"Lieutenant, I didn't come here to eat supper with missionaries," McCoy said. "I'm going out on the town."
"In the line of duty, of course," Sessions said, sarcastically.
"The Corps's paying for it," McCoy said. "Why not?"
"Yes, of course," Sessions said. "Is there anything of interest here that I could credibly have a look at?"
"There's Kempei-Tai (The Japanese Security Police) watching this place. They're not going to think much if two Marines leave here to get their ashes hauled. They might get very curious if a newly arrived missionary did the same thing."
"I wasn't thinking of going to a brothel," Sessions replied, chuckling. "I was suggesting that it would be credible if the Fellers, while I was here, showed me the sights. And that while so doing, I might come across something of interest."
"If the Japs have German artillery, it's not going to be here in Nanking," McCoy said flatly. "And I think the less attention you call to yourself, the better it would be."
"McCoy, I am simply trying to do my job," Sessions said, annoyed at what he considered McCoy's condescension. He wondered what Captain Banning had told McCoy about him.
"That's all I'm trying to do, Lieutenant," McCoy said. "Captain Banning said I was to do what I could for you, and that's what I'm trying to do."
As the whores later confirmed, nothing was happening in Nanking. So at half past ten, McCoy decided that there wasn't anything more to be gained from spending the night in the whorehouse. He put on his clothes, paid off his girl, and went to the room Everly had taken.
"I'm heading back in," he told Everly, who was standing there in the doorway a little dazzled by the interruption. He had wrapped a towel around his middle. It threatened to fall.
"Do I have to?" he said.
"Just be at the mission at five o'clock," McCoy said, after a moment. Everly was a fucker, not a fighter; and he didn't drink dangerously. There was little chance that he would get in trouble. On the other hand, if he spent the night in the whorehouse, it would give the Kempei-Tai agents who had trailed them something to do. And the report they would write would state that a Marine had hired a whore for the night and stayed with her.
He returned to the mission and searched in vain through the small mission library for something that had nothing to do with Christianity. Then, disappointed, he retreated to his room, undressed to his skivvies, and took from his musette bag one of the copies of the Shanghai Post that had accumulated during his last trip to Shanghai. After he'd read it, he started in on the crossword puzzle.
Someone knocked at the door. Certain that it was the boy, he called permission to enter in Chinese.
It was Mrs. Feller, a very different Mrs. Feller from the tight-assed lady he had met that afternoon. She was wearing a cotton bathrobe over a silk gown; and her hair was free now, hanging halfway down her back. It was glossy and soft, as though she had just brushed it. Then he noticed-more than noticed-the unrestrained breasts under her thin night clothes… The Reverend was about to get a little, after what presumably was a long dry spell.
"Do you speak Chinese?" she asked, in Chinese.
"Some," McCoy said, in English.
"I just wanted to see if you or the other gentleman needed anything," she said.
"No, ma'am," McCoy said, chuckling. "We're fine, thank you."
"Why are you chuckling?" she asked, smiling.
"Hearing you call Everly 'the other gentleman,' " McCoy said.
"Where is he?" she asked.
When McCoy didn't reply, her face flushed.
"Mrs. Moore told me an incredible story about you," she said. "I can't believe it's true."
"What did she tell you?"
"Now I'm sorry I brought this up," she said. "I shouldn't have."
He nodded his acceptance of that.
"But do they call you 'Killer'? Or were they just teasing my husband and Mr. Sessions?"
"Some people call me that," McCoy said. "I don't like it much."
"But you're just a boy," she said, after deciding that the rest of the story was also probably-if incredibly-true.
"I don't like to be called a boy, either," McCoy said. "I'm a corporal in the Marine Corps."
"I'm really sorry I brought the whole thing up," she said.
McCoy nodded.
"Breakfast will be at six-thirty," she said. "My husband wants to get on the way early. Is that all right with you?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "We'll be there. Thank you."
"Then I'll say good night," she said.
He thought that he would really have liked to get a look at her teats. Chinese women, by and large, didn't have very big teats, and it had been a long time since he had seen an American woman's teats.
Come to think of it, he had seen very few American women's teats. Before he had come to China it had been a really big deal to get a look at a set of teats-not to mention actually getting laid. But getting laid in China was about as out-of-the-ordinary as blowing your nose. And in fact he had come to see there was no big difference between Chinese women and American (the story that their pussies ran sideward had turned out to be so much bullshit); but it would still be kind of nice to make it with a real American.
He would, come to think of it, really like to jump Mrs. Feller, though he immediately recognized that dream as the same kind of fantasy as wishing he would make sergeant next week… out of the goddamned question for two hundred different reasons.
He turned his attention back to the crossword puzzle.
(Four)
The Christian Missionary Alliance Mission
Nanking, China
0830 Hours 15 May 1941
The Christians of the mission put on a little farewell ceremony for Mrs. Feller. After maybe fifty Chinese had manhandled the wooden crates onto the bed of the Studebaker, they went to one side of the courtyard and stood in some kind of a formation. McCoy settled into the front seat of the car, and watched.
Next came maybe fifty little Chinese kids dressed in middie-blouse uniforms (which reminded McCoy of the uniform of the Italian marines). They lined up in four ranks. Finally, the missionary equivalent of the officers appeared-all the white Christians and half a dozen suit-wearing Chinese Christians. They sat down on a row of chairs set up on a sort of platform against a wall. One of them rose and said a prayer. Then the Chinese kids sang a hymn in Chinese. McCoy recognized the melody but could not recall the words.
One of the Chinese Christians gave Mrs. Feller a present. She thanked him, and they sang another hymn, this time in English. The Reverend Feller then gave what was either a sermon or a very long prayer. Then came another hymn.
All this time, McCoy was looking up Mrs. Feller's dress. He hadn't started out to do that. But the way she was sitting up on the platform, and the way he was looking out the Studebaker window, that's where his eyes naturally fell. And then it got worse. He was originally looking at a lot of white thigh. But then she had uncrossed her knees, and put her feet flat on the little platform just far enough apart to show all the way up. And she wasn't wearing any pants.
He didn't believe what he saw at first. Ladies didn't go around without their underpants, and she was not only a lady, she was a lady missionary. But there was no question about it. She was sitting there with everything showing.
And then Lieutenant Sessions came over and sat beside McCoy. The minute he did, Mrs. Feller crossed her legs.
Did she suddenly remember how she was sitting? Or didn't it matter, since only an enlisted man was getting an eyeful? Or was she playing the cockteaser with me, and stopped only because Sessions showed up?
When the ceremony was finally over, and the officer-type Christians walked with Mrs. Feller to the Studebaker, McCoy did not get out from behind the wheel to open the door. He had a hard-on.
Mister/Lieutenant Sessions, obviously anxious to get the show on the road again, opened the door and motioned for Mrs. Feller to get in.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Sessions," Mrs. Feller said. "I'll sit with Corporal McCoy. I get woozy if I ride in backseats."