Sadly, I had to turn down the captain’s invitation. I explained to him in rather vague but not wholly incomprehensible terms that a woman was waiting for me in Genoa, and as we rarely got a chance to see each other, we treasured every minute we could spend together. The captain asked if it was a serious relationship, and I replied that it could not be any more serious.
“So why don’t you get married, then?” he said.
“It’s impossible,” I replied. It was a completely honest answer, but I left out much of the detail.
The captain had a general idea that I had been sent on board this ship by the army, but he was not told anything else. He was not a complete outsider, of course, but as I had been trained to do at Division X, I held my tongue and kept my mouth shut. He seemed trustworthy enough
