Read Sex and the High Command for Free Online Page A

but you can’t be sure without an affidavit from his paramour, and she might be lying… Now, Captain, we shall test this little baby empirically.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “If McCormick’s profile matches the chart, we consider that as evidence that the chart is valid.”
    “What if they’re both wrong?”
    “Ah, a good question. But we’re testing the chart against a known lover. If the pragmatic and the theoretical coincide, the coincidence is too improbable to be coincidental. Ergo, we will have found the perfect lover.”
    “If so, then what?”
    “My theory is that they want to use him in a Navy training film.”
    “To teach sex appeal?” the captain asked.
    “Why not? Now, observe, Captain. These holes in McCormick are register marks. I slide them over the spindles, thusly. Next, I take Lothario X, printed on lucite to permit us to watch McCormick, beneath. Now, carefully, carefully, I lower Lothario X… Holy, jumping Jesus! Captain, look at that little darling!”
    Profanity was forbidden in officers’ country, and the captain’s quarters were the citadel of that country, but Hansen’s irritation vanished when he looked down at the profile overlaying McCormick’s. The squiggles were so matched that the lines of McCormick were completely hidden by the lines of Lothario X. “That’s my boy, Doctor! That’s my boy!”
    Captain Hansen turned to congratulate Commander Morris Gresham, MD, USNR, but Gresham was grabbing the board and stuffing it into his briefcase with his pipe, tobacco, and rubber hammer. “Incredible. Fantastic!” Snapping shut the case, he turned to Hansen. “Captain, I feel like… stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific—silent, upon a peak in Darien.”
    “There aren’t any peaks in Darien,” the captain said, but he was talking to the back of the little man who was slithering through the doorway.
    Pleased though he was, Hansen was aware that being in on the making of medical history did not hoist “execute” over his orders from the admiral. Truth might be relative for Gresham, but Admiral Darnell wanted facts concerning McCormick’s story. If there was no way to uncover them short of an affidavit from the girl, then he would personally appeal to the girl’s patriotism to get the affidavit. “Orderly, send McCormick in.”
    When McCormick entered, the captain said, “Well, Chief, what do you think of all this?”
    “He looked a little fag to me. Captain… excuse me, sir. I guess I got a hangover from that interview.”
    McCormick’s answer was a breach of naval etiquette.
    Enlisted men did not criticize officers to other officers, but the ties which bound the captain to the chief, two saltwater sailors of the regular Navy, were stronger than the fluff which linked the captain with the displaced Beverly Hills couchmaster. Hansen let the remark pass with a mild reprimand. “In his own profession, he’s probably adequate, although I have to admit he had a blind spot—he was surprised that we had a telephone to the quarterdeck… But I have a problem: how can we prove that the young lady had relations with you short of asking her to sign an affidavit?”
    “Captain, if they’re on strike, her signing something would be admitting she’s a scab.”
    “Yes, but we’ve got to get something for the bureau.” Hansen tapped his finger on the desk top thoughtfully. “Something on record.” Telephone. Record. The ideas clicked in his mind. “Chief, would you agree to calling the girl on a conference hookup and letting me eavesdrop just long enough to write my own affidavit?”
    “Why, Captain Hansen, that’d do it right nice. I promised to call her, anyhow.”
    Outside the telephone booths of the world, Hansen had heard the conversation which followed many times, but listening to both ends gave the call a different dimension.
    “Hello, Thelma.”
    “Mac, you beast! You woke me up.”
    “I’m sorry, honey. I thought you sounded