Which question indicates, Ernie decided, that you are not entirely unfamiliar with yachts. And it follows from that, and from other things you have said, that while you obviously are a homeless and pregnant waif, you are probably not a poor homeless waif.
"No," she said. "It's a Mitchell. It was made in Florida and sailed here."
"It's yours?"
"It belongs to a friend of a friend," Ernie said. "We're boat-sitting. The crew went off to the Coast Guard."
"I just hope I'm not dreaming," Dorothy said. "I can't tell you how grateful I am."
"I'm glad to have the company," Ernie said. And she realized then that although they would certainly look around the next day, and diligently, for some place for Dorothy Burnes and her husband to live, they almost certainly were not going to find one.
Which means they will stay here. Which, on balance, may be a pretty good idea. It'll give me company. And we are, in a sense, sisters.
"Maybe I should have told you this before," Ernie said. "I think the phrase for what my Marine and I are doing on here is 'shacking up.'"
There was a look of embarrassment in Dorothy Burnes's eyes. "You didn't have to tell me that," she said, softly. "That's none of my business."
"Ken doesn't think that Marine officers, about to be sent overseas, should be married," Ernie said.
"Do you love him?"
"Oh, yes," Ernie said.
"Isn't that all that's important? I mean, really?"
"So my reasoning goes," Ernie said.
"Maybe, when he sees Marty and me, it will be contagious," Dorothy said.
"That's a nice thought," Ernie said. "Come on, I'll show you your room… cabin."
By four o'clock, Ernie Page and Dorothy Burnes had become friends. They were of an age, and of roughly comparable background. Dorothy's father operated a large condiment-bottling business (pickles, relish, horseradish, et cetera) founded by his grandfather. She had gone to Emma Willard, and then on to Vanderbilt College, where, as a junior, she had married Marty, then a senior. Marty had gone to Quantico for the Platoon Leader's Course when he graduated.
"Ken went through Quantico," Ernie offered, "with my childhood sweetheart. That's how we met. And my childhood sweetheart's parents fixed it for us to live on the boat."
"They know?" Dorothy asked. The rest of the sentence, "that you and Ken are living together on this boat?" went unsaid.
"They know," Ernie said. "My parents know, too, but they pretend not to. I mean, they know I'm out here with Ken. They don't know about the boat."
"Where did Ken go to school?" Dorothy asked.
"He didn't," Ernie replied, with a sense of misgiving. "He's what they call a mustang. He came up from the ranks."
"Oh?"
"He's very bright," Ernie said. "And the Marine Corps saw it, and they sent him to officer's school."
"He must be," Dorothy readily agreed.
A clock chimed four times.
"Time to get him," Ernie said, and then, "what do we do about yours? What will he do, go to the motel?"
Dorothy nodded.
"Well, then, I'll drop you off there and go fetch Ken," Ernie said. "You bring him here."
Ken, who was wearing dungarees, looked tired when Ernie picked him up behind the orderly room at Camp Elliott. When he was tired, he looked older. Sometimes, she thought, he looked like a boy. And in his dungarees, he did not much resemble the Marine officer in the recruiting posters.
She pushed the door open and then slid halfway across the seat to let him get behind the wheel.
"Been waiting long?" she asked.
"No," he said simply.
"Don't I get a kiss?"
He graciously offered the side of his face. It wasn't what she had had in mind, but she knew that it was all she was going to get. The official excuse was that there was a Marine Corps regulation-yet another regulation-that proscribed the public display of affection by officers and gentlemen. The real reason was that Ken was made uncomfortable by public displays of affection; the regulation just gave him the excuse he needed to treat her, when in public, like a sister.
Sometimes, as now, this annoyed Ernie.
She moved her hand and quickly groped him.
"Jesus Christ!" Ken said, knocking her hand away.
"There's a time and place, right?" she teased. "And this isn't it?"
He looked at her and shook his head.
"You're something," he said.
"Uh- huh," she agreed.
For just a moment, he touched her cheek very gently with the back of his hand.
"Watch out!" she said in mock horror. "Someone will see, and they will cut your buttons off and drum you out of the Corps in disgrace!"
He laughed softly and smiled at her.
"How was your day?"
"Noisy," he said. He dug in his shirt pocket and handed her a brass cartridge case.
"What's this?"
"Look at the stamp," he said. "On the bottom."
"I'm looking," she said. "What do I see?"
"See where it says 'FA 15'?" She nodded. "That means it was made by the Frankfurt Arsenal in 1915; before the First World War."
They were at the gate then. A Marine MP saluted crisply as he waved them through.
"Do you think he'd do that if he suspected that you and I are carrying on?" Ernie said innocently after Ken had returned the salute. "Or do you think he'd turn you in? 'Sir, I saw an officer today I just know is carrying on with a female civilian.'"
He laughed again and smiled at her.
"You just don't give up, do you?"
"Does it still work?"
"Does what still work?"
"Bullets made before the First World War," Ernie said.
"The bullet is the pointed thing that comes out the barrel," Ken said. "The round consists of the case, the powder, the primer-and the bullet."
"Sorry," she said, mockingly.
"And the answer is most of the time," he said. "It's really surprising."
"What happens if it doesn't work?" she asked.
"Colonel Carlson came to see me today," McCoy said, changing the subject.
"What?" she asked, confused. It wasn't the answer she expected.
"Colonel Carlson came out to the machine-gun range," McCoy said. "Looking for me."
"What did he want?"
"He spoke to me in Cantonese," McCoy said, and smiled. "You should have seen the looks on the kids' faces when he did that."
"What did he want?" Ernie repeated.
"Well, I guess he wanted to have a look at me, and to see if I really spoke Chinese."
"And?" she asked, impatiently.
"He wanted to know if I had heard of the Chinese Route Army, and if so, what I thought about them."
"What did you tell him?"
"What I thought he wanted to hear," McCoy said. "That they do a pretty good job."
"That's all?"
"Oh, he asked me the usual questions; he was feeling me out," McCoy said. "And then he told me he was forming a battalion, and asked if I was interested in joining it."
"And you, of course, said yes," Ernie said.
"That's why they sent me out here," McCoy said. "You know that. The whole idea was to get him to recruit me."
He suddenly pulled out of the line of traffic and stopped before a commercial laundry. He went in and came out a minute or two later carrying two enormous bundles of paper-wrapped laundry. He threw them in the back and got behind the wheel.
"What's for supper?" he asked.
"Steak, for a change," she said.
He nodded his approval.
"Well, are you going to tell me, or not?"
"Tell you what?"
"Did he 'recruit' you, or not?"
"He fed me a line about how he wanted to compare me against other volunteers," McCoy said. "But that was just bullshit. He'll take me. I'm a young old China Marine."
"What does that mean?"
"He wants old China Marines, people who may think like Orientals. And he wants young officers and men. He'll take either. I'm both."
"Well, is he crazy, or not?"
"I liked him," McCoy said. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?"
"He's not crazy?"
"No, he's not crazy, and he struck me as a damned good officer. He's obviously smarter than hell, and his ideas about making raids with highly trained people make sense."