Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-19
THE CHATTING DISH
The Mails In, Boys!"
By William McFee
Extra-speciai Correspondent Of The Chaffins
Dish In Medlterrancan Waters


BY William McFee
EStra-speciai Correspondent Of The Chafins
Dish In Mediterranean waters
f" A NAIL has just arrived" For those
"A who live in houses at home, or even
| those who a.e in France, the words would
| not mean so much. But in the Levant
n mail is an event. It comes like a vista.
| tion. at uncertain periods. No man can
| foretell the coming OF mail. Time was
| when shipping offices had wind of such
| things by wireless, when su n and such n
ship was signaled as due, and when the
| arrival OF that ship in harbor was sig.
| nailed in joyful flags from Lloyds' station.
| Now that is all changed. The Gentle Spy
| who sat in the bar of the Eastern Ex.
| change Hotel and listened to the shipping
| news of the Seven Seas is out of a Job
| He gazes sadly at the notices plastered
everywhere, Betcdre of Spies, and wonders
| how he is going to earn his pay under
such adverse conditions. For the British
have so fixed things up now that nobody
knows anything. There are no mail routes,
no mail ships, no mail days We jog along
in our daily rut for few weeks, and then
one day some one says meditativel,, bout
day or so later the impression grows
in strength that it is about time we had a
| mall quartermaster tells the c. p. O.
chief petty officer) that he heard up at
the naval canteen that there was a mail
in. The paymaster tells the surgeon that
he heard on Monitor 800 that there Ia a
mail in. We all get geared up to the no.
ton of mail coming in. Some: mes the
excitement dies away and there is no mail.
leaving us fiat, stale and Improbable On
one dreadful occasion we passed six weeks
in letterless lassitude. 1t was q Christmas
mail, too, and it arrived at the end of
January. Several heads are prematurelv
gray over that.
RuT that was exceptional. AS rule,
- after few days of this entirely gra-
tuitous optimism about a mail being in
we subside into a patient expectancy.
Some of us review our past conduct and
debate whether we have written sufficient
faithful answers to Justify hopes of a good
mail. Some reflect that this mail will GER
tainly include subscription renewal form
from the Tufthunters' Club or whatever
body they may belong to. Others are fool
ishly elated because they txpect four
sheets covered with the vile scrawls OF
their inamorata. But the general tone il
placid. We are Injured to exile. We know
the folks at home have got on for three
years without US and have not yet drowned
themselves, and saving grace of humor
keeps us from self-destruction, too. We
snap at each other at time, as is in.
evttADla "a io;,
others personal habits. We transmit
scandal. We join cliques and fall away
from them. We are, in short human
PUT mark the change when the mail
~ does come! Mark the sparkle in the
eyes, the firm set of the mouths, the fresh
ring of interest in the voices. Why, when
the launch comes thuttering alongside with
its load of sacks, when those sacks are
! carried up unresisting to the officers
smokeroom on the bridge deck $50 called
because nobody ever smokes there) when
the postoffice orderly opens his knife and
cuts the throats of those unresisting sacks
and the rich tide Of mail pours out upon
| the foor-why this is a different Ship
| We clutch each our batch of letters and
| papers and like wild animals when they
| are fed rush away to our dens and devour
| them alone. We tear off the envelopes in
| a fury and laugh and chuclile at the most
microscopic jokes We fling away some
| one else's letters which have got in by
mistake. We dive after the envelopes to
| see what the date may be. At dinner each
| one of us brags that his letters are of the
most recent date. 1t is to be feared that
some have suborned their folks at home
| to postdate their effusions, for no ship
| could do the voyage in the time claimed
| But time, the great healer, assuages these
acerbities and we drift away once more
| TO write our letters home. For by some
astounding concatenaton of perverse Off
| cialisms heavy mail is often delivered on
the afternoon of our closing day, or per.
haps the very day we go to sea-
| 60, IF you went round now, you might
~ see us all hard at 1t. The commander
| in lonely grandeur in his suite, the officers
| in the wardroom, the men in the messdec.l
| flats the boys in their fiat the lower
deck Dust over the dynamos) are all en-.
| gagged in the old old game of writing home.
| Mothers and sweethearts get most |
| fancy, though old shipmates come close.
Here one writes TO his father: here one,
who has expectations to an aunt. one. so
the much h-abused surgeon tells me (he is
our censor)r carries on most affectionate
| correspondence with his divorced wife
Another sends weekly letter to his SnE.
day school class. Yet another corresponds
with his pastor. But these are exceptions
! Most of us are not at ease in Zion. We
are of the humdrum human type. We like
10 write letters home. but by heavens how
we like TO get them
There's a mail in, boys