Description
#69 Don't let the number fool you - the date's between #72 and #73, but I just discovered the envelope to this one You left out #69 altogether, writing two #68s. Thursday 14 December 8pm My dearest darling - I begin this letter under the most difficult of circumstances. Johnny Reifsnider (Sitting crosslegged on the big table perpendicular to our two desks), Yama (in a collapsible metal campchair opposite Reif's desk) and Hataya (leaning back against the wall in a similar chair opposite my desk) are engaged in a rapid-fire, amusing and occasionally uproarious conversation, with Evan Davies and I sitting in. The talk turns to everything - sex and women (they love the words amateur and professional as we do); personalities both public and private, abroad or here; minor incidents of the war or sidelights on it…Yama and the Hat were telling with ironic merriment of a woman fortune teller who forecast early this year that the American fleet would come here in summer, be defeated offshore and with this defeat the war would end; but the woman herself returned to Japan in May. Hataya really believes that Japan will not be defeated, Yamashina confided, in a sadly reflective mood the other night, that as a Japanese he did not question his personal desire to see Japan win the war; but that he could not say even for himself whether it would be good for Japan to win. Another time I should like to tell you more about them as well as to continue my description of the office here; just now I have so much else to write about that I must get on - Evan Davis has just left, sending you his regards as he went out. His five weeks’ old daughter is doing nicely, tho Harriet is having a recurrence, apparently [pg 2] rather painful, of something akin to arthritis which she first was subject to in college. Evan is doing a thorough and conscientious job here as public safety officer - head of the civilian police force. Reif is now sprawled out on his stomach and the conversation turns to beer and liquor and assorted experiences appertaining thereto. Something just said reminds me of the ribbing which Hataya (a rather good-looking man five days younger than me, and single) takes from time to time for having been accidentally discovered in the saddle by Harry Barrand some weeks back - long before I got here - when the latter was making an evening inspection in the civilian camp. Hataya has a rather constant girl friend (something of an understatement, since he's lived with her since before the Kūshū*) whom he cannot marry, apart from the fact that she's somewhat in the professional class, because she is Okinawan. That, to his family in the Naichi-Japan proper-would be a disgrace. -I've been grateful for the two long envelopes of clippings, as well as those you send from time to time with your letters. Many of the [?] in the batch cut out of Life are more or less familiar. Lots of little girls as small as the one in the picture carry their little brothers or sisters around all day, and while the children carried are usually awake, you do occasionally see one with his head lolling foolishly backward. The same sort of band (around the carrier's stomach and the child's buttocks, up across the chest and under the child's arms and around its back) is worn by adult women, and occasionally by men. When carrying slightly older children, both men and women simply clasp their *air attack. The most common word used as a measure of time before and after, when speaking to or amongst civilians. [pg 3] hands behind their backs under the child’s buttocks, while the child hangs on to the carrier's shoulders. I've seen a couple of rude homemade carts like the one in the picture and several youngsters pushing long poles with a single wheel made from a tin can cover nailed onto the end. The shelters (in the picture of the rather pretty girl bathing) are more or less typical, though a lot of them look more ramshackle, the sheets of tin on the roofs being held down by rocks or locks (nails were scarce until recently). There are a very few pretty or graceful young girls - none of the married ones or those over twenty except for the high-class prostitute who works as policewoman. All the stories you've sent I've enjoyed and am keeping, along with most clippings about children. The recent articles about Wallace Grew (I didn't even know that Sec'y Hull had resigned!), the battle of the Philippine Sea, Wang Ching-wei, the bombings by B-29s and all other matters of current interest I've been very glad to get; your selection is to my taste. I hope Ernie Pyle comes out here, at least on his way through - and Doug. Funny coincidence, your finding those two little items about “Lady Chatterly's Lover” just about when you were reading the book. (Incidentally the “f-g” in it means just what you think it does. One of the other letters is u.) I was interested in the article on the [F.E.A.?] Along with everywhere else in the Pacific, we have our contingent before; I hadn't known much about its accomplishments [pg 4] We are now allowed to say (if it is true of personal experience) that we have seen B29s - and that's about all. They are exceedingly graceful, competent-looking planes, smoother in both appearance and sound than 24s. I don't think I've ever told you about Harry Barrand's having been here and left before I arrived here, nor - more pertinently, perhaps - Bob Speed's. You may recall that they were among the marine contingent of my class, and they did get into things a lot faster than their Navy fellows. Reifsnider, a rather demanding critic (he has little good to say for Civil Affairs, for instance, above and beyond the fact that he holds a personal grievance against it for tying him down here where he might be using his training and background for more important and immediate work) had a high opinion of Bob. In terms of Harry's conventional and immature personality, Reif spoke well of the latter too; but of Bob he told me how he worked with patience, understanding and stamina to get civilians out of hiding and into camp safely, often sharing his food with them and never subjecting them to unnecessary or reckless dangers. He would take a small group of already surrendered civilians by truck to a place near (but not too hear) a given area where others were known to be hiding and let them return overnight to persuade their friends, if possible, returning with the truck to pick them up in the morning. If he had been too reckless, approached too close, and drawn fire, the persuaders would have been [pg 5] killed (as happened elsewhere) by one side or the other. He brought more people into camp that way than anyone else. The reference to Fran by his mother was most interesting. I can't read the writing well enough to figure out where he is, thought I think I know. Do find out as much about him (including his current address) as you can when you visit his mother - After talking about him to Henry at Pearl and realizing the stability of his relationship to Hilde, I was very sorry that we didn't look her up while we were in N.Y., or at least have her come to see Wendy. Perhaps she's in Hawaii by now. (You may also tell Mrs. Conrad when you see her that the English Class sounds familiar to me.) “America will Emerge From Literary [D?eth] After the War, is Relief of Van Wyck Brooks…” Funny, it has occurred to me a number of times in the past year or so to wonder whether there wouldn't be a freshening of American literature after this war, one less brittle and longer-lasting then that of the twenties. I think it likely. I know nothing of Brooks firsthand as author [?] - how about sending me that volume we have from Jean sometime? I sort of wish a little bit that you’d got that snapshot album - it will probably be a good deal longer than it would take to get it to me by mail before I get to where I can buy one - but one never can tell. And here I haven't even begun to answer those ten-odd letters of yours! But soon. Darling, for always- Warren
