APRIL 25, 1943

Dear Bernice:

Received your third airmail yesterday. Am glad you got my shipboard letters. Before I forget, I got [?] Mills' address in a delayed letter from you sent on from Blanding. I have written her.
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This is as far as I got-had company in my cubicle. So now it's another day. Have just finished doing a bit of tidying up, trying to put things away, or at least out of sight. However I guess they landed right where I took them from. I got an eggcrate, which has a partition like an orange crate, that is my dresser. I draped a piece of cretonne I brought around it. Camouflage even in the cubicle. Dropped my pen on the floor and it's now cross-legged, as you may be able to tell by the writing.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I had the morning off, so slept in. We had a nice service. We (some of the nurses) contributed money for the flowers-they were lovely. Calla lilies grow here in abundance, so had many of them. The chaplain being Episcopal, the altar was very attractive. The sermon not so good-he can't preach worth a cent. I was wishing I could have gone to a good Baptist service somewhere and heard some good music. Our chapel is a little one loaned to us by a missionary who is about seventy-five, and has been over here since she was twenty-four. There are three services conducted there during the day by her-Spanish, French and Italian. It's just around the corner from the hospital, so the patients can go.

The Catholics had an impressive service. An outdoor Mass in the hospital grounds. The altar, I hear, was beautiful. I was sorry I didn't get up and go down to it.

Today I went downtown to have my hair done-it's filthy. Everything closed, Easter Monday the reason. All I did was call in at an Arab stall and buy a basket for Dot Chrystal's birthday. I was mad and so tired. Called in at the hospital to rest and wait for supper. They were having a garden party, a band and entertainment. Such a crowd of patients there-they sure enjoyed it. The maimed, the halt and the blind. We had our second dose of Atebrin today. That is a pill we take for malaria. We are all waiting to turn yellow and thus belong to the Mongolian race.

You sure can get a lot on your airmail. I don't understand why you have to pay extra on my letters-I'm sure they are not overweight. As for my censoring my own mail, officers' mail is just spot-censored so we are more or less on our honor. Some letters have been returned to the writer. Had a letter from Gladys the same day as yours. She is waking and sick with it, she says. I can't see why she does it then.

It was quite hot here today, but so nice and cool tonight. These buildings are so cool.

My Charlie is sitting up here grinning at me. I got a nice frame for him. The flies are so thick in here, the dietitian counted seventy-two on a little bar above her mosquito netting. They roost at night. Such a thing as a screen was never heard of. We are getting them on the hospital windows.

Am glad Eva enjoyed my letter-I must write her again. I hope you are feeling better.

There isn't anything you can send. We can only have things sent by signing a request for them, and guaranteeing nothing else will be sent. I sent to Mildred for my camera, films, slips and stockings.

Had a nice bouquet of nasturtiums given to me tonight by a little French girl. Twice last week a French truck driver in the hospital grounds gave me some nice roses. There are so many flowers here.

I get my Saturday Evening Post forwarded from Blanding (which Scott sent me). Don't get every issue, but sure enjoy them. The patients too.

Well, it's now ten-thirty. All are in and lights go out at eleven. So I say au revoir.

Love, Frank