Orders Is Orders Read Online Free Page B

said Toughey. “Why the hell hasn’t a landing party thought of this
     before? Say, do you suppose Davis would let me stow this guy away for future reference?”
    Mitchell stretched out his long legs and lay back. “I don’t know how long this is
     going to last, but while it does, it’s the cat’s .”
    The rickshaws rolled to the slap of bare feet. The big North Chinese were as tireless
     as a team of Clydes . The muscles in their glistening backs rippled and they trotted with the rhythm of
     metronomes.
    The plains behind the city stretched out endlessly in all directions, strewn at intervals
     with the debris of war. The rear-guard action of the departing Chinese had not been
     without its casualties. Dogs and pigs wandered aimlessly through the fields. Occasionally
     the Marines passed a peasant sitting with head in hands beside the road, looking up
     bleakly and blankly at the strange foreign devils.
    All went well for many kilometers and then the growing rumble of shellfire became
     very plain. It was five o’clock in the afternoon but the sun had long been hidden
     in the war-thickened air, and it was now twilight.
    Rounding a curve in the road, they came upon the rear of the still-fighting Japanese
     army.
    A cluster of huts, dwarfed by stacks of war supplies, was peopled by the soldiers
     in mustard.
    Magically, a cordon of Japanese troops stretched with glittering bayonets before them.
    “Halt,” said Mitchell, rather belatedly as the coolies had already stopped in shivering
     dismay.
    A taii , gaudy with red bands, stepped forward and snapped, “ Doko e yuku !”
    “What’s he talkin’ about?” growled Toughey.
    “That’s one lingo I don’t sling,” said Mitchell.
    Toughey snorted. “Looks like an organ grinder’s monkey, damned if he don’t!”
    “Ah,” bristled the Japanese staff lieutenant, “so I look like a monkey, eh?”
    “Yeah,” said Toughey, feebly.
    “Shut up,” said Mitchell. “Lieutenant, you will please remove your troops from across
     the road in order that we may pass.”
    “Pass? So you wish to pass? And where do you think you are going?” The lieutenant’s
     black brows lifted in mock surprise. “Perhaps you are carrying messages to the Chinese,
     eh? Perhaps you have contraband of war there, eh? No, no, it is impossible that you
     pass.”
    Mitchell stepped out of the rickshaw. Standing very straight-backed, he was head and
     shoulders above the lieutenant.
    “Sir,” said Mitchell, carefully, “I am Gunnery Sergeant James Mitchell of the United
     States Marines, in command of a landing party from the cruiser Miami of the Asiatic Station. My destination is the United States Consulate at Shunkien.
     You will please remove your troops instantly.”
    The lieutenant carried a little stick and he tried to tie it into knots. “A sergeant!
     A sergeant and you dare speak to a ranking officer in this manner? How dare—”
    “Get this,” said Mitchell. “A private in the United States Marines would rank an admiral
     in the Japanese Navy. Unless you order your troops to retire instantly, I shall be
     forced to report interference with the duties and operations of a landing party on
     a peaceful mission. Of course, if you wish to make an incident of this . . .”
    The Japanese lieutenant was quite beyond speech. The infuriating lack of diplomacy
     in this American was enough to make his ancestors shriek in dismay.
    Abruptly the lieutenant wheeled and scurried into a hut nearby. He was gone for some
     time.
    “Maybe I hadn’t ought to have said that,” said Mitchell. “But he made me sore.”
    “Aw, what the hell,” said Toughey. “You’n me could go a long ways toward cleanin’
     up this batch of ———.”
    The coolies were sweating terribly even though they had stopped working. They kept
     casting their eyes on the back trail.
    Presently, the lieutenant appeared in the doorway and jerked his thumb at Mitchell,
     and Mitchell followed him into the