Dart begins by saying he feels like spilling forth a blue-sounding letter with phrases like “if” I get back instead of the more cheery “when” I get back. But he’s found it’s best not to think too much about getting back, regardless of whether it’s “if” or “when.”

All hands on the ship have been put to heavy labor recently. He put in a full 21 hours yesterday and the guy in charge of his work party is still at it, 60 hours after getting out of his bunk for the last time. They’re not worked that hard often, but sometimes it becomes necessary. One thing is certain; he’s learned far more about the workings of the ship than he’d learned in the previous month on board.

Several of the seamen with a Fire Control man second class rating are hoping for a promotion to third class while serving aboard the Haggard. Yesterday they all received their course of study to qualify them for advancement. Unfortunately, all the petty officer positions allowed on this ship have already been filled, so there’ll have to be lots of transfers or promotions to make room for all the guys who want to move up. If the war lasts a very, very long time, he may get it, but he’d rather achieve the third class rate now, as a seaman than years from now as a petty officer.

I’s hard for him to believe that it’s been four months since he looked over his shoulder at the Cleveland train station one last time for a final glimpse of Dot and his parents. How glad he is that all three of them were smiling in that last look. Her visit to Cleveland to see him was the best thing he could have hoped for, and made the long train trip and short visit worth the effort.

At this point in the letter, Dart goes off on a little rant about the drunken bums who’ve just returned from shore recreation. These guys whom Dart dubs “loud, profane, cocky, ignorant sailors” give all sailors a bad name on shore. They ruin things for everyone by their crude and offensive behavior. Sometimes when Dart goes off on these moral high ground tangents, he certainly sounds far older than his 21 years. Some might even say he sounds stodgy.

All this bad temper has left him very little room on the page to say the tender things he wanted to tell his girl. He suggests that maybe they could whisper them to each other like they did that time in the front seat of the car. Squeezed into the tiniest spot at the bottom of the page, he writes “But remember, Darling, whether you hear from me or not, I love you always.”

But wait! There’s a bonus letter, written later that night. What a beautiful bonus it is!

“My Darling, I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of you and of what our plans are for the future. If I ever see you again, Dot, I hope we’ll never have to be separated again. Every time I think of you, a strange sort of anxiety excites me, and I lose all ability to sleep, tired as I am. Oh, if this war could only end NOW and we could all return safely to our homes and the girls we love! Instead, all over the world, boys are going out to battle, most of them probably thinking the same as I do now.

Dorothy, I love you, I love you, I love you. Only you, from now until the end of our days. Goodnight, dear. I feel as though you’re thinking of me now. Yours forever, Dart”