What is there to say about the dance? Big room. Men in uniforms, mostly looking smarter than they have a right to. Mostly looking smarter, in fact, than Waterhouse. Women in dresses and hairdos. Lipstick, pearls, a big band, white gloves, fist fights, a little bit o’ kissin’ and a wee bit o’ vomitin’. Waterhouse gets there late—that transportation thing again. All the gasoline is being used to hurl enormous bombers through the atmosphere so that high explosives can be showered on Nips. Moving the wad of flesh called Waterhouse across Brisbane so he can try to deflower a maiden is way down the priority list. He has to do a lot of walking in his stiff, shiny leather shoes, which become less shiny. By the time he gets there, he is pretty sure that they are functioning only as tourniquets preventing uncontrollable arterial bleeding from the wounds they’ve induced.