Dart begins, “What a life! Drunken gutter sluts coming in all night; dirty, rusty decks; lousy, over-seasoned chow; same old Haggard. Except for one thing; about 50 men have already been transferred, leaving a big hole in the crew.”
Sounds a bit grumpy, our boy. One thing that interest me, though, is that he refers to some of the sailors as “sluts.” In my experience, that word has generally been limited (unfairly, in my opinion) to describing females. Dart was a bit ahead of his time, perhaps, in making it an equal-opportunity word.
He goes on to report that the Haggard will be decommissioned within two weeks and then sold for scrap. Nearly all of the men who have been transferred from her crew have been assigned to sea duty, including some that were just 1/4 point shy of earning a discharge. Some men may stay with the Haggard even after she’s decommissioned, but Dart doesn’t expect to be included on that list. But what good will his hard-won combat skill as a fire contollman be during peacetime? Who needs to know how to calculate the trajectory of a big gun on a ship?
He withdrew his entire pay of $59.00 this morning, plus an additional “subsistence” pay of $19.50 for meals while on leave. I think both those numbers are for an entire month. I’m glad the Navy’s been so generous with liberties lately because you sure can’t say much for their pay scale!
He and Hal Martin are planning to go out on liberty in a few hours. Fortunately, they’ve been assigned to the same liberty section. They’re happy that Hal has his car with him again, but they’re worried. (About what, he doesn’t say, but maybe there’s a concern that if Hal gets sent to sea, there’ll be no time to get his car back home where it can be tended by his family.) At any rate, they hope to drive the car home at first opportunity.
Dart’s frustrated that he’d like to pitch a little woo in this letter, but he’s surrounded by a bellowing crowd of “sea gulls” that have killed the mood. Instead, he tells Dot he’s glad they haven’t been married yet because he would have brought her to Norfolk with him. “That would have been bad, but to have men from this ship within 50 miles of you would have been even worse. I wouldn’t feel safe if you were within the same city as these rapacious, drunken, noisy, obscene, stupid, crude, inconsiderate, worthless animals who comprise the ‘backbone; of the Haggard’s crew.” Wow! He’s on a tear today.
He tells about the many letters that were awaiting him when he arrived back from leave. Most of them were from friends and classmates who’d not heard about Dot and Dart’s engagement. Dart looks forward to spreading the “joyous news.”
He writes his new address and signs off with the new “Let’s go!” that both he and Dot have been adding to their letters of late. When I asked Mom what that was all about she explained an incident that happened on Dart’s pre-leave visit to Greenwich. They were sitting in a car late one night, just talking. Suddenly, a policeman shone a bright light into the window and bellowed “Let’s go!” They may have been embarrassed or indignant, but they turned the episode into a little private joke. Cute.
Dot had just been walking across campus trying to calculate the earliest she might get a letter from Dart when she arrived home and was handed a letter from him, a day before her earliest estimate. She’s grateful to him for writing so promptly and she’s glad to learn that the train trip back was better than he’d expected.
Her house is buzzing with excitiemnt. Phyllis, the girl in slacks who was playing the piano when Dart was there, went home for the weekend and came back engaged! The wedding is set for February 10th. Dot is a little dubious, because when Phyl left for home on Friday, she was pretty sure she was in love with someone else. Still, when Ron asked her for the 15th time to be his wife, she was struck like a bolt out of the blue and decided to accept. She hasn’t told her folks yet, and she fears they’ll be less than enthusiastic about the sudden plans. What Dot questions the most, however, is Phyl’s decision about school: she’ll leave after the first quarter, which will really do her no good at all, but if she withdraws this week, she’d receive 80% of her money back from Kent. Practical Dot would go for the cash! Why is it that girls felt they couldn’t go to school and be married at the same time?
Now, she teases, she’s sitting here with no hope of being married in less than three years. She reminds Dart that he once talked about getting married before she was “of age” (21) but it seems that idea is just a dream. “Even if I had to wait ten years (Heaven forbid!) I’d be luckier than any other girl in the world.”
There’ll be a formal dance on November 3 and she’d love it if he could attend. She says to bring the admiral along if Dart thinks he’d like it.
She’ll need to ignore him for about 24 hours while she at least pretends to study for her biology test. After telling Dart to stay healthy, happy and hoping for a discharge, she signed off. Then added a P.S.: Dart’s mother just called to say that she and Pop were worried about Dot’s gas stove because it doesn’t look to be properly vented. Dot assured them that it had been taken care of, but she was touched that they cared enough to worry. She tells Dart again that she loves him and she loves his family.
