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

«Really, Ed? This can be done?»

«Really, baby. It will be done.»

Believe the dream. Why not? A dream is all I have.

She kissed his chest.

«But we don't have to do that right now,» Ed said. «And, anyway, I see that something else has come up we're going to have to do something about.»

«Excuse me?» Milla asked, looking up at him.

He pointed to his midsection.

«Oh,» she said.

«Does that suggest anything to you?» he asked.

Milla put her hand on him, rolled over onto her back, and guided him into her.

note 2

They had three months together.

Without telling Ed. Milla went to her Russian Orthodox priest. Father Boris didn't have a church. He supported himself exchanging one foreign currency for another. He'd even shaved his beard and wore a suit so that he would look like a respectable businessman. But before the Revolution, he had been a priest at St. Matthew's in St. Petersburg. She didn't remember him there—she had been too young—but he remembered her family, and he had buried both her father and her mother here in Shanghai with the holy rites of the church. Several times, when he looked particularly desperate when she saw him on the street, she had given him a little money, and once, a little drunk on the anniversary of her mother's death, she had gone into the hem of her mother's girdle and taken a stone from it—one of the small rubies—and given it to him «for the poor.»

When they met, he called her «Countess»; and when she asked, he heard her confession. She was having carnal relations, she told him. And while she was sorry to sin, she was not ashamed, for she loved the man very much.

Since she was not willing to swear an oath to break off the sinful relationship, Father Boris could not grant her absolution. But she believed him when he told her he was sorry. «Your sin is now between yourself and God,» he went on to say, «and you will have to answer to him.»

That was all right with Milla. She didn't see how a merciful God could be angry with her for being in love. God had to know that she and Ed would already be married, if that had been possible. And just as soon as it was possible, she would marry him, and be a good and faithful wife to him.

In a sense, they

were

married. She didn't feel like a mistress, even though, after the first week, she slept more in Ed's apartment than her own.

In time, a letter came from the congressman, acknowledging receipt of her documents, and advising Ed that he would move on the special bill as quickly as he could, but that it was going to take time.

A very nice letter also came from Ed's mother. «You must really be a special person,» she wrote, «because we had always assumed that Ed was married to the Marine Corps until we got the wire from him announcing your engagement…

Meanwhile,» the letter continued, «we're anxiously waiting for you to come to the States. When you arrive, why don't you plan on living in our house with us, for the time being at least. There's plenty of room, and I look forward to the company.» She signed the letter, «with much love to my new daughter-to-be.»

With one exception, she didn't meet any of Ed's fellow Marines. She understood why. Theirs was an inappropriate relationship in the eyes of the United States Corps of Marines.

The one Marine she met, a corporal, was a very strange young man. One morning Ed asked her if she would prepare a little dinner party for this young man. The next day he was returning to the United States.

She was happy to do that. She roasted a chicken, made blini and rice, found some nice wine, and even, since it was a farewell party, a bottle of French champagne.

When Ed introduced the young man to her—his name was McCoy—the one thing Milla most noticed about him was his cold eyes. He also looked as though he didn't approve of the inappropriate relationship. And a few moments later, when Ed told him to relax and take off his uniform tunic, Milla was startled to see that McCoy was wearing a nasty-looking dagger strapped to his left arm, between his hand and his elbow.

She was also surprised that he spoke better Chinese—Wu, Mandarin, and Cantonese—than Ed did, and even knew a few words of Russian.

He didn't stay long after dinner; and when he left, Milla asked Ed if the rules were different in the U.S. Corps of Marines than in Russia. Could officers have friends who were common soldiers?

«The Killer's not a common soldier, honey,» Ed said. «Not even a common Marine. And, though he doesn't know it yet, he's going to be an officer. He thinks he's being reassigned. But I've arranged for him to go to Officer Candidate School.»

» 'Killer'? What's that mean?»

«He hates to be called that,» Ed told her, «but the truth of the matter is that he's killed a lot of people. Around the Fourth Marines, he's something of a legend.»

He went on to explain that he had met McCoy when assigned to defend him against a court-martial double charge of murder. What had actually happened was that four Italian Marines had ambushed McCoy—Ed had had to define the word for her—and he had killed two of them with his knife. «It was self-defense,» Ed said. «But I thought he was going to go to prison anyway. It was the word of the two surviving Italians against his, and they said he had attacked them.»

«So what happened?»

«Do you know who Captain Bruce Fairbairn is?»

«Yes, of course.»

Fairbairn was Chief of the British-run Shanghai Police Department, and one of the best-known westerners in Shanghai.

«Fairbairn came to me—he and McCoy are two peas from the same pod. They're friends, and that knife McCoy carries is the one Fairbairn designed. He gave it to McCoy and taught him how to use it—anyway, Fairbairn came to me and said that if the Marine Corps went forward with the 'ridiculous' court-martial, he had three agents of his Flying Squad prepared to testify under oath that McCoy was the innocent party, they had seen the whole thing.»

«Had they?»

«I don't really think so, baby. But Fairbairn didn't think McCoy attacked anybody, and he wasn't going to see him sent to prison for twenty years—or life— so an unpleasant diplomatic incident could be swept under the rug.»

«So he was set free,» Milla observed. «And now they call him 'Killer' He has a killer's eyes.»

«He's a tough little cookie,» Ed said. «But the Italians weren't the only people he had to kill. One time when he was on a supply convoy to Peking, the convoy was ambushed by Chinese 'bandits'—almost certainly in the employ of the Kempeitai, the Japanese Secret Police. Anyhow, McCoy and the sergeant with him, Zimmerman—but mostly McCoy—really did a job on them. After it was over, there were twenty bodies. When that word got out, he became 'Killer' McCoy for all time.»

«Incredible!»

«He likes you, Milla,» Ed said.

«How can you say that?»

«He talked to you. For the Killer, he talked a lot. And he just doesn't talk to people he doesn't like.»

«Are most of your friends like him?»

«I really don't have many friends, Milla,» he said after a moment, thoughtfully. «To me a friend is somebody you can trust when the chips are down—do you know that expression, 'when the chips are down'?»

She nodded.

«I trust the Killer. Like I trust you, my love.»

note 3

One day, in the middle of the morning, he came to her apartment, unexpected. Milla knew it was over as soon as she looked in Ed's eyes.

«I don't know how to break this to you easy, honey,» he said, just looking at her, not even kissing her.

«Tell me.»

«The Fourth has been transferred to the Philippines,» he said. «I'm on the advance party. I fly out of here the day after tomorrow.»