"Well, I'll be damned," a male voice boomed from be-side the wide staircase. "Look what the tide washed up!"
Without realizing he was doing it-literally a Pavlovian reaction-McCoy saluted the tall, stocky, erect, starting-to-bald man, who had a blond eight-year-old boy strad-dling his neck.
"Colonel," he said.
"Goddamn, Ken, you of all people know me well enough to call me by my name."
He walked quickly to McCoy, his hand extended to shake McCoy's, then changed his mind and embraced him.
"It's good to see you," McCoy said.
"Come on in the house, Stanley'll take care of the bags and the car. I think a small-hell, large-libation is in or-der."
He looked at his wife, who was coming around the front of the car with her arm around Ernie McCoy.
"Hey, beautiful lady," he called. "Welcome to Charleston."
"Hello, Ed," Ernie said. "Thank you, it's good to be here."
They all went up the stairs as Stanley, the dignified black man, and a younger black man came down the stairs.
"I put the wine in the sitting room, Colonel," he said to Banning.
"Just the wine?"
"No, sir," Stanley said. "Not just the wine."
"Good man, Stanley."
"These glasses are... exquisite," Ernie said, as Ed Ban-ning poured champagne in her engraved crystal glass.
"They've been in the family a long time," Mother Ban-ning said. "We only bring them out for special people."
"Thank you," Ernie said.
"The general bought them in Europe before the war," Mother Banning said. "On his wedding trip."
Ed Banning saw the confusion on Ernie's face.
"Mother refers, of course, to the War of Secession," he said. "These glasses spent the war buried on the island, which always made me wonder if my great-grandfather had as much faith in the inevitable victory of the Confeder-acy as he professed at the time."
"Edward, what a terrible thing to say," Mother Banning said.
"Mother, as it says in the Good Book, the `truth shall make you free.'"
There was polite laughter.
"Speaking of the truth," Banning said. "Let me get this out of the way before we get down to serious drinking. The general called-Ken's and my general, Mother-and let me know what's going on. We're family, in my mind...."
"And mine," Luddy said. `This family wouldn't be here if it weren't for our savior."
"Hear, hear," Banning said. "Anyway, I want you both to know that what's ours is yours, anything we can do to help, we will, and we can either talk about it or not. Your choice."
"I'm going to cry," Ernie said.
"Drink your booze," Colonel Banning said, and then had another thought: "One more thing, Ken. Ernie Zimmerman, the best-dressed master gunner in the Marine Corps."
"What about him?"
"I wanted to ask you before I asked him and Mae-Su down from Beaufort. You want to see him?"
"Wouldn't that be an imposition?" Ernie asked. "Ken and I talked about going down there to see them on our way to California."
"You weren't listening, beautiful lady," Colonel Banning said. He turned to the butler, who was in the act of opening a second bottle of Moet et Chandon extra brut. "Stanley, see if you can get Mister Zimmerman on the horn for me, will you?"
"Mae-Su is my sister, Ernie," Luddy Banning said, in gentle reproof. "She is always welcome in our home."
Master Gunner Ernest W. Zimmerman, USMC, his wife Mae-Su, and their five children arrived at 66 South Battery two hours later. At Mae-Su's insistence, the entire family was dressed in a manner Mrs. Zimmerman felt was appro-priate to visit-as she described them privately to her hus-band1-"the ladies in Charleston."
The four males of the family-Father, thirty-four; Peter, thirteen; Stephen, twelve; and John, seven-were wearing identical seersucker suits. The three females-Mae-Su, thirty-three; Mary, six; and Ernestine, three-were wear-ing nearly identical summer linen dresses.
The dresses and suits had all been cut and sewn by the Chinese wife of another Parris Island Marine-this one a staff sergeant drill instructor-who had gone to the Shang-hai Palace restaurant in Beaufort, South Carolina, hoping to find employment as a cook-for that matter, anything at all; she needed the income-on the basis that she had been born and raised in Shanghai.
The proprietor, Mae-Su Zimmerman, was not interested in a cook, but she was looking for a seamstress. The DI's wife-who had met her husband in Tientsin, China, right af-ter World War II-came from a family of tailors and seam-stresses. After passing two tests, first making, from a picture in the society section of the Charleston Post-Gazette, a dress for Mrs. Zimmerman, and then, from the Brooks Brothers mail-order catalog, a suit for Master Gunner Zimmerman, Joi-Hu McCarthy went into business with Mrs. Zimmer-man, who became a silent (40 percent) partner in Shanghai Custom Tailors and Alterations, of Beaufort, South Carolina.
Mrs. Zimmerman was also a silent partner in several other Chinese-flavored businesses in Beaufort as well as the proprietor of the local hamburger emporium, and the franchisee of Hertz Rent-A-Car.
The Ford station wagon in which the Zimmerman fam-ily appeared at 66 South Battery, properly attired for a visit to the ladies, belonged to Hertz of Beaufort.
Luddy Banning and Mae-Su Zimmerman embraced with understated, but still visible, deep affection. Mae-Su had been Luddy's midwife by the side of the dirt road in Mon-golia when she had given birth to Edward Edwardovich Banning.
In Cantonese, Mrs. Zimmerman inquired of Mrs. Ban-ning, "Does the Killer know we know?"
"My husband told them," Luddy replied in Cantonese.
"Sometimes I hate the U.S. Marine Corps," Mae-Su said.
"Me, too. But they are married to it," Luddy said.
The children were gathered and ushered up the stairs to-ward Mother Banning, who waited for them. She told them they all looked elegant, and gave each a kiss and a pepper-mint candy.
"The Colonel and the Killer are downstairs, Ernie," Luddy said to Master Gunner Zimmerman.
"How is he?"
"Better than I thought he would be when I heard," Luddy said.
"That don't look like no Marine master gunner to me," McCoy said when Zimmerman walked into what was known as "The Colonel's study," although it was in fact more of a bar than a study. "That looks like an ambulance chaser."
That was not exactly the truth. Despite the splendidly tailored Brooks Brothers-style seersucker suit, white button-down-collar shirt, and red striped necktie, there was something about Zimmerman that suggested he was not a member of the bar, but rather a Marine in civvies. He was a squat, muscular, barrel-chested man, deeply tanned, and his hair was closely cropped to his skull.
"Screw you, Captain, sir," Zimmerman said, walking to him, and grabbing his neck in a bear hug.
"How they hanging, Ernie?" McCoy asked, freeing him-self.
"A little lower every year," Zimmerman said.
"Help yourself, Ernie," Banning said, gesturing toward an array of bottles in a bookcase.
"Thank you, sir. What are you-"
"Famous Grouse," Banning said.
"What else?" Zimmerman asked, chuckling.
"And we have been marching down memory lane," Ban-ning said.
"Yeah? Which memory lane?"
"Guess who's at Pendleton?" Banning asked.
Zimmerman shrugged.