Dart has time for just a single page tonight, but it accompanies a photo from a magazine. He thinks it’ll get past the censor because this magazine photo has been published in the USA. It’s a photo of an early version of a destroyer similar to the Haggard. Dart says his ship is nicer because it’s an improved design and has just a single-color paint job and some design improvements.
He has just discovered two new songs that he really likes. One is recorded by Bing Crosby called “Let’s Take the Long Way Home.” It reminds him very much of Dot. The other is the first Andrews Sisters’ song he’s ever liked, and he believes it’s been banned on US radio, but it’s called “Rum and Coca-Cola.”
He’s tired and out of time.
Dot begins her letter as she began her day – in a terrible mood. She can’t put her finger on any particular reason, except that Dougie was entirely too rude and rough when he woke her up this morning, and that set her off for the day.
When she picks up the letter again at 11:30 that night, she’s in a far better frame of mind. Dart is responsible, of course. She came home from work and thought she’d feel better if she read some of his old letters. She started with one he wrote a year ago today and was instantly gratified. You see, he began his letter then by announcing what a foul mood he was in. She believes it was fate that led them both to be so irritable on the same day, one year apart – that’s how close and sympathetic they are! He had just been demoted once again to strict bed rest in the hospital and had received conflicting orders from two different doctors. It wasn’t a good time for him back then.
Inside the envelope of that letter, Dart had written that he’d held onto his letter for 24-hours, just to see if he still loved her. He did. “Now that a whole year has passed, can you safely say that that still holds?” asked Dot.
Hours have passed since she started reading his old letters. Her hands and nose are frozen and she can barely stay awake, so she closes the letter with a familiar old shorthand squiggle from those long-ago letters.
