He just laughed at me. “I don’t care whether ya have or not—but you see that ya use yer own towel after this!”
So we just sat there for a while, neither of us saying anything. I was sorry he had that idea in his head, but I was mighty glad to know that the inspection terror was at least temporarily alleviated. Finally I thanked him for troubling to lie for me, “although it really wasn’t necessary, as you think it was.”
He apparently had been thinking it over during our silence, for he now came out with this: “I can’t see how you could be so dumb about everything and still be on layin’ terms with any women! You just don’t know nothin’ at all about that kind o’ stuff—so I guess you must be tellin’ the truth.” He pondered for a moment, then asked, as if to clinch the matter, “Honest—ain’t you ever been with a woman in yer life?”
I looked straight into his eyes and said, “No, sir, I’ve never done anything like that with a woman!” Which was, after all, entirely true.
“Gawd—what’s the matter with ya?” he demanded.
“Oh—I just haven’t any use for them, that’s all. They just get you into trouble, don’t they?”
And that ended that rather heated discussion, for he just laughed at me, and he laughed so hard I almost became worried again for fear he’d suspect me of being myself instead of my brother.... Well, anyway, I had escaped the eyes of that doctor. If he wanted to meet me, and if I had anything to say about it, he’d have to come back to the United States and be introduced to me. Huh—I wasn’t showing all my private property to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Medical Corps of the United States Army!
That night we were in the harbor at Brest and everyone was busy getting packed up ready to disembark in the morning. Also everyone, or about ninety per cent of us, were hit all of a sudden with dysentery: it was something they’d been feeding us on this ship, because almost everyone had it. It was damned inconvenient for me, I know that.
Well, I was sure ’nough in the army now!