James G. Dunton

“ I couldn’t banish the thought that perhaps I was just a foolish school kid, had been just another night and another girl in the Captain’s crowded life. It was such a feeling that makes anyone feel sad and understanding: when you know you love someone and can’t tell whether your love is returned or merely accepted—why, it’s a terrible feeling. It made me understand how Jay-Jay must have felt all along, and I honestly tried to be nice to him the rest of the evening. ”

“ I managed to say, my lips trembling.
“So will we all, Sergeant.... I’m sorry ... very sorry!” And he walked away from me. I knew what he meant: it was his curiosity that took us up there, that cost us Ben’s life. I knew what he meant, and I knew he meant it when he said he was sorry. I knew by the way he talked and acted that he was really damned sorry. That’s what made it worse: a man like the General feeling that he was responsible for a fellow’s death! If it were some officer you could swear at and hate for it, you could get rid of your pent-up feelings by swearing at him and hating him. ”

“ The Canwick blood seemed to have turned a sour yellow in at least one spot. I didn’t know where Leon was, but I should have assumed hours ago that he would not be there. I don’t know what I could have done about it anyway, except confess and get us both in a stew, but it got my goat to think that I forced myself into this martyrdom. But I was in it—and that’s all there was to it.
O Leon, thou personification of courage, thou dear brave considerate brother, I really felt more sorry for you than for myself. A man as yellow as you was a fit object for the world’s pity! ”

“ We lived in Wakeham, one of the Big City’s most fashionable suburbs, and moved in a very exclusive, art-loving and -fostering circle.
Life rolled away in its customary monotony and gradually the curtains of our horizon were drawn back to reveal new interests and new hopes. Leon and I seemed to grow more similar in appearance and more dissimilar in nature as we grew up. ”

“ From there we went to a hotel, Leon driving while I tried to make my hat and the collar of my coat combine to offset the odd effect of the haircut. Just as we were getting out of the car, another hitch presented itself to my mind, and I said to Leon, “We can’t change clothes in there!”
“Why not?” he demanded, his voice sounding as if I had scared the life out of him.
“Now, wouldn’t it look funny to anyone who noticed us going in—a man and a girl—and then saw two men come out? If there happened to be anyone about who recognizes you, he’d smell a mouse immediately.” ”

“ That’s why the worst high-hats are invariably worn by people who are really low-brow.
Naturally, I enjoyed Jay-Jay’s company at that time and not the least of the reasons for this lay in the fact that he kept me on edge and on the defensive most of the time. When a girl suspects that a man is about to assault her on the least provocation, she naturally gets a thrill out of the dare, and I was normal in that respect even though all the rigmarole of infatuation and love were utterly foreign to my nature. Jay-Jay knew I was a tomboy at heart and he played his cards accordingly. ”

“ With any cleverness at all, a man can take a wig and a few rags and practice with his voice a while and come out a woman that can pass in any crowd. But a woman is entirely different. You never heard of a great male impersonator, did you? I mean, a woman who became famous because she could make up as a man? No—because, well, you can spot a woman every time, in spite of the most masculine of clothes and manners.”
I had to laugh. This was the man whom General Backett said was one of the “cleverest in France.” ”

“ So far, Chilblaines had failed to appear.
Ben was lying in his bunk trying to decide whether to make an effort to join the crap game outside, Esky was panting so hard underneath me that the head of my bunk was quivering, and I was about wilted. I’d have given my right eye for a bath—even considered surrendering my honor for one. I tried Christian Science to see if I could make my imagination control my body: if faith can move mountains, it certainly ought to be good for a little spell of comfort even in this god-awful sweatshop. ”

“ I learned about women from her all right—but I couldn’t see any fun in it at all and was just about ready to start throwing things when Ben appeared. I mean, I had gone as far as I could, and I couldn’t go any further because if I had the Madame would have found out the truth and then she’d have been suspicious of my motives immediately—and then the Captain’s plans for a coup would be all ruined. And anyone who thinks it isn’t a delicate problem to keep a woman from finding out that you’re a woman and at the same time keep her from getting mad at you—well, a trial will illustrate how I felt. ”

“ Aunt Elinor used to say that our sexes were all mixed up, that our natures were diametrically opposite to our respective physiques, and for once she was really near the truth, since I was very much of a tomboy while Leon was an ethereal-spirited, effeminate, poetic soul who cringed from all physical matters and even resented having to be near my dog Esky, who worshiped the very ground I walked on and evinced not uncertainly his suspicions of people who were too nasty nice to play with a pup now and then. ”

“ We got our car back, with a new wheel, and a new driver. We stopped at St. Mihiel and then at Bar-le-Duc. Next day we’d go on to Toul.
I could hardly think. My brain was in a dizzy whirl. I wished my Captain were there. I wanted so much to talk to someone—anyone that could understand.... I missed Ben so damned much. I didn’t know anything about death. What is it? Can it be that a man dies and that is the end of him? I didn’t believe it. There is such a thing as immortality. Ben was dead, but he lived on in my memory, he’d never be really dead to me. ”

“ He told me, for the first time, how sorry he was to hear about Ben. “The big galoot was a good man in all the ways that count,” he said, after I told him the details of the misfortune. “I’ll always be thankful to him for his effort in your behalf—it was wonderful!”
He wanted us to get married, but I absolutely refused. “If I were out of the army, I’d marry you in a minute,” I told him. “But I simply can’t now.... Besides, it just doesn’t seem right or decent, or anything.... I want to be married like all decent people are married. ”

“ I took Ben home and set him on his bunk. I sat down beside him, undecided whether to undress him or let him sleep with his clothes on; but while I was deciding, he began to undress himself, starting at the bottom.
My legs hung down beside his, and every time he made a lunge to capture one of his own, he caught one of mine instead. But that didn’t make any difference. The first one he got a good grip on was one of mine, and he unrolled the puttee, unlaced the shoe, blissfully ignorant of the fact that it wasn’t his own foot at all. Then he dropped it to the floor to rest from the exertion. ”

“ My Clark could never in all his life do anything that would make me honor him and love him more than I did because he suggested this fine way of honoring the man who was the best of pals to both of us.... A man that could think of a thing like that and do it was almost too fine to be true. It injected a sad note into what would ordinarily have been a festive occasion and we had to explain it by referring to Ben as a dear friend of Major Winstead’s—but we were both glad that we did it. I mean, a thing like that makes you feel so warm and good—and it made us love each other all the more ... ”

“ A Maiden Sleeps with an Army
—1— If there’s one kind of scenery I like more than anything, it’s a winter landscape of rolling hills and evergreen trees laden with snow. Usually the sight of a snowy outdoors is very comforting—but not so that day. Every time I noticed the snow—and it had been falling thick and fast since early Sunday morning—it reminded me that Leon had to get back here that afternoon, and between Vyvy and the snowstorm, there was absolutely no telling whether he’d show up or not. So there was nothing very comfy about that snowstorm. ”

“ Ben said he hadn’t seen a single one of these mademoiselles that looked clean enough to be of interest to a man of his tastes, and I quite agreed with him. Most of them were disappointing—nothing like before the war. Now they all looked so hard and worn, and the ones that American soldiers met were the same ones that the English, Australians, Italians, Portuguese and French Colonials had met before us. An American soldier must be conceited indeed if he thinks he could teach these girls anything in the way of love and its devices. ”

“ You know, Lieutenant, there’s no court-martial for hitting a man who insults you.” He smiled meaningly at the Lieutenant. “Now, the situation is what?”
“Don’t talk to me about insults and courts-martial, Captain.... You know as well as I—better, no doubt!—that Sergeant Canwick, your very dear friend, is a girl!”
The Captain seemed surprised as he turned his attention to the sergeant and asked, very seriously, “Sergeant, have you been deceiving me all these years?”
“Enough of this!” stammered Jay-Jay. “I didn’t come here to fool around like this. The sergeant is under arrest.” ”

“ I’ve read somewhere, in French and Italian literature, about lovers who carried on their amours in disguise, and about men and women who figured prominently in war and politics under assumed names and behind disguised faces. Medieval legends come to mind, fanciful tales of heroism by knights in deceiving armor, and of fair ladies who entertained paramours behind mysterious masks. Joan of Arc slept with an army, but she was known as a girl by all her soldier comrades. ”

“ Why did a man have to be like that? He could just as easily forget about me and mind his own business—but I knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d either got me where he wanted me or forced me to a showdown, with all its embarrassments.
However, I was not worrying so much about him just now as I was about Leon. I mean, if I could find my brother and put him wise to what had happened, perhaps he could be on guard against Jay-Jay and do his part toward insuring my safety. Also, I wanted to straighten out the tangle in which my visit involved Lisa. ”

“ I was beginning to have fears again.
“Ya know what I said?” Ben demanded rhetorically. “I says, ‘Why, sergeant, that kid ain’t never been with a woman in his life! There ain’t no more chance o’ his havin’ one o’ them diseases than there is o’ me bein’ captain o’ this ship!’ And he says, ‘Is that a fact?’ And I says, ‘Absolutely—he don’t even know what a woman looks like underneath! He’s the dumbest greenhorn ya ever saw!’ And so the sergeant looks at me a minute and then he says, ‘Well, I haven’t time to chase after him any more anyway. ”

“ We attended Bohemian studio parties which were more usually than not complete washouts from my point of view and led me to ask Jay-Jay why, with so many well-known and interesting people on his list of acquaintances, he persisted in messing himself up by associating with this deluded drivel of humanity. He just laughed and replied that “variety is still the spice of life—there’s a time and place for everything, including dizzy artists.”
After one of these garret endurance contests, I told him that he should have brought Leon instead of me, “because Leon would have reveled in this stuff.” ”

“ The next morning I drove down to the camp, carrying a suitcase containing one of his suits of civies, with cap, socks, shoes, shirts and everything. I planned to get there by noontime, find out what could be done and if worst came to worst, put my brilliant “last resort” idea into action, at the cost of my curly locks and perhaps my personal freedom. I would have had the haircut in Wakeham, but I decided that it would be bad luck: if I had it cut, Leon would manage to get a pass of some kind just to make my sacrifice in vain, for that was my luck. ”

“ But no one paid particular attention to me, so I walked on down to my bunk and began a casual investigation of the assortment of odds and ends that Leon had collected.
Hung at the rear end of the bunk, with his slicker, haversack and embroidered ditty bag, I found his ukulele and, since I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I flopped on the bed and began strumming the uke as accompaniment to my idle dreams about the oddity of the situation. It occurred to me that if anything should happen to cause my discovery, the newspapers would make a front-page story of it. ”

“ I began to realize that it’s one thing to have a man whispering sweet nothings in your ear, but quite another to have another girl do the whispering even though she doesn’t know you are a girl, too. However, I fought a good fight and was carrying on like a good trooper when suddenly the strain was broken by Jay-Jay pouncing unceremoniously upon us, with Leon trailing in the rear. Both were rather fussed up over the incident, although Leon appeared to feel that the joke was really on Jay-Jay. ”