A mail call prior to leaving port left Dart with Dot’s letter of July 17 to answer. The most pressing issue is the ring. He’ll follow her request and pick out the ring himself, if she’ll let him know quickly what size she wears. He reminds her that he knows no more about engagement rings than she does, but he’ll try to live up to her trust in his judgement.
Now, he offers a proposal of a different kind – his preliminary plans for how to spend his leave time. He suggests he go to Cleveland via Greenwich, stay there for as long as she wishes, within reason. Then, she could leave for college a week early and accompany him on the train back to Ohio, where she’ll stay with his folks until it’s time for her to report to Kent State.
He wonders if she’s heard of any travel restrictions for civilians on train trips of such a short distance as NYC to Cleveland. I suppose service members get top priority on the trains. He has some ideas about how they can get around the restrictions, if there are any.
He tells Dot that some of the most thrilling sights he’s seen “out here,” (then corrects himself to write “out there”) cannot be described adequately. He hopes he’ll find the words to either write about them or tell her. It seems that one of his biggest inspirations is the sheer size and power of the US Navy. He writes that it’s enough to fill several pages of manuscript.
Apparently deciding that there’s no time like the present, he begins now. “It seems that every port we enter, every cruise we take, every operation that we participate in, we see enough ships that we think most of the Navy must be right there at that time. From the far forward areas, step-by-step, base-by-base, we see ships. Warships, freighters, repair ships, supply ships, tenders, oilers. We see sidewalks and beaches and roads filled with sailors. We see big Navy trucks, hundreds of small boats, jeeps by the dozen. We see warehouses, barracks, offices, hospitals; all put up in great haste and in great numbers by our Navy. Navy planes fill the sky. They buzz around the carriers in great spirals, keep their distance until the one ahead is safely aboard, then each taking his turn to land. Huge four-motored Coronado flying boats take off and land with chest-filling noises, and fly overhead in long lines or great V-formations, like flocks of geese. Graceful, gull-winged Navy Mariners, two-motored flying boats, circle lazily over a lonely convoy far at sea, then disappear into the hazy distance. ”
“Everywhere it goes, the Navy takes over. Completely, thoroughly, with great show. The show isn’t one of flashing gold and shined shoes. It is one of dust and grime and water, of rawhide shoes, dungarees and tanned backs. Yet it retains enough of the Navy’s immutable tradition to make it ours, through and through.”
Now there’s a letter that will hold the Chamberlains spellbound around the dinner table!
But Dart would much rather see a sunset from a hilltop than a shiptop. All they need now is for the war to end so that he and Dot can continue the Sunapee honeymoon tradition begun by her parents.
He must end this letter to stand watch.
He is heading home. He’s as safe as one can be on a war ship in time of war. But he’s still a long way from holding his sweetheart in his arms again.
