"Six weeks is long enough, don't you think? Don't you think that six weeks has changed you forever?"

"Oh, Christ," Moore said, and heard himself chuckle. "Yes, Sir, I think I have been permanently changed."

"For what it's worth," Sessions went on, "I've learned that you get back from the Corps whatever you put into it. Sometimes a little more."

He believes that This man is not a fool, not one of the cretinous savages they make into drill sergeants. He's well educated-Christ, talking about Franz Kafka and Everyman at Parris Island I And he speaks Japanese, and not at all badly. And whatever this is they want me to do, it's important He really did come down here to see me from Washington.

And what happens if I say 'no'? Since it is important, then obviously they will be annoyed that I have refused So far as they're concerned, I'm a Marine and Marines do whatever they are asked, or told to do I will have, so to speak, in their judgment, let the side down. And equally obviously, the consequences of that would be very unpleasant Am I a Marine? Why do I have the insane urge to go along with this?

Possibly because he is the first man in authority to talk to me as if I were a human being, perhaps even an intellectual equal, since I got on that fucking train from Yemassee to Port Royal Fuck it! Why not? What the fuck have I got to lose? The fuckers are right, my fucking ass really does belong to the fucking Marine Corps!

Why, John Marston Moore! Listen to your language!

"Yes, Sir," Moore said. "Whatever it is you want me to do, Sir, is fine with me."

He had no idea what sort of response his patriotic, "Aye, Aye, Sir! Semper Fi, Sir! We Are All Marines In This Together, Sir!" decision would produce in Captain Sessions, but the one he got was not at all what he expected: "OK," Sessions said, matter-of-factly, even coldly. "That's it. But don't feel noble. What you just did made you a sergeant and got you five days at home. If you had decided the other way, you would have been on a plane tomorrow as a private."

"Yes, Sir," Moore said, more as a reflex action than a reply.

"This is very serious business, and we can't take any chances with it whatever. Between now and tomorrow, I will come up with some sort of credible story for you to tell your parents when you go home. But from this moment on, you're operating under a whole new set of restrictions. For example, you will not tell anyone that you were pulled out of boot camp and made a sergeant, or that you even met me. If anyone asks you any questions, your response will be, simply, 'I'm sorry, I can't talk about that.' Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Just so that I'm sure you understand me, that includes everybody here, including Major Humphrey. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

Sessions got up, walked to the door, and opened it.

"Major Humphrey? May I see you a moment, please, Sir?"

Humphrey came into his office, uneasy, Moore saw, about taking his own chair behind his desk.

"Something I can do for you, Captain?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir. There are several things I'd be grateful if you would do for me. From this point on, you will consider this conversation classified TOP SECRET."

"OK," Humphrey said. Moore had the feeling that Humphrey had only with effort kept himself from saying 'Yes, Sir.' There was now a tone of command, I Will Be Obeyed, in Sessions's voice that had not been there before.

"Sergeant Moore will not be returning to his platoon," Sessions said. "I will take his service records jacket with me..."

"Sergeant Moore?" Major Humphrey interrupted.

Captain Sessions ignored him. "In the next day or two, there will be a TWX from Enlisted Personnel routinely transferring him. You are to discuss the circumstances of Sergeant Moore's departure with no one."

"I understand, Captain," Humphrey said. "Colonel Westman, the G-2, has asked me for an after action report."

"I'll go see Colonel Westman when I leave here. You are not to tell him anything. I'll make sure he understands that I'm responsible for that decision."

"Whatever you say, Captain."

"I don't want the people in his platoon, boots or Drill Instructors, discussing the unusual circumstances of Sergeant Moore's departure," Sessions said. "Do you see any problem there?"

"No, that can be handled, I think. I'll have to tell my sergeant major something. You understand, he will be curious."

"OK. Tell him that there's been an administrative fuck-up-that shouldn't surprise him-and that we're quietly trying to make it right. I would rather you talk to him than me. And also, by the time Sergeant Moore and I get on the courier plane in the morning, I want him to be wearing the insignia of his rank. Which means that someone is going to have to go to his platoon and get his gear and run the shirts and blouses past a seamstress."

"I think the Gunny can handle that without trouble, Captain," Humphrey said.

"Another practical matter. Where is Sergeant Moore going to spend the night?"

"There's a guest house. I don't suppose too many eyebrows would be raised if he was in one of those rooms. He could be waiting for his wife, or mother, whatever."

"Particularly if he went to his room and stayed there until I fetched him in the morning, right?"

Humphrey nodded.

"How is he going to eat?"

"There's a snack bar," Humphrey said.

"Could I stay there, too?"

"It's an enlisted guest house," Humphrey said.

"OK. I'll get a room in the transient BOQ. Moore, you will be taken to the guest house. Your gear will be delivered to you there. You will take supper and breakfast in the guest house. You will not leave your room for any other purpose. I will fetch you at about eight-thirty tomorrow morning. You are to make no telephone calls, or communicate with anyone but myself. I will get you a number where I can be reached. Clear?"

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Questions?" Sessions asked.

Christ, he thought, I sound just like Colonel Rickabee.

There were no questions.

(Four) ENLISTED GUEST HOUSE.

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT.

PARRIS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA.

0730 HOURS 16 JUNE 1942.

Sergeant John Marston Moore was unable to resist the temptation to examine himself carefully in the cheap and somewhat distorting full-length mirror mounted on the door of the closet in his room at the guest house.

He had last examined himself in a small and even more distorting mirror in the head of his barracks twenty-six hours before, after shaving. What had then looked back at him was a hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked individual in baggy utilities. He had looked very much like every other boot in his platoon, except that he was taller than most of them, and the weight loss and musculature hardening of the physical conditioning had made him look skinnier.

What looked back at him now was a sergeant of the United States Marine Corps, wearing a stiffly starched khaki shirt and a sharply creased green uniform. He moved slightly, so that his left shoulder pointed at the mirror and looked at the reflection of his new chevrons.

Then he met his eyes in the mirror and shook his head. He looked closer. He still had what he thought of as a "boot head"-a head an electric clipper had shorn of all hair, down to the skin, in ninety seconds. His head was by no means recovered from that outrage.

With the boot head I still look like a boot.

He went to the double bed where he had passed the night, picked up his fore-and-aft cap, put that on, and examined himself in the mirror again. That was better. The cap concealed the top of his head from view.

He had woken in the bed at four o'clock, conditioned by six weeks of waking at that hour to the shrill blast of a whistle and the ritual admonition to drop his cock and pick up his socks.

For a moment, he hadn't known where he was, for the room was pitch dark. There had always been some kind of light in the squad bay, if only what came into the long, narrow, and crowded room from the head. And then he had remembered what happened, out of the blue, the previous afternoon.

They would have wondered, the guys in the platoon, what the fuck had happened to Moore, J. He was known as Moore, J. because there were two Moores in his platoon. The other one, from Connecticut, was Moore, A. Moore, J. had never learned what Moore, A.'s "A" had stood for.

"What the fuck happened to Moore, J.?"

"Who the fuck knows. They sent for him. Company, I think."

"What the fuck did he do?"

"Who the fuck knows?"

Eventually, someone's curiosity would overwhelm his good sense and he would ask, waiting until he thought one of the DI's assistants was in an unusually kind mood.

"Sir, permission to speak, Sir?"

"Speak, Asshole."

"Sir, whatever happened to Moore, J., Sir?"

"If the Marine Corps wanted you to know, Asshole, I would have told you. What are you doing, Asshole, writing a book?"

"Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

He had not been able to get back to sleep. After a while, he had gotten out of the double bed and stood at the window in his underwear and looked out at the deserted streets.

Then the sounds of mating had come through the thin walls from the next room. He remembered hearing them the night before, waking him about half past nine. Someone, he had thought, was making up for lost time.

It had been funny for a moment... and then somehow erotic, as his mind's eye filled with what was going on next door. And then finally it was terribly sad, although he didn't quite understand why that should be the case. The Marine Corps, he had noticed from signs at the Reception Desk, seemed determined that no Marine should share one of its Parris Island Enlisted Guest House rooms with a lady to whom he was not legally joined in marriage.

He hadn't thought much about sex since he'd been at Parris Island. For one thing, there hadn't been time to think about sex or anything else. For another, he had always been exhausted; he had woken up exhausted. And he thought it was possible... he had learned that at Parris Island anything was possible... that they did indeed lace the chow with saltpeter as the folklore had it.

There was a knock at the door. He looked at it in astonishment. Since he had been at Parris Island, closed doors, what few of them there were, had been flung open whenever they were noticed. The door opened. It was the Sergeant Major. "Good morning," the Sergeant Major said. "You're up."

"Yes, Sir."

The Sergeant Major smiled. He was a bald, barrel-chested man, whose blouse wore the hash marks, one for each four years of service, of two decades in the Marine Corps.

"Sergeant, sergeants do not say 'Sir' to other sergeants," he said. "Only boots do that."

Moore took off his fore-and-aft cap and rubbed his boot head.

"It'll grow back," the Sergeant Major, understanding the gesture, chuckled. "Keep your cap on when you can. Let's catch some breakfast."

Moore had been given a room on the upper floor of the two-story, newly constructed, frame building. As he followed the Sergeant Major down the stairs to the first floor, they ran into Captain Sessions coming up.

"Good morning, Sir," the Sergeant Major said. "I thought I would make sure that Sergeant Moore got his breakfast."

"My mission, too," Sessions said. "The corporal in the BOQ said it would be all right for me to eat in the snack bar."

"Yes, Sir. It's run by the Base Exchange. Neutral territory."

"Good morning, Moore. You packed?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then let's eat."

"Would I be in the way, Sir?" the Sergeant Major asked.

"Not at all," Sessions said.

"I've got a staff car, too, Sir. I thought I could take you and Sergeant Moore to the airfield. And then you could turn Colonel Westman's car loose."

"Fine," Sessions said.

"I always feel sorry for colonels who have to walk, Sir," the Sergeant Major said, solemnly.

"I'm sure you do, Sergeant Major," Sessions said, and then laughed. "Take Moore to the snack bar, and I'll go tell the colonel's driver he can go."

The breakfast fare was simple, but the eggs and the hash-brown potatoes were served on plates, and they sat at chairs at four-place tables covered with white oil cloth, and the china coffee mug had a handle; and that combined to make it, Moore thought, the most elegant meal he'd had since he left Philadelphia.

And there was something else. A newspaper. The Charleston Gazette. He hadn't seen a newspaper since coming to Parris Island, either.

There was a photograph on the front page of a tall, skinny American officer, a lieutenant general, Moore could now tell. He was seated at a table on what looked like a porch, wearing a tieless, mussed khaki shirt. There were three other American officers sitting with him. On the other side of the table were Japanese officers.

JAPS RELEASE PHOTO OF WAINWRIGHT SURRENDER, the headline over the picture said. Under it, the caption read: "War Department officials confirmed that Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright, U.S. Commander in the Philippines, sits (center, left) in this photograph, which the Japanese claim depicts General Wainwright's surrender to Japanese General Mashaharu Homma (center, right) May 5. The photo was obtained via neutral Sweden."

"That's a bitch, isn't it?" the Sergeant Major said, tightly.

"I think that must be the toughest thing an officer ever has to do," Sessions said. "God, what a humiliation!"

"It was on the radio last night that General Sharp surrendered Mindanao," the Sergeant Major said. "That's it. The Japs now own the Philippines."

"I know some of the people who are now prisoners," Sessions said, sounding as if he was thinking aloud, "if they're still alive."

"Yes, Sir, I know," the Sergeant Major said.

"How do you know that?" Sessions asked.

Moore sensed that Sessions had been made uneasy by the apparently innocent statement and wondered why.