"You don't think Shanghai, under the Japs, would be worse for a white woman?"
"Was that a question or what?"
"A question."
"I don't think the Japs are standing every white face they see against a wall, which is what the communists did to the White Russians. For all you know, she's just in some internment camp with other Americans."
"She's not an American."
"She's an American officer's wife. She can say she lost her passport and her other identification. I think that's what she probably tried to do, and I think she can probably get away with it." Banning held his empty beer mug over his head.
"Right you are, love," the waitress bellowed.
"I am going to request that I be relieved," Banning said.
"Can't you see that I have to?"
"We need you for this goddamned operation, don't be silly."
"That's why Pickering sent Dillon over here, right?"
"Pickering thinks you became too professional, too cold blooded, and fell under the evil influence of the Australian swabbie."
"What the hell does that mean'?"
"What's his name?"
"Feldt, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, and I would appreciate it if you didn't call him an Australian swabbie."
"Pickering thinks that Feldt is too willing to write these guys off. Pickering is thinking like he's still a corporal in France, running around no-man's-land picking up the wounded. The difference, the important difference, is that Pickering has the influence. He's a general."
"What's influence got to do with it?"
"If your man Feldt gets in the way, he's going to get run over. "
"That would really be the cherry on the cake," Banning said.
"If it wasn't for Feldt there wouldn't be a Coastwatcher Establishment. If they relieve him, it would collapse."
"Then you better tell him not to cross Dillon, because that's the same as crossing Pickering. If he does, he's out on his ass. Your man Feldt works for the Australian Admiral with two names-"
"Soames-Haley," Banning furnished. "Vice Admiral Keith Soames-Haley."
"Right. Who is an old buddy of Pickering's. Dillon's going to see him first thing tomorrow morning, with a letter from Pickering. If it comes to Soames-Haley having to make a choice between Pickering and Feldt, who do you think it will be?"
"Sonofabitch!"
"What you better do is stop insisting this can't be done and start thinking about how it can be." Banning looked at him for a long moment before replying.
"As you were saying, McCoy, it seems only yesterday that you were a corporal I was defending on a murder charge."
"Yeah, and you wanted me to throw myself on the mercy of the court and take my chances on getting no more than six months or a year in Portsmouth. You didn't even ask me if I was guilty.
Banning's face tightened.
"That was below the belt, don't you think?"
"It's the truth. The Colonel wanted to stay on the right side of the American Consul General and the Italians, and if that meant a corporal had to go to Portsmouth, tough luck for him. And you went along with him."
The reason I'm so goddamned mad, Banning thought, is that it is the unvarnished truth.
"I thought you accepted my apology for that," Banning said.
McCoy shrugged. "You brought it up. I was willing to forget it."
The waitress appeared suddenly. In one hand she held two beer mugs. In the other was a plate heaped high with french fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, topped with two slices of toast.
"In other words, you're in agreement with Pickering that I haven't done enough to try to get those two off Buka? Maybe because I don't want to make waves? Because not doing more than I have was the easiest thing to do?"
"I'm very impressed with Pickering," McCoy said.
"That doesn't answer the question."
"OK. Yeah, I am."
"That brings us back to square one. I have to ask to be relieved."
"Who are you going to ask? Rickabee?"
"He's my immediate superior."
"He works for Pickering."
"That whole thing is a sick joke. Pickering has no more right to be a brigadier general than-"
"Than what? Than Jake Dillon has to be a major? Than me to be a lieutenant'? Is that what's really bothering you? You think we're all a bunch of amateur Marine officers, ex-enlisted men, who should defer to your professional officer-type thinking?"
"Now you've gone too far," Banning said coldly.
"Not quite," McCoy said. "Let me go all the way. Let me tell you my orders. From Rickabee, not Pickering. I am to advise him within forty-eight hours of my arrival here whether or not I think you're going to be in the way. If I decide you will be in the way, you'll be on the next plane out of here and you'll spend the rest of the war counting mess kits in Barstow."
The Marine Corps operated a large supply depot at Barstow, California.
Banning looked at him as if he could not believe what he just heard.
"I find that hard to believe," he said finally.