I signed up to join the Royal Canadian Navy in Vancouver, BC. Shortly after processing I was taken down to the train station with a few other new recruits and assigned a relatively empty train car that would eventually be filled with more new recruits as we travelled across Canada to CFB Cornwallis in Nova Scotia. 

During a stop in Calgary a pretty young lady joined us. Her and I soon became fast friends, spending the rest of the trip to Halifax sitting together and thoroughly enjoying each others company. Once we arrived in Cornwallis several days later, she went one way with the rest of the young ladies (future Wrens) and I went the other. 

Six months later I got out of basic training and was stationed to Shearwater naval base outside of Dartmouth. I was to spend the next 6 months training as a meteorologists mate and then serving at the airport as a meteorologists mate. 

Two years later I was re-assigned to a destroyer escort, HMCS Columbia. During my time on the ship I was assigned to a bunk in a cramped mess along with 30 other sailors. Of course a person gets to know his messmates quite well in a short period of time. A lot of stories are shared especially during free grog time or the drinking of beer at sea at 10 cents a can.  

It was during one such time after several mess mates had already shared one of their favourite sexual conquest stories that I felt the overwhelming need to have one of my own. I made one up. My story was a long romantic, sexually charged yarn about how this cute little nymphomaniac I met on the train couldn't keep her hands off me for almost four days while we travelled across Canada together. I was so proud. Thinking back I almost believed that it actually happened. 

Months later I became a drinking buddy with one of my messmates named Jim. Jim and I soon became good buddies and hung around together most of the time during shore leave. During one day we went ashore, we met a couple of cute girls who invited us to a party they were having at their place. It turns out that many others had been previously invited as well. When we got there, there were several other sailors along with several pretty young ladies as well. 

Several hours later found me drinking and dancing and having a good old time, that is until I see another sailor walk into the living room and he has a young lady on his arm. The sailor turns out to be my buddy Jim's step brother and to my horror, the young lady is no other than the one I travelled across Canada with a couple years before. She recognizes me immediately and rushes over to give me a big hug. "So nice to see you again," she says. We chat for a short while before she goes back to her date. 

The rest of the evening I pretend to be having a wonderful time but the guilt from telling my huge lie is eating me up. The last thing I want to happen is be caught in it in front of all my peers. Alas, karma bit me! It was inevitable, my buddy Jim talks to his step brother and tells him how intimately I happen to know his date. The step brother confronts his date and gets a flat out denial from her that anything untoward happened on the trip across Canada. Then the step brother asks me to step out into the hall. I figure for sure I'm going to get a punch in the face if nothing else but I'm more worried about the story that will get around about the lie I told to all my shipmates. 

The young lady is standing beside her date with tears in her eyes and obviously very upset. I feel so bad to see her this way. She sobs, "Denny, why would you say such a thing about me? I thought we were friends." 

I can't bear to see her like this and my conscience is killing me. I'm going to risk the punch in the face, the good chance that my peers will find out. I admit my lie explaining that " you know how it is on board ship, everyone has to have a story. I didn't so I made one up. I totally apologize to both of you. To be quite honest I am still a virgin."

I neither got a punch nor did anyone pass the story around on board the ship although I would have deserved it and was prepared to suffer the razzing I would have gotten because of it.

To this day I have not seen the young lady again but this episode left me with a life lesson that I have never forgotten and probably never will.