Herman Szulc

Herman "Schultzy" Szulc was a private in the United States Marine Corps stationed in China in the 1930s. He was squadmates with Pete McGill. He and McGill had been friendly in Peking, but their relationship grew very strained in Shanghai when Szulc regularly spoke disparagingly of Vera.

Szulc was a fairly stupid man, of Polish descent. He was a racist and was offended that the Japanese who controlled coastal China obviously considered themselves as good as white men. (In fact, to the extent that the Japanese were race-conscious, they considered themselves much better than white men, though Szulc was not aware of this.)