April 14, 1943
Final portion of No. 19
Dear Folksies,
Yesterday Lois and I went down to the beach for the whole afternoon, as it was her day off and I wasn’t on call. We stayed down there, not swimmin’ as it ain’t safe, but in bathing suits getting, we hope, a tan. We had been down there with George and Liz last week for a few hours and even had a picnic dinner with us. See, our connections with the Mess Dept., tho’ unofficial, are really very nice.
The gang down here are really screwballs. The boys here are heckling me and insisting that I mention specifically that I mean Davis, Bine and Fadley. But actually, besides those crazy three, plus Cohn, who really should be included as he spends an awful lot of time down here bedeviling us, arguing with George, etc., I DO MEAN the Supply Gang. They are continually wandering into our tent, raising cane with us, getting us up in the morning and in general heckling us. Of course, they do a hell of a lot for us: they are all plenty good amateur cooks and someone manages to have something cooking at most any time of the day or night. Of course, they are in a position to do things for the mess boys so vice-versa. Because of the familiarity down in this department and with any of the boys who do wander down for things, our area is probably among the most un-military of military establishments.
If the Col. only knew the friendliness and supposed lack of military “courtesy” that goes on down in this neck of the woods, he would probably be having cat fits. But, gee, it’s so darned much fun, I’m sure glad that I’ve been living down here instead of in “officers’ row.”
Of course, I doubt if there are more than a couple in the whole detachment who don’t know that Lois is “reserved” – and especially down here they don’t hesitate to say things at any time. I get all sorts of remarks and news about Lois coming up at any time. For instance, just now Wy starts looking through the files and says, “Ah, I haven’t got the property receipt for the month from Ward 15 — I’ll have to go right up and give “Spanky McFarland” the devil for that.” So, up he goes, and reads her the riot act and she starts giving him the devil for not having a better mattress for one of her patients who has a sore back up there. So Wy comes back with the remark that if she would come down and get me away from his typewriter, maybe he could do some work. And so it goes!! Round, and round!
The other day Lois was in her bathing suit, getting a sun bath up in the nurses’ quadrangle, in one of her nonchalant poses with her legs up on the sandbags and her head on the ground. The boys down here have a pretty good view up there since they took down one of the night-nurses’ tents. All I heard around here was, “You better tell ‘Spanky’ that she better move, for we can’t get any work out of the boys down here at all as long as she stays up there like that.” It goes on like that day in and day out. Now the non-coms are going to have a dance next week and all the nurses are invited, so I’m getting razzed about that.
Loads of love,
.
