Whatever you do now, don't lose your temper! Just get out of here, calm down, and think this through. There is absolutely no reason to think you won't be able to deal with this offensive bastard.
"Major Banning, may I use the Studebaker?" Ellen asked
"Are we going to need wheels, Jake?"
"Possibly," Dillon said. "Can't you call and get a staff car?"
"You can't get a staff car this time of night, and you know it!"
Careful, Ellen! They would love it if you lost your temper!
"I think I can get you one, Mrs. Feller," Lieutenant Pluto Hon said, and walked to the telephone.
[Three]
LADIES' BAR
MCSHAY'S SALOON and CAFE
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
2005 HOURS 29 SEPTEM13ER 1942
"What are we doing in here?" ` Major Ed Banning asked Lieutenant Ken McCoy as McCoy led him into the room and to a table.
"There aren't as many people in here as in the other bar," McCoy said. "I looked through the window."
A waitress came to the table. She stood about five feet tall and measured nearly that distance around,
"And what can I get for the Yanks?"
"I want a beer, please," McCoy said. "And how about something to eat?"
What would you like, love?"
"I would like a steak about that thick," he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch and a half apart. "Medium."
The waitress laughed. "But you'd settle, right, for fish and chips?"
"How about scrambled eggs and chips?"
The waitress nodded.
"And for you, love?"
"Just the beer, please," Banning said. He waited until she was out of earshot, then asked, "Is that why we left the house?" "You were hungry?"
"I got you out of there because you were about to get into it with Dillon and say something you would regret," McCoy said. "And because I'm starved."
"You understand," Banning said, "that I will have to ask to be relieved?"
"Shit," McCoy said.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"That I was right in getting you out of there," McCoy said.
The beer was delivered in two enormous, foamy mugs.
McCoy took a swallow of his and made a face.
"It's warm," he said.
"The Aussies like it that way," Banning said.
"Jesus!"
"They get that from the English," Banning said, and then returned to his original topic. "It has been made perfectly clear that there is considerable doubt in my ability to perform my assigned duties. Under the circumstances I have no choice but to request to be relieved. Can't you see that?"
"Drink your beer," McCoy said.
"I can't understand your reaction to Pickering's idiotic idea," Banning said. "You actually seem to think it can be carried off."
"One, I'm just a simple Mustang who does what he's ordered to do. And, two, yeah, I think it can be carried off."
"Not by me!"
"If you're not going to play by my rules, I'm going to take my ball and go home, and fuck all of you!" Right?"
"McCoy, we've been friends for a long time, but don't push it! I'm not a child, and this is not a goddamned game!"
"It really hasn't been a long time, but it does seem like fucking forever, doesn't it?" McCoy said. "My ambition in Shanghai was maybe to make staff sergeant before I retired."
"It's hard to believe all that's happened in the last year, eighteen months."
"I wonder what's happening in Shanghai tonight?"
"Some Jap sonofabitch is driving my Pontiac down the Bund," Banning said, chuckling. "And will probably get laid in my bed later on."
"You never heard anything about Mrs. Banning?"
"No," Banning said softly, flatly.
"White Russians seem able to deal with bad situations," McCoy said.
"What do they call that, `Whistling in the dark'?"