In his opening line, Dart exclaims what a perfect night for a date this would have been, with a perfect moon overhead. That sets his mind to wondering about other perfect nights. I’ll quote most of his letter directly.

Tonight’s the kind of night that stirs up imagination, memories and emotions. It stirs the emotions of love, loneliness and desire. I guess we never did decide what it is about full moons that stirs  young couples, but we do know that it seems to have an effect. The desire it stirs is for you; the loneliness because we can’t be together enjoying it; and the love, Darling, is always here, just for you.

The memories a night like this stirs are many and varied. They often are of peaceful scenes, for this is a peaceful night. On a night such as this I looked down from the tallest building on the highest hill in San Francisco, and saw the lights and shadows of a fabulous city; the shimmering darkness of a busy, censor-cloaked harbor; ships at anchor, their dark forms in sharp silhouette against the twinkling water of the bay; cities on a black hillside, overlooking that bay, their streets and houses defined by orderly rows of lights, as though the stars of the Milky Way had been placed in lines for better guidance  of the traveler; the inspiring man-made spider web of a bridge carried tiny rows of lights from the city below, across the bay, across the ships, across the very ends of the moonbeams to the fallen Milky Way in the distance.

Yes, and on nights like this, a group of frantic youths, some spending their last living moments with their friends, drove on country roads, in crowded but friendly automobiles. They turned off headlights for a thrill, to let the silver of the moon guide them on their road. Why were they frantic? Did they know that some of their number would heed the call of God in the course of answering the call of their Country? Did they have premonition of it as they told their stories and jokes, as they made the loaded car rock with their laughter? Were they whistling in the dark?

And in my mind I see a sailor. He has just come into port. It was a port far from home, but friendly and safe, with lighted windows winking from the hillside across the water to the dark form that was a valiant ship. That entry to port was a homecoming, even though it was half way around the world from home. It was a beautiful, touching sight. There was no war. Not here. Not with these lights, these ships, those murmuring airplanes. Not with the great green island turning black in the waning twilight and the rising moon. Yes, the sailor came home that night, for in the light of that kindly moon, he read the letter from his sweetheart saying that she’d be more than his sweetheart: his fiance! That moonlit night saw no war. The war was over. That sailor had come home, to his life and to his beloved.

Before me is another scene. In it there are two shadows. Is that our sailor? No. The sailor is no more, perhaps a temporary being. The body, the face, the mind all characteristics of one of those shadows bear relation to the sailor who has come home. The other shadow? It is the image of a lovely girl, the same girl who became the sailor’s fiance. No longer the sailor’s absent sweetheart, she is the real, warm, live being, reclining on a couch with him who was a sailor. They glance only occasionally at the chilling specter of the moon. They are in love, locked in an embrace they have dreamed of for countless lonely evenings. Let us not disturb them further.

A flash! Back to the days at sea. A little ship sails without sails across a windless ocean. A little ship, yes, but how much bigger it is than the three tiny wooden ships which sailed ever westward long ago on another ocean. The ship is small, but the sea and the sky have taken pity on it, for they are being gentle. A sailor lays down his pen, stretches his aching back and collects his writing materials. He steps outside where the moonlight inspires a mixture of reflections, much as these tonight. He watches the canopy of the sky as the mast, with its rigging and eternally  revolving “bedsprings” point first one direction, then sweep slowly across the sky to point another. Suddenly – a clamor! Running. Whining engines. Hurried preparations for battle.Clicking of guns as ammunition is slipped into cocked mechanisms. Then, silence. Waiting. The ship slows. First one vibration – then another, then a pair of flashes as depth charges are hurled out at the sea. Beneath the black water, six brilliant green sunbursts are synchronized with six heavy blows which seem to lift the ship out of the water. Tenseness. A cheer as a bit of phosphorescence shows astern. It is a submarine. Weird, luminous water cascades off the decks of the undersea monster. The path of the moonbeams is split by the ominous thing. A few seconds of screaming, silence, a jolt, a crash. One ship is still afloat, one is sinking. A great, joyous hearty cheer rises from the those aboard the ship that floats. The wicked black bow of the submarine lunges into the air, then slips silently, surely, forever beneath the black water. The moon shines on impassively. The memory remains to haunt the minds of the men who were there that night. Some are haunted no more. They have not lived to remember, or tell. 

The memories pile up. They’re not all nice ones. Some are fearful ones. Some are peaceful. The peaceful ones recur at welcome intervals. The fearful ones are put aside with a shudder.

Imagination? Is not memory a kind of imagination? Perhaps, but a moonlit night like this brings other types of mental imagery. I see a happy couple, watching the first full moon of their married life. Water, mountains, trees, a lighthouse.

In all, we are together, Dot. In all, we are in love. In all we are embracing, or are about to. It is you and I in all those anticipatory images. What a night!

#          #          #

Dot was thrilled to hear Dart’s voice when he called her tonight. Phyll was also delighted by the call because she learned that she had earned Al’s approval and that these four kids were having a double date over the weekend. Either she or Dot will be sleeping on the floor, but neither of them seems to mind the prospect.

She had “loads of fun” at P.E. tonight. That fun included playing basketball (boys rules) which resulted in Dot nearly losing an eye and breaking a leg. That was followed by volleyball where she only suffered a possible concussion when the ball hit her full force on her “dome.”  But the pay-off came when they went swimming and she tried to do a back dive off the edge of the pool. “At the rate I’m going, I’ll have a broken back, for sure!” She did a jack knife off the edge of the pool, but her form was bad. She wishes she could spend three hours in the pool every day.

By the time Dart gets this letter, there will be only about 30 hours until they are together again. She has missed him (and Cleveland) something awful these past weeks, but she heard his voice tonight, and that will help get her through until Friday.