ghts on. Now, without so much light as a glowworm
could give, we run around, never quite certain when the darkness ahead
may turn into a ship close enough to throw a brick at.

However, I am back in the ranks again now, as the captain has come back
and resumed command.

OCTOBER 9.

[Sidenote: Job of an executive officer is thankless.]

You must not be resentful because of things you have gone through,
unappreciated by those perhaps for whom you have undergone them. It is
one of the laws of life, and a hard law too, but it comes to everybody,
either in a few big things or a multitude of little ones. Do the people
who keep the world turning around ever get due recognition? I was
thinking in much the same resentful vein myself to-day, in my own small
way, how thankless the job of an executive officer is; how you never
reach any big end, or even feel that you have made progress, but just
keep on the job, watching and inspecting and fussing to keep the whole
personnel-materiel machine running smoothly, and knowing that your
recognition is purely negative, in that, if all goes well, you don't get
called down. And then I calm down and realize that it is all in the
game, and that it is the best tribute so to handle your job in life that
nothing has to be said. If your car runs perfectly, you neither feel nor
hear it, and give it little credit on that account. But let it strip a
gear or something go!!

[Sidenote: Roller-skating for amusement ashore.]

I hate to tell you what I was doing this afternoon. You will think I am
not at war at all when I tell you that I have been roller-skating. I was
a bit rusty at first, but warmed up to it. It is about the only exercise
we can get on shore, for it rains all the time. Each shower puts an
added crimp in my temper, as I have been trying to get a new coat of
camouflage paint on the ship. I think, if some of the old
paint-and-polish captains and admirals could see her now, they would die
of apoplexy.

[Sidenote: No chance for wives to come over.]

I fear there is no chance for you to come over. Admiral Sims
disapproves--not of you personally--one cannot find a place to live
here, and there would be too many hardships. How would it be for you
when we had said good-bye, and you saw the ship start out into a howling
gale or go out right after several ships had been sunk outside? With you
at home among friends, I can keep my mind on my job, which I couldn't if
you were alone over