The past few days have passed quickly for Dart, but with no real news to tell. Instead he decides to describe a little more about his daily life aboard the ship.
He hopes to finish this letter before the deadline for censors. When they get word that there will be a mail pick-up that day, they never have much time to wrap up their letters in order for the censors to approve them before the mail goes out. It takes quite a long time for all the letters to get processed through the censorship board.
His “condition watch” has been changed to an inside post, although his battle station watches are still outdoors. The latter he does every dawn and dusk, but the inside watch is much nicer, especially when the weather is rough.
When he first came to the Haggard, he feared he would not get assigned to fire control. In fact, one of the three FC guys in his newbie group was actually assigned to the mess hall – cooking and serving meals, stocking the galley and cleaning the mess hall. Now, Dart and the other FC striker are having their turn at the same duty. He isn’t sure when it’ll start, but it can’t last longer than three months and he’s been told it won’t hurt his chances for advancement, if such chances occur. He doesn’t seem too upset about being taken off the duty he trained so hard for and working in the mess.
The men are allowed to work on standard Navy courses while on condition watch, so he’s about two thirds of the way through the course work he’s doing to try to get a promotion.
The sea has been unbelievably calm for the last couple of days. It reminds him of Lake Erie in the summer, when the water is so smooth that the only motion is when the wind ruffles the surface slightly. He loves to see the Cleveland skyline reflected in the lake when it gets like that. The Pacific has been just that smooth. His ship can go through the glass-like water at top speed without a drop of water or a breath of spray coming on deck. He says it’s a shame to run a ship through such perfectly smooth water.
As he writes now, however, the old girl is having some fun. She’s pitching and swaying all over the place. He’s gotten used to the wildly irregular roll of the ship on rough seas and it doesn’t phase him much, except when the bow rides off the top of a swell and then plunges into a deep trough with a giant smack! There are times when they hit the wave so hard that a solid sheet of water envelopes the ship and soaks everything in its path.
He guesses even war and rough seas can’t keep a guy from thinking about his girl, his family and his hobbies. He’s been doing a lot of all three lately. I’m sure Dot will be thrilled to learn he’s designed a wiring plan for his two model trains so he can get them running when he’s able to get little motors for them. He’s also been working out some details on their house. “You mentioned going upstairs hand-in-hand in one of your letters. What fond memories that brought back! I wish now that we’d stayed awake and talked all night. The sleep we’d have missed wouldn’t have mattered now. I’m doing all I can to make our little house with the big fireplace come true, and when that happens, all our present dreams will have come true, too. The only ones left will be the ones we can cook up together, between now and then.”
