New work too, although I hadn’t done much yet, except just enough routine stuff to serve as an introduction to this kind of stuff. Entirely different from Divisional paper work, but I’d get it in time.
Just then I was all excited about something else: and I knew it was absolutely inane, utterly foolish of me, too. However, the fact remained that I did see Captain Winstead in Paris! Just the sight of him was enough to make me dizzy.
I assumed he had something to do with the Intelligence, for it was there that I saw him. He was talking with some officers in the entrance to the building, and Getterlow and I were sitting in the General’s car, out of the rain. I had my slicker turned up around my ears and I just couldn’t make my hands pull it down—I couldn’t decide whether I wanted him to see me or not. In the first place, if he had a memory for faces, he might recognize me at once; and I didn’t know whether he’d met Leon in Wakeham or not—if not, he would be suspicious at once. Besides I didn’t think I could face him without giving myself away: he was handsomer than ever and I could have climbed right on his neck the minute I saw him again.
Anyway, he finally walked right past us and I saluted him. He didn’t even stop to look at me—just saluted and went on his way. I suppose I was foolish to be so excited: probably nobody would be suspicious of me—I mean, after all, Captain Winstead would not have any reason to suspect that a girl was in France disguised as a soldier. I wished I had spoken to him.... This damned old war: he might not be in Paris the next time we got there!
—9—
My mail caught up with me in Bourges and brought letters from home and from Ben.
Poor Ben: he said he broke out with some kind of rash or measles or something equally childish and they sent him to the infirmary at Le Mans. “I’m ashamed of myself for having anything like this, but I’ll stay here now until you poison Getterlow and get me out.” I was surprised to find that he could actually write English that you could read. He must have gone to school at some time in his lurid past. I wrote and told him that Getterlow was coming to the end of his rope.
The letter from home inclosed some American Express checks, which would come in handy, and told me that Leon gave up trying to get across any other way and finally enlisted in a hospital unit that expected to come over very soon. Also someone had heard from Jay-Jay—and he was stationed in Paris!
Wasn’t that just my luck! To have the man you love and the man that loves you in the same city. After all, Paris was a pretty small place, in so far as American soldiers were concerned: there were only half a dozen places where they congregated, and if I got to Paris again, I couldn’t try to see Captain Winstead without running the risk of meeting Jay-Jay.
And pretty soon Leon would be showing up over here, and it’d just be my luck to run into him—and further complicate matters. If Jay-Jay ever saw the two of us, he’d know at once there was something wrong.... Well, anyway, I had to retract all those horrid things I thought of my fair brother. Of course, he could have started sooner for camp, but then, after all, he started and did try to get there, and now he’d proved his mettle by enlisting again. Only I couldn’t for the life of me see where I was going to end up. What if he should get killed over here, or lose a leg or an arm or something like that? I could never get out of this mess! It seemed like everything was going wrong all at once.