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. . here’s luck.”
    Mitchell said, “Thank you, sir,” and went on down the ladder into the motor sailer.
     When he sat down and leaned against the gunwale , a sharp edge of the whisky bottle gouged him through his pack. He moved uncomfortably.
    They watched the ship shorten and crouch into the waves. The smoldering city grew
     larger as they picked their way through the multitudinous launches and ships.
    With a jingle of bells, the motor sailer swerved in toward the float and a sailor
     bounced out to hold the boat. Mitchell and Toughey got out.
    “So long,” said the coxswain.
    “So long,” said Mitchell.
    They walked up the ramp to the dock and marched around piled war supplies to reach
     the bustling street beyond.
    Behind them, the USS Miami had vanished through a screen of Japanese war vessels and low-lying smoke.

Chapter Four
    L IAOCHOW presented a bleak picture to Mitchell and Spivits, one they had seen many times before
     in other longitudes. The last bombardment of the city had taken place not thirty-six
     hours before and just now impressed Chinese and commandeered trucks were beginning
     to fumble through the wreckage.
    Corpses in various stages of completeness and the fragments thereof were being tossed
     helter-skelter into conveyances. Dismal crews were poking into the rubble of fallen
     walls, unearthing chunks of this and that and adding them to the battered and tattered
     cargoes.
    Troop lorries and moistly burdened trucks alternated on the westerly road from town
     and the two sea-soldiers in green were forced to stop time and again to keep from
     being run down.
    Toughey Spivits manfully bore up under the sixty-pound keg. The weight of rifle and
     pack, added to this, drew the sweat from his broad brow and took his wind.
    They were in a suburb of the town when Mitchell called a halt so that he could choose
     between two roadways. Toughey thumped the keg to the ground and sat upon it, swabbing
     out his cap band and then selecting a cigarette from it.
    “Wonder what’s in this thing,” said Toughey, scratching a match on the keg.
    “Never mind what’s in it,” replied Mitchell. “All I know is, it’s going to Shunkien
     and in Shunkien it’ll arrive. This is Tuesday, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah,” said Toughey.
    “My orders is that we get this to Shunkien on Saturday. We got to average fifty miles
     a day.”
    “Fifty miles a day!” growled Toughey. “Hell, Sarge, we can’t hoof it that fast. Not
     with this damned thing draggin’ me down like a sea anchor . It just ain’t human, that’s what.”
    “Who said anything about anybody bein’ human?” replied Mitchell. “If your scuppers are under , I’ll take it.”
    “Hell, it ain’t heavy. Do I hear guns?”
    “It isn’t a symphony orchestra, that’s a cinch. They must be fighting out there someplace.”
    “How we going to get through a battle?”
    Mitchell shrugged. “How we going to get through two battles? Say, wait a minute. Don’t say I never take care of my troops.”
    Mitchell let out a string of Chinese and walked across the street. Toughey watched
     him approach an alleyway and then come back with two scared coolies in the shafts
     of two dusty rickshaws.
    “Stow your cargo,” said Mitchell, “and mount rickshaw.”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” said Toughey with enthusiasm. He thumped the keg to the footboards
     and clambered in.
    The two big coolies failed to understand anything about this. The two men in green
     uniforms were certainly white and therefore not Japanese, but what were white men
     in green uniforms doing in shattered Liaochow?

    The two big coolies failed to understand anything about this. The two men in green
     uniforms were certainly white and therefore not Japanese, but what were white men
     in green uniforms doing in shattered Liaochow?
    Mitchell barked a string of Chinese commands and the coolies bent their backs and
     trotted off. Toughey sat back and viewed the scenery.
    “This ain’t bad,”