Free In Danger's Path by W. E. B. Griffin Page B

this statement annoyed the DDA, who thought of himself as Chief of Staff to Director Donovan.
    â€œI know who Haughton is,” the DDA said, somewhat snappishly. “Knox wasn’t there?”
    â€œNo,” the DDO said. “Maybe he was off somewhere with Wild Bill.”
    â€œIf that were the case, I would certainly have been advised.”
    â€œYes, I’m sure you would,” the DDO said sarcastically. “And, before today, I never heard Haughton admit he has even heard of the USMC Office of Management Analysis, much less that Knox has anything to do with it.”
    â€œToday he did?”
    â€œToday he not only did, but announced that for some time the Office of Management Analysis has been planning an operation to set up a weather station in the Gobi Desert.”
    â€œDirector Donovan is right,” the DDA said, somewhat righteously, “Management Analysis should have been brought into the OSS at the beginning! They’re a loose cannon running around on the deck. They have no authority to do anything like that!”
    â€œWhat Captain Haughton said,” the DDO went on, “is that Naval Intelligence—not further defined—has learned that a number of members of the Marine Guard at the Peking legation—and some other U.S. military personnel—have not all entered Japanese captivity, as previously believed. Some of them instead headed for the hills, the hills of Mongolia, accompanied by a number of retired Marines and soldiers and sailors.”
    â€œRetired Marines and soldiers and sailors?” the DDA asked, incredulous.
    â€œA total of sixty-seven Americans, Navy, Marine Corps, and Army, plus a not-specified number of wives and children,” the DDO finished, ignoring the interruption.
    â€œ Retired Marines and sailors?” the Deputy Director repeated. “And wives and children?”
    â€œRemember the halcyon days of gunboat diplomacy? The Yangtze River patrol? The Japanese strafing of the Panay? ”
    On 12 December 1937, Japanese bombers had attacked and severely damaged the U.S. Yangtze River gunboat Panay near Nanking. A number of American sailors had been killed.
    â€œYes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
    â€œI’d really forgotten about it, at least about the Yangtze River patrol,” the DDO confessed. “But Captain Haughton delivered an illuminating lecture on the subject of the American military in China.”
    â€œCan you please get to the point?”
    â€œBear with me, Charley,” the DDO said. “I really didn’t come in here to waste your valuable time.”
    They locked eyes for a moment, and then the DDO went on: “Anyway, Haughton said that many of these guys—the enlisted men of the Fourth Marines, the Army’s Fifteenth Infantry, and the Yangtze River patrol—just stayed in China. Retired there . Once there, they got time and a half toward their retirement.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThey got six weeks’ credit toward retirement for every month they served in China. Which meant they could retire after about twenty years of service as if they had served thirty years. And a good many of them acquired wives after they’d been there for a while.”
    â€œ Chinese wives?” the Deputy Director asked, his tone making it clear that he found the idea distasteful.
    â€œMostly Chinese, but according to Captain Haughton, a number of these chaps married White Russians. After the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, thousands of Russians fled into Shanghai, Peking, et cetera. Many of them had been aristocrats. Anyway, after fifteen, twenty years in China, these people had acquired wives and children. And their pension checks would go much further in China than in the States. So they didn’t come home. Some of them, according to Haughton, opened bars and restaurants. Some went into the countryside and bought farms. Anyway, they stayed. And rather than let themselves be