We were in the army yet: but nobody would know it to judge by the way I felt most of the time. “In the clouds” would be more appropriate as a descriptive phrase.
—3—
Well, we were working pretty hard those days and the General was pulling strings in an effort to take a trip up to the active sectors.
Ben was determined we should all go out for a celebration one night and the Captain had a devil of a time convincing him that he was “off the wine and women.” We finally did get rid of him, however, and we spent the rest of the evening trying to dope out some way of getting married.
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?’