In Danger's Path

by W. E. B Griffin

  “What’s the Corps having him do?”

  “Keep this under your hat, Jesse. He’s the Director for Pacific Operations for the OSS. That’s where he’s headed now. I can’t tell you what for, but my orders from SecNav, personally, were to give him anything he thinks he needs to get his job done.”

  “Sounds like an interesting man.”

  “One of the best, Jesse, one of the best,” McInerney said. “And the boy, Pick, is a chip off the old block. He could have spent this war running an officers’ club. For that matter, he probably could have gotten himself declared essential, exempt from the draft, to run either P & FE or Foster Hotels. But he didn’t. He came into the Corps, went through OCS, then came to me and begged me to get him out of a desk job and into flight school. He flew for Charley Galloway in VMF-229 on Guadalcanal. An ace. Seven Japs, I think.”

  “I’d heard something about that.”

  “Turned out to be one hell of an officer,” McInerney said.

  One hell of a lousy officer, General Ball thought, but did not, of course, say it.

  This is not the time to deal with this disgrace to his uniform. Not with his father about to go back to the Pacific, with a lot obviously on his mind. And not when we’re all about to wash down Mac’s second star.

  [THREE]

  The Gobi Desert

  150 Miles Southeast of Chandmani, Mongolia

  1545 28 March 1943

  No one had ever come up with a proper name universally accepted for whatever-it-was-they-were. Many of its members thought of it as “The Caravan,” for that was the idea, the dream, to get the hell out of China and Mongolia and into either Russia or India, by caravan.

  Chief Motor Machinist’s Mate Frederick C. Brewer, USN, a large, muscular but tending to fat, florid-faced forty-six-year-old, who had been elected as commanding officer of whatever-it-was-they-were, thought of it, spoke of it, as “The Complement.” In the Navy, “ship’s complement” meant the enlisted men assigned to a ship. Many—but by no means all—of the other Yangtze sailors followed his lead.

  The term “complement” was perfectly satisfactory to Technical Sergeant Moses Abraham, USMC, who had retired from the 4th Marines. But to Staff Sergeant Willis T. Cawber, Jr., U.S. Army, Retired, who was the oldest man in whatever-it-was-they-were, a “compliment” was something you paid: “Nice dress, Hazel.” It made absolutely no sense as a term to describe what he privately thought of as a pathetic band of mostly over-the-hill gypsies.

  Staff Sergeant Cawber, who had decided in 1933 to take his retirement from the 15th Infantry—after thirty-two years in the Army—described whatever-it-was-they-were collectively as “Us,” breaking “Us” down when necessary into the subgroups “The Soldiers,” “The Women,” and “The Sick, Lame and Lazy.”

  “The Soldiers” were those who were physically fit and relatively skilled in the use of arms, and could be called! upon to fight, if necessary. The Soldiers included some other former members of the 15th Infantry (all of whom, like Cawber, had retired from active duty), many of the Marines, and even a half-dozen Yangtze sailors who had acquired some small-arms proficiency and rudimentary squad tactics while aboard the river patrol boats of the Yangtze River patrol.

  “The Women” included the wives (mostly Chinese, but including two White Russian “Nansen” women, a French woman, and a German woman) and the children, twenty-two of them, ranging in age from toddlers to two girls and a boy in their early teens.

  “The Sick and the Lame” included those who were really sick or lame, in several cases because of age. But “The Lazy” didn’t actually mean that. Rather, it meant those (almost all of them retired Yangtze sailors) who had brought to whatever-it-was-they-were no useful “military” experience. They had been, for example, “ship’s writers” (clerks) or some such (one had been a chaplain’s assistant) before transferring to the Fleet Reserve and staying in China. But the term “sick, lame and lazy” had been used in the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps before the war, primarily to describe those lining up to go on Sick Call. And that term had been adopted by just about everybody.

  One major piece of whatever-it-was-they-were was occupied by Sergeant James R. Sweatley, USMC, and seven other enlisted Marines. Sweatley and the others had been assigned to the Marine detachment in Peking and had either “gone off,” or “gone over the hill,” or deserted, rather than obey orders to surrender and become prisoners of the Japanese.

  With twenty-two years of service in the Corps, Sweatley could have retired in early 1941—and now very often thought he should have. If he had been recalled to active duty after retiring, he would now have been with a Marine unit, not wandering around fucking Mongolia with a herd of doggies and swabbies just waiting for the fucking Japs to find them.

  But he had shipped over one more time, on the reasonable chance he could make staff sergeant—maybe even gunnery sergeant—in four more years. And on his last hitch, he vowed, he would really start saving his money.

  Chief Brewer, Technical Sergeant Abraham, Staff Sergeant Cawber, and Sergeant Sweatley were the command structure of whatever-it-was-they-were. They had formally been elected to their positions by all the men. That had been Chief Brewer’s idea; it had been the way the volunteer regiments in the Civil War had elected their officers.

  They had even chosen by vote the titles of those who would lead whatever-it-was-they-were: Chief Brewer was the “commanding officer”; Technical Sergeant Abraham was the “executive officer”; Staff Sergeant Cawber was the “administrative officer”; and Sergeant Sweatley was the “tactical officer.”

  In 1937, Chief Brewer had transferred off the USS Panay of the Yangtze River patrol into the Fleet Reserve. Soon after that he opened a bar, the Fouled Anchor, installing himself as bartender and bouncer and his Mongolian wife, Doto-Si, as the business manager. Doto-Si handled the cash, the merchants, and the Chinese authorities.

  The bar did not prove to be an immediate roaring success. After three months, when there wasn’t much left of his savings, he gave in to Doto-Si’s suggestion to operate a hotel. There were rooms to let above the Fouled Anchor that could be converted into hotel rooms for not very much money. Fred Brewer knew damned well what kind of hotel Doto-Si wanted to operate. He had met her in one, called the Sailor’s Rest.

  He was thirty-six when he met her, just off a four-month cruise up and down the Yangtze aboard the Panay. He was more than a little drunk, and flush with cash from an unusual run of luck at the vingt-et-un tables in the basement of the Peking Paradise Hotel.

  If he hadn’t been drunk, he often thought later, he wouldn’t have taken her upstairs in the Sailor’s Rest. He always thought there was something sick about sailors taking very young girls upstairs.

  And Doto-Si was very young. She was new there, fresh from the country. She told him she was sixteen. It was probably more like fourteen. But he took her upstairs, because he was drunk, and because he hadn’t been laid in four months. He had been acting chief of the boat on the cruise, and he thought that chiefs of the boat should not set an example for the ship’s complement by getting their ashes hauled by whatever slope whore was waiting when the Panay tied up.

  The truth was, there was something different about Doto-Si. She was small, and she had a pretty face and had a soft voice, and she was shy, and she looked at him funny, as if she really liked him. He almost didn’t screw her when they were in the room and she took off her clothes and he saw how young she was. He gave her five bucks and told her to forget it.

  She told him that if he did that, she would get in trouble with Kan-Chee. Kan-Chee had told her to treat him right, because he was an important chief aboard the Panay.

  So he screwed her, and it wasn’t at all like getting his ashes hauled usually was. He really liked it, even though he was ashamed of himself for slipping it to a slope whore who was really just a kid.

  So he gave her another five and went back down to the bar and had a drink.

  A couple of minutes later,
she came walking down the stairs and he thought that however the hell old she was, she was too young to be peddling her ass to a bunch of drunken American sailors—and worse—in a joint like the Sailor’s Rest.

  A bosun’s mate second off the Panay took one look at Doto-Si and headed for her like a fucking cat about to play with a mouse.

  And Brewer was drunk and he was flush, so he turned off his barstool and told the bosun’s mate second he was too late, he wanted that one for himself.

  He looked around for Kan-Chee, who wore Western suits and talked pretty good English, even to old hands like Brewer who spoke pretty good Wu, and waved him over.

  “You liked that little Mongolian, huh, Chief?”

  “Yeah. How much will you take for her?”

  “You going in business, Chief? Maybe be my competition?”

  “Fuck you. You want to sell her or not?”

  “I sell anything for right price. How much you willing to pay?”

  “How much, goddamn you!”

  “You a friend. A good customer. I treat you right. I paid two hundred American for her. I buy her clothes. Teach her what she has to do. I got at least three hundred American in her, maybe four hundred. I sell her to you for five hundred, and I buy her back in a month, if she still look good, not sick, not pregnant, for four hundred.”

  Now Brewer was sore, as well as more than a little drunk and flush with cash. Kan-Chee was playing games with him. He didn’t think Brewer could come up with five hundred American. Fuck him!

  “I’ll give you four hundred for her. Take it or leave it.”

  “After one month, you want me to buy her back, I give you three hundred. American.”

  Kan-Chee, the bastard, had been more than a little surprised when Brewer reached in his money belt and counted out four hundred dollars American, but a deal was a deal.

  So he took Doto-Si back upstairs and told her what the deal was. In the morning, he would give her some more money and she could go back where she came from, to her village in Mongolia, and she didn’t have to be a whore anymore; he had taken care of her debt to Kan-Chee.

  “If I go back to my village, my uncle just sell me again.”

  “Your uncle? What about your father?”

  “Father dead. Mother dead. Uncle no want to feed me. He just sell me again.”

  He was really drunk by then, and understood that he wasn’t going to make any smart decisions that night, so he said, “Fuck it, we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  And then he passed out.

  When he woke up in the morning, he was naked in the bed, and alone, and remembered what a stupid fucking thing he had done the night before. He saw his jacket and pants hanging on the one hanger in the closet, but no money belt.

  He had really fucked up big time, gotten shitfaced, screwed a little girl, and given Kan-Chee a lot of his money. And now what he hadn’t given Kan-Chee, the little Mongolian whore had stolen.

  Served him fucking right.

  And then Doto-Si came into the room, carrying a pot of tea, a plate of egg rolls, and even a little packet of aspirin.

  She sat on the bed and poured him a cup of tea and opened the packet of aspirin and handed him two.

  He took the aspirin and drank the tea and ate all the egg rolls—he was starving; he hadn’t eaten anything yesterday after coming ashore, which explained why he had gotten so shitfaced. And then he looked at her.

  “Where’s my money belt?”

  She unbuttoned her dress and took it off, and stood naked in front of him. She had his money belt hanging from her shoulder. She took it off and handed it to him.

  “Lots of money,” Doto-Si said. “I afraid to leave it in room with you asleep. Somebody steal.”

  He took the money belt and unzipped it. There was a hell of a lot of money in it. Even if the girl had stolen some, there was a hell of a lot left. He really must have made a killing at the Peking Palace.

  And she had the chance to steal all of it, and didn’t!

  “Thank you,” he said, and then had a generous thought. He took out a twenty, and then a second twenty, and then a third, and handed them to her.

  “Thank you,” he repeated.

  “For twenty dollar American, I can get nice room, with real bed, and sink and toilet,” Doto-Si said.

  “Is that what you want to do? How will you live?”

  “I cook for you, and wash clothes, be your woman. You give twenty dollars a month for food?”

  “I’m old enough to be your fucking father!”

  “My father dead,” Doto-Si said.

  Brewer said what he was thinking: “I eat aboard the Panay. The wash boys do my clothes.”

  “You can fuck wash boys?”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “I like to fuck with you,” Doto-Si said. “I be good to you.”

  “Don’t say ‘fuck,’” he said.

  “What I should say?”

  “Just don’t say ‘fuck.’”

  “You sleep. I come back in two hours. Okay?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “You better put money belt and pants on,” she said.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he thought aloud. “Christ, I don’t want a Chinese woman!”

  “I be good to you. We try it, okay?”

  When he didn’t say no, she picked up her dress and put it on and started to leave.

  “Hey!” he said, as she reached the door. She turned to look at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Doto-Si,” she said.

  She came back in two hours. He had tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

  She sat on the bed. “I find two rooms. Living room, bedroom, and toilet. For twenty-five dollar American. Too much money?”

  “Let’s have a look,” he said.

  “Okay,” Doto-Si said.

  They continued to look at each other for a long moment, and then he put his fingers to her cheek. “You’re so young,” he said.

  “I old enough for you,” she said firmly, and then she took his hand and pulled him to his feet.

  As they walked through the Sailor’s Rest bar to the street, Brewer decided it was really a depressing place. And when he saw Kan-Chee smirking at him and Doto-Si knowingly, he decided he would never come in this fucking joint again, and he never did.

  They had one child, a boy, and another was on the way when Chief Brewer transferred off the Panay into the Fleet Reserve and opened the Fouled Anchor.

  A week after he went ashore from the Panay for the last time, Brewer and Doto-Si were married by a minister from the Christian & Missionary Alliance.

  Even though Doto-Si thought that was sort of comical, he was uncomfortable about being the proprietor of a whorehouse. The only time he went upstairs was when something—a light fixture, a water pipe, something like that—needed fixing, and he had nothing to do with the girls.

  Nobody ever got rolled in the Fouled Anchor, or got the clap or anything worse. A lot of people who came to the bar and restaurant never went upstairs, and the girls didn’t come downstairs to the bar looking for customers. Doto-Si handled that side of the business upstairs, where there was a parlor.

  The whole thing seemed to be too good to be true. He was making more money than he ever imagined, and Doto-Si was good to him, and he loved the kids. They had a first-class apartment now, and they rode back and forth to work in a 1940 Oldsmobile that had an automatic transmission. Brewer didn’t think that would work, or work long, but it did. Didn’t even have a clutch pedal.

  By then, Brewer didn’t tend bar anymore, or serve as the bouncer. Doto-Si hired Chinese to do that. Brewer spent his time in the Fouled Anchor keeping an eye on things, sitting at a rear table in the bar playing poker or acey-deucey, making a few loans, serving as respected intermediary between westerners wanting to do business with Chinese and doing a little business himself.

  But war was coming, and when that happened, everything was going to hell. He started making plans. Primarily, he started acc
umulating gold, which was all anyone was going to take when the war started.

  Because he was respected, other old Yangtze sailors and Army and Marine retirees who also knew what was coming sought him out and talked over what they would do when the time came. The Americans could, of course, leave anytime they wanted to and be in San Francisco in a month. But their wives could not get visas to enter the United States. Some Americans went home anyway, just leaving their Chinese wives and children and promising to send money.

  But Brewer never even considered leaving Doto-Si and the kids. She was his wife, for Christ’s sake, the mother of his children. You don’t just up anchor and sail away and leave your wife and kids to make out as best they can to save your own ass.

  Soon, several others had decided to band together and get the hell out with their wives and kids. There were nine other retired Yangtze sailors with Chinese wives and kids, and one with a German wife; and there were two retired Marines, one with a White Russian wife, and one, Technical Sergeant Abraham, whose Chinese wife had died, but whose mother-in-law was taking care of his three kids.

  And then word of what they were planning also reached some of the soldiers who had retired from the 15th Infantry in Tientsin, and they sent a retired staff sergeant named Willis T. Cawber, Jr., to Peking to see what Brewer had in mind.

  From the beginning, Doto-Si had made it clear to the others that the only way they could get out of China was through Mongolia—the Gobi Desert—and into India. That wasn’t easy for them to grasp: She was the only one in the band who had ever even been to Mongolia, and most thought the Gobi Desert was miles and miles of shifting sand, like the Sahara. But eventually they came around to her way of thinking. Even though she still looked young as hell, there was something about her eyes that made others realize that she was smart and tough as hell.

  Much of the Gobi was rocks and thin vegetation, she told them, not sand. That meant it could be traversed by wagon. In the summer, there was enough grass to feed sheep and goats and horses. On the other hand, water was a problem—you had to know where to find it, but it was there—and it was very, very cold at night.