And as I looked out into the windy darkness and strife I was struck by the strangeness of the sea and how it seemed to be like my soul.  For a long time I have been looking into my soul, and I find such ceaseless strife, such dark, unlit depths, such chaos.  These thoughts and emotions, always with me, keep me from getting close to my comrades.  No, not me, but it keeps them away from me.  I think they regard me strangely.  They all talk of submarines.  They are afraid.  Some will lose sleep at night.  But I never think of a submarine when I gaze out over the tumbling black waters.  What I think of, what I am going after, what I need seems far, far away.  Always!  I am no closer now than when I was at your home.  So it has not to do with distance.  And Lenore, maybe it has not to do with trenches or Germans.

    Wednesday.

It grows harder to get a chance to write and harder for me to express myself.  When I could write I have to work or am on duty; when I have a little leisure I am somehow clamped.  This old chugging boat beats the waves hour after hour, all day and all night.  I can feel the vibration when I’m asleep.  Many things happen that would interest you, just the duty and play of the soldiers, for that matter, and the stories I hear going from lip to lip, and the accidents.  Oh! so much happens.  But all these rush out of my mind the moment I sit down to write.  There is something at work in me as vast and heaving as the ocean.

At first I had a fear, a dislike of the ocean.  But that is gone.  It is indescribable to stand on the open deck at night as we are driving on and on and on—­to look up at the grand, silent stars, that know, that understand, yet are somehow merciless—­to look out across the starlit, moving sea.  Its ceaseless movement at first distressed me; now I feel that it is perpetually moving to try to become still.  To seek a level!  To find itself!  To quiet down to peace!  But that will never be.  And I think if the ocean is not like the human heart, then what is it like?

This voyage will be good for me.  The hard, incessant objective life, the physical life of a soldier, somehow comes to a halt on board ship.  And every hour now is immeasurable for me.  Whatever the mystery of life, of death, of what drives me, of why I cannot help fight the demon in me, of this thing called war—­the certainty is that these dark, strange nights on the sea have given me a hope and faith that the truth is not utterly unattainable.

    Sunday.

We’re in the danger zone now, with destroyers around us and a cruiser ahead.  I am all eyes and ears.  I lose sleep at night from thinking so hard.  The ship doctor stopped me the other day—­studied my face.  Then he said:  “You’re too intense.  You think too hard....  Are you afraid?” And I laughed in his face.  “Absolutely no!” I told him.  “Then forget—­and mix with the boys.  Play—­cut up—­fight—­do