As Dart begins the last letter he will ever write from Treasure Island, he’s sitting in the classroom, waiting for the instructor to arrive and orchestrate a clean-up. The sweet potato quartet is improvising some nice arrangements of old standards and Dart compares the sound to the calliope at a circus.
He returns after the cleaning is done, and he’s mighty angry with a certain officer. The guy managed to pick on the fellows who had done all the work, selecting them for additional chores, while the loafers were given more free time to pack. Dart’s finely tuned sense of injustice caused him to get mouthy with the officer, so he was, predictably. swept into additional work duty.
After being in the Navy for 23 months, he has at last acquired a set of dog tags. These are usually issued a few days after a man goes into uniform. Dart’s have been chasing him across country since he left the V-12 unit at Case many months ago, and arrived here yesterday.
There’s been no let-up in the rain, making laundry more difficult and creating muddy paths the men must tread while finishing up their tasks. His gear is packed, except for the dirty duds he’s wearing. He hopes the showers will be open tonight or tomorrow so that he can wash off the accumulated grime before adding an additional 3,000 miles of it on his cross-country train trip.
Having received no letter from Dot in a few days, he’s hoping to get one before leaving. He’s eager to read better news from her than the last letter contained. Again, he tells her how her recent news of a mysterious ailment requiring surgery really threw him for a loop. He tells her not to worry, admitting that sounds like pure hypocrisy, coming from him.
There’s a long section of the letter in which he gets into a deep discussion about dealing with health concerns. He tells her that when he had the surgery on his cyst, he was risking paralysis, disfigurement and impairment of his bodily functions, but he decided to go forward with the surgery anyway. Otherwise, he would be crippled by extreme pain, which had already begun to set in. In spite of all the illnesses and complications following his surgery, he’s still happy he took the risk. He hopes Dot will be brave with whatever she might have to face, and take whatever risk would be necessary to be well and whole. “Things often look very black and discouraging, and I hope this isn’t one of those times, but keep your chin up, Dottie. I want to see you come out of it smiling. I like your smile and I want to see it for the rest of my life and for all eternity.”
With yesterday’s paycheck, Dart’s account totaled $95. He withdrew every cent and promptly mailed his Uncle Guy a money order for the balance of his college loan. He feels great to be a “free man.” He’s eager to see how fast the savings will pile up now that he’ll be making an additional $12 every month. He tells Dot his top spending priorities after the war are an education, a wife and a home. The home will come last because the wife will need to be included in that decision.
On page 9 it looks like he’s casting about for material that will get him to page 10. He’s happy about the successes the Navy has been having recently; might end the war faster. He’s eager for the two of them to spend some time with the family Ford when they’re in Cleveland. And he tells Dot that he’ll wait until the end of the letter to tell her how much he loves her, but he’s afraid he still won’t be able to find the words to express it, even then.
He wants to correct the wrong impression she has that he always knows the right things to say and do. He tells her that he makes so many social blunders that he’s always embarrassing himself. She couldn’t possible be as awkward as she claims to be, but if so, he thinks it’ll be fun for them to blunder through life together. Referring to Dot’s sister-in-law, Betty B and other women who are at home while their men fight in the war, Dart does a nice little riff on how courageous and strong women are during wartime, keeping things going at home.
After an affectionate sign-off, he adds a P.S. that she’s just gotta see his new Seaman First Class stripes.
We don’t have another letter from either lovebird until November 10 because they were en route to Cleveland and then spending time together. I trust they will fill us in about how their time together went as soon as the letters start up again. Meanwhile, I’ll spend a little time each day filling the reader in on things that were happening in the wider world during this week in 1944. Stay tuned!
