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

He waited a moment, until he thought Colonel Platt had regained control of his temper.

«What I suggest we do now is have a drink,'» Pickering went on. «Maybe more than one. And then dinner. Then we'll sleep on this, and have another go at it in the morning. Is there room for Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman to spend the night here, Platt?»

«Sir, we could put a couple of cots in my room,» Captain Sampson said.

McCoy looked at him in surprise. Then he turned to Pickering.

«I'd hate to put the Captain out, sir. And our place isn't that far away.» He turned to Sampson. «But thanks, anyway.»

«Tell me about your place,» Pickering said.

«Actually, sir, it's pretty comfortable. It's a nice house, and we have a pretty good cook.» He looked at Banning. «I'd almost forgotten how nice it was in Shanghai to have houseboys bring you a cup of tea in the morning, when they deliver your wash and pressed uniform.»

«You have houseboys?» Banning asked, smiling.

«And you don't think your house and your houseboys have attracted attention?» Platt asked.

«You really can't hide anything in China, Colonel,» McCoy said, on the edge of condescension. «What you

can

do is make something look like something else. What we look like is a couple of White Russian officers living like White Russian officers. In other words, well. Zimmerman got uniforms for the houseboys. Every White Russian officer in the Nationalist Army has at least two orderlies. And orderlies are expected to have rifles.»

«How many 'orderlies' do you have?» Pickering asked, smiling.

«Fourteen,» McCoy said. «Two of them take care of us, two take care of the vehicles, and the others are our perimeter guard, and run errands.»

«Errands like watching this place and the airport?»

«Yes, sir.»

Pickering saw that Colonel Platt did not at all like hearing that McCoy had had people watching his compound.

«Your own private army, huh?» Pickering chuckled.

«More like my private squad, sir,» McCoy said.

«What had you planned to do with this private army of yours if you followed your original plan and went into the Gobi by yourself?» Platt asked. «Take them all with you?»

There is an implication in that question

, Pickering thought,

none too subtly phrased, that he has decided McCoy's plan is dead

.

He looked at McCoy and saw in his eyes that McCoy had come to the same conclusion.

«When I go into the desert, Colonel,» McCoy said, «I'm going to take four of the Chinese with me—maybe six; I haven't thought that through yet. The rest I'd planned to turn over to Colonel Banning. The men, and the house.»

«What's that all about?» Platt asked.

«Sir,» McCoy replied, but looked at Pickering as he did. «I thought Colonel Banning—and the Easterbunny and the others…«

«The '

Easterbunny'?

Colonel Platt asked incredulously.

»… would need a place to stay besides a BOQ…« McCoy went on.

«The '

Easterbunny»

?» Platt repeated.

»… and I didn't think they'd want to live here,» McCoy finished doggedly.

Platt glowered at him.

«Unfortunately, Colonel Platt,» Pickering said, «Captain McCoy can't seem to remember not to call Lieutenant Easterbrook 'The Easterbunny.' Worse, neither can I.»

«Sorry, sir,» McCoy said.

«There'd be room for all of us in this house of yours?» Banning asked.

«Yes, sir.»

«It's got beds, et cetera?»

«Not enough for everybody, sir. But getting what else we need wouldn't be hard.»

«From the same place you got the vehicles, right?» Banning chuckled.

«Yes, sir, you can buy anything you want in Chungking, if you have gold.»

«You had five thousand dollars' worth of gold twenty-dollar pieces,» Banning said. «I'm almost afraid to ask, but how much is left?»

«About eighteen hundred. I got a good deal on the ambulance, the weapons carrier, and the five-hundred-gallon water trailers,» McCoy said, smiling. «But I had to pay six months' rent in advance on the house. And good tailors—as Pick taught me—don't come cheap. And then I have rations to buy, and ithe weekly payroll to meet.»

«In other words, you're going to need more money to go into the desert?» Pickering asked.

«Yes, sir, I am.»

«I think I want to see this house of yours, McCoy,» Pickering said. «Is there any reason we can't go there?»

«Would you mind riding in the back of the ambulance, sir? One of these OSS Studebakers would make people wonder.»

«I've no problem with that,» Pickering said. «After dinner we'll go there. At least Colonel Banning will know where to find you in the future.»

Chapter Twenty-One

note 78

Muku-Muku

Oahu, Territory of Hawaii

1745 9 April 1943

When Lieutenant Commander Warren T. Houser, commanding officer of the United States Submarine

Sunfish

, was shown onto the patio behind the house, he was wearing a fresh-that-morning khaki uniform that now bore grease and oil stains in several places. Commander Houser had not changed into a fresh uniform before leaving the

Sunfish

, reasoning that he was going directly—in a staff car—from the pier at Pearl Harbor to Muku-Muku, and directly back. He would almost certainly not be seen by anyone who might look askance at an officer attired in an oil-stained uniform. Soiling a uniform could not be avoided on a submarine—even on an extraordinarily shipshape boat, as he believed the

Sunfish

to be. Some Naval officers just didn't seem to be able to understand that. Usually, they were officers who had never been to sea on anything smaller than a battleship, and had spent the preponderance of their Naval careers behind a desk on the beach.

Furthermore, upon returning to the

Sunfish

, Commander Houser intended to inspect his boat from bow to stern planes. He was going to sea at first light, and he wanted to once again personally check the storage aboard of fifty five-gallon jerry cans of avgas; twenty-seven odd-shaped aluminum crates; and two inflatable rubber boats. Commander Houser was understandably nervous about having that much avgas in his boat.

Any uniform he wore when he made his way around the

Sunfish

would become oil-stained. Since the one he was wearing was only lightly stained (compared with what usually happened to his uniforms), it just made sense not to change it.

In the morning, of course, he would put on fresh, crisply starched khakis. He suspected that Rear Admiral Wagam would be on the pier to offer a few words of encouragement before the

Sunfish

sailed off into the Kaiwi Channel to try to move the avgas and the aluminum crates from the boat to a Catalina without drowning anybody and/or blowing up the airplane and/or the

Sunfish

.

Tonight, Major Jake Dillon, USMCR, had invited him out to Muku-Muku to have a couple of drinks and a nice dinner. They'd be joined there by Wagam's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis

III.

Lewis was a submariner himself; heknew all about oil-stained uniforms; and Jake Dillon was not unfamiliar with them, either. It was also likely that Charley Galloway would be there, and Big Steve Oblensky; both of them were fliers, so both of them understood oil-stained uniforms. And it was also likely that Peter T. McGuire, the most incredible character he had ever encountered in the uniform of a chief petty officer of the U.S. Navy, would break bread with them. What McGuire thought about Houser's uniform was unimportant.

When Commander Houser walked onto the patio, he found that Rear Admiral Daniel Wagam had also been invited to Muku-Muku. He was standing, with a glass in hand, at the edge of the patio, gazing down at the surf.