Sex and the High Command Read Online Free PDF Page A

the engine room or for the merchant navy from which he had transferred. Hansen didn’t care to prolong the engineer’s visit. “Chief, I’m trying to evaluate Chief Water Tender McCormick in nonprofessional areas. Does he tell the truth?”
    “To my knowledge, Skipper.”
    “There’s an article in the ship’s paper about him. Does he brag about his relations with women?”
    “No, sir. The story comes from his running mate, Farrel. Those two have a standing bet on who gets first gash when they hit port, and, believe me. Captain, McCormick’s the champ.”
    “Very well, Chief. Thank you.”
    “Sorry I can’t be more help. Captain. I hit the beach, myself, last night, and I…”
    “Chief, my interest in this matter is purely professional. I’m directing you to keep this conversation confidential.”
    “Absolutely, Skipper. You can count on me!” It was the first time in his naval career that the captain had seen a leer put into a salute.
    Before the captain had a chance to call McCormick, his orderly announced that Commander Morris Gresham wished an audience. Hansen rose to greet his unexpected caller, a commander in the medical corps, slight of build, with bulging brown eyes, a receding hairline on a receding forehead, and a receding chin which gave his pointed nose such prominence that his mustache merely altered his profile from molelike to seal-like.
    He carried a briefcase.
    “Good morning, Captain Hansen.” The voice was low and well-modulated. “I was free when Admiral Darnell called, and he tells me that you might have one of our profile boys aboard.”
    Hansen felt himself strangling in a noose of unreality, but he managed a smile and a wave of the hand. “I’m not familiar with your shoptalk, Doctor, but please join me in a cup of coffee.”
    “If you have tea, Captain.”
    “By all means. Tea for the doctor, Marcos.”
    Hansen turned back to his guest and said, “Have a seat, Doctor. I’ve checked McCormick’s service records. Care to look?”
    “Indeed I would, Captain.” He was accepting the folders as he sat down, and when he hit the seat he was absorbed, oblivious to the arriving tea or the waiting captain. Once he paused, tapped his finger on the folder, and said, “Does that follow? Yes, it follows.”
    Hansen considered the doctor’s unilateral dialogue undiplomatic in the presence of four stripes. He asked, “What is this profile business?”
    Dr. Gresham lifted his eyes, blinked twice, and said, “A personality index profiling male attitudes toward females. We call it Lothario X.” His lids lowered and he was lost again.
    When he wolf-whistled between his teeth, Hansen asked, “What’s this profile business all about?”
    “I’m in the dark, myself. It’s a secret project that the Bureau of Medicine is working on with the Bureau of Personnel.” He paused. “The nonpsychological factors bug me.”
    Obviously, the doctor was finding more in the service record than the captain had found. He would nod at times, in agreement with himself, tap the paper, and resume reading. “Wonderful! Wonderful! Breast feeding!”
    “A nonpsychological factor?” Hansen inquired.
    “Definitely psychological. No, he checks out in the nonpsych areas: age thirty-seven, native-born, bachelor, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and he’s from Tennessee.”
    “What does that mean, psychologically speaking?”
    “Nothing. That’s what bugs me.” He closed the file, tapping it with his fingertip. “Freud would have a field day with this fellow.”
    Hansen resented the term “fellow” for a Navy hand. “How can you say that about a man you’ve never seen?”
    Dr. Gresham tasted his cold tea, replaced the cup, folded his hands over his briefcase, and focused his eyes on the captain. “He’s a bachelor at thirty-seven, which evinces a latent hostility toward women as a compensation for an overly active Oedipal drive. This means he loved his mother but resented her relations with his father.