We’d been in Le Mans a month and nothing very exciting had happened. We came down from Brest in those French box cars that are marked “8 chevaux 40 hommes” and it took me a week to recover from the ride, after which I went out and found myself a bath—thank God again!

I was really forced into it, though. The General had been making trips all over the surrounding country and Chilblaines and I had usually gone along. We went to AlenÇon to see the place they were fixing up there to take care of horses that were shipped over for the cavalry and artillery—although the cavalry didn’t have much to do in a war of this kind. We also visited Blois and its hospital center, and Tours, which was the headquarters of the Service of Supply. And we’d seen OrlÉans and Angers and I hoped to see Paris soon.

However, to get back to the bath:—We were on our way back from Tours when we had two flat tires in a row and Getterlow had to fix the second one, because we only had one spare. While we were standing around—I was trying to help him—the General noticed that I was doing quite a lot of fidgeting and scratching and finally asked me about it. “What’s the matter, Sergeant?” he inquired. “Received your allotment of cooties already?”

Chilblaines laughed and I laughed, too. It wasn’t news to me: I knew I had acquired a family, but I had put off doing anything about it until I could get a bath and a new change of clothes. But when Chilblaines laughed, I determined to do something without further delay.

The General didn’t wait for me to reply; he just suggested, “If you have, Sergeant, for God’s sake get rid of them at once.”

“I will, sir,” I said then.

But Chilblaines had to pipe up and say, “No use trying to clean them out of your clothes. I advise burning them and getting a new outfit—that is, if you can afford it.”

Now, imagine an officer making a crack like that! As if I couldn’t afford clothes just as well as he could! The way he said things gave me the willies anyway, and I just looked hard at him and said, “That’s what I’ll do this very afternoon, if I have time.”

“Take time,” said the General.

So when we were back in camp I proceeded to take time. I went into the city in search of a public bath where one could get a private bath. I carried with me a complete change of clothes and two kinds of medicine and a bluish ointment that was recommended by Ben and every other man whose advice I sought. I finally found a bath establishment and went in.

A woman who had the appearance of age but the manner of girlish youth welcomed me at the door and ushered me into the rear of the building, where there were several little rooms just large enough for a bathtub. The woman chattered glibly as she wiped out the tub I chose and drew the water, and when she brought the towels and soap she made no move toward leaving me to take care of myself.

I started to undress, beginning with my shoes and blouse. She hung up the blouse and pushed the door shut. I didn’t take off anything else, but just sat there on the stool and looked at her. Finally, when she didn’t move, I said, “That’s all for now, thank you.”

All I got for my pains was a stream of French, telling me how nice it was to meet a fine young American boy who could speak such good French.

“But I want to bathe,” I told her. “I don’t need you now.”

“Ah—mais non! non! non!” she exclaimed. “I will help you.” She laid her hands on my shoulders.

This was too much. “No, thank you!” I told her. “I can get along very well. I wish to be alone.”

But she didn’t make a move until I got up and actually pushed her through the door. I pulled the latch across and proceeded to undress. Everything was quiet for several minutes and I was just on the point of removing my cootie-laden underwear—regulation issue, by the way—when I happened to look at the door and noticed a cracked panel through which I could see the old woman’s eye peering in intently. I grabbed my breeches and hung them over the peep-hole. Just as I was getting into the tub, a knock sounded. “What do you want?” I asked.

“M’sieur desires a cognac for after the bath?” she sounded very eager.

She made me mad. “M’sieur wishes you to get the hell outa there! I don’t want anything!” How does a woman get like that: if she were young, I could understand it—but a woman as old as she was made it a mystery to me. Apparently my education wasn’t complete yet.

Anyway, I went on with my bath, and believe me, I scrubbed as I never scrubbed before. Then I drained the tub and filled it up again, and as soon as the water started to run, the old woman came back to the door with her jabbering, wanting to know what I was trying to do. I told her I’d pay for two baths and for her to shut up and go away. She kept talking but I wouldn’t be bothered answering her.

After I was washed and dry again I applied my lotions and ointment in generous quantities—too generous, I later discovered, for my skin was so sore in some spots that I couldn’t touch it. However, I got rid of the cooties. I dressed and opened the door.

The madame was right there waiting for me. She started right off telling me what a wonderful American soldat I was, how young and clean, and she finally attempted to taunt me into friendliness by saying that she’d bet I was still a virgin.

I had to laugh, as I told her, “You’re right, for once.” And, giving her ten francs, I hurried out of the place. I carried my clothes back to camp and burned them, cooties and all, in the incinerator. Then I felt clean again—until the ointment started to burn me up.

Several days later I made another visit to the baths and almost had to fight my way out. That woman seemed to be obsessed with the idea of making love to me. I guess I was not very curious. My next bath would be somewhere else, if there were any other place in town.

Having received another letter from Vyvy, I sent her a post card with the following endearing lines:

“Excitement all the time. Cooties but no war as yet. Mademoiselles aplenty but all ugly. All my love—all my kisses—and I wish you could be with us.

A couple of days later I sent a note to Aunt Elinor. It was written on Y.M.C.A. paper, after I had spent some time visiting post card vendors in search of appropriate cards to send home. As all the vendors had nothing but photographs suitable only for private collections—some of them actually revolting in the scenes they depicted—I decided that they couldn’t possibly get through the United States Mail. I did buy about a dozen of the rarest ones—for no better reason than that the legless veteran who had them seemed to take it for granted that an American soldier was interested in such pictures. My education was proceeding again. I wrote to Aunt Elinor:

“I bought a wonderful collection of rare prints to-day. Too valuable to send by mail, so I’ll bring them home with me. Every time I look at them I realize that Home was Never like This!”

And it certainly wasn’t!

A few days later everyone was required to go to the movies in the Casino. I had no idea what was coming or I might have tried to escape the ordeal. I fell in with the rest of the outfit and sat in the midst of a crowd that was anything but ladylike. The picture was supposed to be educational, was entitled FIT TO FIGHT or something like that, and by the time it was over, I must confess that I wasn’t fit to do anything. Whew! And the comments the fellows made anent various familiar details. Every new sequence in the picture recalled some personal experience or story to somebody near me, and between the picture and the stories, I was blushing from my hair to my toes. After we came back, Ben said, resentfully, “They can’t kid me on that stuff! Seein’ a thousand pictures like that wouldn’t make me lose interest in a good-lookin’ shank!” I decided that Ben had a cast-iron system.

I wondered what had become of Leon. Aunt Elinor wrote that his arm was practically well again and that he had left Booneville. I wondered what he intended to do. I might have known that he wouldn’t stay there, although it would be a wonderful place for him to commune with nature and let his muse run wild in poetic ecstasies. It just goes to show that you never can tell about anyone. Anyway, I rather wanted to know what to expect of him.

Jay-Jay should have been in France by now. It seemed rather funny that I didn’t hear from him. Perhaps that meant that he didn’t really think I was here. He never did have much liking for Leon, so naturally would not break his neck to see him. But Jay-Jay was foxy: you couldn’t tell what he thought or was planning. It wouldn’t make me peeved if I never saw him. That’s how much I loved that gentleman.

Another short note came from Aunt Elinor to inform me that she had come across an old post card from Lisa Mantour, the darling of a maid who was with us at St. Malo years and years ago. Auntie wrote as soon as she found it, because she thought I must look up Lisa at once and thus be able to fall back upon her in case of discovery or trouble of any kind. It was awfully funny, too, because the post card was sent from this very city of Le Mans, and I’d be leaving in another day or so. So I made up my mind to find her, if she was still in the city. I’d have to manage to get away without Ben, because I didn’t want to risk his overhearing anything about twins that might stir his imagination. He had enough foundation for suspicions as it was.

I had my second hair-cut for this rÔle. I was a pretty clean-cut young fella, believe me.

The next day I discovered to my horror that I did the dizziest thing! I burned up that letter from Auntie without copying the name of the man Lisa married. I knew her maiden name but I had one hell of a time trying to remember that other name just from reading it once in that letter.

So I ditched Ben and went in town to see if I couldn’t see some name that would recall Lisa’s. I walked all over the downtown section, looking at window signs and cards, and repeating over and over all the possibilities that came to my mind. I knew the name started with “L” and I tried every possible combination of letters beginning with that letter, but nothing clicked.

It began to rain and I stepped into a corner doorway to escape the downpour. Two Frenchmen under umbrellas were standing in front of me, gesticulating so wildly that their hands were all wet, and one of them kept referring to some name that finally began to sound familiar. I listened more closely and, sure enough, that was the very name I had been trying to remember. I grabbed the man’s arm and demanded very excitedly, “Did you say ‘Lenotier,’ m’sieur?”

“But yes,” admitted the startled man. “Pierre Lenotier, our friend. Pourquoi?”

“That’s it! Exactly it!” I exclaimed. “And where does one find this Pierre Lenotier, m’sieur?”

The two natives stared at each other a moment, then stared at me; finally the one who had not spoken yet stepped from beneath his little roof long enough to point to the sign over the doorway in which I was standing. “You do not read, m’sieur?” he asked, with that gentleness which one affects in humoring a lunatic.

I stepped out and looked at the old sign over the door. It read

“Merci, merci, m’sieur.” I laughed at him as I ran beneath the sign and into the cafÉ. Then I stopped, for there behind the bar was Lisa herself: a little older looking, fatter and perhaps harder faced, but I knew her at once. I started to yell across the room to her, but noticed that there were a few French and American soldiers at the tables, so I walked smilingly up to the bar.

I stopped in front of her and waited for her to say something. But she just stared at me, as if I were any other soldier wanting a drink.

“Lisa,” I cried out finally. “Don’t you know me?”

Apparently she didn’t. She had seen too many American soldiers to take much stock in any of them. I removed my cap and leaned across the bar. “Lisa, don’t you remember Leon Canwick?”

Her eyes gleamed at that and she smiled, but you could see that she couldn’t believe me, coming upon her so unexpectedly. Finally her grin broadened and she said, “C’est impossible! Mon petit diable! Leon! Non, non....”

But a good survey seemed to persuade her, for she led me then, amid a continual stream of happy chattering, into a back room which opened off the main room at the end of the little bar. Then she looked me over again, as if she couldn’t possibly believe what she was seeing. “Non ... non ... impossible!”

I laughed and told her that she was right. “It is not Leon at all.”

This was too much for her. She had to sit down—while she grumbled and gave out little explosive phrases of disparagement of these foolish Americans who play tricks on hard-working people. She spluttered and fussed and stared at me until I added, “This is Leona Canwick.” Then she just stared open-mouthed at me as if I were some kind of specter.

“What foolishness!” she finally managed to exclaim. “This is more worse yet! You joke: you are Leon!... You should not joke an old woman, M’sieur Leon.”

“But I’m not Leon,” I insisted. “I am Leona.”

Well, she refused to be convinced. We argued and I laughed until the tears came in my eyes. I’d never had so much real fun since I’d been in the army. She was just too funny, running out to wait on her customers and coming back to declare again and again that she had no time for any jokes. When I was too weak from laughter to argue further, I proved to her my identity in the only way in which it could be proved. She was too dumfounded to speak, so while she sat silently gaping at me, I tried to explain how I had come here. Finally she understood and believed me. Not until then did she really welcome me, with an abundance of hugs and kisses and much jolly laughter. We talked over the happy days at St. Malo and I told her about Leon and Aunt Elinor. Altogether, I must have spent an hour there, with her running in and out from the bar to entertain me.

When I left, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me smack on the cheek—just as a short, stocky, bald-headed and walrus-mustached man appeared in the doorway and glared daggers at us. I knew at once that this was Pierre, but something told me to keep going—and I went, before Lisa could introduce us.

I imagined he would raise Cain before Lisa had a chance to explain to him that I was really a girl. I hoped I wouldn’t have to prove my sex to him in order to avoid his jealous scowl!

I stopped in to see Lisa again, the day following, and her husband was there. She welcomed me with a smile but, if looks could kill, I’d be a dead rabbit right now from the effects of old Pierre’s glances. He was madder than the devil himself.

I asked Lisa why she didn’t tell him the truth and save herself any trouble. She just laughed at me. “It is too funny, chÈre,” she explained. “He thinks you are a man—and he is so jealous—ou la la!”

“But why not tell him I am a girl?” I insisted.

“Because,” she said, “Pierre, he gets too much of the cognac and talks off his head. He speaks everything he knows when he gets beaucoup zigzag. Non, chÈre, I will not tell him. And he is so funny, anyway. It will do him good.”

Well, I wished she had told him. He threw a dirty wet rag at Esky and wouldn’t let him come in at all. He was liable to throw something worse than that at me.

Another day at Le Mans and I thanked heaven it would be the last. I suppose we had the Germans to thank, because they started their “big push” about three weeks before and threatened the whole Allied system of defenses by breaking through the British in Flanders. General Backett heard reports that didn’t sound very good: apparently the Fritzies were putting everything they’d got into this offensive, because they figured that it was now or never. If they couldn’t win now, before the United States poured in another million men, they might as well run up the white flag. However, everyone on this side seemed to be optimistic over the eventual preponderance of man power and the early end of the war.

How all this affected us, I didn’t know, except that American troops were seeing action and the need for replacements was increasing, with the result that our division was designated as a replacement division and was soon to join the First Army Corps, the headquarters of which were at NeufchÂteau.

But the General wasn’t going with them. He wanted to in the worst way, but had to give way before younger and more physically robust officers. He was rather upset about it, I guess, but he was too old a soldier to kick. He said, “There’s too much to be done, for any one man to complain about the disposition of his ability.”

In a way I was sorry not to be going with the outfit, for then I might see some real action; but real action would be dangerous for me, and I liked working for the General so well and I got along so easily, that I was glad he was taking me with him. I mean, common sense told me I’d have less to worry about if I stuck with him. This headquarters company might be all broken up before long anyway and I might find myself a cook or pick-and-shovel expert—which wouldn’t be so good.

Chilblaines would be with him, too—he was promoted to a captaincy, so he could act as General Backett’s personal aide. And Getterlow was assigned to drive for him. Getterlow was a good chauffeur, when he was sober—which was seldom.

I surely did hate to leave Ben. When I told him the news, he was almost heart-broken. “Can’t ya get me a job drivin’ er doin’ somethin’?” he wanted to know. “I’d give my shirt to get into somethin’ different. This orderlyin’ an’ doin’ nothing in particular is a hell of a life fer an able-bodied soljer like me.”

“Maybe Getterlow will get the can before long,” I encouraged him.

“How in hell did that guy get that job?” he demanded. “He ain’t no chauffeur. He told me hisself he used to work in a jewelry store!”

I explained that Getterlow had a wagoner’s rating and was assigned to this job by the officer who had charge of such duties.

“Well, I can’t see it!” Ben maintained. “I used to work in a garage an’ I know more about wagons than that kike will ever know. But I can’t get close enough to even touch an automobile in this man’s army.”

I told him I’d do anything I could to get him transferred if anything should happen to Getterlow—“In fact, I’ll do my best to help something happen to him. I’ll even buy a few drinks for him, if that will help any.”

“I hope he gets the D.T.’s!” Ben meant exactly that, too. “He’s nothin’ but a handshaker! This is a hell of a war an’ a hell of an army: if you’re a good cook, they make a machine gunner outa ya; if ya can run an airplane, they put ya to work in a canteen sellin’ cigarettes. I suppose, havin’ been a boxer, I’ll end up as a bugler! I know it ain’t yer fault, Leony—but ya do what ya can, will ya?”

And I surely wanted to, for I hated to leave him, more than I would if he were my brother Leon. He certainly was one damned fine egg!

That evening I went down to say good-by to Lisa. I didn’t stay long. Her husband was about and he didn’t take his eye off us all the time I was there. I guess Lisa didn’t think the jealousy joke was so funny now. She said he had accused her of everything from adultery to incest and that he told her he supposed he’d come home sometime and find her in the arms of a “big black American Indian.”

That was awful—I mean, for a man to talk that way to his wife. And Lisa must have been a good wife, too. But she wouldn’t tell him the truth. Said she’d manage him all right.

Old Pierre stopped me as I was leaving and he didn’t mince words at all. From what he said, I gathered that it was just as well for me that I was leaving Le Mans. M. Lenotier didn’t care to sell me any wine and didn’t want me in his cafÉ at all.... Well, I did hope Lisa could manage him. I’d hate to think that I had been responsible for making her miserable.

I went to Chaumont, for the General to report to G.H.Q., which was there. I saw more generals and colonels around there than I ever knew existed. A poor enlisted man might as well have his arm hitched up to his cap: you had to salute every time you turned around, and half the officers didn’t bother to return the compliment. I didn’t much care for a place that was so lousy with officers and it wasn’t going to make me mad to go wherever we were headed.

The General informed me in the afternoon as to the nature of our new work. “If this war had happened ten years earlier,” he said, “I would be taking my command into a zone of action—but that’s the price we pay for growing old. Now we’ll just work—and mostly far from the Front.”

“What kind of work, sir?” I inquired.

“Inspector General’s Department,” he replied. “General B—— is Inspector General of the A.E.F. and I am to operate as a representative of his office, although the major portion of our actual work will be in the S.O.S. and under the Headquarters at Tours.... Oh, it will be more or less interesting, and besides, somebody has to do it: someone has to keep an eye on these young officers who aren’t dry behind the ears yet, and see that some enterprising salesman doesn’t sell the Quartermaster Depot to the Spaniards.”

Well, I never had heard of the Inspector General’s Department, and I frankly admitted my ignorance.

“It isn’t the Intelligence Division,” he hastened to inform me. “We’re not secret service operatives or anything like that. We’re inspectors and reporters. We will inspect organizations and administrations and investigate cases of criminal misconduct and evidences of poor coÖrdination between branches of the service. We merely report our findings and suggest corrections or improvements. That’s our job from now on.”

So now I supposed we’d go out and inspect something or investigate somebody. Well, it suited me, as long as we got out of Chaumont.

We arrived in Tours the next day after a rather hectic trip from Chaumont via Paris. I didn’t care much for wartime France. Every house shut up tight at dusk. No street lights. Military Police every two feet asking you where you were going and why and who told you you could go. Not so pleasant.

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!

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.

The General looked over the administration of the organization at Bourges and kept me busy for two days making out a detailed report of the place, giving reams and reams of statistics on every conceivable detail of the American establishment there. I was afraid the General was so full of regulations and knowledge of how organizations should function that my life from now on was going to be very hectic indeed. A couple of reports like this one and I’d be bleary.

We traveled in a big touring car. I had a field desk and a portable typewriter that wasn’t worth two whoops, and which I didn’t use unless I couldn’t find a better one wherever we happened to be. Chilblaines was the boss’s errand boy and Getterlow drove. I guess the General kept Chilblaines with him for the latter’s protection: the lieutenant’s father or mother or uncle or somebody was a close friend of the General’s and I guess he figured the best turn he could do Chilblaines was to keep him away from any outfit that might go near the Front: Chilblaines wouldn’t last a week up there. Someone would let the sky fall on him, probably.

I saved Getterlow from the consequences of his sins several times, just to avoid a scene. I hated to see a fellow get bawled out. But he was getting worse. He got drunk every time we stopped and he thought every mademoiselle in France had been waiting for him to arrive. The end was near.

The General discussed the possibility of getting rid of Getterlow. I wrote to Ben, but didn’t hear from him, so didn’t know where I’d find him when the time came.

We were in Tours five days but I was too tired to do anything but work with the General. We had a busy trip from Dijon on, jumping all over this section of France, visiting aviation fields, all kinds of training schools, hospitals, ordnance depots, quartermaster depots, motor transport parks, and God only knows what else. We were in all kinds of crazy places, including Cosne, Issoudun, Romorantin, OrlÉans and Blois, and now we were back in the headquarters of the S.O.S.

Found two letters here. One from Ben informed me that they finally threw him out of the infirmary and put him in a Casuals company. I’d have to move fast now or he’d be getting sent up to some replacement outfit, and once a man got up in that neck of the woods it took a lot of officerial influence to get him out.

I also had a letter from Jay-Jay, which gave me something to think about. He said he was asked by Aunt Elinor to look me up and see how I was getting along. Said he hadn’t heard from my sister for months—“Do you know where she is now?” Wanted me to let him know if I ever got near Paris or Tours or Chaumont, because he was still in the entertainment business and those were the centers of activity. Said he’d be glad to see me any time I could get away.

Let us laugh! Wasn’t he condescending! A sweet chance he had of getting a letter from this soldier! Why, he’d know my writing at once.

I suppose he had written to me at home and wondered why I hadn’t answered. But Aunt Elinor hadn’t said anything about a letter from him. Well, anyway, he needn’t think he could make me put my foot in it: I would write a letter to him and send it to Aunt Elinor to remail. That’d take over a month but it would throw him off the track. I’d make the letter very general and if the censor took the trouble to look at it he’d think it was a letter I’d received from a girl in the States. That for you, Mr. Wise Guy!

I heard we were going back to Paris soon. I couldn’t decide whether to be glad or sorry, for the Lord only knew what’d happen there. I wanted like the devil to see the Captain, but I’d have hated like hell to meet Jay-Jay.

Wished I knew where Leon was. He was either here or on his way over—wherever he was I didn’t want to be. No one town could be large enough for both of us: not in this man’s army.

Wagoner Getterlow ceased to be a wagoner. The General finally decided that our chauffeur couldn’t stand too much freedom.

Of course, as soon as I knew a change had been decided upon and that a new driver had to be got at once, I suggested Ben.

Naturally, Chilblaines had to be present at the moment to pipe up, “Has he ever done any driving over here?”

“Oh, yes!” I lied glibly. “Driven a lot, but now he’s just out of the infirmary and is with a Casuals company at Le Mans. He knows all about cars.”

“I don’t think he is a fit—” Chilblaines began.

But the General interrupted to say, “If you are sure he will prove satisfactory, Sergeant, make out a request for his transfer and speak to the personnel officer about it at once. We mustn’t be bothered too much with a matter of this kind.”

So I made out a request and spoke to the officer who had charge of that line of stuff—I mean, of personnel and transfers. Private Benjamin Garlotz would burst in any time now.

Esky acted as if he knew something was up. He’d eat Ben alive when he saw him. I thought I could almost kiss the big galoot myself—but unfortunately kissing wasn’t in the manual of arms and it wouldn’t be very soldierly. Anyway I knew I’d feel better with him around.