Well, it’s quite obvious from the length of this epistle that Dart has  some time on his hands! He’s overjoyed to have finally received his back mail, including a letter from Dot. He tells her that her letters are the next best thing to being with her.

There’s more chit chat about his mother getting a snapshot of him copied for Dot. The Red Cross brought a book cart to the ward and he selected a book by Stephen Leacock called “My Remarkable Uncle.” Apparently, Dart’s a big fan of this author, whom he describes as a “subtle humorist” in the style of James Thurber and Robert Benchley. “I hope someday to be able to write like Leacock, Thurber and some of the others.”

One last bit about the hospital corpsman coming to prepare his back for tomorrow’s surgery. “It can’t be very delicately told what he did to me, so you’ll have to live in blissful ignorance for a long, long time,” quipped Dart. As open as he is in expressing his feelings for Dot, he is very careful not to offend her sensibilities.

His last paragraph took a somber tone as he hinted at a fear that this could be his last letter to her.  (I guess anesthesia made surgery much riskier back then, and I’m sure that in his solitude, his thoughts got the better of him.)