"What about the Communist notion that there should be no privileges for officers?" Rickabee went on.
"They got that from the Russians," McCoy said. "Everybody over there is 'comrade.' Chiang Kai-shek's copying the Germans. The Germans were in China a long time, and the Germans think the way to run an army is to really separate the officers from the enlisted men, make the officers look really special, so nobody even thinks of disobeying an officer."
"And the Communists? From what I've heard, they almost elect their officers."
"I heard that, too," McCoy said. "We tried that, too, in the Civil War. It didn't work. You can't run an army if you're all the time trying to win a popularity contest."
Sessions chuckled. "And you don't think it works for the Chinese Communists, either?"
"You want to know what I think the only difference between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists is?" McCoy asked. "I mean, in how they maintain discipline?"
"I really would," Sessions said.
"It's not what Carlson says," McCoy said. "Carlson thinks the Communists are… hell, like they got religion. That they think they're doing something noble."
"What is it, then?" Rickabee asked.
"Somebody gets an order in the Nationalists and fails to carry it out, they form a firing squad, line up the regiment to watch, and execute him by the numbers. Some Communist doesn't do what the head comrade tells him to do, they take him behind a tree and shoot him in the ear. Same result. Do what you're told, or get shot."
"And the Japanese?"
"That's another ball game," McCoy said. "The Japs really believe their emperor is God. They do what they're told because otherwise they don't get to go to heaven. Anyway, the
Japs are different than the Chinese. Most of them can read, for one thing."
"Very interesting," Rickabee said. "You really are an interesting fellow, McCoy."
"You going to tell me why all the questions?" McCoy asked, after a moment.
Rickabee dipped into his briefcase again and came up with a manila envelope stiff with eight-by-ten inch photographs of the Roosevelt letter. He handed it to McCoy.
"Read that, McCoy," Rickabee said.
McCoy read the entire document, and then looked at Rickabee and Sessions.
"Jesus!" he said.
"If the question in your mind, McCoy," Rickabee said, "is whether the Marine Corps intends to implement that rather extraordinary proposal, the answer is yes."
McCoy's surprise and confusion registered, for just a moment, on his face.
"Unless, of course, the Commandant is able to go to the President with proof that the source of those extraordinary suggestions is unbalanced, or a Communist," Rickabee added, dryly. "The source, of course, being Evans Carlson and not the President's son. I don't know about that-about the unbalanced thing or the Communist thing-but I think there's probably more to it than simply an overenthusiastic appreciation of the way the Chinese do things."
"I'm almost afraid to ask, but why are you showing me all this stuff?" McCoy asked.
"It has been proposed to the Commandant that the one way to find out what Colonel Carlson is really up to is to arrange to have someone assigned to his Raider Battalion who would then be able to make frequent, and if I have to say so, absolutely secret reports, to confirm or refute the allegations that he is unbalanced, or a Communist, or both."
"Named McCoy," McCoy said.
"The lesser of two evils, McCoy," Rickabee said. "Either intelligence-which I hope means you-does it, or somebody else will. There's a number of people close to the Commandant who have already made up their minds about Carlson, and whoever they arranged to have sent would go out there looking for proof that he is what they are convinced he is."
"So I guess I go," McCoy said.
"There are those in the Marine Corps, McCoy," Rickabee said dryly, "who do not share your high opinion of Second Lieutenant McCoy; who in fact think this is entirely too much responsibility for a lowly lieutenant. What happens next is that a colonel named Wesley is coming to dinner. He will examine you with none of what I've been talking about entering into the conversation. He will then go home, call a general officer, and tell him that it would be absurd to entrust you with a job like this. Meanwhile, General Forrest, who is one of your admirers, will be telling the same general officer that you are clearly the man for the job. What I think will happen is that the general will want to have a look at you himself and make up his mind then."
"Sir, is there any way I can get out of this?"
"You may not hear drums and bugles in the background, McCoy," Rickabee said, "but if you will give this a little thought, I think you'll see that it's of great importance to the Corps. I don't want to rub salt in your wound, but it's a lot more important than what you were doing in the Philippines."
(Three)
Temporary Building T-2032
The Mall
Washington, D.C.
1230 Hours, 7 January 1942
McCoy's encounter with Colonel Wesley was not what he really expected. The meeting was clearly not Wesley's idea; he had simply been ordered to have a look at the kid. Thus at dinner Wesley practically ignored him; what few questions he asked were brief and obviously intended to confirm what he had decided about McCoy before he met him.
Despite what Rickabee had said about the importance to the Corps of checking on Carlson, McCoy didn't want the job. Even the COI seemed like a better assignment. With a little bit of luck, McCoy decided, Colonel Wesley would be able to convince the unnamed general officer that McCoy was not the man for it.
He was a mustang second lieutenant. The brass would not entrust to a mustang second lieutenant a task they considered very important to the Corps.
But just before he went to sleep in a bedroom overlooking the snow-covered golf course, he had another, more practical, thought. He could get away with spying on this gone-Chink lieutenant colonel for the same reasons Colonel Wesley didn't think he could carry it off: because he was a mustang second lieutenant. Wesley would send some Palace Guard type out there, some Annapolis first lieutenant or captain. If Colonel Carlson was up to something he shouldn't be, he sure wouldn't do it with an Annapolis type around. Carlson would not be suspicious of a mustang second lieutenant; but if he hadn't really gone off the deep end, he would wonder why an Annapolis-type captain was so willing to go along with his Chinese bullshit.
In the morning, Captain Sessions told him to stick around the house until he was summoned, and then Sessions drove to work.
He tried to keep out of the way, but Mrs. Sessions found him reading old National Geographic magazines in the living room, and she wanted to talk. The conversation turned to Ernie Sage and ended with him calling her on the phone, so Mrs. Sessions could talk to her.
They had no sooner hung up than the phone rang again. It was Captain Sessions. He told McCoy to meet him outside Building T-2032 at half-past twelve.
When he got there, five minutes early, Captain Sessions was waiting for him. He was wearing civilian clothing.
"Would it be all right if we used your car again, Killer?" Sessions asked.
"Yes, sir, of course." McCoy said.
When they were in the car, McCoy looked at Sessions for directions.
"Take the Fourteenth Street Bridge," Sessions ordered.
Twenty- five minutes later, they turned off a slippery macadam road and drove through a stand of pine trees, and then between snow-covered fields to a fieldstone farmhouse on top of a hill. As they approached the house, McCoy saw that it was larger than it appeared from a distance. And when, at Sessions's orders, he drove around to the rear, he saw four cars: a Buick, a Ford, and two 1941 Plymouth sedans, all painted in Marine green.
"It figures, I suppose," Sessions said dryly, "that the junior member of this little gathering has the fanciest set of wheels."
McCoy wasn't sure whether Sessions was just cracking wise, or whether there was an implied reprimand; second lieutenants should not drive luxury convertibles. He had bought the LaSalle in Philadelphia when he had been ordered home from the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He had made a bunch of money in China, most of it playing poker, and he had paid cash money for the car. He'd bought it immediately on his return, as a corporal, before he had had any idea the Corps wanted to make him an officer.