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 blasé 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.

JUNE 20.

Well, we got mail when we came into port this time, your letter of May