"What can we do about it, sir?" Walsh said.
"Damn all," the company commander replied, which was about what the sergeant had expected. "Leopold won't listen to reason."
"Maybe something ought to happen to him-an accident, like," Walsh said. "Not cricket, I know, but…Got to be some Belgians what can add two and two, right?"
"You'd think so. But if we try something like that and muck it up, what happens then?" This time, Peters answered his own question: "We throw Leopold into Hitler's arms, that's what. If the Belgians line up with Germany, we're buggered for fair."
Sergeant Walsh only grunted. He didn't worry about Belgian soldiers. Who in his right mind would? But a Belgium leaning toward Hitler gave the Germans a red carpet for invading France. As soon as he called up a map in his mind, he saw as much. "We'd best not muck it up, then," he said.
Peters lit a cigarette. Then he offered Walsh the packet, which an officer didn't have to do. Walsh took a coffin nail and sketched a salute. Peters' cheeks hollowed as he sucked in smoke. "Don't get your hopes up for anything like that, Sergeant," he said. "Not bloody likely, no matter how much sense it makes. The Belgies like Leopold, same as we like our King. That's what he's there for-to be liked."
"Edward's gone," Walsh pointed out.
Now Captain Peters grunted. "You like to argue, don't you?" he said, but a chuckle told the sergeant he wasn't really angry. "If you could arrange for Leopold to fall in love with a popsy…"
"Could I have a couple of months' leave to set it up, sir?"
"Why would you need so bloody long?"
"Well, sir, I've got to try out the popsies, don't I, to see which one he'd like best," Walsh answered innocently.
That won him a snort from the company commander. "Sorry, Walsh." He looked east, across the Belgian frontier. "I'm not at all sure we've got two months." ONCE UPON A TIME, U.S. MARINES swaggered through the streets of Peking. People got out of the way for them. They had to be careful nowadays, though. They still counted for more than the Chinese did. But when Japanese soldiers came through, the leathernecks had to be the ones who stepped aside. Orders said so.
Pete McGill hated the orders, even though he understood the need for them. One Marine could wipe the floor with one Japanese soldier. Four or five Marines could lick four or five Japanese soldiers. The little men were plenty tough, but they were little.
And a platoon of Japanese soldiers could beat and stomp four or five Marines if they found any excuse to do it. They had, once or twice. U.S. military authorities protested when it happened. The Japs ignored the protests. As far as they were concerned, Peking was theirs now. All the other foreign troops stayed there on sufferance.
So now the idea was not to give them any excuses. "Hell of a note," Corporal McGill complained. He and some of his buddies had just come out of the Yu Hua T'ai-the Restaurant of Rich and Fine Viands. He was full of shrimp and scallops, the specialties of the house, or he would have complained more. But he was also full of kao liang, which was brewed from millet and strong as the devil (some people said the Chinese also threw in pigeon droppings to give it extra body).
"Damn straight." Herman Szulc knew what Pete was talking about. The big Polack had taken aboard even more kao liang than he had. Szulc got mean when he drank, too. "Ought to bust those little cocksucking monkeys right in the chops, just to show 'em they can't get away with shit like that."
"Ain't supposed to," Pooch Puccinelli said. He always did exactly what he was told, and worried about everything else later. That made him a damn good Marine. Had the orders been to jump on the Japs with both feet, he would have. Since they were to go easy, he obeyed again-and he would do his damnedest to make sure everybody else followed along.
Szulc scowled at him. "I don't got no orders not to bust you in the chops."
"Well, you can try," Pooch answered. Without orders, he didn't back away from anything or anybody.
"Cut the crap, both of you," McGill said. He didn't want to have to break up a brawl between his pals. He didn't want to get sucked into one, either. "What do you say we go get our ashes hauled?"
"Now you're talking!" Puccinelli was always ready for that. Herman Szulc didn't say no. What Marine would have? Peking was pussy paradise. There were lots of whorehouses, they were cheap, most of the girls were pretty, and all of them were versatile. The only drawback was, it was mighty easy to come down venereal. Flunk a shortarm inspection, and the Corps landed on you like a ton of bricks.
With money in his pocket and kao liang in his veins, Pete wasn't inclined to worry about that-not now, anyway. Even a Marine corporal was a rich man in Peking. He knew damn well the Restaurant of Rich and Fine Viands had overcharged him and his pals as much as the Chinamen thought they could get away with. He didn't care…too much. The chow was good, and it was still damn cheap. Whorehouses worked the same way. You could get whatever you wanted, and it wouldn't cost you half of what you'd pay in Honolulu or San Diego. The Chinese put down less? Well, so what?
The Marines came out of Hsi La Hutung-an alleyway wider than McGill's wingspan, but not by a whole lot-and out onto Morrison Street. Somebody'd told McGill that the Chinese name for the street was Main Street of the Well of the Prince's Palace, but it was Morrison Street to all the foreigners in Peking. Iron sheeting covered the well these days, but people still shoved it out of the way and drew up water every now and then. Some of the Royal Marines said Morrison had been a writer for the Times of London, and he'd lived at Number 98. Nowadays, an Italian firm occupied the building.
Chinese on foot, Chinese on bicycles, plump Chinese riding in rickshaws pulled by gaunt Chinese, older Chinese women hobbling along on what they called lotus feet, Chinese (inevitably) selling things, Chinese spitting and blowing their noses…
Chinese scrambling out of the way…Chinese leaping from the street onto the rickety sidewalks…Chinese bowing low…
"Oh, fuck," Puccinelli said. "Here come those goddamn slant-eyed mothers."
Chinese were slant-eyed, too, but Pooch wasn't talking about them. Up Morrison Street came a long column of Japanese soldiers. They marched in formation, a bayoneted rifle on each tough little man's right shoulder. When a noncom spotted a Chinaman who failed to show proper respect, four Japs jumped out of the line, grabbed the offender, and kicked him and beat him with rifle butts. They left him groaning and bloody and hustled back into place.
"Nod to the slanty bastards," McGill said. He met a Japanese sergeant's eye and nodded, equal to equal. The Jap gazed back. His gaze showed nothing for a moment. But then he nodded back. He'd won the exchange-Pete had acknowledged him first.
The other Marines also nodded to the Japanese troops. They got a few nods in return. Most of the Japs just ignored them. Nobody gave them a hard time. As far as Pete was concerned, that would do fine.
When the tail of the column got out of earshot, Szulc said, "Been a lot of the little monkeys going through town lately."
"Yeah." McGill nodded. "I hear they're mostly getting on trains and heading north."
"They gonna finally get off the pot with the Russians?" Szulc said. "Talk about deserving each other…" No Marine in Peking felt anything better than grudging respect for the Japanese, and Pete had never run into a Polack who had anything good to say about Russians.
"Who cares? That ain't our worry any which way. We were gonna get laid, remember?" Puccinelli kept his mind firmly on what mattered-or in the gutter, depending on how you looked at things.
NUMBER 1 GOOD TIME, the joyhouse said in English. It had a bigger sign in Chinese. Pete would have bet that was dirtier. The Chinese had no idea what shame was, as far as he could see.
"Marines!" the madam exclaimed. Meal tickets! was what it sounded like. Sure as hell, they would have to pay more for this than the locals did, too. "Make you happy!" the middle-aged woman went on. Make me rich, she probably meant. Her cut of the wages of sin looked pretty nice. She wore brocaded silk. Gold gleamed around her neck and on her fingers and ears; jewels sparkled in her hair.