JUNE 1.

[Sidenote:  Glad to be in the big game.]

When I said good-bye to you at home, I don’t think that either of us realized that I was coming over here to stay.  Perhaps it was just as well.  Human nature is such that we subconsciously refuse to accept an idea, even when we know it to be a true one, because it is totally new—­beyond our experience.  Pursuant to which, I could not believe that my fondest hopes were to be realized, and that not only I, but the whole of America, would really get into the big game.  Oh, it is big all right, and it grows on you the more you get into it.

Now, I realize that it is asking too much of you or of any woman to view with perfect complacency having a husband suddenly injected into war.  But just consider—­suppose I was a prosperous dentist or produce merchant on shore, instead of in the Navy.  By now you and I would be undergoing all the agonies of indecision as to whether I should enlist or no; it would darken our lives for weeks or months, and in the end I should go anyhow, letting my means of livelihood and yours go hang, and be away just as long and stand as good a chance of being blown up as I do now.  So I am very thankful that things have worked out as they have for us.

[Sidenote:  Little one is permitted to tell.]

There is very little to tell that I am allowed to tell you.  The technique of submarine-chasing and dodging would be dry reading to a landsman.  It is a very curious duty in that it would be positively monotonous, were it not for the possibility of being hurled into eternity the next minute.  I am in very good health and wholly free from nervous tension.

P.S.  When despondent, pull some Nathan Hale “stuff,” and regret that you have but one husband to give to your country.

JUNE 8.

[Sidenote:  Sleep, warmth and fresh food become ideals.]

Once more I get the chance to write.  We are in port for three days, and that three days looks as big as a month’s leave would have a month ago.  Everything in life is comparative, I guess.  When we live a comfortable, civilized, highly complex life, our longings and desires are many and far-reaching.  Now and here such things as sleep, warmth, and fresh food become almost the limit of one’s imagination.  Just like the sailor of the old Navy, whose idea of perfect contentment was “Two watches below and beans for dinner.”

[Sidenote:  Nothing causes excitement.]

You get awfully blase on this duty—­things which should excite you don’t at all.  For instance, out of the air come messages like the following:  “Am being chased and delayed by submarine.”  “Torpedoed and sinking fast.”  And you merely look at the chart and decide whether to go to the rescue full speed, or let some boat nearer to the scene look after it.  Or, if the alarm is given on your own ship, you grab mechanically for life-jacket, binoculars, pistol, and wool coat, and jump to your station, not knowing whether it is really a periscope or a stick floating along out of water.