“Perhaps they’ve been killed, sir,” said Captain Davis.
“Killed! They better get themselves killed before they ever show up on this ship again! I should have known better than to let myself be talked into this. ‘He knows the country!’ ‘He’s a good man.’ ‘He won’t get into trouble!’ Awrrrrrrr! They’ve had time to walk to Timbuktu and back.”
“I still think, sir,” said Davis without any hope whatever, “that they’ll report. It must have been pretty difficult getting through. You said yourself that they might encounter difficulties. That they might even be killed. You said—”
“So you throw my own words back in my teeth, do you? See here, Captain Davis, I’ll have you know that I’m running this ship. No cockeyed Marine is going to stand there and tell me what I said. You’ve said too much already. Ohhhhhhh, this will go pretty hard with you. Now get out. I’m sick of looking at you.”
Davis hurriedly removed himself and stomped down the passageway back into wardroom country, swearing as he went. He stopped once and glared at empty space.
“So you can’t follow orders, eh? So you go stumbling around China getting ginned up, do you? By God, I’ll bobtail you to a sailor! I’ll cut off your stripes and make you eat them. I’ll get you a bad conduct and send you to Portsmouth and string you up to the yard. Awrrrrr! Make a fool out of me, will you?!”
A mess attendant came out and stared wide-eyed at the empty space and then at the captain.
Davis turned and almost ran over the boy.
The mess attendant vanished, shaking at the expression he had seen on the captain’s face, wondering that he had escaped with his life.
Chapter Fourteen
IT was not until one o’clock Saturday that Mitchell, James, gunnery sergeant USMC, was finally convinced by the Japanese that the Shunkien area was not to be crossed. At least, he appeared to be convinced, as he gave up.
A wind was blowing down from the northern plains, digging up big clouds of yellow dust. It stirred in the skirts of the olive green overcoat and lifted and lowered its left lapel. Mitchell’s cheeks were sunken and his eyes burned too brightly. He stood very straight before three Japanese officers.
“Thanks to an error of your planes,” said Mitchell, “it will be necessary for me to request a stretcher in which to transport my command. And I also wish to count the gold in that keg before I accept it from you.”
“You think, perhaps, that we are dishonest?” said the proud officer snappishly.
“If there’s any of it gone, I’ll be checked for it the rest of my life. You will have enough to answer when my commanding officer knows I have been detained.”
It was sheer bluff, but this same bluff was giving him freedom at least.
“We care nothing about your commanding officer. In fact,” stated the Japanese officer gratingly, “we have something to say ourselves about the impudence of the United States sending armed Marines into our battle areas. If you wish to know the truth, it is very likely that we shall report this in the strongest terms. We object to such a clumsy attempt at gathering military intelligence about our fighting tactics.”
“So that’s why you won’t let me go on.”
“Do you think we are stubborn without reason? Do you think we wish to have our activities against Shunkien, our methods of attack, our losses, our armament, our numerical strength, reported? You swaggering, blustering, overbearing whites think to have something to say about this campaign. I regret our ability to furnish them with such intelligence. You will find that news of you will have gone ahead and you are to report into every Japanese post of command between here and Liaochow. Failure at any one post will cost you your liberty. We regret,” he added with great insincerity, “our inability to provide you with conveyance and escort. But we have other things to do besides shepherd lost soldiers.”
“That’s all right about that,” said Mitchell with strange docility. “Give me a stretcher and we’ll get out of here.”
The Japanese officer turned to his major and received his concurrence. The stretcher was brought up.
Mitchell turned to the reverend. “Take the other end of this and we’ll get Toughey.”
“But . . . but he must weigh—”
“Never mind what he weighs. Snap into it.”
The reverend sighed, deploring his son’s tone of voice. He took the front end of the stretcher and marched.
Toughey looked for news in Mitchell’s face. “Is it east or west, Sarge?”
“East.”
Toughey’s face lengthened but he said nothing. Goldy was standing at the back of his tent. She gave Mitchell a quick glance.
“We walk?” said Goldy.
“Naw,” said Toughey. “The general is goin’ to give us his private car and send half his army along as escort.”
They carefully placed Toughey on the stretcher and Mitchell cut his objections short.
They all felt the strange intensity in Mitchell. His hands were trembling and he was holding himself too straight.
The reverend staggered under the weight of his end.
“March,” said Mitchell.
The reverend marched, staggering as though under the effect of all the drinks he had never drunk. His half of Toughey weighed a hundred and eight pounds.
They set Toughey down before the officers’ tents. The keg was there and Mitchell tipped it over.
Mitchell divided the heaped coins three ways and indicated that Goldy and the reverend were to get down and count.
They counted and the reverend’s mutter of “hundred and seven, hundred and eight, hundred and nine . . .” was a great handicap to both the sergeant and the girl.
Mitchell’s fingers were practiced and to him these sovereigns were so many chips. He set them up in piles of twenty-five until he was barricaded by gold. He scooped some of the other two piles into his reach and checked them.
The Japanese officers looked on with great indignation but Mitchell calmly went on counting.
They finished at last and took their tallies. The gold was all there. Mitchell dumped it back into the keg, shook it down and battened the lid. He asked for a section of rope and got it. With this he lashed the keg between the handles of his end of the stretcher.
“You goin’ to lug that thing clear to the coast?” said Goldy. “I don’t even think you can lift it!”
“Father is going to carry my pack,” said Mitchell shrugging out of it.
“I . . . er . . . what? Good gracious, James, have you no feeling? Even that short distance almost pulled my arms from their sockets. I . . .”
Mitchell was fixing the pack so that the reverend could wear it. His father looked on, taking his pince-nez on and off distractedly. But when the pack was offered he resignedly let it be put upon him. It almost tipped him over backwards and his glasses fogged alarmingly.
Standing very straight again, Mitchell faced the linguist. “You were forced to send a communication relative to my orders. Each Japanese PC will try to do this and my progress will be greatly delayed. You can save your brother officers much time by giving me a pass which will recognize me to them as well as to any roving patrols of your cavalry.”
Goldy looked at him perplexedly. He was so very straight, so very precise. She had seen a man look like that once, just before he had fallen on his face in a dead faint. But were the rules applying to adagio dancers applicable to Marines?
The Japanese talked it over gravely. The sound of marching feet was in the air and they glanced down the road toward an approaching company of reinforcements.
The major gestured abruptly and moved off to greet the new outfit’s commander. The other officer followed him, leaving the impatient linguist alone.
This officer entered the headquarters tent and came out a moment later, bearing a printed card on the bottom of which a string of ideographs were not yet dry.
Contemptuously he thrust it in Mitchell’s direction but before Mitchell’s fingers touched it, the Japanese dropped i
t to the road and walked off.
Mitchell stood for a moment looking at the officer’s stiff back and then stooped for the pass. He blew on the ink until it was dry and placed it in his pocket.
“March,” said Mitchell, taking up his end of the leaden stretcher.
The reverend took two or three steps to the left and right as though his feet wanted to get out from under. Goldy looked critically at his dancing form and found it bad. She had gotten used to the weight of Toughey’s pack and rifle, had found how to lean forward to steady the weight. But then, Goldy’s career made her more adaptable where balance was concerned than the reverend’s.
They moved on down the road, walking in the ditch to get by the seemingly endless line of Japanese troops which had halted to await further orders. Mitchell did not glance at the curious barrage of eyes. He was looking straight ahead as though he could see all the way to infinity through the yellow day. The wind felt good against his hot cheeks except when a rack of shivers took him.
The four were silent as they trudged. The reverend eagerly kept his ears cocked, certain that James would stop to rest every tenth step.
But James kept right on shoving the stretcher into the reverend and the reverend could do nothing but keep going. Soon he had resigned himself to the numbness which crept up from his wrists to his shoulders, down his shoulders to the small of his back. His legs appeared to be manufactured of rubber and his glasses, for want of wiping, grew so foggy he could hardly see where he went. James took care of that.
The Japanese camp diminished behind them, to finally vanish. And then the endless plains were on every side, relieved only where the wrecked and deserted railroad’s poles cut sharply against the sky.
“Halt,” said Mitchell.
The reverend set down the end of the stretcher with a weary thump and shucked out of the pack which had chewed at least a foot into each shoulder. He sat down disconsolately and wiped his glasses, his movements very slow.
“Feel all right?” said Goldy to Toughey.
“I feel like hell,” said Toughey. “When I think what the skipper is going to do to us when we show up without having followed orders . . .” He shuddered.
Mitchell brought out the pass and put it in his father’s hands. “Can you read any of this?”
“No. That’s Japanese.”
“Sure it’s Japanese,” said Goldy. “Did you think them guys back there talked Eskimo?”
Mitchell took the paper back and looked holes into it. He turned it around in his hands, muttering, “If I could only be sure. . . .”
“You got an idea?” cried Toughey, struggling up on his elbows. And when Mitchell did not answer, Toughey turned to Goldy. “He’s got one all right. He always looks like he’s chewin’ somethin’ when he gets it hot. He’s got one!”
Mitchell was still staring at his paper, his jaws pulsing, his teeth clenched.
“Cut the suspense,” said Goldy. “Are we goin’ to walk to the coast or have you thought up how to steal an airplane or something?”
Mitchell looked down at Toughey. “We’re going to Shunkien.”
“Oh, good gracious,” mourned the reverend. “If we get caught, and I’m certain we will be, they’ll lock us up for months! Have you no feeling, James? Really, I should rather carry this stretcher all the way to Liaochow than to be a prisoner for the remainder of my life. James, have you no heart?”
“Shut up,” said Toughey. “Orders is orders.”
“It’s shorter,” said Goldy, already aware of the blisters she had lately contracted. “But how you going to pull this off, huh? They didn’t listen to you back there, why should they listen to you someplace else?”
“Only posts in the rear have been told about us,” said Mitchell, thinking aloud. “Posts to the south of Shunkien won’t know a thing. And if this pass merely says to let a sergeant and party through the Japanese lines, they’ll honor it anywhere.”
“But if we don’t report . . .” began the reverend.
“A United States Consulate is the same as USA soil,” said Mitchell. “To hell with what happens once we’re there.”
“I beg pardon, James?”
“I said to hell with it.”
“We’ll be caught,” said the reverend. “James, have you no—”
“No! Pick up that pack.”
The reverend picked it up and struggled into it. His dance as he got the stretcher up was more prolonged than before.
They headed south.
“I knew he had an idea,” crowed Toughey.
“It’s shorter anyhow,” said Goldy.
And after that they slogged in silence with the wind pushing them and stirring the rags of the reverend’s coattails.
Chapter Fifteen
THE Japanese had entered, purged and executed Shunkien. Patrols marched through the streets, turning aside to blast out lurking Chinese troops, occasionally running into a sniper’s bullets, singling out a few civilian examples to put the remains of the city upon its good behavior.
The south gate of the town was shut. Machine guns pointed both outward and inward as a double precaution; sentries stood stiff and alert. Weary soldiers sat in groups, staring at the ground in complete exhaustion after their attack and the subsequent mopping up.
Along the wall was a line of gray bundles and above them the stone was pitted with bullet holes. In a watchtower above the gate, a Chinese hugged his machine gun and the muzzle pointed at the afternoon sun. Small wisps of steam still rose from the burst water jacket.
Occasional troops of cavalry rode in from the plains, bringing fragments of the rear guard of the fleeing Chinese army. The prisoners were officers only, men who might wish to talk.
Above the entire area hung smoke, shredded and whipped away by the wind but ever rising like a shroud.
Mitchell stopped a hundred yards from the gate. Until now troops had been too busy with gray uniforms to bother about olive green. No PC had been established to the south as yet. But this high gate barred the way and the sentries were very stiff before it.
“James,” quavered the reverend, “it is not too late to back away. If they know about us, it’s prison! And your pass may include details! James—”
“Shut up,” growled Toughey mechanically. “Leave the sarge alone!”
They had their breath back and Mitchell took up the stretcher again. The reverend did his dance with more steps than ever, his eyes fixed on the next stopping place—the gate.
Mitchell glanced at the low-hanging sun. It was crimson an hour above the rim of the world. He looked at the walls ahead and the soldiers there. The shadows of the men were incredibly long.
“March,” said Mitchell.
They advanced slowly. Ahead of them the sentries stirred. An officer’s red bands could be seen as he stopped a few paces forward to stare at the oncoming party.
Mitchell approached within ten feet and set down his burden. The reverend was staring so widely at the officer that he forgot to lower his end, leaving Toughey’s head much lower than his feet.
With brisk military precision, Mitchell produced the pass and handed it over. The officer’s small face brightened and he glanced up.
“United States, so?”
“United States Marines,” said Mitchell. “I am under orders to report to the United States Consulate of this city.”
But “United States, so?” was the entire fund of English at the officer’s disposal. He shrugged and then fell to examining the pass again. Three of his guard had advanced within thrusting distance and the reverend changed his attention to the points of their bayonets, one of which was reddish black halfway to the hilt. He was still holding his end of the stretcher in the air and Toughey was too intent to protest.
“United States, so?” said the officer again, looking up.
“Yes,” said Mitchell. “United States, so.” And he pointed past the officer toward the gate.
The officer suddenly understood and once more examined the identity pass
. Then, evidently thinking that Mitchell could be no less than a captain, he saluted and bowed.
Mitchell saluted and bowed, waiting to see what would happen.
The officer shouted, “Mon o akero!” and saluted and bowed again. Mitchell saluted and bowed and the big gate was slowly opened by the sentries. He put the pass back in his pocket and picked up the stretcher.
“March,” said Mitchell.
They passed through the gate and into the littered street beyond.
“I told you he had brains,” said Toughey. “We’re in Shunkien!”
Ahead of them, whipping proudly against the sky, was the Stars and Stripes.
Chapter Sixteen
THE machinery salesman heard the knocking at the gate and he hurried into Jackson’s office. “Somebody wants in, Jackson.”
“It’s the Japanese,” said Jackson, running his fingers through his white hair. “A lot of good they’ll do us.”
He went through the packed corridors and the Americans watched him pass with dull eyes. The machinery salesman had talked and now that two men were down, their hope was gone.
Jackson heard the knock repeated as he carefully let down the bars of the small door, expecting to see an officer’s red band.
Mitchell saluted with precision.
“Gunnery Sergeant Mitchell and party reporting to Consul Jackson, Shunkien.”
Stunned, Jackson could only gape until Toughey raised up on his stretcher and said, “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Christmas?”
“The Marines,” whispered Jackson. “I thought . . . I thought . . .”
“I was ordered to be here by Saturday and it’s Saturday,” said Mitchell.
Jackson recovered himself and began to grin. He threw the door wide and marched off in front, spring coming back into his stride, chest expanding, white hair starting straight up from his head.
As they passed through the corridor, people stared in disbelief and then, as they went by leaped up and jammed the passage. A young oil scout whistled shrilly and the machinery salesman bellowed with joy. And then the cannonade of the week before was nothing compared to the din within the consulate.