Macneils of Tokyo. Jack Seward

look it over, Helma. Then we’ll talk.”

      “Very well, Captain.”

      “And I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Captain.’ You will notice I’m not wearing a uniform.”

      “I would hardly expect you to do so—not in war-time Tokyo.”

      “Is that what you don’t like about me—the fact that as a British officer I am now in the employ of the Japanese?”

      Helma said nothing, but looked steadily at Milmay. What I really don’t like about him, she thought, is that his pale eyes are too close together. Although he was tall and slim and his other features were patrician, the positioning of his eyes made him look crafty. Besides, his voice was pitched too high and dripped with upper-class British condescension.

      “After all,” he pressed on, “every week you yourself urge the British and the Americans throughout the Pacific theater to surrender. That’s all I did, isn’t it?” Milmay tried—largely in vain—to inject a degree of warmth into his voice. “So let’s do try to be more chummy, what? I’d like that, really I would.”

      Helma’s reply was as frosty as the snowflakes beginning to fall outside Milmay’s window. “If that is all, sir, I’ll excuse myself.”

      Chapter 10

      Washington, D. C.

       July 1943

      Japanese forces evacuated Guadalcanal in January, and in June the Allies landed on New Guinea.

      Bill Macneil received orders to report for active duty early in July. Using a voucher authorizing travel to Washington, D.C., he crossed the country by train. In the capital he found a place to stay for the night, then telephoned a college friend whose home was in Washington.