As he departed up the ladder, a Limey who slept just outside our door spoke up and said, “Aw, the Chaplain’s a blowey bloke hany’ow an’ oo in ’ell ’ankers hafter ’earin’ habout ’eaven ’ere?” He was positively disgusted and I assumed that he had lost money in the game.

Personally I was glad the Chaplain did break up the game, because otherwise, Ben probably would have stuck around there until he’d lost all our winnings—and fifty dollars felt pretty good to me just then.

So, as Ben said, I had become a crap-shooting fool! Lord, if Auntie could see me now! I was wringing wet that minute from living in this hole of agony. That bath couldn’t be put off another day. ’Twas better to have laved and lost all than never to have laved at all. That’s how I looked at this matter, and barring a sub-scare or a torpedo, I’d be a clean woman to-morrow. Thank God!

CHAPTER 7
A Dog’s Life

—1—

We had been eight days on this deep blue sea and our convoy hadn’t appeared yet. The General said we’d probably pick them up to-morrow or next day and in another couple days we’d be wherever we were going. Nobody knew where that would be, not even the Captain, but probably either Brest, St. Nazaire or Bordeaux, since those were the three ports that were taken over by the American Expeditionary Forces. No one could be sure, though: we might end at Le Havre or in England. This was a hell of a war: we were just like a shipload of freight: we don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way!

However, I felt much better now, regardless of the monotony and the suspense, for at last I did the impossible and escaped without being suspected. It was an experience!

Just around the corner from the General’s stateroom was a lavatory and bath with a sign on the door reading FOR OFFICERS ONLY. (Which was rather brazenly ironic, because there was an old sign on the door, reading GENTLEMEN, and this hadn’t been removed, the black letters had only been painted over: anyone might observe that Officers weren’t gentlemen or the old sign would have been good enough for present purposes.) Even the General smiled at it.

However, I had decided several days previous to investigate this special domain of the favored, and I found it much more to my liking than the enlisted men’s “head.” There were only two or three enlisted men who were very much around that section of the deck, so no one objected to my going in there, since the officers who used the place knew that I was General Backett’s dog-robber. Thus I was able to avoid visiting the more embarrassingly un-private “heads” which the enlisted men were supposed to use: the nearest one to General Backett’s stateroom was on the deck below—very inconvenient for a busy individual like me. And besides, there were doors on the boxes: which helped a lot in the matter of privacy, I must say.

Besides all these advantages, this place had two showers—and private ones at that. I mean, with doors that latch and everything! Ideal!