The Corps I - Semper Fi Read online

  PFC McCoy did not respond.

  "If you did plead guilty to either of the lesser included offenses," Banning said, "the court-martial board would then decide on the punishment. No matter what they decided, the sentence would be reviewed both by the colonel and by General Butler, both of whom have the authority to reduce it."

  "Sir, it was self-defense," McCoy said.

  "Let me try to explain this to you," Banning said. "You would be better off if you had knifed two American Marines. But you killed two Italian marines, and they have to do something about it. The Italian Consul General and the Italian marine colonel are going to be at your court-martial. They want to be able to report that the U.S. Marine who killed two of their marines was found guilty and will be punished. Am I getting through to you?"

  "Sir, it was self-defense," McCoy repeated doggedly.

  "You don't have any witnesses," Banning said.

  "There was the rickshaw boy and twenty, thirty Chinese that saw it."

  "How do you plan to find them?" Banning asked.

  McCoy shrugged his shoulders. "Ask around, I suppose."

  There was no sense arguing with him, Banning decided. He just didn't understand the situation.

  "Let me tell you what I think is going to happen," he said. "I think I can get Major DeLaney to accept a plea of guilty to a charge of manslaughter. You will be sentenced, and you might as well understand this, the sentence will be stiff. Maybe twenty years to life."

  "Jesus Christ!" McCoy said.

  "That will satisfy the Italians," Banning said. "You understand that's necessary?"

  McCoy gave him a cold look but said nothing.

  "The sentence is then subject to review by the colonel," Banning said. "He will take his time reviewing it, I think, to let things cool off a little. Then, he will decide that you're not really guilty of manslaughter, but of the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter, and he will reduce the punishment accordingly."

  "To what?"

  " 'To what, sir,' " Banning corrected him.

  "To what, sir?" McCoy repeated, dutifully.

  "The maximum punishment for involuntary manslaughter is five years."

  "I've heard about Mare Island and Portsmouth," McCoy said, grim faced.

  He had not appended "sir" as military courtesy required, but Banning did not correct him. It was Banning's personal opinion that the Naval Prisons at Mare Island, California, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the brutality under Marine guards was legendary, were a disgrace to the Marine Corps.

  "The next step in the process," Banning went on, "is the review of the sentence by General Butler. I think it's very possible that General Butler would reduce the sentence even further, say to one year's confinement. And then, by the time you got to the states, the Navy Department would review the sentence still again, and I'm sure that they would pay attention both to your previous service and to the letters recommending clemency that your company and battalion commanders tell me they will write in your behalf. Your sentence could then be reduced again to time already served."

  "In other words, sir," McCoy said, with a "sir" that bordered on silent insubordination, "I could count on being a busted Marine looking for a new home?''

  "For Christ's sake, McCoy, you killed two people! You can't expect to get off scot-free!"

  "Sir," PFC McCoy said, "no disrespect intended, but they gave me the court-martial manual to read, and in there it says I can have the defense counsel of my choice."

  Banning felt his temper rise. The sonofabitch was a guardhouse lawyer on top of everything else.

  "That is your right," he said, stiffly. "Who would you like to have defend you?"

  "My company commander, sir."

  "You can't have him, because he is your company commander. Neither can you have your platoon leader.''

  "Then Lieutenant Kaye, sir, the assistant supply officer."

  With a massive effort, Captain Banning kept his temper under control.

  "McCoy," he said. "I'm going to give you twenty-four hours to think this over. I want you to carefully consider your position."

  "Yes, sir," PFC McCoy said.

  (Three)

  On the way to his office from the infirmary, Captain Banning's anger rose. Among other things, he was going to look like a goddamned fool in front of the colonel when he had to go to him and tell him this knife-wielding PFC had refused his services as defense counsel. It was of course the kid's right, but Banning could not remember ever hearing of anything like this happening.

  And PFC McCoy was not doing himself any good. If he went to trial and pleaded not guilty, he was digging his own grave. He was not being tried for stabbing the two Italians, but to make the point to the other Marines that they couldn't go around killing people.

  If he went along with that, in three months he would be a free man at San Diego or Quantico, with only the loss of a stripe to show for having killed two men.

  If he annoyed the court-martial board, they would very likely conclude that he was somebody who needed to be taught a lesson and sock him with a heavy sentence. If the colonel was annoyed, he would find nothing wrong with the sentence when it was reviewed. And if General Butler smelled that McCoy was a troublemaker, he wouldn't find anything wrong with the sentence, either.

  PFC McCoy stood a very good chance of finding himself locked up in the Portsmouth Naval Prison for thirty years to life.

  Captain Banning's rage lasted through lunch. And then he considered the situation from McCoy's point of view. The kid actually believed-since it was the truth-that he had acted in self-defense. It was therefore his own duty, Banning decided, to at least pursue that as far as it would go.

  To prove self-defense he would need witnesses. The only witnesses right now were two Italian marines. They were prepared to testify that they were minding their own business when McCoy drew a knife on them, whereupon one of their number drew a pistol in self-defense.

  When he went back to his office after lunch, Banning told his clerk to see if he could get a car from the motor pool. He had to go into town.

  Banning hoped to find Bruce Fairbairn at the headquarters of the Shanghai Municipal Police. He knew him, and could explain the problem to him. But when he got to police headquarters, Fairbairn was not available, and neither was Chief Inspector Thwaite, who was the only other Shanghai Police officer he knew well enough to speak to with complete frankness.

  He wound up talking to a Detective Sergeant Chatworth. Chat worth sat at an old wooden desk covered with papers. As Banning approached, he shuffled angrily through them, searching for something he had apparently mislaid.

  Banning introduced himself and told him what he had come for.

  "Right," Chatworth said, looking at Banning with a screwed-up face. He seemed surprised to hear Banning's story. "You Yanks always seem to have to wear white," he said after a moment while searching through his pocket for a near-empty package of vile Chinese cigarettes. "Fag?" he offered, holding one out.

  "Thanks, no," Banning said.

  "I mean, Christ," he went on, lighting up. "Don't you have any loyalty towards your own? For the sake of Italians? Really!" He inhaled deep, savoring it. Then blew out. "And besides, I know the boy. McCoy is a good one. Protect him. You don't find his class all that often."

  "That may be." Banning shrugged, stiffening. He did not like Chatworth very much. "But Italian pride has been badly hurt. They've gone to the foreign service boys at the consulate. One thing has led to the other. And the consequence is that there is nothing we can do but court-martial PFC McCoy.

  "And then on top of that," Banning continued, "McCoy is being difficult. He thinks he did it all in self-defense; and he simply refuses to understand that without witnesses, he can't possibly get away with that plea."

  "So?" Chatworth said, beginning to understand.

  "And so, Sergeant, I'm desperate. Could you people possibly help us and see if you can find some Chinese who (a) saw the fight and (b) would be
willing to testify in McCoy's behalf at his court-martial?"

  Rather abruptly, Detective Sergeant Chatworth turned his attention back to his papers.

  "I'll look into the matter," he said, dropping the now-dead cigarette on the floor and snuffing it out with his heel. "And I'll be in touch with you in due course."

  Banning saw that Chatworth did not like him any more than he liked Chatworth. And Banning also realized that Chatworth knew even better than he did that there was virtually no chance of finding a Chinese who would be willing to testify that he had seen the fight between the Big Noses. And it would matter to the Chinese not at all that the U.S. Marine Big Nose had clearly been the aggrieved party. Detective Sergeant Chatworth had abruptly dismissed him because he was wasting Detective Sergeant Chatworth's valuable time.

  Banning did not go back to the office. He went to the apartment. Mil la was there, giving a Chinese woman hell because she had not ironed several of Banning's shirts to what Milla thought were Marine sartorial standards. She was acting wifely, and that upset him, too, and he got drunk.

  And he told Milla about McCoy.

  She was sympathetic. To him. She felt sorry for him that he had a problem with McCoy.

  Later she consoled him in bed, which was usually enough to make him happy as hell. But not this time.

  As he watched her get dressed to go to work, he tormented himself with fantasies of other men watching her naked, as she was now. And touching her naked flesh, as he had just done… which was sure as hell going to happen if he didn't marry her and get himself booted out of the Corps.

  After she left, he hit the whiskey again, and ended up with some drunken ideas. He could go to trial and try to play on the sympathy of the court-martial board, paint PFC McCoy as a saint in uniform who was the innocent party in this whole mess. He could try to convince the court-martial that the reason PFC McCoy went around with a Fairbairn dagger in his sleeve was that he collected butterflies. He'd throw the fucking knife at them and-pin their wings. The poor fucking Wops had fallen onto the blade of the knife when they slipped on a banana peel.

  (Four)

  At eight- fifteen the next morning, as Captain Banning drank his third Coca-Cola of the day in a vain attempt to extinguish the fire in his stomach, his clerk came into his office with the first batch of the day's official correspondence from the message center.

  Among the items which required his initials was a communication from Headquarters, United States Marine Corps: A promotion board having been convened to consider candidates for promotion to the grade of corporal had reached the end of its deliberations. There were thirty names on the list and there were twelve vacancies within the Marine Corps for corporals. Therefore, commanding officers of the first twelve names on the list were herewith directed to issue promotion orders for the individuals concerned. As additional vacancies occurred, authority would be granted to promote individuals on the list numbers 13 through 30.

  The second name on the list was PFC Kenneth J. McCoy, Company "D," 4th Marines.

  The Navy, and thus the Marine Corps, was governed by common law of the United States, and a pillar of that code of justice was that an accused was presumed innocent until proven guilty.

  The colonel had just been directed by Hq, USMC, to promote PFC McCoy to Corporal McCoy, an action that would be very difficult to explain to the colonel commanding the Italian marines and to the Consul General of the King of Italy at Shanghai. It would look as if the punishment for stabbing to death two Italians was promotion to corporal.

  Captain Banning wondered whether it was his duty to bring the problem to the colonel's attention himself, or whether the S-l would consider it part of his duty as personnel officer. Most likely, the problem would skip the G-l's attention, Banning decided. The Colonel was going to be furious when he found out about this, and the S-l knew it, too.

  He was still considering the problem, and half expecting his telephone to ring with a call from either the S-l or the colonel's sergeant-major, when his clerk knocked at the door, put his head in, and announced that Detective Sergeant Chatworth and two Chinese were in the outer office.

  As incredible as it sounded, had Chatworth turned up two witnesses? In so short a time?

  "Ask him to come in, please." Banning said.

  Chatworth came in with two coolies. Banning's heart sank again. The court-martial would not take the word of two coolies over that of two Italian marines.

  "Good morning, Captain," Detective Sergeant Chatworth said. "May I present Constable Hang Chee and Senior Patrolman Kin Tong?"

  The two coolies bowed their heads.

  "Constable Hang and Patrolman Kin were fortunately in a position to see the McCoy incident from start to finish. Tell the captain what you saw, Hang."

  Constable Hang spoke English very softly, but well. He reported that PFC McCoy had just stepped out of his rickshaw near the compound gate when he was beset by the five Italians and had no choice but to defend himself.

  "He was three blocks from the compound," Banning said, "when four Italian marines overturned the rickshaw."

  "Now that you mention it," Constable Hang said, "that's right. There were four Italian marines and the assault took place several blocks from the compound entrance."

  It was clear to Banning that they had no more seen the fight than he had.

  "What's going on, Sergeant Chatworth?" Banning asked.

  "You wanted witnesses, I found them," Chatworth said. "Will a sworn statement suffice, do you think, or will these officers have to testify in court?"

  I don't want McCoy to go to Portsmouth, either. But I am a Marine officer, and I can't close my eyes and pretend I believe Chatworth's Chinese.

  "I could not put these men on the stand," Banning said, disliking Chatworth more than ever. "I think you misunderstood the purpose of my visit yesterday."

  "You're a bloody fool, then, Banning," Chatworth said, coldly.

  "Good day, Sergeant Chatworth," Banning said.

  "I'll send the report of these officers concerning the incident they witnessed to you via the British Consulate," Chatworth said. "It'll take two, three days to get here, I'd suppose."

  "I told you: as much as I might personally like to, I can't put these men on the stand."

  "Why not?" Chatworth asked.

  "Being very blunt, I'm not sure I believe your men. Goddamn it, I know I don't believe them."

  "That's not really for you to decide, is it?" Chatworth said. "And, if you don't let these men testify, wouldn't that be 'suppression of evidence'?"

  "Why the hell are you doing this?" Banning asked.

  "We're just doing our duty as we see it," Chatworth said, sarcastically. "I can only hope that you're not one of those bloody fools who doesn't know he's in Shanghai and thinks he can go by the bloody book."

  "How dare you talk to me that way?" Banning flared.

  "What are you going to do about it?" Chatworth asked calmly.

  "I tell you now, Sergeant Chatworth, that I intend to discuss this with Captain Fairbairn."

  "Odd that you should mention his name," Chatworth said. "Constable Wang and Patrolman Kin are members of Captain Fairbairn's Flying Squad."

  Banning's temper flared. He reached for the telephone, actually intending to call Fairbairn. But reason prevailed. He instead had the operator connect him with the colonel.

  "Sir," he said. "There has been a rather startling development. When PFC McCoy was attacked by the Italian Marines, the whole incident was witnessed' by two Chinese police officers of Captain Fairbairn's Flying Squad. They are prepared to testify that it was clearly a case of self-defense."

  "That's bloody well more like it," Detective Sergeant Chatworth said.

  Chapter 2

  (One)

  4th Marine Infirmary Shanghai, China 6 January 1941

  PFC Kenneth J. McCoy, wearing issue pajamas and a bathrobe, was stretched out on his bed working at a crossword puzzle in the Shanghai Post when Captain Banning walked into hi
s room. Banning saw that they had brought him his breakfast on a tray, and that he had eaten little of it.

  "As you were," Banning said, as McCoy started to swing his legs out of the bed.

  McCoy looked at him warily.

  "I want a straight answer to this question, McCoy," Banning began. "How well do you know a Sergeant Chatworth of the Shanghai Municipal Police?"

  McCoy, Banning noticed with annoyance, debated answering the question before replying, "I know him, sir."

  "Good friend of yours, is he?" Banning pursued.

  "I wouldn't say that, sir," McCoy said. "I know him."

  "Sergeant Chatworth has come up with two witnesses to support your allegation of self-defense," Banning said. "They saw the six Italians attack you when you got out of the rickshaw at the compound gate."

  McCoy's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

  This is a very bright young man, Banning thought. Bright and tough, who knows when to keep his mouth shut.

  "The two witnesses were Chinese police officers of Captain Fairbairn’s Flying Squad," Banning went on. "They have appeared before the adjutant and made sworn statements. The statements bring the number of Italian marines down to four, and say that your rickshaw was turned over where you said it was."

  McCoy looked at Captain Banning without expression.

  "The statements are so much bullshit, of course," Banning said, "and you know it."

  "Sir, so were the statements of the Italians."

  "The first thing I thought, McCoy, was that you and Chatworth were involved in something dishonest, and it was a case of one crook helping another. But I just came from seeing Captain Fairbairn, and he tells me that Chatworth is a good man. Off the record, he told me that if Chatworth was getting you out of the mess you're in, that speaks highly for you, because he doesn't normally do things like that."

  "I don't know, sir, what you expect me to say," McCoy said.

  "You think I'm a sonofabitch, don't you?"