Training takes up nearly all our waking hours, and we come back to the Browns’ house in the evening, where Mrs. Brown has dinner and a pudding ready for us. (Did you know that the British call just about anything sweet a ‘pudding’? Hers is more like flaky bread.) John and Tom are as exhausted as I am, and we have some cigarettes and whiskey and go to bed to do it all over again.

We’ve been plucked from all that is familiar and placed in this foreign land where certain horrors lie in wait in the months ahead. I try not to think about it, though it’s what we train for every day. But we’re doing it together. My words for that feeling are inadequate, but it is something akin to “whole.”

Likewise, the packages that you and your friends send are more welcome than you know. It may seem like a trifling thing—knitting socks for soldiers you’ve never met. But, speaking for myself, it means everything. I’m glad you told me that the red border you put in yours comes from your grandmother’s sweater. And the stories you shared about what she means to you. It’s something to anticipate. Something that makes me feel like I matter to somebody.

Tell your friend Dorothy that John is doing well. He keeps her picture pinned to his pillow, which has merited endless razzing from myself and Tom. Some of the soldiers are like cats on the prowl and some of the English girls are all too willing to make their acquaintance. But John is as loyal a fiancé as Dorothy could hope to have. Tom is a country boy who must have had too many fairy tales read to him as a child, because he says he’s holding out for true love. And me—well, I’d rather spend a free evening with those two knuckleheads than in a pub chasing skirts.

Thanksgiving is upon us. Which of course, they don’t celebrate here. But I can imagine that my mother is already selecting the perfect cranberries for her sauce. I hope that yours is a good one and that you have many things to be grateful for. As for me, I’m grateful for you.

All the best,

William

P.S. Tom just protested that he never said the words “true love” and that I made that up to make him sound like a juvenile. Full confession—I did. But it’s still my observation of him. Tom’s going to find himself a nice girl someday and she can be relieved to know that she’s getting one of the good ones.

P.P.S. Congratulations on the Yankees win! Four to one. Pretty impressive. Nice of Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio to enlist, but I hear they’re keeping him stateside. Couldn’t have a star baseball player getting a scratch on him, right?