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

«The station will be on the air no more than ten minutes a day,» McCoy responded. «It will probably take the Japanese some time to figure out what's being transmitted, and even when they do that, they'll have to find the transmitter.»

«Finding a transmitter using triangulation isn't at all difficult,» Captain Sampson said.

«It's not as easy as it sounds, either,» McCoy said. «Have you seen the SOI for the weather station?»

«No,» Sampson said.

«A different time every day, a different frequency, a different code. I don't think they'll be able to locate the station by triangulation easily, and if we move the station, it will be even harder for them.»

«How are we going to move the station?»

«In the ambulance,» McCoy said. «Send it twenty, twenty-five miles from the radio station, in a different direction, every day.»

«Where are you going to get the gasoline to do that. Ken?» Pickering asked. «That's one of the things I haven't figured out yet,» McCoy said. «One possibility is to have caches of it, and another is having it flown in by the Catalinas. I figure it would take five gallons of gas a day, a hundred and fifty gallons a month, to send the ambulance twenty-five miles away from the weather station every day.»

«Caches of gasoline?» Colonel Platt asked. «Where would you get those?»

«I think it's time,» Pickering said, «that we hear Ken's ideas on this operation. Start at the beginning, Ken.»

«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said. He paused, obviously collecting his thoughts. «Well, when we started to ask questions, we heard about the bandits—which was not exactly news—and we heard that the Nationalists are sending patrols into the deserts. Long range patrols, on camels and Mongolian ponies.»

«We're aware of those patrols,» Sampson said. «In addition to their intelligence-gathering function, they are supposed to suppress the bandit activity.»

Pickering looked at McCoy, who was staring at Sampson with a strange look in his eyes.

Is he annoyed at the interruption? Pickering wondered. Or is he amused? Or disgusted? Or maybe all three?

«More likely,» McCoy said, «they're holding hands with the bandits.»

«I don't think I understand,» Pickering said.

«Sir, it's more than likely that, in exchange for letting the bandits operate, the patrols—or at least the patrol's officers—get a cut of what the bandits have stolen, and the bandits provide intelligence about the caravans, and maybe even about the Japanese.»

«Or, Ken,» Banning said thoughtfully, «maybe about a group of westerners running around out there.»

«We are regularly furnished with intelligence reports from the Chinese about what those patrols have turned up,» Colonel Platt said. «We have specifically requested information about any Americans. There has been nothing, absolutely nothing.»

McCoy ignored him.

«The Nationalist Chinese, on patrol and off,» he went on, «have to live a lot off the land. They have to, or starve. Which is one of the reasons Mao Tse-Tung's Communists are so popular; they don't steal from the peasants the way the Nationalists do.»

«You sound as if you approve of the Communists, Captain,» Colonel Platt said.

«I don't, sir, but if I were a peasant, and the Communists didn't steal my last pig, and the Nationalists did, I probably would.»

«What's your point, Ken?» Banning challenged.

«The first thing I thought was that I would get in touch with these Nationalist patrols, to see if they had heard anything about westerners that they hadn't sent up through channels.»

«If they had heard something, why wouldn't they have reported it?» Colonel Platt asked.

«Because, sir, they might get orders to investigate further,» McCoy said. «If I was a Nationalist lieutenant, I wouldn't want to get an order like that. Life is tough enough as it is without me almost volunteering to stick my neck out to look for a bunch of westerners.»

«You said that was the first thing you thought of, McCoy?» Pickering asked.

«Yes, sir. Then I realized that there is no way that a long-range patrol can live off the land in the Gobi. There's nothing to steal out there except from caravans. And caravans would not have enough food to feed forty men for long. Which meant that the patrols would have to be resupplied. And I found out they run regular truck convoys out there, to preestablished rendezvous points. Sometimes it's just rations, and sometimes they take troops, even horses, out there to replace lost horses and bring back the sick, lame, and lazy.»

He stopped and took a thin cigar from his pocket and lit it. Then he went on.

«That's when I started to think that if Zimmerman and I could hook up with one of these motor supply convoys, we could go as far as they go, then take off on our own. With a little bit of luck, maybe we could get them to tell me what they've heard about a group of westerners.»

«What makes you think they'd tell you something they haven't reported through the appropriate channels?» Captain Sampson asked.

McCoy looked at him coldly, then decided the question was a request for information rather than a challenge.

«I'd pay them,» McCoy said. «They aren't getting paid by whoever sends them out there.»

«What makes you think they'd tell you truth?» Colonel Platt asked.

«I'd have to take a chance on that, sir,» McCoy said. «But my gut feeling is that if I was a Nationalist officer, I'd be a little afraid to lie to a White Russian officer.»

«Why?» Captain Sampson asked. Again McCoy gave him the benefit of any doubt that it might be a challenge.

«They all came out of the Imperial Army,» he explained. «A lot of them say they were colonels and generals—and maybe they were. The way I understand it, if you lied to an officer in the Czar's army—for that matter, talked back to one— they shot you on the spot, and let the paperwork catch up later.»

«You seem to know a good deal about both the Chinese and Czarist armies, Captain McCoy,» Colonel Platt said.

He's barely able

, Pickering thought,

to control his sarcasm. Well, that's understandable. They not only had a serious run-in the first time they met, but now the man who in essence told him to go fuck himself is making it very clear he thinks very little of an Opplan Platt thinks solves all our problems

.

«I knew some Chinese officers in Shanghai, sir,» McCoy said. «And some White Russians.»

McCoy's and Banning's eyes met.

«Going along with your line of thinking, Captain,» Platt went on. «As I understand you, you're suggesting that you just drive off into the Gobi in your ambulance…«

«And the weapons carrier, sir. Both towing five-hundred-gallon water trailers filled with gas.»

»… in the hope that you will be able to establish contact with this group of Americans thought to be somewhere in the desert.»

«Yes, sir.»

«And what if you run out of gasoline before finding the Americans?»

«Then we fire up the radio, sir, and hope the Catalinas can find us.»

«Wouldn't it really make more sense, Captain, to just find some good location for the weather station and establish contact from there? Without running around an immense desert looking for people who might not be there?»

«I'm not prepared to give up on the Marines out there, sir, without trying.»

«That may not be your decision to make, Captain,» Colonel Platt said.

«No, sir,» McCoy said. «As I understand it, that would be General Pickering's decision to make.»

«That's pretty close to insolence, Captain!» Platt flared.

«Whoa!» Pickering said sharply. «For one thing, I'm sure Captain McCoy didn't intend to be insolent. For another, he's right. This is my decision, and I just realized that I'm not prepared to make it without further information.»