Chapter Ten
A
T
the end of a rough twenty-five miles, during which they had been lucky enough to receive
no attention from occasional cavalry squadrons, the sergeant gave up the wheel to
Toughey.
Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Toughey slid under. Mitchell paused as he started to
get into the rear seat.
“This is noon, Thursday,” said Mitchell. “Or is it?”
“I think so,” said Toughey, yawning cavernously.
“We ought to be rolling in there before night—if we can get through the Japanese lines
ahead. Don’t drive too fast.”
“Okay, Sarge. You’ll be as safe as a babe in a cradle. Cork off to your heart’s desire.”
Mitchell got into the rear seat beside the sleeping girl and Toughey started up.
The sergeant looked at his pack lying in the bottom of the car. He pulled it to him
and fumbled with the buckles, searching for an extra package of cigarettes. His hand
encountered the cold side of the whisky bottle.
He glanced sideways at the girl and then at the back of the reverend’s neck. The reverend
was sleeping, pince-nez awry, mouth open to display gold teeth. Toughey was intent
on his driving.
It wouldn’t hurt, thought Mitchell. Not one small swig. He was getting so jittery
he could hardly sit still. He pulled the bottle out of the pack and read the label:
Canadian Whisky. Five Years Old. One Quart.
He broke the seal and touched the cork.
Somehow he would have to bluff his way through the Japanese lines around Shunkien.
His lack of orders would make it hard. What would he tell them?
He began to struggle with the cork. He needed a drink to steady him down. Just one
and then he’d quit.
Again he looked at the reverend’s nodding pate. He frowned a little. He was so tired
he couldn’t sleep and everything was passing in review behind his eyes. It seemed
only that morning that he had slid through the mission gates to head for the coast
and the States. He had been wearing a denim shirt and jeans, the kind his father sometimes
gave to his workmen. He had some biscuits in his pocket and the contents of the poor
box—which was not much.
He remembered how that money had scorched his thigh, how certain he had been that
Jehovah would open up the heavens and knock him flat with a thunderbolt. Mile after
mile he had watched the heavens and when nothing had happened he began to suspect
that a later doom was waiting for him.
But he had needed that money. It had bought him meals and places to sleep, little
as it was.
Since that time he had never passed a church without recalling that theft.
Things were different now. For fifteen years he had lived on gunpowder and excitement
and flaming drink. The fifteen years before that had been spent in those mission walls
behind them, praying every night, reading the Bible every day, saying grace lengthily
before each meal, attending church and listening to his father’s droning sermons six
hours out of every Sunday.
He had not been allowed to play with his Chinese friends because a white boy, according
to his father, had a part to share in the “
white man’s burden
.”
What a funny kid he must have been! Crammed with biblical texts, living in fear of
great and awful catastrophe when he had done wrong, holding his father in awe because
the Chinese all about knew his gift of doctoring and considered him a great man.
He recalled the hour when he knew he could not bear it longer. He was alone in his
room staring at a chromo of the manger scene upon the wall. He had slipped into the
village the night before to talk with friends. It had been against the law and he
had been detected. In his ears still rang the Voice of Doom which had intoned his
wickedness. He was wayward. He would not conform. Unless he mended his ways, his was
the Path to Eternal Darkness. His supper had been withheld and rebellion born of hunger
had sent him forth.
He was Condemned Forever. He could do no more wrong. And he had robbed the poor box
on his way through the gates.
That was fifteen years ago and there, on the front seat, was his kidnaped father,
sleeping with his mouth open, with his collar unfastened and sticking out under his
ear, with his coat in rags and his pants leg slit. . . .
A droning sound was in the air and Mitchell, sensing rather than hearing it, glanced
down the road behind them, expecting to see another car. The road was empty fore and
aft.
In sudden consternation, Mitchell slid the bottle hastily into his pack and leaned
outside into the stream of wind.
Above and behind them, about a thousand feet high, roared three Japanese
Kawasaki KDA-5s
.
They were spread out, one behind the other in dive formation, and Mitchell was looking
at them head-on as they started down.
“Toughey!” yelled Mitchell. “STOP!”
Toughey tromped upon the screaming brakes and the car slewed sideways in billowing
dust, Toughey fighting the wheel.
“GET OUT!” shouted Mitchell, snatching at the girl’s arm and dragging her with him.
They plunged over the door, the girl still half-asleep, hitting the road before the
car had stopped moving.
The reverend’s glasses flew from his nose as his inertia threw him ahead. Toughey
had him by the coat.
A chattering blast filled the air, audible above the shriek of wires and yammer of
engines. Vicious spurts of dust streaked along the road toward the car.
Mitchell threw the girl into the protection of a ditch and jumped up again. Toughey
was almost out of the car, dragging the reverend with him.
A small, hurtling shadow flashed across the earth at Mitchell’s feet. He cried, “DOWN!”
and threw himself flat on his face. An explosion battered the air over him. Dust geysered
high, fragments hung for an instant against the sun, turned and dropped lazily down
in a wide circle, pattering like hail.
Three shadows in quick succession spread their wings over Mitchell and then were gone.
His ears began to roar in the descending silence. The three planes had gone.
Mitchell got up, spitting bits of highway from his mouth. His right side felt numb
and damp but he had no thought for it in that instant.
The car was spewing smoke from under its punctured hood. The reverend was standing
stupidly on the running board looking down and saying, “Dear me, dear me,” over and
over in a toneless voice.
Toughey was trying to sit up, his big face gnarled with pain, recovering from shock.
He looked down at his torn canvas legging and his ripped green pants and swore through
clenched teeth.
Mitchell was instantly at his side. “Hit bad?”
“M’leg. Those ——— ——— ——— ——— ———!”
“Dear me,” said the reverend.
“Shut up,” snapped Mitchell, glaring at his father. “Dig out my pack and be quick
about it.”
The reverend stood where he was, staring down at the pool of blood which began to
grow about Toughey’s foot.
Goldy came up out of the ditch, a dazed expression on her smudged face. Now that she
was wholly awake, it seemed to her that time had telescoped the group before her into
the walled mission yard. She saw Toughey stretched out and Mitchell’s command penetrated
to her.
Swiftly she hauled Mitchell’s pack into the road. He pulled it closer without looking
up and fumbled for his brown first-aid packet.
“You hurt bad?” she whispered to Toughey.
“Naw,” he growled between pain-clenched teeth. “You . . . you can’t kill a Marine.”
Mitchell had Toughey’s bayonet and was slitting the legging. He cut the laces of the
shoe and pulled it off.
Goldy swallowed hard and knelt beside Toughey. The reverend started to get down beside
Mitchell but the sergeant thrust him away.
The bone was broken above the ankle in a compound fracture and Mitchell looked at
it with hopeless eyes. He pulled the ring of the first-aid packet and then seemed
to remember something.
“Lemme see,” begged Toughey.
Goldy held him down. “No. It’s not as bad as it looks. You’ll be all right, big boy.”
“Father,” said Mitchell in a hard voice. “You used to be good at this sort of thing.
Patch him up.”
The reverend knelt down and took the bandages. Mitchell poured water out of his canteen
into the
dixie
and looked around. Gasoline was leaking from the tank and he saturated the cushion
stuffings with it. Over the green blaze he boiled the water.
Toughey’s face was the color of limestone. Mitchell reached into his pack and pulled
out the Canadian whisky. Nobody noticed its presence or remarked it when he forced
the amber fluid down Toughey’s throat.
The reverend set the bone and splinted it with bayonet and scabbard. Mitchell gave
Toughey another drink and then put the bottle back into his pack.
“Sarge,” said Toughey, sitting up. “I . . . I can’t walk with this thing. You and
Goldy and the reverend—”
“Shut up,” said Mitchell angrily.
“But I can’t . . .”
“You’ll walk,” said Mitchell.
Toughey looked at him with contracted brows. “But I’ll slow you down. I think—”
“Never mind thinking. I’ll do the thinking around here. Get up!”
Toughey tried and Goldy looked on, horrified.
“Get up!” snapped Mitchell.
“Ain’t you got any heart?” cried Goldy. “Good God, if he tried to walk on that—”
“Pipe down,” said Mitchell. He put his arm around Toughey and pulled him erect. Toughey
leaned heavily against him.
Mitchell motioned toward the car. “Get his rifle and pack, Goldy. And get into them.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Father, do you see that keg?”
“Ah . . . yes. Yes, yes. Of course I see it, James.”
“Well, pick it up and put it on your shoulder and find out how much it weighs.”
“But, my boy!”
“Pick it up!”
The reverend polished his glasses in grief and then looked at his son’s unrelenting
face. He sighed and started to haul the keg out of the car but when he felt its weight
he paused, about to draw himself up in loud protest. He caught another glimpse of
the gunnery sergeant’s face. The reverend boosted the keg to his shoulder with a despairing
grunt.
“Somewhere ahead,” said Mitchell, “we’ll run into the Japanese lines. Maybe something
can be done. We’re about twenty miles from Shunkien.”
“Practically there,” mourned Goldy, feeling for the first time in her life just how
heavy a pack and rifle can be.
“March,” said Mitchell and moved off, more than half carrying the huge Toughey.
Chapter Eleven
T
WO
flares burned in the darkness and by their jumpy light could be seen the irregular
pattern of sandbags stretched across the road and topped with barbed wire. Silhouetted
in the foreground was a triangular stack of rifles and gleaming to one side squatted
a spraddle-legged machine gun, manned by a sleepy Japanese crew.
A short row of tents faced the road, glowing with inner light and patterned with grotesque
shadows, caricatures of the officers within.
A stocky sentry snapped erect to the right of the machine gunners. Rifle at port,
he advanced two cautious paces, staring into the darkness down the road.
Four shadows were less dark than the night beyond.
“Todomeru!”
barked the sentry. “Halt!”
The machine gunners popped up like jack-in-the-boxes. The shadows stopped moving on
the walls of the tent and then surged toward the entrances.
Staggering under the almost inert weight of Toughey, Mitchell advanced until he could
be seen in the light of the flares. Behind him the reverend stopped, panting, to set
down the keg. Goldy paused uncertainly.
Mitchell saw an ammunition box on his right. He eased Toughey down to it and then
stood erect again. He felt curiously lightheaded and his side was aching. He had not
dared explore the wound.
Several curious officers closed into a semicircle about him. Two sentries moved warily
down to better watch the other members of the party.
The silence was very long. Behind the impassive faces of the officers, astonishment
was rife. There was no mistaking the globe and anchor and eagle on this haggard soldier’s
cap. Officers of the
Mikado
were not prepared to see a United States Marine.
Mitchell started to speak in
Shantung
dialect and then stopped. It made no impression upon them. He swung back to English.
“I am Gunnery Sergeant James Mitchell of the United States Marines. I am under orders
to proceed to Shunkien and report to United States Consul Jackson of that city. You
will please let me pass.”
The officers stood where they were, just as blank as ever. Irritably, Mitchell started
to speak again but a small, pigeon-breasted fellow, with a face as round and shining
as the reverend’s bald head, stepped a pace forward.
“I speak English. Why do you want to go to Shunkien?”
“I am under orders from the commanding officer of the United States cruiser
Miami
. I wish to pass through your lines with my . . . my landing force.”
The Japanese massaged his face very thoughtfully, much like a sleek cat adjusting
its whiskers. He stepped back and conversed very rapidly with a quick-eyed gentleman
of higher rank.
Presently he spoke again. “Why do you wish to go to Shunkien? Did you not know that
the city is under siege?”
“I am under orders,” said Mitchell stubbornly.
“It is impossible. We are very sorry. You, of course, have your orders with you?”
“The first Japanese PC I ran into relieved me of them.”
“Hmmmmm. This is very irregular. Have you a receipt for those orders?”
Mitchell stilled his wrath. He reached into his right blouse pocket and found the
spot spongy. The piece of paper he brought forth was stained a sticky red. He passed
it over.
The Japanese clustered around their English-speaking member. They moved en masse to
the front of a tent and inclined the slip to the light. They looked at each other
and shook their heads.
The linguist stepped back to Mitchell, chest thrust forward importantly. “This might
very well be anything. There is nothing but part of a signature here. I am sorry,
but we cannot accept this. It is necessary that you be detained pending further investigation.”
Mitchell tried to muster up the energy to sound off long and loud. But he was too
weary and too angry to say a great deal. It was, perhaps, fortunate.
“I am under orders to proceed to Shunkien and I am to be there before Saturday. It
is imperative that you allow me to pass. If you do not—”
“Enough of this,” said the Japanese. “You will only be detained long enough for us
to confirm these orders. Have we any proof that you are what you say you are? Perhaps
you are renegades masquerading. Perhaps you have deserted. Ah . . . What do you have
in that keg?”
“I do not know. I am under orders—”
“Yes, of course. You have said that before.” The Japanese turned and spoke swiftly
to his commanding officer who, in turn, rattled orders to the sentries.
The soldiers thrust the reverend off the keg and rolled it forward. More commands
were passed and a broadsword was produced.
When Mitchell lunged ahead, his way was barred by bayonets crossed before him. He
stopped and looked helplessly and angrily on.
The keg was broken open and tipped on its side. A flood of
golden guineas
slid into the dust.
The Japanese officers clicked their tongues and felt of the coins and looked askance
at Mitchell.
“This is very bad,” said the linguist. “You may have looted this somewhere. We shall
check up.”
“How long will that take?” said Mitchell bitterly.
“Two days. Three days. A week.” He shrugged.
Another Japanese officer marched up with a file of infantry and indicated to Mitchell
that his group was to fall in. Toughey did not respond to a thump on the back and
a Japanese soldier, before Mitchell could stop him, yanked Toughey to his feet.
Mitchell struck and the soldier went down.
Toughey lay in the road, unconscious, until a stretcher was produced and he was loaded
aboard.
Three men were detailed to Mitchell personally and the bayonets glittered brightly
in the flares. Wearily he allowed himself to be shoved along. He knew he had not helped
his case.
Two days. Three days. A week?