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By Root 9749 0

would write to him. He looked at the picture eight or ten times a day, but would show it to no one. He was afraid they wouldn't. believe him. After two days he decided that he must reply to her sweet letter. He labored over his answer a long time. It came out like this: Dear Alice, I nearly fell out of my chair when they gave me that letter from you. It was the nicest letter I have ever got from anyone. I have read it twenty four times so far and I will keep right on reading till another comes. I don't believe you when you say you have no boy friends. A girl as pretty as you could have a hundred. I am afraid to show your picture to the men in my hut. They would all want to write to you. It is your picture, isn't it, Alice? I suppose Ensign Billis told you all about me. I am a shoemaker in Columbus Ohio and right now I am riding nineteen months on this rock. I am not good looking and I like whiskey but I never get drunk. I hope you will write to me. I would like to send you a picture, Alice, but we can't get none made on this rock. It is no good trying. My uncle has a picture of me took a long time ago. I will ask him to send it to you. I am fatter now. Please anser this letter, Alice, as I think you are one fine girl.

Yours truly,

Joe.

The correspondence went on from there. Finally Alice was writing to Joe three times a week. And finally Joe got up nerve enough to show his friends her picture. In Navy fashion they went mad about her. Half of them called her "that bag" and the other half wanted to know who the movie star was. Joe stood by in rapt pleasure. They kidded him a lot, and that evening an older man who knew a thing or two about sailors came by and asked if he could see the picture again. Joe practically fell over himself to think that anyone had remembered her. They sat on the quonset steps and studied Alice Baker's picture. "A fine girl," the older man said.

One day a letter from Alice arrived soaked with salt water. Joe could barely read the writing. He took it down to the post office to find what had happened. "A plane went into the drink somewhere up the line."

"Anybody hurt?" Joe inquired.

"Ten dead. They got the mail bags, though. A diver went down for them."

Joe handled the letter gingerly. It was a terrible thing. A letter from the girl you loved, passed on by the hands of dead men. Joe had seen little of death, but it frightened him vastly. It was like getting into trouble. It ruined everything. One of the officers had said, when the lieutenant's court-martial was read for selling government property to the bootleggers, "I'd commit suicide!" But the lieutenant, who was sentenced to jail for three years, didn't commit suicide. He lived on, and so did the bootleggers. They went to jail and lived. Joe was also one of the men who live on, no matter what happens.

He assured himself of that the night they found the yeoman hanging in the palm grove. Nobody ever understood exactly why he did it just then. His wife had a baby after he was overseas sixteen months, but he agreed to the divorce and she married the other man. The yeoman took it OK. Joe knew him well, and then seven months after it was all over he strung himself up.

Two other incidents reminded Joe of death on his hot, lonely, barren, sticky rock. One was a letter from Luther Billis. It made Joe shudder with apprehension for his buddy. "The Navy took this pitcher of me," he wrote. "You'd a thought it would of busted the camera. You see I aint got the ring in my ear. They made me take it out but now I got it back in. The pitcher is for the Navy when they give me my medal. What I did they should of had a hero do. Anyway I got two Jap swords out of it and they are beauties. I am sending one to my mom and the other I give to my skipper, Commander Hoag, who was the best guy that ever lived, even if he was an officer. I hope you have heard from Alice Baker. She is a fine girl I tried to kiss her once and she slapped my face. Your best buddy, L. Billis."

The second incident occurred on June 7. They had a ball game that afternoon, and as they came