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.”

The main point of Dart’s letter today is to describe the harsh sailing conditions of the last 24 hours. There have been no storms, but plenty of very rough water. He’s been unable to even think about eating more than a few saltines since dinner the night before. He hopes that’s enough sustenance to carry him until noon tomorrow when they hit the Panama Canal Zone.

Last night he awoke several times with his hind quarters hanging out in space and his arms tightly gripping the chains that were holding his bunk. “This morning the decks were littered with the limp forms of green-skinned sailors. …I’m  no rough water sailor, never was, and hope to never try to be again.”

He briefly described a passage way that was designed to help the crew cross the ship in rough seas. “Suddenly, we find out feet against one wall and the head bumping against the other. You can never be sure whether it’s you or the world that’s falling down. But I know. It’s me. I fell for you in 1943 and I’ve been that way ever since.”

#       #       #

Dot starts her short letter in the morning before heading to campus for her daily classes. Her education class is becoming her favorite subject – partly, she suspects, because it meets only two days a week. Mostly, though she likes the teacher and is fascinated by the class discussions on education styles and psychology. She has an assignment to visit an elementary class in the training school and write a theme on the teaching methods she observes while she’s there.

After she finishes this letter, she must write to her parents and to Cynthia, iron a pile of laundry and do homework. She admits that homework shouldn’t come last, but alas, that’s where she always puts it.

It was bitterly cold on her walk to campus today. So cold that her breath froze instantly into little ice crystals. If Dart doesn’t believe her, she challenges him to come home and check it out for himself!

At his mother’s advice, she has been randomly pulling one old letter out of her stack every day to read while waiting for new letters to arrive. Today’s sample was one he wrote in October in which he said that three years was the best estimate he could figure as to when they could get married. “In three months, that estimate has dropped to a year and a half. That doesn’t make the future look nearly so distant, does it?”

Apologizing for the brevity of this letter, she tells him that every time she puts a penny in their bank, she checks it off mentally as one less worry they’ll have in the future. “You know, we’ve gotten rid of lots of worries since September.”

The Craig pulled into Colon at noon today, cutting through white hot, oppressive air. “I’m sitting here on my locker in my — well, the suit’s pink, anyway, and I’m waiting for liberty to be declared. I’ve showered and shaved and am waiting for the signal before putting on my whites and getting all heated up again.”

There’s an ARD docked near them and Dart plans to check it out to see if Burke is aboard. It’s probably not his, but he needs to  be sure. “This place is beautiful from the bay. Palm trees, tropical-style, modernistic buildings, planes, cars and sailors in whites. All just like the movies.”

Next morning he writes about his hours in the city. “Oh Lord! What a liberty! I’ve heard about this place, and now I’ve managed to see it. A rugged few of us managed to keep away from IT and THEM, and we feel comparatively safe from all the evils. ( “IT” being you-know-what, and “THEM” being bad drinks.) Now we are scheduled to get underway through the canal at 0630. I’m already in whites and have my face, arms and neck greased for protection from the sun.”

#       #       #

Another day of short letters from both kids. Dot writes of going to see “Mildred Pierce” with Joyce and Ellie last night. They enjoyed seeing the mellow drama to spice up their “hum-drum lives.”

Ellie didn’t get the letter she expected from Tip today, so she threw a little tantrum and tossed his picture, the recording of “their” song, and other mementos. Dot emptied the waste baskets shortly after Ellie’s tirade, but pulled out what Ellie had pitched. A few minutes later, when Ellie realized how childish she was being, she was quite relieved to discover that Dot had salvaged her precious items.

Dot confesses that this has been a long and lonely week. Even though she tried to prepare herself for the absence of both Dart and his letters, she didn’t do a very good job of it. Nothing has any meaning to her unless it involves him in some way. Of course, she’s been reviewing all her memories – from their first dance at Andrews to his face as she boarded the train at Christmas, and those memories have helped a bit.

She included two quotations she found today that have given her some things to think about. “Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine first how happy are those who already possess it.” (La Rochefoucauld)   And “While we consider when to begin, it becomes too late to do so.” (Quintilian) I’m not sure what captured her interest in those lines, but it helped to fill some space in a letter.

From seasick to sunburned, Dart’s not having much fun in Panama. He’s covered with tanic acid, jelly and a “lovely bunch of stuf they use to cover burns.”

He was the only crew member whose duties called for him to spend the entire day in the sun. In Panama this time of year, the sun shines straight down and allows for little to no shade. The uniform of the day was white pants, undershirt and white sailor hat, with no exceptions. Consequently, he’s a sick puppy. His eyes are so sore and tired that he fears  he’ll bleed to death if he’s not able to shut them soon. He’s even giving up a chance to see the nightlife on the other end of the canal.

“I still have my indescribably crummy Cristobal-Colon liberty to write about, and maybe a letter or two about the Canal, but I’m TIRED!”

“Do you mind too much, Dot, if we don’t talk anymore tonight, but just go to bed instead? Wish it were talk and we were going to sleep – in each other’s arms, even on a hot night like this.”

#        #        #

Dot writes the longest letter of the week – almost three full pages!

As she looks around her room all she can see is laundry – laundry drying on clotheslines, freshly ironed laundry hanging from lights, dirty laundry awaiting it’s turn in the machine. Someone might think she and her roommates were making a mint by taking in laundry, but this is what happens on a Thursday night when they’re all going somewhere for the weekend.

Dot is excited about going home with Joyce. It’ll make the week go faster and give he something to write about next week. And it will get her a couple of days closer to the day Dart’s letters start coming again.

She had lots of fun in her education class today, but a lot of the fun was at her expense. They were talking about how nice it was to have movable desks in the classroom so that children could form circles and converse with everyone in the class during group discussions. The professor said, “Why, the way this class is set up now, I doubt Mr. Onaly has ever seen Miss Chamberlain’s face.” Naturally, Dot piped up with “He doesn’t know when he’s really well-off.” Of course the class burst out laughing and lost momentary control with their giggles.  Then Miss Van Campen explained to Mr. Onaly that Miss Chamberlain really wasn’t too gruesome. “Why, she’s even got a man, and that’s more than I ever got!”

She tells Dart that he’d be shocked if he walked into her room right now. She and Joyce are sitting on the bed eating oranges and wearing their p. j.s. Ellie on the other hand is parading around the room wearing little more than God gave her. “And the window shades aren’t even closed! No wonder those boys next door don’t get much studying done!”

Dot can hardly wait for two weeks from now when she spends the weekend at his folks’ house and attends the Andrews Alumnae Banquet.

But what she’s really looking forward to is the day his letters come back, bringing daily reminders that he loves her as much as she loves him.

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.

#        #        #

Dart declares that all he feels he can write is one long gripe about life aboard this ship. He wants to write a newsy letter to his folks and a long, longing one to Dot, but “It just doesn’t seem to come. There’s no place on this condemned, shaking pig-iron excuse of a ship for a decent way of life.”

“To think that I have two more months of this is almost too much to bear! I cuss so much anyway, that my fervent profanity now falls ineffectively on the ears of 300 other cussers.”

He briefly describes some maneuvers this morning during which the Orleck was firing perfectly placed five-inch projectiles directly at the Craig. Each one hit just inches off the stern, creating some spectacular splashes.

The official word now is that they will be pulling into San Diego at 0800 on February 1, staying 4 to 6 days before departing for Pearl Harbor where they will join the Seventh Fleet.

How he wishes he could write more, but he can’t even think with all the distractions around him.

#        #        #

Dot begins her response to Dart’s letters about his time in Panama. “Although I may not make a physical appearance with you as you travel all over the Atlantic and Pacific, believe me, I’m there. Not only mentally and spiritually, but it seems almost as though I have actually visited the various places you describe so magnificently. The descriptions are so vivid it makes it easy for me to see everything through your eyes and your pen.”

She writes that he described his sunburn so well that her back sizzles at the thought of it. She hopes he enjoys his new quarters as much as she and Ellie are enjoying their re-arranged room. She says it feels a bit like going to the country after being cooped up in a crowded, noisy city apartment.

She’s thankful, but not surprised, that he was able to resist the temptations offeews by Colon. “Resisting temptation, is probably one of the hardest things a man has to do. That, in my opinion, is the most accurate way of measuring a man’s strength. …The prize for being the kind of champion you are may not be a silver cup, but something far more valuable. A man’s self respect and decency toward others of the human race are the most sought after prizes of them all. Most participants striving for those prizes drop out before the game has ended, proving they are the weak who lack self-discipline. Men like you are admired, Dart, not only by those whose standards and ideals correspond with yours, but also by those who couldn’t make the grade. Is there any wonder that I love you and shall continue to love you forever?”

How she’d love to go through the Panama Canal someday!

It’s already time for mid-year exams and her biology exam is tomorrow. Time has flown, but she’s fine with that because it brings her that much closer to the day he’ll be home for good.

This week the University Players are producing the play “The Enchanted Cottage.” All the students have tickets, and Dot really wants to see it, but she doubts she will. She has a 1,000 word theme due on Friday, and unless she makes great progress soon, she’ll have to miss the play.

Tonight feels like spring outside, which makes her miss Dart even more. That’s the only season she’s not seen him in, and it’s the season that makes her want to take his hand and go for a long walk. She reminds herself that it isn’t actually spring yet, and by the time it is, he may be home to fulfill her wish.