Free Dust on the Sea by Edward L. Beach

simulated war patrol. No matter that Sam’s supervision was needed for the upkeep to be performed at Cavite, or that nearly six months remained before the prewar navy regulations allowed him to marry. Joe knew his way around, and he called in a good many of his I.O.U.’s that night. Next day, Sam was designated courier to Washington, and boarded the Pan-American Clipper with priority two orders. In three weeks he was back, a married man and ready to give his soul for Joe Blunt.
    Later, purely by accident, Rich was present when Admiral Hart, Commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, told Blunt that someone’s wife had written her suspicions to someone else’s wife. Hart was justly feared as one of the toughest officers the navy had ever produced. Richardson, completely forgotten by his two superiors, stood marveling as Blunt laid his own career on the line to block investigation of Sam’s putative violation of regulations. He marveled even more when Admiral Hart agreed, somewhat unwillingly, but agreed nevertheless, that until he received official notice—as he would if Sam claimed quarters allowance for his bride—he had no obligation, at this time of increasing tension, to inquire into officious rumors that concerned neither the battle readiness of the Asiatic Fleet nor the safety of the United States.
    Blunt, a model of rectitude himself, had always been tolerant of people and their problems with one single exception: when they hurt his ship or the navy. Although, through their men, women sometimesinterfered with the smooth operation of Octopus , Richardson had never heard him speak of a woman in other than chivalrous terms. Yet this morning he had been callous, even degrading, in his comments about the two girls with whom they had just spent the night, and for no reason.
    No doubt, in the course of her time at Pearl, Joan had given herself to more than one man. Certainly, she must have to Jim. It was probably true that there were many, for there could not be a man who, meeting her, did not want to possess her. Emotions and pressures of war affected both the male and the female, and considering the differences in their wartime roles, it probably affected them about equally. Joan, far more than most women, was actually participating in the war, and her outlook, correspondingly, might well be more like a man’s. Her job, obviously, had something to do with breaking down enemy coded messages—though this was his own intuitive deduction and could not be discussed. Doubtless, such employment must have its pressures.
    Yet, how could you figure out a girl like Joan? Their lovemaking had been swift, fierce, and unrestrained, each seeking something for himself, or herself, at the same time as each gave to the other with the most unselfish and vulnerable completeness. Once, when both were for the moment sated, she murmured that she had planned how they would finish the evening from the instant she had seen him. He was different from the others, she said (astounding how frank she was!), for while they also had the drive of the war and of the risks and the fighting, none had so clearly, so plainly, needed that little thing she could do for them. Rich had never thought of a girl in quite this way. Joan was totally feminine, totally desirable. A very private person, yet completely honest about herself. In her own very womanly way, she was as aggressive as any man, but unfeminine she clearly was not; completely the opposite. Promiscuous, his instincts flatly denied. Free, most certainly; but his every apperception told him the freedom was hers, not that of others. Many men would campaign for her and fail—and some would salve their egos by groundless leers and innuendos.
    A woman like Joan, despite her natural privacy, would generate gossip from disappointed men and jealous women alike. But to know Joan was to realize that those who had been allowed to feel the real abandon of which she was capable would