It certainly was a problem. In the first place, the very idea of two soldiers getting married, to each other, was enough to make anyone laugh. How could we explain to any priest, minister or chaplain that one of us was a woman? Who could say which was the bride and which the groom? And who would be crazy enough to perform a ceremony for such a pair of obvious jokers?... The end of the evening found us exactly where we started: I didn’t see how we were ever going to get married until after this war was over. But Clark insisted that we do it, somehow. Well, I wasn’t going to worry any more about it. If he could think up some means of getting us married without me getting into trouble, all well and good. Otherwise—well, I did want to marry him as soon as possible. When Ben came home that night he was lit to the ears and insisted upon singing. I gathered that he had just mastered the words to that Franco-American ditty that runs like this: “Bon soir, ma chère! Comment allez-vous? Voulez-vous jig-a-jig avec moi ce soir? ’Oui oui—Mais où?’ Donnez moi, chère, ici Une baiser toute de suite! Et si vous jig-a-jig avec moi ce soir— Ou la la, chère!” And when Ben bellowed in French, he slid over or mispronounced all the words he didn’t know and emphasized with a roar such unmistakable things as “jig-a-jig” and “toute de suite.” His music was atrocious! He had picked up another ballad that’s crude but rather cute: Sacré nom de nom de nom! La mademoiselle she wouldn’t come— He offered her francs, he offered her rum— But mademoiselle she wouldn’t come. Her grandmère cried “O nom de nom!” He said “She’s pretty but beaucoup dumb!” O sacré nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de nom!— La, mademoiselle’s too dumb to come! Sacré nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de nom de nom! Indeed, my bunkmate was so busy learning additions to his repertoire that he really couldn’t have much time left to get suspicious of me.... He was mumbling that “nom de nom” thing even after he got in bed, and I think he must have sung himself to sleep: at least he was still crooning it when I dropped off to keep my date with Morpheus. —4— A few nights later we had a close call. It was such a close call that I had the shivers. That dumb-bell Ben comes tramping into the Captain’s, opening the door even as he knocked, and for about five seconds I was paralyzed, for I didn’t have enough time to think, let alone extricate myself from Clark’s arms.