In Danger's Path Read Online Free PDF

with children, as well as four white women, two of them with children. She recognized two of them, and presumed all four were Russians. They looked as desperate and pathetic as she felt.
    She also saw Sergeant Zimmerman, leaning on the rail of the ship, and his woman and their three children on the wharf.
    As the lines tying the ship to the wharf were loosened and picked up, and the President Madison began, just perceptibly, to move away, a sudden impulse sent Milla out of the Pontiac, and she found herself walking to Sergeant Zimmerman’s woman.
    The woman nodded to her but didn’t speak.
    When Sergeant Zimmerman waved, Milla waved back. His woman—Milla remembered her name now, Mae Su—waved just once, and then just stood there, watching as the distance between the ship and the wharf grew.
    â€œCome with me, I’ll drive you home,” Milla said.
    Mae Su looked at her and nodded her head, just once, but didn’t speak.
    The current of the Yangtze River finally moved the President Madison far enough away from the wharf to allow her engines to be engaged. There was a sudden powerful churning at her stern, under the American flag hanging limp from a pole, and she began to move, ever faster, both farther away from the wharf and down the Yangtze.
    Milla and Mae Su watched until it was no longer possible to make out individual Marines on her deck, and then Mae Su looked up at Milla, and they walked to the Pontiac and got in.
    The Zimmerman apartment was far larger and better furnished than Milla expected. Did a Marine sergeant make enough money to support something like this, she wondered, or did they have a second source of income?
    â€œYou have a very nice apartment,” Milla said, as Mae Su changed the diaper of her youngest child.
    â€œThank you,” Mae Su said, and then as if she were reading Milla’s mind, went on: “My man is without education and crude, but he is not stupid. We supplied all the houseboys who took care of the Marines in their barracks. And had other enterprises.”
    Milla nodded politely.
    Mae Su thought of something else. “And, after much instruction, he became a very good poker player. There was always a little something extra in the pot after payday.”
    â€œOh, really?” Milla asked, smiling.
    â€œI will really miss all of this,” Mae Su said. “We were here five years.”
    â€œYou’re going to leave?”
    â€œSell everything and leave,” Mae Su said. “Before the Japanese really get bad. I have already made some arrangements.”
    Milla nodded again.
    â€œI went with my man to your apartment because he wanted me to,” Mae Su said. “He thought we could help each other. I had the feeling you did not agree.”
    â€œHow could we help each other?” Milla asked.
    â€œMuch would depend on how much money you have, in gold or pounds or dollars—gold would be best—and on how much you could get for Captain Banning’s possessions in these circumstances.”
    The circumstances were, Milla knew, that the only potential purchasers of a westerner’s property were Chinese, and the Chinese were fully aware it was a buyer’s market. Ed’s things would not bring anything close to what they were worth. Milla seriously doubted she could find a buyer for the Pontiac at all. Who would want to pay good money for an expensive American automobile when it would almost certainly—under one pretense or another—be confiscated by the Japanese?
    â€œSpecifically, what do you have in mind?” Milla said.
    â€œAt first, I am going to return to my village,” Mae Su said. “I have a tractor, a Fordson, and a small caravan large enough for a stove and to sleep in on the road.”
    Milla could see that in her mind. Tractors pulling rickety four-wheel carts were a common sight outside the city, rolling along at five miles an hour on bare tires mounted on axles from ancient