Dart begins with “I feel lousy.” His head is splitting and his hands are shaky. He thinks Dot will probably wish he’d never started this letter.

He’s written to her mother, plus a few others this morning. If he can get his washing done, and if he can lose this headache, he may go on liberty, just to escape the compound. But he’d rather go some place where there a fewer sailors, where the civilians smile occasionally and where the air doesn’t smell of a burning glue factory and the “residue” left by drunken sailors. Eeeew!

There were no letters from Dot or from home in two days. It’s taken him an hour to write these two paltry pages, but it’s all he has the stomach for right now.