted for whatever-it-was-they-were. Many of its members thought of it as «The Caravan,» for that was the idea, the dream, to get the hell out of China and Mongolia and into either Russia or India, by caravan.

Chief Motor Machinist's Mate Frederick C. Brewer, USN, a large, muscular but tending to fat, florid-faced forty-six-year-old, who had been elected as commanding officer of whatever-it-was-they-were, thought of it, spoke of it, as «The Complement.» In the Navy, «ship's complement» meant the enlisted men assigned to a ship. Many—but by no means all—of the other Yangtze sailors followed his lead.

The term «complement» was perfectly satisfactory to Technical Sergeant Moses Abraham, USMC, who had retired from the 4th Marines. But to Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr., U.S. Army, Retired, who was the oldest man in whatever-it-was-they-were, a «compliment» was something you paid: «Nice dress, Hazel.» It made absolutely no sense as a term to describe what he privately thought of as a pathetic band of mostly over-the-hill gypsies.

Staff Sergeant Cawber, who had decided in 1933 to take his retirement from the 15th Infantry—after thirty-two years in the Army—described whatever-it-was-they-were collectively as «Us,» breaking «Us» down when necessary into the subgroups «The Soldiers.» «The Women,» and «The Sick, Lame and Lazy.»

«The Soldiers» were those who were physically fit and relatively skilled in the use of arms, and could be called upon to fight, if necessary. The Soldiers included some other former members of the 15th Infantry (all of whom, like Cawber, had retired from active duty), many of the Marines, and even a half-dozen Yangtze sailors who had acquired some small-arms proficiency and rudimentary squad tactics while aboard the river patrol boats of the Yangtze River patrol.

«The Women» included the wives (mostly Chinese, but including two White Russian «Nansen» women, a French woman, and a German woman) and the children, twenty-two of them, ranging in age from toddlers to two girls and a boy in their early teens.

«The Sick and the Lame» included those who were really sick or lame, in several cases because of age. But «The Lazy» didn't actually mean that. Rather, it meant those (almost all of them retired Yangtze sailors) who had brought to whatever-it-was-they-were no useful «military» experience. They had been, for example, «ship's writers» (clerks) or some such (one had been a chaplain's assistant) before transferring to the Fleet Reserve and staying in China. But the term «sick, lame and lazy» had been used in the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps before the war, primarily to describe those lining up to go on Sick Call. And that term had been adopted by just about everybody.

One major piece of whatever-it-was-they-were was occupied by Sergeant James R. Sweatley, USMC, and seven other enlisted Marines. Sweatley and the others had been assigned to the Marine detachment in Peking and had either «gone off,» or «gone over the hill,» or deserted, rather than obey orders to surrender and become prisoners of the Japanese.

With twenty-two years of service in the Corps, Sweatley could have retired in early 1941—and now very often thought he should have. If he had been recalled to active duty after retiring, he would now have been with a Marine unit, not wandering around fucking Mongolia with a herd of doggies and swabbies just waiting for the fucking Japs to find them.

But he had shipped over one more time, on the reasonable chance he could make staff sergeant—maybe even gunnery sergeant—in four more years. And on his last hitch, he vowed, he would

really

start saving his money.

Chief Brewer, Technical Sergeant Abraham, Staff Sergeant Cawber, and Sergeant Sweatley were the command structure of whatever-it-was-they-were. They had formally been elected to their positions by all the men. That had been Chief Brewer's idea; it had been the way the volunteer regiments in the Civil War had elected their officers.

They had even chosen by vote the titles of those who would lead whatever-it-was-they-were: Chief Brewer was the «commanding officer»; Technical Sergeant Abraham was the «executive officer»; Staff Sergeant Cawber was the «administrative officer»; and Sergeant Sweatley was the «tactical officer.»

In 1937, Chief Brewer had transferred off the USS

Panay

of the Yangtze River patrol into the Fleet Reserve. Soon after that he opened a bar, the Fouled Anchor, installing himself as bartender and bouncer and his Mongolian wife, Doto-Si, as the business manager. Doto-Si handled the cash, the merchants, and the Chinese authorities.

The bar did not prove to be an immediate roaring success. And after three months, when there wasn't much left of his savings, he gave in to Doto-Si's suggestion to operate a hotel. There were rooms to let above the Fouled Anchor that could be converted into hotel rooms for not very much money. Fred Brewer knew damned well what kind of hotel Doto-Si wanted to operate. He had met her in one, called the Sailor's Rest.

He was thirty-six when he met her, just off a four-month cruise up and down the Yangtze aboard the

Panay

. He was more than a little drunk, and flush with cash from an unusual run of luck at the vingt-et-un tables in the basement of the Peking Paradise Hotel.

If he hadn't been drunk, he often thought later, he wouldn't have taken her upstairs in the Sailor's Rest. He always thought there was something sick about sailors taking very young girls upstairs.

And Doto-Si was very young. She was new there, fresh from the country. She told him she was sixteen. It was probably more like fourteen. But he took her upstairs, because he was drunk, and because he hadn't been laid in four months. He had been acting chief of the boat on the cruise, and he thought that chiefs of the boat should not set an example for the ship's complement by getting their ashes hauled by whatever slope whore was waiting when the

Panay

tied up.

The truth was, there was something different about Doto-Si. She was small, and she had a pretty face and had a soft voice, and she was shy, and she looked at him funny, as if she really liked him. He almost didn't screw her when they were in the room and she took off her clothes and he saw how young she was. He gave her five bucks and told her to forget it.

She told him that if he did that, she would get in trouble with Kan-Chee. Kan-Chee had told her to treat him right, because he was an important chief aboard the

Panay.

So he screwed her, and it wasn't at all like getting his ashes hauled usually was. He really liked it, even though he was ashamed of himself for slipping it to a slope whore who was really just a kid.

So he gave her another five and went back down to the bar and had a drink.

A couple of minutes later, she came walking down the stairs and he thought that however the hell old she was, she was too young to be peddling her ass to a bunch of drunken American sailors—and worse—in a joint like the Sailor's Rest.

A bosun's mate second off the

Panay

took one look at Doto-Si and headed for her like a fucking cat about to play with a mouse.

And Brewer was drunk and he was flush, so he turned off his barstool and told the bosun's mate second he was too late, he wanted that one for himself.

He looked around for Kan-Chee, who wore Western suits and talked pretty good English, even to old hands like Brewer who spoke pretty good Wu, and waved him over.

«You liked that little Mongolian, huh, Chief?»

«Yeah. How much will you take for her?»

«You going in business, Chief? Maybe be my competition?»