“And you’d give all this up for a tent on some mountainside by a dusty road,” was his quiet comment. “Or at the edge of a desert? You’d stand in the mud for an hour with a mess kit in your hand waiting for a service of ‘gold fish’—meaning canned salmon—or ‘corned Willie’—which is soldier for corned beef? You’d sleep on a canvas cot, or on the ground, with all sorts of insects crawling round you? You want to really be in the war? Why?”
“Just to be a soldier, Jimmie.” Her voice was husky. “To be a real soldier like my Dad. Just to do my part.”
“Come on,” her voice rose, “This is our night. There may never be another. Let’s not talk about war. Let’s just have us a time.”
It was their night, just that. He took her to a place she had never so much as heard of, a gorgeous place to dine and dance. Behind living palm trees slow fans wafted breezes from the distant sea. From farther back, quite out of sight, a strange Oriental band played bewitching music. Gale could name neither the instruments nor the tunes, but together they invited one to dance.
They did dance for a full hour until the aroma of strange, appetizing food drew them to a table.
A waiter with gleaming black eyes set their table, then placed the menu before them.
Without looking up Jimmie ordered for them both.
“It’s no use asking you what you’d like,” he stated without apology. “You won’t know what you’ve eaten when you’ve finished. I know that. I’m that way myself tonight. It’s nice to be sort of delirious, half crazy, once or twice a year. It sort of clears one’s brain.”
“That’s right,” she smiled at him in a strange way. “This is our night. There may never be another.”
“Something seems to tell me we are to meet again.” He did not smile.