Leon Uris by O'Hara's Choice Read Free Book Online Page B

was being slaughtered to extinction.
    Lieutenant Tobias Storm sailed north from San Francisco with a platoon of Marines. At the same time a company of British joinedforces with them. Autumn quickly closed them down in their post on Unalaska Island, where they waited out the long winter’s night for the spring thaw.
    That springtime, their joint operation stemmed the flow of seal blood and bagged two prison ships filled with poachers.
    After twenty-two years in the Corps, Tobias Storm received his second promotion, a medal of commendation, and a soft cruise aboard the USS Kansas, which was doing a goodwill tour to open markets in the South Pacific and Asia.

• 7 •
THE GUNS OF NANDONG
1878—Nandong Province
    Emperor Wu Ling Chow, as he insisted on being addressed, looked down from his hillside palace to the spellbinding harbor known as the Blue Pearl of the Orient. The USS Kansas skimmed into the bay at eventide with all ceremonial pennants aflutter.
    The clever, dangerous warlord and self-proclaimed emperor had kept the breakaway province of Nandong and its population of twenty million as an independent state despite being hemmed in by contentious neighbors.
    Wu Ling Chow had survived royal court treachery, provincial enemies, and forays by foreigners and had made the price for invading armies too high. The emperor’s hard-fisted rule had kept Nandong free of the opium scourge. With a master of artful pacts as its leader, Nandong had endured only a controlled smattering of Western intrusions.
    But the guns of the foreign fleets were growing larger. Unvarnished greed of the foreigners, now including Japan, all sought his prize. How long could he keep the noose from choking Nandong?
    Wu Ling Chow reckoned that the Americans, the newest silk-seeking player in the Orient, would be less of a threat than his neighbors. There was a marked difference about the Yankees. Or was the emperor deluding himself? At any rate he would not be drawn in by homey American gregariousness. Scratch their lacquer and they would most likely be the same color as the British and French and Portuguese and Germans and Dutch and Japanese.
    To satisfy himself, Wu allowed a goodwill visit. The twenty-one-gun salute from the Kansas whetted his appetite and he was greeted by a trio of Yankee salesmen from the State Department and the trade and government establishment.
    After an unbearably pompous round of welcomes, meetings began with the Americans and Wu personally.
    Wu Ling Chow was cautious, but the Americans’ open friendliness kept discussions alive. In Nandong City, Lieutenant Tobias Storm did a crack job with his Marine detachment in keeping lusty sailors from the Kansas under reasonable control. The ladies of Nandong long knew sailorboys’ needs and were likewise pleased that the pleasures of the crew ashore were attained without wrecking the place.
    At the end of the first week, Wu Ling Chow came aboard the American warship for an evening of entertainment.
    A chorus of sailors serenaded him and soloists did their bit and the band played a lovely concert. Sharpshooters put on a daring exhibition.
    The final act of the night was Lieutenant Tobias Storm performing with a pair of pet seals named Stars and Stripes. The lieutenant had saved them from slaughter when he was on duty in the Bering Sea and raised them from pups. Stars and Stripes both held the rank of sergeant, although Stripes had been busted several times for his sopping-wet appearances in the bunks of Marines, scaring them half to hell.
    Stars and Stripes carried the evening with juggling and balancing feats never before seen even in a land of acrobats.
    When the emperor invited the officers and performers to a dinner and requested a show at the palace, maybe the foot was in the door, the Yankees thought.
    The following day, Tobias Storm received a summons to come to the palace.
    At the end of their meal, Wu Ling Chow had a magnificent chessboard set up with chessmen adorned with gold