True to his intentions, Dart manages to write a nice, long letter today. He’s alone in the barracks, in the mood for nothing but writing to Dot, and hoping the guys don’t come in to bother him. He’s usually happy to talk with the boys, but they invade his privacy at times and make it hard for him to write sweet nothings to his favorite girl.
He’s very enthusiastic about sleeping until 0800 this morning. The hotel bed provided a good rest, and the room only cost him and Spiegler a buck a piece! I wonder if that was a service man discount, or if that’s the going rate for a hotel room in 1944. If it’s the latter, it’s no wonder my mother gets sticker shock whenever she needs to reserve a hotel room these days.
Tomorrow brings a minor shake-up at Shoemaker. They are trading the lieutenant and the ship’s company men with another battalion. Dart hopes the “old boy” they get won’t be as big a stinker as Lt. Forbes was. Chief Wagstaff, on the other hand is a 30-year Navy man, serving as a bandmaster; a good guy and a true friend to the enlisted men.
He tells her that the Christmas mail rush has slowed down her letters. He’s a little concerned that all the stuff he’s been sending to her won’t get there in time for Christmas. He’s mailed some first class, some parcel post and others were shipped by the stores where he bought them.
Perhaps he dwells too much on those moments when the two of them were in perfect sync with each other, but those moments, and the hope that they’ll have forever together in the not-too-distant future are all he has to dream about. He keeps thinking of their afternoon in the park and how much he wanted to ask her to marry him. I’d heard often when I was growing up that Dad told Mom he didn’t think it was fair to obligate a young woman to marry a man who was going off to fight a war. What if he didn’t make it home, or if he came back a different man? In the beginning of the war, Dart believed that engagements should happen after the war was over. It must have been hard to keep to that self-imposed rule while he held her in his arms for their last time together for many, many months.
He writes that his pleasant reverie of those moments was interrupted by his quick trip to the office to see if his name was on a new draft that just came down. It wasn’t. Then he and Spiegler had a little snack of crackers and sandwich spread.
He confirms that he gets the same question as she does about whether she still loves him. Lt. Forbes asked him today when he was reading Dot’s latest letter. Dart blushed so deeply that Forbes tried to read the letter over his shoulder. I think that really annoyed him.
Just as she imagines wrapping gifts in her sleep, he finds himself stooping to pick up crates of empty bottles as he’s drifting off.
If his memory is correct, she was the first one to use the salutation “Dearest” in a letter. He believes that letter arrived the day before he was sent to the hospital at Great Lakes and he was overjoyed to get it. He’s always been grateful that he fell for her so hard and so fast that he was able to throw caution to the wind and be bold. He was bold enough to ask for a goodnight kiss on their date in Cleveland. The overthrown caution let him write that he loved her in the December 4, 1943 letter. He has no regrets.
It’s true that she has never told him to his face that she loved him, but she’s said it on the phone, and she’s said it in different ways. He loves the way she’s said it and he loves her, all of her. He fears the “short time” until the Big Day his pop wrote about is going to pass painfully slowly until the war is over. It’s all he wants in the world.
Dot gets a little start on her letter while at work because she has plans for this evening. She and her friend Jean are going to the Greenwich H. S. basketball game of alums vs students. Although Dot doesn’t care a fig about Greenwich H. S., she likes basketball and spending time with Jean, so it should be a fun evening.
She didn’t get much writing done at work because Mr. Goldstein got sick and Dot had to run the department alone. The game went well, with the alums winning on account of Dot screaming for them. Now she’s hoarse and tired.
Since Dart plans to go to the admiral to complain about a change of officers at Shoemaker, she decides she won’t make him also complain to the Postmaster General. Dot’s getting Dart’s letters all out of order, even though they’ve all be sent Air Mail. She’s so happy to get them at all, that she supposes it’s not necessary to complain about when they arrive.
She’s getting a little nervous about the day when Dart will reveal some of his faults to her. She can’t really believe he has any, and she won’t be the one to insist that he reveal them. If she had her “druthers,” he’d keep them hidden always so she’d never have to be disillusioned.
