XIV
Somewhere on the Atlantic November 11, 1917
Here's the first letter since I left New York, coming to you. It's seven in the morning; I'm lying in my bunk, expecting any minute to be called to my bath.
So far it's been a pleasant voyage, with rolling seas and no submarines. There are scarcely a hundred passengers, of whom only four are ladies, in the first class. The men are Government officials, Army and Navy officers going on Cook's Tours, and Naval attachés. The American naval men are an especially fine type. We do all the usual things—play cards, deck-golf and sleep immoderately, but always at the wrong times.
I'm going back for the second time, and going back in the most placid frame of mind. I compare this trip with my first trip over as a soldier. I was awfully anxious then, and kept saying good-bye to things for the last time. Now I live day by day in a manner which is so take-it-for-granted as to be almost commonplace. I've locked my imagination away in some garret of my mind and the house of my thoughts is very quiet.
What bricks you all were in the parting—there wasn't any whining—you were a real soldier's family, and I felt proud of you. It was just a kind of “Good luck, old chap”—with all the rest of the speaking left to the eyes and hands. That's the way it should be in a world that's so full of surprises.
This trip has done a tremendous lot for me—I shall always know now that the trenches are not the whole of the horizon. Before, when I landed in France, it seemed as though a sound-and sight-proof curtain had dropped behind and everything I had known and loved was at an end. One collects a little bit of shrapnel and, heigho, presto! one's home again. On my second trip, the war won't seem such a world without end.
To-night I have to pack—that's wonderful, too. I'm wondering whether Reggie will be on the station. I shall send a telegram to warn him.