“I get the feeling you really like this guy.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So what about the Jewish sergeant with an accent you can cut with a knife?”
“Freddy’s hobby is reading. You never see him without a book of some kind in his hand. Including Army Regulations. And he remembers every last detail of anything he’s ever read. That’s why we call him ‘the professor.’”
“His hobby is reading? You’re suggesting he’s a little funny?” Marjorie waved her hand to suggest there might be a question of his sexual orientation.
Jimmy laughed.
“That’s not the professor’s problem. I should have said, ‘You never see him without a tall, good-looking German blond — or two — on his arm, and a book in the other hand.’”
“And what did this Jewish Casanova with an accent remember Army Regulations saying about us getting married in Germany?”
Jimmy told her again: The bottom lines were (a) she could not get into Occupied Germany unless she was a dependent, and (b) even if she did somehow get into Occupied Germany, they could not get permission to marry there.
When he had finished, she said without much conviction, “There has to be a way.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Are you open to a wild idea?”
“Try me.”
“When I was here before, I learned that Elkton, Maryland, up near the Pennsylvania border, is where people go when they’re eloping. Justices of the peace there will issue a marriage license, then marry you, and have you on your way in about an hour.”
“Huh,” Marjorie said.
“What I was thinking was that, since they’re going to send me—”
“Where did you say Elkton, Maryland, is?”
“On U.S. 1 up near the Pennsylvania border.”
“I came from Washington on U.S. 1,” Marjorie said. “I know how to find it.”
She reached to the dashboard, turned the ignition key, and then pressed the starter button.
[FOUR]
“Yes, sir? May I be of assistance?” the assistant manager of the hotel inquired of Second Lieutenant Cronley.
“We’d like a room, please. A nice room.”
“Have you a reservation, sir?”
“No. I don’t.”
“And your luggage, sir?”
“No luggage.”
The assistant manager adjusted his necktie knot, then said, “Sir, the Lord Baltimore might not be appropriate for you and the lady. May I suggest—”
“If you’re about to suggest we try some sleazy motel down the street,” Mrs. Marjorie Howell Cronley interrupted, “I would be forced to conclude you have an evil mind, sir.”
She pulled from her purse a certificate of marriage and held it up for the assistant manager’s edification.
He forced a big smile. “I was about to suggest, madam, one of our junior suites.”
“Do you have a senior suite? If so, we’ll take it,” she said.
“Well,” Jimmy asked not more than fifteen minutes later, as Marjorie laid her head on his chest, “now that our marriage has been truly consummated, what do we do now?”
“What do you mean ‘truly consummated’?”
“You have to do what we just did or you’re not really married.”
“Professor Freddy told you that, right?”
“Sergeant Hessinger is a fountain of information, most of it useful.”
“So, what did he have to say about the Army and lieutenants whose marriage has been truly consummated?”
“As much as I remember — this took place of course before you seduced me, and I wasn’t all that interested in the subject at the time—”
He yelped when she bit his nipple.
“I seduced you?”
“As I remember it, that’s what happened.”
“We’ll fight later. Tell me what he said.”
“Presuming you’re married, as we are now, the sponsor — that’s me — goes to his commanding officer and requests that his dependent — that’s you — be allowed to join him in Germany.”
“Requests? He could turn you down?”
“Commanding officers can do anything. But he won’t. Major Wallace is a good guy. Then, once quarters are assigned — that’s what the Army calls houses — you will get what they call ‘invitational orders’ which will allow you to get on a transport — a Navy ship — and sail to Germany. Bremerhaven, Germany. Sponsors usually meet the incoming dependents on the dock. There will be several hundred of us, but you will be able to spot me from afar. I will be the sponsor with the biggest boner, the painful result of my having been separated from my dependent for six weeks or so.”
“This thing, you mean?” Marjorie grabbed his male appendage.
“That’s it. That’s what I had in mind when I endowed you with all my worldly goods.”
“And you had better not forget who it belongs to now.”
“Indeed.”
“Wait. Why can’t I fly over there?”
“I don’t know, but I will damned sure ask Freddy to look into it. Dependents of senior officers — colonels and generals — sometimes get to fly. But I am the exact opposite of a senior officer. I’ll see what I can find out. Maybe I could say you live in France or England. I just don’t know. I’ll ask Freddy.”
She sighed. “Six weeks or so seems like a very long time.”
“When I asked before, ‘What do we do now?’ I meant right now. Tonight.”
“Re-consummating our marriage is the first thing that pops into my mind,” Marjorie said.
“Keep that thought. But what I was wondering is what do we tell your mother?”
“Nothing,” she replied immediately, which told him that she had already given the problem some thought. “Let her go ahead with her plans for a double wedding.”
“I don’t think Colonel Mattingly would let me come back here now. And I understand.”
“I was afraid of that. I still don’t want to tell her until I have to. You don’t have to tell your parents either. We can wait until we see what’s going to happen.”
“What are you going to tell her about tonight?”
“I’m sure she thinks we’re doing what we’ve been doing. Out of the bounds of holy matrimony. She knows there’s nothing she can do about it. She feels sorry for us that you’re being sent back to Germany right away.”
“So you can spend the night?”
She grunted. “Mom doesn’t feel that sorry. After a while, I’ll take you back out to Camp Holabird and then drive back to Washington. After breakfast tomorrow, I’ll tell her I’m going to quote visit unquote with you again, and come pick you up and we’ll come back here.”
“Here?”
“Our first home. More than that. I’ll get an historical sign made. ‘On this site on October 25, 1945, the marriage of Lieutenant and Mrs. J. D. Cronley Junior was consummated at least twice.’”
He laughed.
“I’ll get a cab back to Holabird. It’s a long way out there.”
“No. I am now a wife. A good wife drops her husband off at work, and I want to be a good wife.”
“Is that before or after consummation?”
“During,” she said.
[FIVE]