Dear Mama and Papa,
Just a quick letter! We're leaving Djibouti tomorrow (next mail stop is Singapore), and we have to have any mail out in the next hour and a half if I want to get it out; I'm going to play in a football match against the officers of the destroyer Oliver, which apparently fields the best football team in the Indian Ocean Flotilla. I'm going to be playing the backup keeper.
Mama, it was good to see you when we left Toulon. I wanted you to know it meant a lot to me to see you there.
I took your advice on putting together the ship's library, Papa, and found all of the Corbière books, as well as most of the Sabatini volumes. But I also discovered that when the destroyer Topaze was decommissioned, the ship's library had been boxed up and ended in a storehouse here in Toulon. I finagled all of the boxes out of the supply depot and added them to everything I've already gotten hold of. Capitaine Chauveau commented to me that he'd not seen such a well-stocked library since he was chief gunner on the coast defense battleship Foch.
Djibouti is a pretty dusty city, but it seems to have grown and greened quite a lot since my graduation cruise on Belle Poule. There are two big concrete apartment blocks going up in the suburbs that are supposed to house lower-class laborers, and the port has been busy since we arrived, with merchant ships from - according to my unscientific count - fifteen different nations now docked or anchored in Djibouti for transshipping or services.
In my last letter, I mentioned that my cabin-mate, Jean-Marc, was pretty quiet and shy. Since I wrote, he's opened up a bit to me. It sounds like he only joined the Navy because his father, who commands the Sans Reproche, expected him to follow in his footsteps, and Jean-Marc is a bit estranged from him. Even so, Jean-Marc said he likes the Navy and wants to continue, at least for another few years, until he gets more experience in the electronics field.
When we passed through the Suez Canal, I took a lot of photographs, but I think I made a mistake while processing them, because very few of them turned out, even a little bit. The ship's intelligence officer, who has an ad-hoc darkroom and his own photography equipment, couldn't tell me what I did wrong, either. Maybe it's time for me to just buy a new camera - perhaps I can find something when we stop in Singapore. The other officers who have been to Noumea or Cam Ranh Bay tell me that it's often difficult to find specialized stores there. If I don't find something by the time we reach Noumea, then I'll need to mail-order something.
Two days ago, when we were coming down the Red Sea, we spotted some Italian MAS boats on patrol, and Capitaine Chauveau ordered us to launch the vedettes. Since we're doing cross-training, I was assigned to ride along with Louis - Enseigne Charrier - on the "Tornade" to become his backup boat commander. All I did this time was stand a step behind him observing the operation of the boat, and listening to all of his orders. We stayed out on the water for about four hours, as long as we saw the Italians in the area. At one point, two of them came up and cruised with us in fairly close formation, about fifty meters away, and we exchanged greetings in the traditional style - a short race. We paced the lead MAS boat for a while before edging ahead. I don't think either of us, however, really wanted to show what our boats could do.
One of the members of the crew I forgot to describe in my last letter was Father Gustave Payet, the ship's chaplain. Usually the Navy doesn't attach chaplains to ships as small as Polynesie, but apparently the personnel office decided that with our expected mission parameters, out in the wilds of the Pacific for weeks on end, that it might be a good idea to attach a permanent chaplain. Father Gustave is a real character: he reminds me a lot of Uncle Jean-Luc. He apparently was a merchant sailor during the Great War, and survived his ship being sunk by a U-boat. He didn't become a priest until after the end of the war, and he probably is a bit unorthodox in his approach to the men. He broke his nose in the Polynesie versus Sans Reproche rugby game (before I came aboard). The best way I can describe him is that he "lives larger than life" in everything he does. If he plays a game of rugby, he plays hard enough to break his nose. If he's fencing (as I've experienced), then he fights with so much enthusiasm that he intimidates his opponent into defeat. And when he gives his homilies, he gets so excited that most of the ship turns out to listen.
Well, I should get this letter folded up and sent off before it's too late. I don't want to wait until Singapore to have to post it.
Enseigne de vaisseau de deuxième classe Édouard Theisman
MN Polynésie
Djibouti, Outre-Mer
May 25th, 1944