Dart spends a good part of this long letter describing his voyage so far. Last night they sailed past the Bahamas, and today they’ve seen numerous other islands, including Cuba. As he writes, they’re passing Jamaica.

It’s been a beautiful, sunny day. As they passed by the islands, huge mounds of puffy clouds hovered high above the land, looking like massive scoops of ice cream. The ship flew across the smooth water at about 25 knots (30 mph land speed), stirring up crisp, white froth as it cut through the sea. The Craig seems to be a more stable ship than the Haggard, but there hasn’t been a real test on rough waters yet.

Some of the day was spent doing maneuvers with their sister ship, calibrating their long-range radar systems. Much of the crew got started on the “suntan treatments” on the superdeck. Tomorrow, they’ll have gun practice and the following day will bring them to the Canal.  All-in-all, Dart seems to be enjoying his experience, despite the fact that each mile takes him farther from Dot.

He had long conversations last night on the fantail – one with Blevins and the other with Foecking. Both times, he talked mostly of Dot, and both men seemed quite impressed with her charms.

The food continues to win high praise from this sailor. Salt air and wind often increase appetites, but he says that can’t account for the increased desirability of the meals they’re getting these days. Maybe Dart will have some success in packing on some pounds. He likes what Dot wrote about taking good care of her future husband, and he plans to do just that.

He sees a big red flag in Dot’s paragraph about Tip and Ellie. He thinks a 24-year old who goes as far with a young girl as Dot and Dart progressed in two years is up to no good. His observations have shown him that most of the guys who seem to “get” a lot of girls have a very amiable manner and nice personality. He hopes his own “professional wet blanket” status is off-base, and that everything works out well for all concerned.

He’d like her to tell him exactly what ergs, joules and dynes really are. He can’t seem to remember, and humbly admits he wouldn’t be able to help her as much with physical science as he’d thought he might. He’s sorry her new English prof is such a perfectionist, but perhaps her mother was right about grading freshmen harder to weed out the weakest links.

While he’s been writing, the ship has crossed into some really rough water. He was just thrown onto his “tochus.” He tells her to ask her Jewish housemate what that means, and be prepared to cover her face in embarrassment.

The final paragraph brings him to the tender stuff Dot must be so eager to read. “Oh my Darling, I want you so much. I want to enjoy all our moments together, from now on. I love you and miss you and wish we were together constantly.”

#      #      #

Dot got three letters from Dart today. That made her so happy that she’s promised not to complain during the first three days of no letters, lest she seem like a spoiled brat. She hopes these are the last Charleston post marks she ever sees – not because she hopes he’ll never go back to the city he likes so much, but because when he goes back, she’d like to think she’ll be with him.

She heard about his Aunt Flora’s health problems the last time she went to Cleveland, and thinks she recalls meeting her last winter. She thinks she’ll try to write the lady a cheery note because mail usually helps a lot when someone isn’t feeling too well. That makes Dot wonder what her Aunt Mil had to say in the letter to Dart. She knows it’s none of her business what his mail says, but she’s nosy.

“I’ve noticed a big difference between the way I feel now and the way I felt the last time you went overseas. The future doesn’t look as indefinite as it did a year ago. After all, the war is over. We can look forward to being together fairly soon, which wasn’t possible last year. But there’s a deeper feeling within me that is 100 times the hurt as before. Yes, Dart, being engaged does mean more than most engaged couples would have you believe. I feel that what we have together now can’t be too different from the bond between a husband and a wife. Being your wife is going to seem the most natural thing that has ever happened to me. Thank you, Darling, for being the light of my dark hours. Don’t we sound like a couple of glow-worms pitching woo?”

He was so impressed with her descriptive paragraph in her last letter that he  asks how she’d like to come work for him? Well, she’d like it fine, except the kind of work he implied in his letter is not really her line. “However, if it’s a housewife you’ll be wantin’ I’d surely like the job.”

After the small doubt he expressed, Dot assures him that he’ll fit just fine into the Chamberlain family. In fact, he already does fit. Some might say he fits too well. Why, her cousin Janie is so taken with Dart that she once told Dot that until her real man came along, Dart would serve as her ideal.

Now she returns to a favorite topic of recent letters – that look on Dart’s face during their late night on the davenport at Christmas time. “Here we are still talking about the looks we exchanged four weeks ago. That’s what’s so great about letters – you can make the future feel like tomorrow and the past seem like yesterday. I guess the best way to describe the look you had is that it was the combination of two opposite things. You looked almost like a stranger, yet I felt that I knew you better at that moment than I had ever known you. You looked strong and masculine in every way, and yet at the same time, relaxed and weak. I’m not making myself clear, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do at the moment.”

Ellie’s date the other night was not her first date, only her first with Tip. Now she swears she’s madly in love with him. Dot would think she was crazy if she herself had not fallen hard and fast for her own fella.

Everything seems to speak in favor of a double bed, but why, she asks, must they fight just so they can kiss and make up? Is there any reason they can’t kiss as much and as long as they please when they have their own private bedroom? It gives her thrills just to think about it!

She picked June 20 because she’ll be 21 and that will allow her to keep a promise she made to herself that she wouldn’t marry until she was 21. If she’d known Dart when she made that childhood promise, she never would have made it.

She would like her mother’s letter back, but all the discussions and arguments in the world won’t change her mind. She wants to be his wife just as soon as it’s possible and her every prayer is that things will align to make that happen, to everyone’s satisfaction.

Three months from today is Easter and she sees no possible way they’ll be able to spend it together. Still, it costs nothing to dream, so she’ll continue that tactic. “No matter how long this separation must be, we must always remember that it will be our last real separation.”