American Front

Ordinary soldiers and sailors eyed her without approaching; they knew she was beyond them. Yes, breeding and money told. A couple of soldiers who stank of cheap whiskey tried to approach Julia, looking for nothing more than female flesh with which to slake their lusts. A

Officers, though, officers were drawn to A

When the porter a

When the elbowing died away, a couple of Navy officers not far from her own age smiled down at her. "Mind if we join you, ma'am?" one of them asked. He might have been an officer, but he was no aristocrat, not with that rough accent. A

They sat down. The crowd behind them thi

His companion, a lieutenant, junior grade, with plain stars and single sleeve stripes, was so blond and perfect, he might have stepped off a recruiting poster. A

The colored waiter, resplendent in tailcoat livery like that which Scipio usually wore, poised pencil above notepad. "What can I bring you tonight, ma'am, gentlemen?"

"How are the ham and yams?" A

"Very fine, ma'am," the waiter assured her.

"I'll have that, then, and a glass of rose to go with it."

Pencil poised again, the waiter looked a question to the two officers. "Steak and potatoes here, and a bottle of bourbon for the two of us," the senior lieutenant said.

"Steak and potatoes for me, too," the junior lieutenant agreed.

"Of course," the waiter said. "How would you care to have those done?"

"Medium," the lieutenant, junior grade, said.

The other officer laughed. "How many times have I got to tell you, Ralph, you want to be able to taste the meat?" He looked up at the waiter. "I want that slab of meat just barely-and I mean just barely-dead. You tell the cook that if it doesn't go 'Ouch!' when I stick a fork in it, I'm going to tell his grandpappy's ghost to haunt him till the end of time." He made a curious gesture with one hand. Had the waiter been white, he would have turned pale. His eyes got big. He nodded and beat a hasty retreat.

"What was that?" the handsome junior lieutenant-Ralph-asked.

A

The lieutenant, senior grade, raised a gingery eyebrow. "You're right, ma'am. Not many white folks-especially not many white women-know that one."

"I make it a point to know what goes on with my Negroes," A

"We use that one for luck, ma'am, when we fire a torpedo," the senior lieutenant answered. "I didn't know anybody-anybody white, anyhow- outside of submarines knew about it."

"Submarines!" Now A

"Submarines," the senior lieutenant repeated. "I'm Roger Kimball, off the Whelk, and this lug here is Ralph Briggs, off the Scallop. Heading for New Orleans, both of us, for reassignment."

"I'm on my way to New Orleans, too," A

Neither of them knew who she was. Even so, Ralph Briggs started slavering as if he were a dog and she that steak he'd ordered, not cooked medium but raw. Kimball, on the other hand, just shrugged and nodded.

Their meals did arrive then. If Roger Kimball's steak had been over the flames at all, you could hardly tell by looking. The waiter hovered anxiously all the same. When Kimball cut the meat, he let out a long "Mooo!" without moving his lips, which made the Negro jump. Only after he nodded did the fellow smile in relief and go on about the rest of his business.

Since she'd broken the ice herself, A

"We've laid ours, the damnyankees have laid theirs, and by the time both sides are done, won't be any room for boats left in the whole ocean, and I mean our boats and theirs both-ships, too," Kimball said.

"Don't know what to do about it," Briggs said, pouring whiskey from the bottle into his glass. He drank, then laughed, and said, "If we were still in those gasoline-engine boats, I'd be drunker'n this, just off the fumes."

"Diesel's the way to go there," Kimball agreed. "Gas-jag hangover is worse than anything you get from rotgut."

"Amen," Briggs said with what sounded like the voice of experience, though A

"Thank God is right," Kimball said, "even if they aren't everything they ought to be. You can't discharge 'em down deeper than about thirty feet, and you don't want to do it where the enemy can spot you."

"And when you do do it, you want to do it right," Briggs said.

"That's a fact." Kimball laughed out loud, a laugh that invited everyone who could to share the joke. "Ensign on my boat opened the wrong valve at the wrong time and got his own back-right between the eyes." He laughed again, and so did Ralph Briggs. Kimball finished, "After that, the poor miserable devil wouldn't even try unless he was crouched down in front of the pan."

When A

Briggs and Kimball looked at each other. Briggs turned almost as red as the juice from Kimball's rare steak. Roger Kimball, though, laughed yet again. "What are we talking about?" he said. "You can't just flush the toilet when you're under the water in a submarine. You have to use compressed air and a complicated set of valves and levers. You have to use them in the right order, too, or else what you're trying to get rid of doesn't leave the boat. Instead, it comes back up and hits you in the face."