“She is!” he insisted. “She’s a captain in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, and she comes from Salisbury—wherever the hell that is—somewhere in England.” The light fell upon me and I exclaimed, “Oh—she’s a W.A.A.C. captain?” “Say!” he bawls out. “What’d ya think I mean—an artillery captain? Ya dumb little runt!” But I laughed at him. The idea of a buck private making love to a captain just struck me funny. He didn’t mind, though, and the first thing I knew he was launching into song—and what a song! Except for the first verse, it was the dirtiest, rottenest thing I’d heard yet. It was so bad I couldn’t even think it in shorthand! “Where in the name of God did you pick that up?” I inquired between about the fifth and sixth verses. “Captain taught me,” he replied glibly. “That’s called The Salisbury Maiden, an’ it’s a damned fine song, if I do say so myself.” I let him finish it, but managed to get him undressed enough to roll into bed by the time he had ended that rotten ballad: and it was a wonder to me the man next door didn’t pipe up with another wise crack about my partner’s voice. When he sang, your stomach turned over and your heart played leap frog with your throat and you saw little purple stars in the pink firmament about you. The two skeletons and the pregnant frog didn’t begin to parallel the noise Ben made when he felt the lyric urge. He picked up a couple of other dirty ditties that I refused to have anything to do with. One of them was that Cafusalem—The Harlot of Jerusalem: he said he learned it from an Australian in a house of ill fame. The other was a Limey marching song that starts off “Eyes right! Legs up tight!” My shorthand won’t stand those, either. —2— Ben’s singing occurred after my return from a large evening at Madame Gedouin’s, with whom I had made slight progress: Ada was beginning to act interested. She said I was such a nice boy and so attentive and gallant to her that she really would have to be nice to me and see that I had a good time. I was not sure what she meant but she was the kind of a woman who means about umpsteen times what she says: I mean that the things she said always suggested a lot more: she didn’t denote an awful lot in her speech, but she sure did connote a mouthful. Next day I was going shopping with her. But before I met her, I decided to play safe and buy myself a couple of cast-iron brassières: made out of canvas or flannel or something. I was glad I had sort of a boyish figure and was kinda flat chested. It’d be rather funny for a wild woman to start going over you and bump into anything like that.... I heard two soldiers talking about some kind of a contrivance that was used by women perverts. Now a woman like that wouldn’t feel worried at all in my predicament. However, I preferred to be myself. Nothing like that for me!