In an earlier mail exchange, Bill had advocated numbering letters so that each side could see if any letter was missing. Here he starts off reporting he’s missing two letters from them.
He then talks about how some soldiers are setting up their own businesses, selling any number of things. He then continues with more about the trip over from San Francisco.
He said they never saw a submarine, but each dusk and dawn they took their “abandon ship positions” as these were the two times of the day considered to be of the greatest danger of attack. He talks about the precautions they took dumping garbage, and how the captain would announce in his Dutch accent “Domp de garbage”. They later made a song about Domping de garbage. Bill also described how the ship’s name is pronounced: “Cheese-a-da-né.”
