Shut up Pete did-then. Three days later, he quietly went up to Captain Horner. The officer listened, then nodded. "I heard some of this from Weinstein, but not all of it," he said. "It's interesting. I'm not sure what I can do with it-hell, I'm not sure what the United States can do with it, assuming it's true-but it is interesting."
"Yes, sir." Pete had hoped to get a bigger rise out of him. Maybe what Horner had already heard from Max took the edge off of it.
And maybe the captain had other things on his mind. That didn't occur to Pete till the following Wednesday, when a bombshell hit the American Legation: more than half the Marines in the garrison would be transferred to Shanghai, effective immediately.
"There are many more foreigners-not just Americans, but also Europeans-in Shanghai than in Peking," Horner told the assembled leathernecks. "We can be more useful there. Also, Shanghai is a port, with direct connections to the United States." He paused, looking unhappy. "If the war between Japan and China keeps getting worse, moving our men between here and the coast may prove neither easy nor safe. Better to reduce our presence in Peking now, when we don't lose face by doing it under duress."
That sounded to Pete as if the United States had to react to what was going on around it-as if the country had little choice. He would rather the USA dictated circumstances and didn't have to respond to them. Sometimes, though, you had to play the hand you were dealt even if it was a bad one.
Captain Horner displayed a couple of typewritten sheets of names, several columns' worth on each. "I shall post these as soon as we finish here," he said. "If your name is on the list, pack your kit and be ready to move tomorrow. The Japanese authorities have promised there will be no difficulties as we march to the train station." He looked as if he were biting down on something nasty as he spoke. That American Marines should need Japanese permission to move through Peking-! But they did. At least they had it. "Questions?" the captain asked.
Nobody had any. If the other Marines were anything like McGill, their only question was whether their name had made the list. As soon as Captain Horner posted it, everybody swarmed forward to see.
Pete's was there. So were those of most of his buddies. "Misery loves company," he said, and he wasn't joking. He had a day to boil everything he'd picked up in Peking into a duffel's worth of stuff. Some of the residue he could mail back to his folks: jade and enamelwork and the like. The rest…He set it out for the Marines who were staying behind. "Take whatever you want and pitch the rest," he told them. He wasn't the only guy saying that, either-not even close. Somebody who stayed in Peking would hit the jackpot with what other Marines thought was junk. Whether he'd get the chance to enjoy it might be a different question.
Japanese and Chinese stared at the leathernecks marching through the city. Some of the Chinamen pointed and exclaimed. The Japs showed better discipline. "Eyes-front!" Sergeant Larry Koenig bawled. McGill's head went to the front. He kept looking around, though. Koenig wouldn't catch him at it-and he didn't.
The train flew American flags and had the Stars and Stripes painted on, and on top of, every car. No one wanted another incident like the gunboat Panay's misfortune. Pete knew damn well he didn't. He climbed onto the train. His corporal's stripes assured him of a seat. The whistle screeched. The train started to roll. In a day or so…Shanghai. Well, it'll be different, anyhow, Pete thought, and lit up an Old Gold. HIDEKI FUJITA WOULD HAVE LIKED to see better weather before Japan unleashed its attack along the Ussuri. Other sergeants who'd been stationed along this stretch of the border between Manchukuo and the Soviet Union longer than he had laughed at him for saying so. He would have bet even privates who'd been stationed here a while laughed at him. They knew better than to do it where he could catch them, though. He would have made them sorry. He couldn't thump other sergeants. As long as he didn't do anything permanent, he could knock privates around as he pleased.
The hell of it was, the laughing sergeants and even the laughing privates might be right. This was the kind of place that had about twenty minutes of summer every year, with a half hour of spring to warn you it was coming and another half hour of fall to warn you it was going. If the army waited for perfect weather in which to strike, it might still be waiting in 1943.
This weather was a lot of things. Perfect it wasn't, not unless you were a polar bear. One blizzard after another howled down from Siberia. The swirling snow did let the Japanese hide the men and materiel they brought forward for the attack. Of course, it also made bringing troops and guns and munitions forward that much harder. But if you complained about every little thing…
Sergeant Fujita did wonder whether the horrible weather also let the Russians bring up reinforcements and guns. When he mentioned that to Lieutenant Hanafusa, the platoon commander indulged in what seemed to be everybody's favorite sport: he laughed at Fujita. "Not likely, Sergeant!" Hanafusa said. "The Russians are too busy fighting the Poles and the Germans to even worry about us."
"Yes, sir," Fujita said woodenly, and dropped the subject like a live grenade. He wasn't an educated man or anything. He couldn't hold his own in an argument against somebody who was. But he knew his own country was up to its armpits in China. That didn't keep anybody from starting this new adventure. Russia was bigger than Japan, a hell of a lot bigger. Why shouldn't it also be able to pat its head and rub its stomach at the same time?
After a while, snow started melting faster than it fell. More and more bare ground appeared; white no longer cloaked the pines and firs and spruces on both sides of the Ussuri. Here and there, flowers started blooming. They sprouted with what struck Fujita as frantic haste, as if they knew they wouldn't have long to do whatever they did. He wouldn't have called this spring in Japan, but it looked to be as much as the Ussuri country had to offer.
Lieutenant Hanafusa seemed delighted. "Spring comes early this year!" he exclaimed. "Even the weather kami are on our side."
No one told him he was wrong. Fujita only hoped the spirits in charge of the weather knew what they were doing. No, not only. He hoped the people in charge of the Kwantung Army knew what they were doing, too.
Whenever he got the chance, he peered across the Ussuri with field glasses. He rarely glimpsed Russians. Whatever the Red Army had over there, it was concealed. The Japanese would find out when they crossed the river-no sooner.
He kept hoping the people in charge of things would change their minds. Hope was cheap-no, free. And one of the big reasons it was free was that it was so unreliable. Men and guns kept right on moving up toward the Ussuri. Fujita presumed planes did, too, but the airstrips were farther back, so he didn't see them.
Superior Private Shinjiro Hayashi said, "Please excuse me, Sergeant-san, but do our superiors believe the Russians don't know we're preparing an attack?" His education didn't keep him from seeing what also looked all too obvious to Fujita.
"If you think our superiors tell me what they believe, Hayashi, you're dumber than I give you credit for, and that isn't easy," Fujita snapped. He quashed the university student without showing how worried he was himself. He hoped he didn't show it, anyhow. If Hayashi had suspicions, he also had the common sense to keep quiet about them.
The Japanese got a start hour-0530 on 1 April 1939. The last couple of days dragged along. Everybody got ready and did his best to make sure the Red Army went on thinking everything was normal…if that was what the Red Army thought.
"When we detach Vladivostok from the Communists, the Emperor will be proud of us," Lieutenant Hanafusa told his platoon as they waited for the barrage to begin. Sergeant Fujita imagined marching into Vladivostok. He imagined the Emperor pinning a medal on him with his own divine hand. He imagined his heart bursting in his chest from pride.