After a while, the women folk began to feel that all was not well. The absence of endearing terms seemed so extraordinary that doubting wives would write to the ship's commanding officer privately inquiry ing after husbands' fidelity.
The captain used to reply diplomatically, explaining how sensitive the men felt in regard to their sentiments, adding that censoring was the rule, and there need be no anxiety regarding their partners' faithfulness. In some of these armed merchant cruisers many of the sailors came from outlying villages in the He-bridges. These fishermen wrote to their wives in Gaelic, pretending their inability to write sufficiently well in English. Censorship broke down utterly in that section.
Nothing could destroy the courage and persistency of such men. Some had been blown up by mines, some torpedoed more than once, yet they would be off to sea as soon as a new bag was packed and a new uniform obtained One of these men, while home on leave after enduring weeks of exposure to wintry weather on the Atlantic without ill-effect, developed a sore throat through having to live in a house. Off he went to see the local doctor.
"Gargle the throat with salt water," was the advice.
"Goodness me!" exclaimed. Jack.
"What, again?"
"And why-shouldn't you?"
"Oh, nothing! But I've been tor-pedeed five times already." suer lem
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.