"Talk, sir?" said Dugan. "Certainly."
"About yourself," said the colonel.
Dugan laughed. "There's not much to say, Colonel. If I get back here, I'll ask permission." His tone implied he would not ask very hard.
That was all they saw of Counterintelligence. The old colonel looked as though he did not expect to see Dugan again — not in this life, at least. Sarah had tried to make him talk:
"Major, you were here during the war?"
"Uh-huh," said he. "And you weren't. We could have had fun if you'd been here."
"Silly," she said. "They'd have shot me."
"They didn't shoot me," said Dugan. "I was an Imperial Japanese officer. You could have been fixed up as a Czarist Russian. Or else as an Irish girl. Did you realize that Ireland was neutral? The Irish just wanted to be sure to get a chance to fight on all sides, the way they usually do. I got a Legion of Merit for serving against the United States and for passing as a Japanese."
"I don't see how you did it. You don't look Japanese to me. Just sort of Italian or maybe Syrian or just funny Irish."
For answer he put his hands up to his face, pulled his eyelids slantwise, drew his lower lip down. Then he said, "Boo, I'm Hachiman, the Japanese war god." She laughed, but she noticed she had not gotten any personal details out of him.