Dart announces that he has finally been assigned a real bunk. He says that enough men have “transferred’ off the ship that there is now space for him in a regular sleeping area. If one knows what happened to the Haggard just days ago, one might assume that “transferred” is a clue about it. Transferred to a hospital ship, perhaps? Or, tragically, transferred Stateside in a casket? In any case he says, “I expect to rest my raw bones in a real bunk tonight, for the second time since I left the good old USA.” He explains that his first occasion to sleep in a bunk came one night in sick bay aboard the Admiral Coontz, en route to the Haggard.
He writes a humorous description of those bunks. They were stacked five layers high and constructed of canvas slings that sagged very low beneath the frame work that suspended them. He drew a little sketch of a tower of skinny sailors lounging in their bunks. Each man’s “center of gravity” drooped low into the space that the man below him would have occupied, if he, too were not drooping far below his bunk frame. The poor guy on the bottom was essentially resting his rump directly on the deck.
Having filled one whole page with chatter about his sleeping arrangements, Dart describes his new job in the mess. He’s up before reveille and doesn’t finish until after 7:00 PM, but he’s not required to serve on work parties. Yesterday while he washed dishes, other sailors hauled heavy ammunition all over the decks. This job has it’s perks.
He closes with the wish that they will get mail soon. It feels like months since he’s heard from Dot, but it’s really only two weeks. Perhaps some of his eagerness for news is because he himself has so much news to share that cannot be shared.
As Dot begins to write, she finds herself wishing she were curled up next to Dart on the couch, talking to him instead of writing. She misses him so much, but she finds one fault in her wish – that is the fact that she does better “talking” in a letter than she does face-to-face. “I hope by the time you get home, I’ll be cured.” She recalls that Wednesday afternoon when she tried to explain why she couldn’t express herself. “As soon as you parked the car I started to pray, ‘Please help me prove I have a heart and a tongue. Keep me from blushing and silence my heartbeat so it can’t be heard way down at the Square.’ Oh, but alas, I couldn’t say ‘boo,’ my heartbeat fairly shook the car, and I blushed so violently the sky reflected it and we had a gorgeous sunset!”
Tonight she is babysitting way out on the outskirts of Greenwich with two “devil children.” They’ve been running her ragged all evening and their parents won’t be home until about 2:00 AM.
She talks about her little brother and her niece going into Madison Square Garden tomorrow to see the Ringling Brothers Circus, courtesy of Franklin Simon. The store purchased enough tickets for nearly every child in Greenwich to attend.
Dot reminds Dart that just a year ago tonight, she was having her second visit to his family’s home in Cleveland. While she was there, Dart called from Great Lakes Hospital and it was so wonderful to hear his voice. “Golly, it doesn’t seem possible a year has slipped by so fast, and yet, some ways it seems ages since that time.”
Dot believes this has been a wasted year for her. She seems no more mature than when she left school, her bank account has grown very little. “I have neither taken from society that which might benefit me, nor given anything to the world that would help in solving its many problems. The only thing she has learned is the value of a lost year – a year that can neither be relived, replaced, nor renewed. Perhaps this lesson will awaken her to the need to make something of her life. “With you as the model, I should be able to come as near to perfection as you, but you have the makings already there. I’ll have to scout around for some.”
What little regard this young woman has for her tremendous qualities of hard work, good humor, patience with young children, honesty, compassion and a positive outlook. I’m sure Dart will be happy to enlighten her.
