Sparks Room : S.S. ?

Wednesday
Thursday
3 – 4/3/43.

Dearest one :

A windy day with a falling glass & a choppy sea.  Having got the men all working smoothly & the winches running well, I’ve retired from the wind whistling deck to sparks room, to write my log & write to you.  All day I look forward to that half hour or hour in which I shall be writing your letter, for then my mind is legitimately full of your presence.

Braithwaite, my clerk, went to the other ship, so I shan’t get my letter until this evening.  It will be the first thing I do, however, when I go ashore at five o’ clock.

After my letter last night the stopper then solo & I had a gay hour of brag, ending up all square, having been ten & six up during the game. Once more Michael Johnny Fawcett benefited by his papai luck or chicanery.  We lean on the latter. Happy friends that we are.  Peter was reading your letter last night as I wrote to you, & asked to be allowed to add an uncensored postscript to my letter to you.  He’s so dear a man, & is fond of you.  You are like Candy, possessed, she of a wolf, you of a witch, only a little wolf & little witch, as you say.  For you bewitch all men.  The friendliness of my colleagues is largely based on your charm.  They think such a lot of you.  So do I.

Funny you, Candy’s little wolf !!!

Oh the loyal Braithwaite, my solemn & legal clerk, now doing some ship work, came all across the rough loch in a dinghy when he found that I was on the other ship, with your Sunday Monday letters & with the parcel.  I’ve read, thrice, the Sunday night, Monday afternoon letter.  Candy, & Teddy, do understand us, the dear souls.

Teddy is, perhaps a trifle agitated these days.  He’s been so very patient, for years & years only he and I knew what he was waiting for.  And as the years passed he never complained.  He lay, toes up in a drawer full of blankets, knowing that one day his one time lover would find the perfect lady & then, in time, he would again reign in another, closely related heart.  So he is justifiably restless now.  He’s an excellent bear, very long suffering, very patient, listens with an interest only caused by the best possible breeding to long private bedroom stories, listens to adventures not always true, & never doubts, and is full of sympathy when the world is woeful & has already been twice fumigated with the same patience.  So now that he is to achieve the brightest of a Teddy Bear’s dreams, treat him, I pray you, with the respect of a wise, seasoned, understanding & quite reliable companion for the young.  A great virtue of his is a clever way he reduces himself in size over seven years.  I do want you & Candy & Teddy & H.R.H. when it arrives to be a contented quartette.

“The Crookhall Colliery Band are playing next the Tango Ladybird” says Sparks adjacent earphones !

Yes, three lovely letters were here for me, with the 10/- ex Boot as well.  Very happy, pride, letter, to make a man strut & hold high is head.  When I look back on my life with its mediocre pattern of experiences & paths chosen, I cannot for the life of me see why I should be blessed with so rare & precious a lady wife.

Just stopped to indulge in a little splicing with a fathom of rope I’ve acquired.  Playing with rope is great fun, & useful when we go sailing again.  Heigh ho.

I think we’ll get some letters done when we are over this scheme.  But its not certain.  But I’ll send little notes if its at all possible.  We begin on Saturday afternoon.

Half past one.  I must get my sleeping men out of the hold and back to work.

Bye bye dearest one.