Mr. Roberts is an auxiliary on a Navy ship that does not see any of the ‘real’ fighting of the Second World War. He enlisted after Pearl Harbor, giving up his medical studies in the hope that he would be where the action was – instead, he found himself assigned to a vessel that saw no conflict at all. On the fourteenth of every month, he religiously writes to the War Department to request a transfer, but because the spiteful Captain always writes a negative recommendation, these requests are always denied. At 11:35 PM Roberts is woken up for his watch. He makes conversation with Dolan, another enlisted man, for a while, but once the gossip is exhausted and Dolan is relieved, Roberts is left alone with his thoughts. He thinks about the two years he spent at sea, and knows that life is moving on even though he is stationary. By the time he returns, it will be too late for him to finish his degree and become a medical practitioner. His younger sister is already married and a mother – in contrast, he is alone, and the other couples his age are far beyond where he is. He feels his life slipping away from him and being wasted on nothing but open seas with nothing to do. Then the watch ends, and when he returns to his room, it feels like not even a second has passed since he left it. Roberts bitterly thinks about how the only thing he has to be happy about is the fact that his next watch isn’t until morning, so he gets an entire night to sleep.