Well a man can’t help from feeling sorry for the boys that have not been across the old pond before and can’t stand a little rough spell but it makes a man kind of proud to think the rough weather don’t effect you when pretty near everybody else feels like a churn or something the minute a drop of water splashes vs. the side of the boat but still a man can’t hardly help from laughing when they look at them.
Lee says he would of thought I would of enlisted in the navy on acct. of being such a good sailor. Well I would of Al if I had knew they needed men and I told Lee so and he said he thought the U.S. made a big mistake keeping it a secret that they did need men in the navy till all the good ones enlisted in the draft and then of course the navy had to take what they could get.
Well I guess I all ready told you that one of the boys in our room is named Freddie Smith and he don’t never say a word and I thought at 1st it was because he was a kind of a bum like Hall that didn’t know nothing and that’s why he didn’t say it but it seems the reason he don’t talk more is because he can’t talk English very good but he is a Frenchman and he was a waiter in the big French resturent in Milwaukee and now what do you think Al he is going to learn Lee and I French lessons and Lee fixed it up with him. We want to learn how to talk a little so when we get there we can make ourself understood and you remember I started studing French out to Camp Grant but the man down there didn’t know nothing about what he was talking about so I walked out on him but this bird won’t try and learn us grammer or how you spell it or nothing like that but just a few words so as we can order drinks and meals and etc. when we get a leave off some time. Tonight we are going to have our 1st lesson and with a man like he to learn us we ought to pick it up quick.
Well old pal I will wind up for this time as I don’t feel very good on acct. of something I eat this noon and its a wonder a man can keep up at all where they got you in a stateroom jammed in like a sardine or something and Hall smokeing all the while like he was a freight engine pulling a freight train up grade or something.
On the Ship Board, Jan. 20.
Friend Al: Just a line Al because I don’t feel like writeing as I was taken sick last night from something I eat and who wouldn’t be sick jammed in a room like a sardine.
I had a kind of a run in with Hall because he tried to kid me about being sick with some of his funny stuff but I told him where to head in. He started out by saying to Lee that Jack Tar looked like somebody had knocked the tar out of him and after a while he says “What’s the matter with the old salt tonight he don’t seem to have no pepper with him.” So I told him to shut up.
Well we didn’t have no French lesson on acct. of me being taken sick but we are going to have a lesson tonight and pretty soon I am going up and try and eat something and I hope they don’t try and hand me no more of that canned beans or whatever it was that effected me and if Uncle Sam wants his boys to go over there and put up a battle he shouldn’t try and poison them first.
On the Ship Board, Jan. 21.
Friend Al: Well Al I was talking to one of the sailors named Doran today and he says in a day or 2 more we would be right in the danger zone where all the subs hangs out and then would come the fun and we would probably all have to keep our clothes on all night and keep our life belts on and I asked him if they was much danger with all them convoys guarding us and he says the subs might fire a periscope right between two of the convoys and hit our ship and maybe the convoys might get them afterwards but then it would be to late.
He said the last time he come over with troops they was two subs got after this ship and they shot two periscopes at this ship and just missed it and they seem to be laying for this ship because its one of the biggest and fastest the U.S. has got.
Well I told Doran it wouldn’t bother me to keep my clothes on all night because I all ready been keeping them on all night because when you have got a state room like ours they’s only one place where they’s room for a man’s clothes and that’s on you.
Well old pal they’s a whole lot of difference between learning something from somebody that knows what they are talking about and visa versa. I and Lee and Smith got together in the room last night and we wasn’t at it more than an hour but I learned more then all the time I took lessons from that 4 flusher out to Camp Grant because Smith don’t waist no time with a lot of junk about grammer but I or Lee would ask him what was the French for so-and-so and he would tell us and we would write it down and say it over
