Second letter

On Board.
Dear Mother,

So far - eight days out - the trip has been uneventful. We are on a small boat and with quite a few others. Outside of that, I cannot say much. Of course, you saw the boat from the river and know that there are soldiers aboard, but we cannot say how many. We don't know yet where we will land even.

Sunday night, we ran into a real storm. The captain said afterward that had the ship gone over half a degree more, she would have floundered. She did go over so far that the waves washed over the upper promenade deck. We ran out of it on Monday and since then we have had very nice weather.

The bunch has not turned out to be all that might be expected. Carr is a peach and all the others except four are 0. K. But Huber, a western boy who is supposed to be in charge has proved to be pretty far from A-1. About 3 days after we left, an order was given out to stop gambling. There hadn't been any to speak of, except a little poker. However, the next day Huber starts in with three others. He won some $80 and then last night at table he says: "There will be no more gambling". I never have seen such a low trick in all my life, and especially when I am sure he wasn't in a game before the original order came out. Last night after that, the other ten of us got together and he will find he is bucking a stone wall.

We have lifeboat drill two or three times day and carry our lifebelts always. There is not much more I can say, and, besides, breakfast is waiting.

Harvey

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