It took Sessions a moment to frame his thoughts.
"So you went yourself. And of course didn't get caught. That was very resourceful of you, McCoy," he said.
McCoy shrugged.
"How the hell did you do it?" Sessions asked.
"The German's got a truck," he said.
"German? Oh, you mean the man who owns the hotel?"
McCoy nodded.
"You just borrowed his truck and drove into Yenchi'eng, that's it?"
"Not exactly," McCoy said. "I went into Yenchi'eng last night. On a bicycle. I told the boy who drives the German's truck there was a hundred yuan in it for him if he picked me up at a certain place on the road at half-past six yesterday morning."
"And then he just brought you back?"
"No, we had to go into town first. He picks up stuff- vegetables mostly, sometimes a pig and chickens. I had to go in with him."
"How did you keep from being seen?"
"I didn't," McCoy said. "When I'm around the Japs, I play like I'm an Italian."
"How do you do that? Do you speak Italian?"
McCoy nodded.
"Christ, you're amazing, McCoy!" Sessions said.
"It was stupid, me going in there like that," McCoy said. "I should have known better."
"Why did you go?" Sessions asked.
"You acted like it was important," McCoy said. "Anyway, it's done. And if you were to tell Captain Banning that you and Macklin and the Reverend were making a diversion, that you knew I was going to Yenchi'eng, I wouldn't say anything," McCoy said.
"You're not, I hope, suggesting, McCoy, that I submit a patently dishonest report," Sessions said.
"Rule one, doing what we're doing," McCoy said, "is don't make waves. Either with the Corps or with the people you're watching. You tell them what really happened, you're going to look like a…"
The next word in that sentence was clearly going be ' 'horse's ass," Sessions thought. He stopped himself just in time from saying, "How dare you talk to me that way?"
A small voice in the back of his skull told him quietly but surely that he had indeed made a horse's ass of himself already-in China ten days and already grabbed by the Japanese doing something he had been told not to do, and digging himself in still deeper every time he opened his mouth.
He had been a Marine eleven years. Never before had an enlisted man-not even a Master Gunnery Sergeant when he had been a wet-behind-the-ears shavetail-talked to him the way this twenty-one-year-old corporal was talking to him now.
And the small voice in the back of his skull told him McCoy was not insolent. Inferiors are insolent to superiors. McCoy was tolerantly contemptuous, as superiors are to inferiors. And the painful truth seemed to be that he had given him every right to do so.
He had been informed-and had pretended to understand- that he would have to learn to expect the unexpected. And he hadn't. Because he was a thirty-two-year-old officer, he had presumed that he knew more than a twenty-one-year-old enlisted man.
If he followed the book-the code of conduct expected of an officer and a gentleman, especially one who wore an Annapolis ring-he would immediately grab a telephone and formally report to Captain Banning that-against McCoy's advice-he had taken the Reverend Feller and Lieutenant Macklin to Yenchi'eng, been detained by the Japanese, had a pot of some greasy rice substance dumped in his lap, and then had returned to find that not only was Corporal McCoy fornicating with the missionary's wife (conduct prejudicial to good military order and discipline) but was silently insolent to boot. And that he just incidentally happened to have a roll of 35-mm film of the 11th Japanese Division's artillery park.
"I need a bath, a shave, and a clean uniform, Corporal," Lieutenant Sessions said. "We'll settle this later." "Aye, aye, sir."
"I'd like to get started again first thing in the morning," Sessions went on. "Will there be any problems about that?" "No, sir," McCoy said. "Now that you're back, we can move anytime you want to."
Sessions realized he was still making an ass of himself and that he had to do something about it.
"What I intend to do when we get somewhere with secure communications, Corporal McCoy," he said, "is advise Captain Banning that I went to Yenchi'eng against your advice and was detained by the Japanese. I will tell him of your commendable initiative in getting the film of the Japanese artillery park. I can see no point in discussing your personal life. I would be grateful, when you make your own report, if you would go easy on how I stormed in here and showed my ass."
"I hadn't planned to say anything about that, sir," McCoy said.
"And I'm sure," Sessions said, searching for some clever way to phrase it, ' 'that… you will not permit your romantic affairs to in any way cast a shadow on the Corps' well-known reputation for chastity outside marriage."
"No, sir," McCoy said, chuckling. "I'll be very careful about that, sir." And then he added: "I'd be grateful if you didn't tell Lieutenant Macklin about Mrs. Feller."
Sessions nodded. "Thank you, McCoy," he said, then turned and walked out of the room.
Chapter Five
(One)
The Hotel am See Chiehshom, China 2215 Hours 18 May 1941
McCoy could not sleep. The smell of Ellen was inescapably on the sheets. And her image was no less indelibly printed on his mind.
Earlier, he found himself next to her at dinner. The moment he sat down, her knee moved against his.
There wasn't anything particularly sexy about her touch, and she didn't try to feel him up under the table-or he her-or anything like that. She just wanted to touch him. She didn't say two words to him either, except "please pass the salt." But she didn't take her knee away once.
All too soon, the Reverend Feller announced, "Well, we have a long day ahead of us." Ellen rose after him and followed him out… leaving McCoy with a terrible feeling of loss.
Later, McCoy and Zimmerman went to the European servants' quarters to make sure none of the drivers had shacked up in town. Afterward, Zimmerman asked matter-of-factly, "Sessions find out you're fucking the missionary lady?"
He had not been "fucking the missionary lady." It had started out that way, but it wasn't that way now. McCoy couldn't bring himself to admit he was in love, but it was more than an unexpected piece of ass, more than "fucking the missionary lady." And she had called him "my darling," and had meant it. And he had meant it, too, when she made him say it back.
"Yeah," McCoy said.
"And?"
"And what?"
"What's he going to do about it?"
"He's not going to do anything about it," McCoy said. "He's all right."
"You're lucky," Zimmerman said. "If that bastard Macklin finds out, McCoy, you 're going to find yourself up on charges.''
"One good way for him to find out, Ernie, is for you to keep talking about it."
"You better watch your ass, McCoy," Zimmerman said.
"Yeah," McCoy said. "I will."
Jesus Christ, what a fucking mess!
He turned the light back on and reached for the crossword puzzles from the Shanghai Post. He did three of them before he fell asleep sitting up. Then, carefully, so as not to rouse himself fully, he turned the light off, slipped under the sheet, and felt himself drifting off again.
When he felt her mouth on him, he thought he was having a wet dream-and that surprised him, considering all the fucking they had done. And then he realized that he wasn't
dreaming.
"I thought that might wake you up, my darling," Ellen