some doing to pry the details of McCoy’s background from Banning, who felt—and said—that they should be allowed to remain obscure. But finally Pickering had gotten Banning to open up.
Then-Captain Banning had met then-Corporal K. R. McCoy in Shanghai. He had been appointed “in addition to his other duties” to serve as defense counsel for the accused in the court-martial case of The United States vs. Corporal K. R. McCoy, USMC.
There were several charges, with murder heading the list.
As the case was explained to Captain Banning, a tough little corporal in one of the line companies had knifed an Italian Marine to death, and damned near killed two other Eye-Tie so-called Marines in the same fight.
It never was said in so many words, of course, but what would be clearly in the interests of the Marine Corps would be to sweep the international incident as quickly as possible under the diplomatic rug. To that end, if Banning could get the troublemaking corporal to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, the colonel “on review” would reduce whatever the sentence was to a relatively mild five to ten years in the Portsmouth Naval Prison; he could be out of prison in two, maybe three years.
Before actually going to see McCoy, Banning first went over the official reports of the incident and the evidence. There was no question at all that one Italian Marine had died of knife wounds, and that McCoy had wielded the knife. Then he went over McCoy’s records. He learned that McCoy had enlisted in the Corps at seventeen, immediately after graduating from high school in a Philadelphia industrial suburb. He hadn’t been in trouble previously, and had in fact made corporal in a remarkably short time, before his first enlistment was over. Normally, it took six to eight years—sometimes even longer—to make corporal.
Finally, Banning had gone to see Corporal McCoy in the brig, and had seen that McCoy was indeed a tough little streetwise character. And smart, but not smart enough to realize the serious trouble he was in.
A conviction for murder would see him sent to Portsmouth for twenty years to life.
McCoy, making it obvious that he trusted Banning not quite as far as he could throw the six-foot, 200-pound officer, his tone bordering on the offense known as “silent insolence, ” had rejected the offer.
“No, thank you, sir, don’t try to make a deal for me for a light sentence, sir. With respect, sir, it was self-defense, sir, and I’ll take my chances at the court-martial, sir.”
Banning admitted to Pickering that he had managed only with an effort not to lose his temper with the insolent young corporal.
“But it wasn’t stupidity, General,” Banning said, now smiling about the incident. “McCoy was a step—a couple of steps—ahead of me.”
“How so?” Pickering had asked.
“When I got back to my office, there was a message asking me to call Captain Bruce Fairbairn. Does the general know who I mean?”
“The English Captain Fairbairn? The head of the Shanghai Police?”
Banning nodded.
“And the inventor of scientific knife-fighting,” Banning said. “And the Fairbairn knife. Does that ring a bell, General? ”
“I’ve had drinks and dinner with Fairbairn several times in Shanghai, and I’ve heard of his knives, of course, everyone has, but I’ve never seen one.”
“The third one I had ever seen I had seen that morning,” Banning said, with a smile. “When examining the evidence against Corporal McCoy.”
Pickering had thought: Now that he understands that he has no choice but to tell me all about Killer McCoy, he seems to be enjoying it.
“I didn’t want to believe it was a Fairbairn,” Banning went on. “Fairbairn didn’t sell his knifes. He issued them to his policemen, and only after they had gone through his knife-fighting course. When I saw the knife McCoy had used on the Italian, I decided, on the very long shot that it was a Fairbairn, that McCoy had stolen it somewhere.”
“And he hadn’t?”
“When I called Fairbairn, he very politely said that he thought he should tell me that if the Marines persisted with the foolish notion of court-martialing McCoy, three of his policemen were prepared to testify under oath that they had seen the whole incident, and that McCoy had done nothing more than defend himself.”
“Why hadn’t they come forward earlier?”
“Fairbairn—the Brits can be marvelously indirect—said that his policemen ‘were prepared to testify under oath’ that they had seen the incident. . . .”
“Which is not the same thing as saying they had seen it?”