Free Voyage to Somewhere by Sloan Wilson

kind of woman: Chinese, Polynesian, and naturalized Jap. Prostitutes were found who had married a dozen men and were getting allotments from all of them. Steps were taken to curb a number of women from marrying men they thought were in a particularly dangerous branch of the service and might leave them government life insurance. It was recalled to the men that they could not make out allotments to people who were not members of their family. Still men tried to make out allotments to sweethearts, friends, bartenders, people they met in the street.
    â€œI don’t care,” they said, “I can’t use it myself.”
    â€œSave it,” they were told. “You can use it later.”
    â€œAll right,” they said, “I’ll save it.”
    Still most of them didn’t save any money they did not sign away in allotments. They bought vanity cases, rings, gold watches, and pressed them on girls they took out for a night.
    â€œTake it,” they’d say, “I want you to have it.”
    They joined part-time work organizations and hired themselves out to watch babies at night. They played catch like boys in the street. They organized baseball games, football games, and basketball matches between ships, between departments on a ship, between somebody and anybody. They heavily patronized a printing shop that made copies of newspapers with headlines to order.
    â€œSamuel Brigham, Seaman Second Class, Wins Congressional Award. Grantsville, Illinois, Boy Earns Nation’s Highest Honor.”
    Every photograph shop in the city was working day and night. The sailors had snapshots made of themselves with their arms around girls, with their arms around shipmates, with their arms around anybody. They had enlarged photographs made of themselves, portraits, sketches, tinted pictures that made their flesh a rose color and their hair either bright yellow, mahogany brown, or jet black. One enterprising photographer worked overtime taking pictures of men and sketching on them realistic looking beards, mustaches, and long, unkempt haircuts. The same photographer would take a picture of a seaman and insert his face and figure into a uniform of whatever rank ordered. Most of the photography shops had buxom hula girls in brief pseudo-grass costumes continually on hire to pose on the laps of sailors.
    Every ship, shore establishment, and public building displayed posters warning against venereal disease. They all showed pictures of pretty women.
    â€œBeware,” they said, “VD Means Trouble.”
    â€œBetter Be Good Than Be Crippled!”
    â€œIf She’s Friendly, Look Out!”
    Every two or three blocks in the city there were prophylaxis stations for the prevention of venereal disease, and the men stood in lines outside of these fidgeting and joking self-consciously. Sometimes a seaman hardly older that a schoolboy was found crying on a street corner or on a bench in the park.
    â€œCome on,” his friends would shout, “cheer up! What you need is another drink.”
    The sailors were great singer. They sang in the churches, in the bars, and on the streets. They sang hymns, Tin-Pan Alley jargon, and songs they made up themselves.
    â€œOnward, Christian Soldiers,
    Marching as to war,
    With the cross of Jesus …”
    â€œCome to me, my melancholy baby,
    Cuddle up and don’t be blue …” *
    â€œBless ’em all, bless ’em all,
    The long, the short and the tall,
    There’ll be no rotation this side of Fort Mason,
    So cheer up, my lads, bless ’em all!”
    Organizations like the Salvation Army that made music in public gathered a large following. One evening Mr. Rudd and I were walking home from the officers’ club just before the eleven o’clock curfew. We heard a hubbub down the street, and walking in that direction, we heard the sound of singing. We walked for a long while, and the singing grew louder and louder. Finally emerging into