The main news carried by this letter from Dart is that he has passed through the roughest waters he’s ever seen in his life as a sailor. From breakfast yesterday until 2:30 in the afternoon, their little ship was rammed, battered, lifted, flung and crashed into loud and violent waves. Huge sheets of water covered the decks at frequent but irregular intervals. Dart’s amazed and pleased that at no time did he feel even slightly sick, so he thinks he may become a real sailor yet.
The fascinating thing is that the ship had to make so many course changes during the rough hours that when the water suddenly calmed, no one on board had any idea where they were. I’ll let Dart tell the story in his own words.
“Just as suddenly as the roughness began, … the roughness ended, and we were in sight of great ranges of unknown mountains. We had had to change courses and speeds several times to keep heading into the huge waves and the high wind, so our exact position had been lost. Where were we? Radar told us how far the land was, the sonar mechanism told us how deep the water was, so we were in little danger of running aground. BUT, the coastline of lower Mexico is not marked and is poorly charted. As I went to my lookout post on the bridge, the main question in our minds, and in the Captain’s words was ‘Where the hell are we?’ It took several hours of searching the beautiful majesty of the coastline before we passed a charted landmark. That was a lighthouse, small and white and lonely on its rocky cape; the only sign of life we’d seen for three hours, the only charted marker in 60 miles of coastline.”
“…In our sixty miles of coastline before dusk, we watched a high mountain range pass before our eyes. It was far inland; radar showed 30 to 60 miles. It backed up row after row of smaller ranges, increasing in height as they receded from the shore. We saw ‘stern cliffs’ with huge breakers beating against their frowning faces. We saw miles of long beaches, protected by rocks, with clear, green water rolling gently to foamy furrows; beautiful bathing beaches, probably never used by man. All of it was wasteland. Every bit – 60 miles long, 60 miles deep; from the thundering green ocean to the snow-capped, cloud-fringed peaks. The sun was setting and it cast a golden light through the haze; real theatrical lighting.”
“We would spy a barren spot on a mountain, a peculiar peak, or any other thing which might be a landmark, and report it to the Captain. He’d scan his charts for mention of it, then give up, after asking the Orleck if she’d found anything on the same mark. At last we saw the lighthouse. We had a ‘fix’. We were no longer lost. The Captain went back to sleep.”
He reports that the fresh water system was repaired enough to allow 45 minutes of shower time for the crew. Unfortunately, that was when Dart was on watch, so all the guys that had duty during the fresh water time were allowed to take very short showers. He no longer smells bad, but he doesn’t feel particularly clean.
They are due in San Diego on the afternoon of February 1. Right now they’re speeding forward because the wife of the Orleck’s captain is due to delivery a baby any time, and he wants to be in port for the blessed event. Dart hopes they’ll stay longer than their scheduled 4 days, but there’s little chance of that. They must refuel, restock and repair the water system, and then they’ll be off to ports unknown. He lets Dot know that as of January 31, he’ll have 29 1/2 points – not enough to keep him in the States.
He continues the letter the next morning after “lights-out” cut his time short the night before.
He tells her that his letters of late have been boring to him, so he can only imagine how bored she must be reading them. He hears other guys complaining about the letters they get from their girls, chatting on and on about people she works with, or what she bought at the store that day, and the guys are simply not interested. (In my opinion, if they really like the girl, anything she’s doing or thinking about would be interesting to him.) He says he has no business writing to her of such mundane topics as gunnery practice and malfunctioning fresh water systems, but that’s his life right now. “My failing is that I don’t make it interesting on paper. I’ll not be a good writer until I can make humdrum things sound interesting, after they’ve passed through this twitching pen-point of mine.” I predict we’ll soon read a passionate rebuttal from Dot, who seems to delight in any letter written in his hand. I may also be biased, but I think his gift for description and his clever turn of a phrase can make his writing quite readable. Maybe he could work a little on brevity, but I think Dot would even take exception to that!
Today, the sun is bright and the sea is calm. The crew has been entertained by a school of dolphins that have been frolicking along side the ship for hours. Dart even spied a giant sea turtle with a sea gull riding on its back, but saw it too late to snap a picture.
That’s all he has for tonight, except to say he loves her and misses her more than his pen can describe.
# # #
The day Dot has been holding her breath for is finally here! Four letters from Dart arrived this morning before she had even left for class. She sits down to dash off a quick note before leaving for physical science in a few minutes.
Not that it matters much, but today’s mail also brought letters from her mother, Mary Grove (her 10th grade roommate) and the Andrews Alumnae Bulletin. Her mother’s note brought news that could turn out to be serious; her father has had a bad cold for several days that brought an ear infection. He’s been left quite deaf but says he’s too busy to see a doctor. The family is hoping his impairment is temporary, and that he’ll go see a specialist very soon.
Off she hustles to classes with a promise to answer his letters this afternoon.
Later that day, she returns to the task of writing, even happier than she was this morning. The afternoon mail delivery brought another letter from Dart!
She’s relieved to get news from his trip so far. How grateful she is that he’s eating so well and that the cruise seems to be going smoothly – at least on the first couple of days out. She’s curious about his “tacu” position and asks if he has any contact at all with the fire control room. I suspect she’s thinking of those months of training he received in San Francisco to prepare him for the highly specialized wartime job. Is all of that behind him now?
Did he hear, way out on the seas, that scientists have made radar contact with the moon? “They even interrupted radio programs with the news. Lots of excitement. What do you suppose science will think of next? I’m scared.”
She sometimes wishes her house had a “light’s out” time like the Navy, but when she had one at boarding school, she didn’t like it much. “Human beings (I, in particular) are never satisfied. I’d come mighty close to it, though, if the Navy would see to it that you’re a civilian again by Easter. How ever will you survive on only 11 1/2 hours of sleep every night and those strenuous four-hour watches every day?”
She’s glad he’s taking plenty of snapshots. It’ll be fun to look at them soon, and then years down the road when he’s showing them to their kids and explaining about how he won the war, single-handedly. She hasn’t been to his parents’ place since his photos of Charleston arrived, but she’s excited to see them next weekend when she’s there.
After reading about the course he’s on to get to the Canal, she looked at a small map trying to find the islands he mentioned passing. How she’d love to see the Bahamas or Jamaica – or anyplace on earth that the two of them could see together.
How wonderful that he has some good buddies on the ship, especially when he wants to talk to someone about the girl he’s so in love with. She and Joyce take great comfort in discussing their loved ones with each other. Dot hopes she’ll have a chance to meet some of Dart’s Navy buddies sometime – maybe invite them to dinner when that dream house becomes a reality.
She’s sure Dart will be delighted to know that Ellie finally got the long-awaited letter from Tip. She’s still crazy about him, even though several people have suggested he’s a first class wolf. Ellie says she wants to find that out through experience.
On another topic she writes, “You mean you don’t know what erg, joules, and dynes are? How could you be so stupid?!! That makes two of us! All I know is that they have something to do with physical science, which in my opinion, is enough to condemn anything.”
“Evidently you visited a different part of Panama this trip. At least you sounded unduly shocked at the situations that prevail, for one who has already had a taste of them before. Somehow I never have, and never will worry about your capability to stay clear of ‘THEM’ and ‘IT.'”
“Darling, need you ask if I would mind sleeping in your arms instead of talking? Oh, if it were only possible. This weekend when I slept with Joyce, she’d pretend that I was Bill and I’d pretend that she was you. Mighty poor substitutes, I confess. …You know, if I may be so bold as to state my belief, I think marriage is going to agree with me extremely well.”
Returning to that letter from her tenth grade roommate, she explains that when they roomed together, Mary promised to sing at Dot’s wedding, should such an unlikely thing ever occur. Since graduation, Mary has been in California working for a gas company, but has just been awarded a scholarship to attend the St. Louis Institute of Music. Dot is so happy for her because she has a beautiful voice and has worked very hard at it. Now, she probably won’t be able to come east for the wedding, but Mary promises to send a recording. Dot tells Dart that Mary predicted on that first date that the two of them would marry each other. “She said we both had a look of being ‘out of this world and head over heels in love.'”
She begs Dart to keep his masterpieces coming because they are her whole life when he’s away from her.
# # #