In Danger's Path (85 page)

“And how soon do you plan to leave?” General Sun asked.

“At 0600, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“Six in the morning, sir.”

“Tomorrow morning? More accurately,
this
morning?” General Sun asked incredulously.

“Yes, sir. We're going to rendezvous with the supply convoy about twenty miles out of town.”

“I didn't know you were going so soon,” Pickering said.

“You were told not to go into the desert without letting anyone know,” Banning said.

“It was either go now, Colonel, or wait for ten days or two weeks. I decided to go.”

Banning looked at Pickering to get his reaction to that. Seeing none, he correctly concluded that Pickering agreed with McCoy's decision. “What about communication?” Banning said.

“I'll get on the radio to Pearl Harbor when we find the Americans or run out of gas, whichever comes first,” McCoy said. “Is that what you're asking, sir?”

“No, it wasn't,” Banning said. “What if we have to communicate with you?”

“About what, sir?”

“Maybe we'll hear from the Americans, for one example.”

“I don't think that's likely, sir,” McCoy said. “We haven't heard from them for some time. Their radio is probably shot.”

Or, they have been discovered by the Japanese, or murdered by bandits, or just starved to death out there
, Pickering thought.

“We should have some way to communicate with you when you're out there, Ken,” he said.

“Sir, neither Zimmerman nor I are very good with radios. Neither one of us takes code very fast, and we can't send any faster than we receive. And I'd really rather not run the risk of taking a radio from its case, setting it up, and then taking it apart again until we really need them to call Pearl Harbor.”

“What kind of radios are they?” Captain Sampson asked.

“Special,” McCoy said, looking at him as if on the verge of telling him to mind his own business.

“How special?” Sampson pursued.

“We got them from the Collins Radio Company. That's about all I know about them.”

“I know about radios,” Sampson said. “As a matter of fact, I know a lot about the shortwave radios Collins makes. So far as I'm concerned, they make the best shortwave equipment.”

McCoy looked disgusted. “Who cares what you think?” was written all over his face.

“General,” Sampson said, “I'd like to go with Captain McCoy, if he'll have me.”

“To do what?” McCoy asked.

“Before my commission came through, I was a high-speed radio operator, a corporal, in the Signal Corps,” Sampson said. “Before that, before the war, I was a Ham.” He looked at McCoy. “I can send Morse at thirty words a minute, and take it that fast.”

“You know how they work? Can you fix them if they break?” McCoy asked.

“I made a lot of my own equipment,” Sampson said.

“General?” McCoy asked.

I'll be damned
, Pickering realized,
McCoy is asking me if he can have Sampson
.

“It's up to you, Ken,” Pickering said.

“The Chinese may not like it,” Zimmerman said.

“I don't want to find myself in the middle of the goddamned Gobi Desert trying to call in the Catalinas with a radio that's not working,” McCoy said.

Zimmerman shrugged. “Okay by me,” he said.

“Okay by me, too, Sampson,” Pickering said. “Thank you.” He looked at his watch. It was quarter to two in the morning. “McCoy, if you're leaving in four hours, you'd better get some sleep,” he said. “There's beds here.”

“We've got to go back to the Fattened Goose and finish loading, sir,” McCoy said. “We'll be able to sleep on the road.”

“In that case, gentlemen,” General Sun said, “let me wish you Godspeed and good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” McCoy said.

Sun offered his hand to Zimmerman, who looked a little embarrassed.

“If you are really going with us, Sampson,” McCoy said when General Sun reached him, “and it's not too late to change your mind, go get your gear.”

The departure was completely without ceremony. General Pickering, Colonel Banning, and Major Kee, in the Packard Clipper, followed McCoy, Zimmerman, and Sampson in the ambulance back to the Inn of the Fattened Goose.

They stood in the snow while the Chinese “soldiers” McCoy had hired lashed, under Zimmerman's direction, an astonishing amount of supplies—including ten five-gallon jerry cans, two fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline, and an assortment of burlap sacks—wherever space could be found on the bumpers, fenders, and running boards of the weapons carrier and ambulance, and onto the roof of the ambulance.

Finally, Zimmerman walked up to the other Americans. “Anytime you say, Killer,” he said.

Banning gave his hand to McCoy, and then to Zimmerman.

“You guys be careful,” he said.

“We'll try,” McCoy said.

“Consider that an order,” Pickering said, touching McCoy's shoulder.

“Aye, aye, sir,” McCoy said. He and Pickering looked at each other a moment, and then McCoy saluted. “By your leave, sir?”

Pickering nodded, and he, Banning, and Kee returned McCoy's salute, but no one said anything.

McCoy turned and gave an order in Chinese.

“Freely translated, sir,” Banning said, “that was, “Okay, let's get this circus on the road.'”

Major Kee chuckled.

The Chinese “soldiers” squeezed themselves into the back of the ambulance and the weapons carrier. McCoy pointed to Sampson, indicating that he was to ride with Zimmerman in the weapons carrier, and then climbed behind the wheel of the ambulance beside one of the Chinese. He slammed the door, started the engine, and drove off, with the weapons carrier following him.

As he turned into the street, McCoy tapped the horn in the rhythm of “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits.”

And then they were gone.

Though Pickering expected Brigadier General Sun Chi Lon to be in bed soundly asleep, the General was instead wide awake and waiting for him when Pickering, Banning, and Kee returned to the VIP Quarters. When they made their appearance Sun was wearing an ankle-length silk dressing gown and holding a brandy snifter. “Did they get off all right?” he asked.

“You wouldn't believe all the stuff they had lashed to their vehicles,” Pickering replied. “To the bumpers, the fenders, on the roof…”

“Captain McCoy—or should I say Major MeeKoy?—obviously knows if you need something in the desert, you'd better take it with you,” Sun said.

“He's a very clever fellow,” Pickering said.

“His Chinese—Mandarin, Wu, and Cantonese—is impeccable,” Sun said, his voice showing mingled surprise and admiration. “You don't often encounter Americans with that ability.”

“You don't often encounter people like Captain McCoy,” Pickering said.

“I have received an encoded message from USMMICHI,” General Sun said. “I thought I would discuss it with you before we went to bed.”

“What did it say?” Pickering asked.

“Actually, it's gibberish,” Sun said. “It will say what I tell General Chow it says.”

“I don't quite follow you,” Pickering said.

“Whenever I make a trip like this, I arrange to receive one message a day,” Sun said. “While I don't suggest that General Chow's cryptographic people would even think of attempting to decode a message addressed to me personally, if they did, they would fail. Not because the code is so good, but because the message is a random series of characters, having no meaning whatever.”

“General, you're a devious fellow,” Pickering said.

“You're surprised? I thought it was a rule of faith among Westerners that all Orientals are devious.”

“Aren't you?” Pickering asked innocently.

Pickering was surprised when Major Kee touched his arm and handed him a brandy snifter.

“Thank you,” Pickering said.

Kee handed Banning a snifter.

“To the success of Captain McCoy's mission,” General Sun said.

“Hear, hear,” Banning said.

They raised their glasses.

“I suggest that my message will say, General,” Sun said, “that you and I are directed to report to General Stillwell immediately for consultation, even though this will require you to cut short your visit here.”

“But the girls are coming tomorrow night,” Banning said.

“And I was further going to suggest to General Pickering,” Sun went on, “that he leave you here in his stead, so that at least you will be able to receive the briefing General Chow has scheduled.”

“Please extend my regrets to the ladies, Colonel,” Pickering said.

“If you stay for several days, Colonel, that will alleviate any suspicions General Chow might have about the real purpose of our trip here.”

“I understand, sir,” Banning said.

“Thank you very much, General,” Pickering said.

“I think the time has come, don't you, after all we've been through together, that we can use our personal names?”

“Thank you very much,
Sunny,
” Pickering said.

“You're entirely welcome, Fleming.”

[THREE]
Headquarters
U.S. Military Mission to China
Chungking, China
1615 14 April 1943

As the C-47 taxied up to the area before base operations, the eyes of Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, fell on Second Lieutenant Robert F. Easterbrook, USMCR, leaning on the fender of a Studebaker President staff car, cradling a 12-gauge trench gun in his arms. The sight brought a smile to his lips.
So the Easterbunny has seen Rutterman with one of the “people killers
,” he thought,
and is—the most sincere form of flattery—imitating him
.

What was incongruous, so far as Pickering knew, was that Master Gunner Rutterman, who looked as if he had been sent over from Central Casting in response to a request for an actor who looked like a seasoned, veteran Marine, had yet to hear a shot fired in anger in this war, and nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Easterbrook had two Purple Hearts and the Silver Star.

It occurred to Pickering that Master Gunner Rutterman never referred to Easterbrook as “The Easterbunny” either. That privilege seemed to be reserved for those who had been with him on Guadalcanal.

After the airplane was parked, Easterbrook waited for Pickering to say good-bye to Brigadier General Sun Chi Lon and Major Kee, and then for their mountain of luggage to be loaded by their orderlies into the two cars sent to meet them, before coming over to Pickering and Hart. He saluted, then started to help Hart carry their suitcases to the car.

“You know how to use that shotgun, Bob?” General Pickering said, beating him to his own suitcase and picking it up.

“Yes, sir, I do,” Easterbrook replied. “Did you know, General, that every one of those itty-bitty little balls it shoots—there's a dozen of them in every shell—is like a .32 pistol bullet? Just as powerful?”

“I think I remember hearing that somewhere,” Pickering said.

“I have a hell of a time with the Thompson,” Easterbrook went on. “I can't keep the muzzle from climbing. But I can handle a trench gun.”

So much for my theory that the Easterbunny is aping Rutterman
.

“Colonel Banning and that OSS captain still on the plane, sir?”

“Colonel Banning is at the moment learning more about the Thirty-second Military District than he really wants to know,” Pickering said. “He won't be back for a couple of days.”

“By now, the Colonel is probably working very hard to preserve the reputation of the Marine Corps,” Hart said.

“That is quite enough on that subject, Lieutenant,” Pickering said.

“Yes, sir,” Hart said, unabashed.

“And McCoy took Sampson with him into the Gobi,” Pickering said. “To work the radios.”

“I'll be damned,” Easterbrook said. “Did he want to go or did the Killer volunteer him?”

“He wanted to go,” Hart said. “And Captain McCoy—who isn't happy when somebody calls him ‘the Killer'—said he could go.”

“I'm not too happy when people call me ‘Easterbunny' either,” Easterbrook said. “When the Killer stops calling me the Easterbunny, I'll stop calling him the Killer.”

“The difference,
Lieutenant Easterbrook
,” Hart said, smiling broadly as he slammed the trunk closed on their luggage, “is that you're a second lieutenant and he's a captain.”