The column went past much faster than Hackworth had feared; they moved 
down the highway like a piston. Each battalion carried a banner, a very modest 
thing improvised from a painted bedsheet. Each banner bore the number of the 
battalion and a crest that Hackworth knew well, as it played an important role 
in the Primer. In all, he counted two hundred and fifty-six battalions. 
Sixty-five thousand girls ran past him, hell-bent on Shanghai.