The Corps I - Semper Fi

by W. E. B Griffin

  As he methodically took two more Chinese down with two-and three-round bursts from the Thompson, he saw Zimmerman finally get around to drawing his pistol and working the action.

  A movement beside him startled him, frightened him. He twisted and saw that Ellen was standing a foot behind him. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. He had time to notice that she had her breasts back inside her brassiere, but that there was something wrong with her dress. Then he figured out that she hadn't gotten the right button in the right hole.

  She had Zimmerman's Thompson in her hands, holding it as if she was afraid of it. And around her shoulder was Zimmerman's musette bag. The bulges told him there were two spare drum magazines in it. Her eyes were wide with horror.

  He returned his attention to the mob, and fired again.

  "Shoot, for Christ's sake!" McCoy shouted. Zimmerman looked baffled.

  Sessions finally did something. He snatched the Colt from Zimmerman's hand. Holding it with both hands he aimed at the ground in front of the Chinese. He fired, and then fired again. McCoy heard a slug richochet over his head.

  That dumb sonofabitch is actually trying to wound them in the legs!

  He put the Thompson back to his shoulder and emptied the magazine in four- and five-shot bursts into the mob of Chinese. There was no longer time to aim. He sprayed the mob, aware that most of his shots were going wild. And then when he tugged at the trigger, nothing was happening. The fifty-round drum was empty.

  Conditioned by Parris Island Drill Instructors to treat any weapon with something approaching reverence-abuse was the unpardonable sin-he very carefully laid the empty Thompson on the ground and only then took Zimmerman's Thompson from Ellen.

  When he had raised it to his shoulder, he saw that the mob had broken and was running toward the ferry slip. For some reason that produced rage, not relief. Telling himself to take it easy, to get a decent sight picture before pulling the trigger, he fired at individual members of the now-fleeing mob. He was too excited to properly control the sensitive trigger, and the Thompson fired in four-, five-, and six-shot bursts until the magazine was empty. By then there were five more Chinese down, some of them sprawled flat on their faces, one of them on his knees, and another crawling for safety like a worm, his hands on the gaping wound in his leg.

  McCoy ejected the magazine and went for the spares in the musette bag around Ellen's shoulders. He snared one on the first grab, but as he did so he dislodged the top cartridge from its proper position in the magazine. He put the magazine to his mouth and yanked the cartridge out with his teeth. Then he jammed the magazine into the Thompson and put it back in his shoulder. Two Chinese were rushing toward him, one with a knife, the other with what looked like a boat pole. He took both of them down with two bursts. One of the 230-grain.45 slugs caught the second one in the face and blew blood and brains all over the road.

  And then it was all over. No Chinese were on their feet; and when he trained the Thompson on the ground, the ones down there seemed to be dead. Except one, who was doggedly trying to unjam his Broomhandle Mauser. McCoy took a good sight on him and put two rounds in his head.

  There were more than a dozen dead and wounded Chinese on the ground. Some were screaming in agony.

  Lieutenant Sessions ran over to McCoy, looking as if he was trying to find something to say. But nothing came out of his mouth for several moments.

  "My God," he whispered finally.

  McCoy felt faint and nauseous. But forced it down. Then Ellen slumped to her knees and threw up. That made McCoy do the same thing.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Sessions finally asked.

  "Shit!" McCoy said.

  Ellen looked at him, white-faced, and he thought he saw disgust in her eyes.

  "I guess the Japs decided you're not really a Christer, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

  "Jesus Christ, the film!" Sessions said. "Where is it?"

  "Goddamn it," McCoy said, and started to run back to the car.

  He was halfway to the car when he heard shots and then a scream. He spun around. Zimmerman had finally got his shit together. He had put a fresh magazine in McCoy's Thompson and was walking among the downed Chinese, methodically firing a couple of rounds into each of them to make sure they were dead.

  Ellen was doing the screaming, while Lieutenant Sessions held her, staring horrified at what Zimmerman was doing.

  And McCoy saw the cavalry finally galloping to the rescue.

  The ferry was in midstream. Lieutenant Macklin, who had found his steel helmet somewhere, stood at the bow with his pistol in his hand and a whistle in his mouth. Behind him were the two BAR men, and behind them the rest of the drivers, armed with Springfields. McCoy did not see the Reverend Mr. Feller.

  He ran the rest of the way to the car. The film was where he had left it, in the crown of his campaign hat, concealed there by a skivvy shirt.

  He got behind the wheel and backed up to where Ellen stood with Lieutenant Sessions. Sessions opened the back door, and she got in and slumped against the seat, white-faced and white-eyed.

  The ferry finally touched the near shore, and Lieutenant Macklin, furiously blowing his whistle, led the cavalry up the road to them.

  (Three)

  Lieutenant Sessions learned quick, McCoy decided. You had to give him that. He took charge, the way an officer was expected to. Lieutenant Macklin was running around like a fucking chicken with his head cut off. The first thing he was worried about was that the Chinese would "counterattack." They were a bunch of fucking bandits, more than half of them were dead. Military units counterattacked. What was left of the Chinese were still running.

  The second thing that worried Macklin was what the colonel would think. His orders were to avoid a "confrontation" at all costs. There had obviously been a "confrontation."

  "There's sure to be an official inquiry," Macklin said. "We're going to have to explain all these bodies. God, there must be a dozen of them! How are we going to explain all these dead Chinese?"

  "There's eighteen," McCoy said helpfully. "I counted them. I guess we're just going to have to say we shot them."

  Both Sessions and Macklin gave him dirty looks. Sessions still didn't like it that McCoy was contemptuous of Macklin, who was after all an officer. And Macklin thought that Killer McCoy was not only an insolent enlisted man, but was more than likely responsible for what had happened.

  What bothered Macklin, McCoy understood, was not that they had almost gotten themselves killed, but that he himself was somehow going to be embarrassed before the colonel. He was, when it came down to it, the officer in command.

  "Corporal," Macklin snapped. "I don't expect you to understand this, but what we have here is an International Incident."

  "You weren't even involved, Lieutenant," McCoy said. "You were on the other side of the river. By the time you got here, it was all over."

  "That's enough, McCoy!" Sessions snapped.

  "I'm the officer in charge," Macklin flared. "Of course, I'm involved!"

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

  Macklin sucked in his breath, in preparation, McCoy sensed, to really putting him in his place.

  Sessions stopped him by speaking first.

  "The important thing, Macklin," he said, while Lieutenant Macklin paused to draw in a breath, "is to place the rolls of film McCoy took into the proper hands at Tientsin. That's the primary objective of this whole operation."

  "Yes, of course," Macklin said impatiently, itching to launch into McCoy. "But-"

  Sessions cut him off again.

  "Next in importance is the physical safety of the Reverend and Mrs. Feller."

  "Yes, of course," Macklin repeated.

  "And as you point out, there is the problem of the bodies," Sessions said.

  "Obviously," Macklin said. "McCoy's latest contribution to the death rate in China."

  Sessions smiled at that.

  "We can't just drive off and leave eighteen bodies in the road," Sessions
said. "And I think McCoy and I should separate, in case something should happen to one or the other of us-"

  Now Macklin interrupted him: "You do think there's a chance of a counterattack, then?"

  "I think it's very unlikely," Sessions said, "but not impossible."

  He's humoring the sonofabitch, McCoy thought.

  "As I was saying," Sessions went on, "I think we should do whatever we have to, to make sure that either McCoy or I make it to Tientsin, to be a witness to the fact that there are German PAK38s in Japanese hands."

  "I take your point," Macklin said solemnly. "What do you propose?"

  Just as solemnly, Sessions proposed that McCoy, two Marine trucks, and all the extra drivers be left behind in a detachment commanded by Lieutenant Macklin, while he and Sergeant Zimmerman and everybody and everything else immediately left for Tientsin.

  "I think that's the thing to do," Macklin solemnly judged.

  McCoy was almost positive the Japanese would not try anything else. They would think the Americans had something else in mind-like an ambush-when they stayed behind with the bodies. The Japanese would have left the bodies where they fell, he knew, unless they felt ambitious enough to throw them into the river.

  But just to be sure, he set up as good a perimeter guard as he could with the few men he had. Meanwhile Lieutenant Macklin relieved him of the Thompson submachine gun. He kept it with him where he spent the night in the cab of one of the trucks.

  Early the next morning a mixed detachment of French Foreign Legionnaires, Italian marines, and Tientsin Marines showed up.

  McCoy was a little uncomfortable when he saw the Italians, but if they knew who he was, there was no sign. Somewhat reluctantly, they set about loading the bodies on the trucks they had brought with them.

  It was dark before they got to the International Settlement in Tientsin, and there was no way McCoy could get away to try to go see Ellen Feller in the Christian Missionary Alliance mission. The Tientsin officers kept him up all night writing down what had happened at the ferry.

  Some of their questions made him more than uncomfortable.

  First, they went out of their way to persuade him to admit that he had been more than a little excited. If he hadn't been a little excited (We're not suggesting you were afraid, McCoy. Nobody's saying that. But weren't you really nervous?) the "confrontation" could have been avoided.

  "Sir, there was no way what happened could have been avoided. I was scared and excited, but that had nothing to do with what happened."

  When they realized they weren't going to get him to acknowledge-even obliquely-that the incident was his fault, they dropped another, more uncomfortable accusation on him:

  "Mrs. Feller tells us that you and Sergeant Zimmerman went around shooting the wounded, McCoy,',' one of them asked. "Was that necessary?"

  McCoy had been around officers long enough to know when they were up to something. They were trying to stick it in Zimmerman. Zimmerman had a Chinese wife and kids. He couldn't afford to be busted.

  "Nobody shot any wounded, Captain. Not the way you make it sound."

  "Then why do you suppose both Mrs. Feller and Lieutenant Macklin both say that's what happened?"

  "I don't know," McCoy said. "Lieutenant Macklin didn't even show up there until it was all over. So far as I know, Sergeant Zimmerman didn't fire his weapon. Lieutenant Sessions and I had to shoot a couple of them after they were down."

  "Why did you feel you had to do that?"

  "Because there was three of us and fifty of them, and the rest of the convoy was still across the river. Those guys that were down were still trying to fire their weapons."

  "You don't say 'sir' very often, do you, Corporal?"

  "Sir, no disrespect intended, sir," McCoy said.

  "You say both you and Lieutenant Sessions found it necessary to shoot wounded men again?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Mrs. Feller obviously confused you with Sergeant Zimmerman," the officer said, and McCoy knew that was the last anybody was going to hear about making sure the Chinese were really dead.

  The next morning, a runner came after him while he was having breakfast in the mess. Lieutenant Sessions was waiting for him in the orderly room.

  Sessions told him there that since the Japanese would by now suspect he was not a missionary, he had decided there was no point to his staying in China for the several months he had originally planned. So he was now going to take the President Wilson home with the Fellers.

  "I'd like to say good-bye to her, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

  "I'm not sure that's wise," Sessions said then. But in the end Sessions changed his mind and decided to be a good guy and told the Tientsin officers he wanted to speak to McCoy aboard the ship before he left.

  On the way, he handed McCoy a thick envelope.

  "This is for Captain Banning," he said. "I want you to deliver it personally."

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said, wondering why he hadn't given whatever it was to Macklin to deliver-until he realized that whatever it was, Sessions didn't want Macklin to see it.

  "It's a report of everything that happened on the trip, McCoy," Sessions said. When he saw McCoy's eyebrows go up, he chuckled and added: "Everything of a duty, as opposed to social, nature, that is."

  "Thank you, sir," McCoy said.

  "I was up all night writing it," Sessions said. "There just wasn't time for the other letter I want to write. But that's probably just as well. I'll have time to write it on the ship, and it would probably be better coming from someone more important than me."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Lieutenant," McCoy said.

  "You're going to get an official Letter of Commendation, McCoy," Sessions said. "For your record jacket. I'm going to write it, and I'm going to try to get someone senior to sign it. If I can't, I'll sign it myself."

  "Thank you," McCoy said.

  "No thanks are necessary," Sessions said. "You performed superbly under stress, and that should be recorded in your official records."

  What Sessions meant, McCoy knew, was that without the sixth sense-or whatever the hell it was-that something was wrong, he wouldn't have shown up when he had, and Sessions would probably be going back to the States in a coffin in the reefer compartment of the President Wilson.

  Sessions meant well, McCoy decided, but he doubted if there would be a Letter of Commendation. Even if Sessions really remembered to write one, he doubted if Headquarters, USMC, would let him make it official. From the way the officers here were acting (and the higher-ranking the officer, the worse it was), what had happened at the ferry was his fault. In their view he had "overreacted to a situation" which a more senior and experienced noncom would have handled without loss of life.

  The letter report he was carrying to Captain Banning was nevertheless important. He trusted Sessions now: The report would tell it like it happened, and Banning would understand why he had done what he had.

  At the gangplank of the President Wilson, Sessions got him a Visitor's Boarding Pass, and then asked the steward at the gangplank for the number of the Fellers' cabin.

  When they reached the corridor leading to the Fellers' cabin, Sessions offered his hand.

  "I'll say good-bye here, McCoy," he said. "I want to thank you, for everything, and to say I think you're one hell of a Marine."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant," McCoy said. He was more than a little embarrassed.

  "We'll run into each other again, I'm sure," Sessions said. "Sooner or later. Good luck, McCoy."

  "Good luck to you, too, sir," McCoy said.

  As he looked for the Feller cabin, he felt pretty good. He was beginning to believe now that there might be a Letter of Commendation. It would be nice to have something like that in the official records when his name came up before the sergeant's promotion board.

  The good feeling vanished the moment Ellen answered his knock at her cabin door. The look on her face instantly showed she'd hoped she'd seen the last of him. Being the f
ucking fool he was, though, he didn't want to believe what he saw on her face and in her eyes. He told himself that what it was was surprise.

  He started out by asking her if maybe she would write him. "Maybe, you never can tell, we'll be able to see each other again sometime." He ended up telling her he loved her. "I think it's still possible for me to buy my way out of the Corps," he went on. "I'll look into it, I have the money. And I do really love you."

  She got stiff when he started talking, the way she did when he talked crude to her; and by the time he was telling her he loved her, her face was rigid and her eyes cold.

  "How dare you talk to me like that?" she said when he had finished, with a voice like a dagger.

  So what she wanted after all was nothing but the stiff prick her fairy husband couldn't give her. The funny thing about it was that he wasn't mad. He was damned close to crying.

  He turned and walked out of her cabin, vowing that he would never make a fucking mistake like that again. He'd never mistake some old bitch with hot pants for the real thing. He didn't give a shit if she fucked Lieutenant Sessions eight time a day all the way across the Pacific. If she couldn't get Sessions, she'd grab some other dumb fucker. And failing that, she'd get herself a broomhandle.

  (Four)

  Headquarters, 4th Marines

  Shanghai, China

  11 June 1941

  Once given permission to enter the office of Captain Edward Banning, Lieutenant John Macklin marched in erectly, came to attention before Banning's desk, and said, "Reporting as directed, sir."

  The formalities over, he stepped to the chair in front of Banning's desk, sat down in it, and crossed his legs.

  "Getting hot already, isn't it?" he asked.

  "I don't recall giving you permission to sit down, Lieutenant," Captain Banning said, almost conversationally, but with a touch of anger in his voice.

  Macklin, surprised, took a quick look at Banning's face and then scrambled to his feet. When he was again at the position of attention, he said: "I beg your pardon, Captain."