Pacific Interlude by Sloan Wilson

ever seen pictures of the girls in Greenland and New Guinea?”
    â€œThe New Guinea women in the pictures do look a bit moody . Do the Eskimo girls really rub noses?”
    â€œThey wash their hair in urine and never take baths. I wasn’t up there long enough to find out about the noses.”
    There was a short silence which seemed unusually tense.
    She laughed. “I don’t even know your name.”
    â€œSyl Grant. What’s yours?”
    â€œAnn Thompson. Some of my friends call me Angel.”
    â€œIn New Guinea all the guys said that Australia was heaven.”
    â€œI’ve heard that about the States. You Yanks make a lot more money than we do.”
    â€œI never made much. Before the war I was trying to work my way through graduate school.”
    â€œWhat kind?”
    â€œHistory.”
    â€œI started out to be a teacher but I dropped out. I’m a typist in an insurance office. It’s a terrible bore.”
    He was tempted to increase their sense of solidarity by telling her that his wife worked in her father’s insurance business but suspected that wife-talk was not the way to seduce a girl thirteen thousand miles from home. What he wanted to do was skip the preliminary moves and say flat out what he felt and wanted, but he didn’t dare risk it …
    â€œThere’s not much to show you in Brisbane this time of night,” she said. “All the museums, cathedrals and stuff will be closed.”
    Thank God, he wanted to say, but this was no time for experiments in being himself. “I hear you have a good beach,” he said.
    â€œYou want to go swimming this time of night? I should think you’d seen enough of the sea.”
    â€œEnough of the sea, not of beaches. I’d just like to lie out on the sand somewhere, look up at the sky, talk …” (A real smooth toff, old Syl.)
    â€œAll you Yanks are the same,” she said.
    â€œAre Aussie men so different?”
    â€œThey try to get to know us first.”
    â€œI used to be like that before the war, when there was time enough for everything—”
    â€œYou all use the same line. ‘There’s so little time. Let’s make the most of it.’”
    â€œI’m with you. These must be rough times for you.”
    â€œI keep telling myself that it’s tougher on you guys—well, some of you—but even your chaps in supply and your dentists keep telling us they are about to die.”
    â€œThose dentists have dangerous jobs, a lot of the GIs bite.”
    â€œThey sure do … I’m not even sure a gas tanker is as dangerous as you chaps say. Maybe you’re making it all up.”
    â€œIf you’re annoyed with me, take me back to the ship. We can have a cigarette together in one of the tanks. It wouldn’t be dangerous now, she’s just been steamed out.”
    â€œWould they really let me into the yard?”
    â€œThey don’t seem to give a damn what we do, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. If I bring a girl aboard, then the ship would really be dangerous … Hey, I don’t much like playing the part of the typical Yank who’s overpaid, oversexed and over here, as some like to say.”
    â€œThen be yourself.”
    â€œI’d jump on you, if I did.”
    She laughed. “Well, at least that’s refreshing. It’s honest.”
    â€œGood to hear it. Mostly I seem to foul up when I try to be myself. For example, you may like honesty but I got a feeling I should be trying to create a romantic mood, not making you laugh.”
    â€œI really don’t know much about romance. Or love. I wish I did. Love is what Yanks talk about when they want to go to the beach after dark.”
    â€œThat’s for sure part of it.”
    â€œHow long would you remember me if we went to the beach tonight?”
    Long enough to be grateful, he thought, but said, “I’ve asked only a few girls