Chapter 11

In my pocket the foot-powder which it is my duty to carry as sub-squad-leader. (The other men carry the intrenching tools and the wire-cutter. The corporal carries nothing but the weight of his responsibilities.)

In my pack the usual shelter-half, poncho, blanket, tent-pins, rope, meat-can, knife and fork and spoon, with bayonet. In addition I stuff in an o. d. shirt (it dried today!) a towel, soap, tooth-brush, shaving things etc., a pair of socks, and my map.

In the pillow-case in the squad-bag, shoes, trousers, change of underwear and socks, towel, writing materials, sewing things.

In the squad-roll the blankets and sweaters.

Cool weather is certain, and having heard that the captain may send back for our coats, we who have bought ours have deposited them at the store-tent for this purpose.

My map I have at last finished with much clumsy care; dozens of us have spent hours today at the Y. M. C. A., absorbed in this work, which with the accurate inking of the route and crossroads, has been rather minute. The numbering of many crossroads is very significant of the skirmishes that await us.

The mail follows us; the address is unchanged.

Tonight the Y. M. C. A. is full of men sending last letters home. Several have dropped out of the company, on account of feet or knees or digestion, or else from natural business reasons. The company is sad to learn that we start without Loretta, business calling him home for a few days. But we shall be glad to see him when he comes.

Today I ventured something, the results of which, if there are any, I suppose I shall never know. Our two officers have been very much, on my mind. Pendleton has been his usual self emphasized, very much on his job of receiving the equipment, extra clear and precise, more subtle and more distant in his little ironical smile. The captain, also busy with the equipment work, was surprisingly gentle, patient with all our many blunders, very quiet spoken, and somehow closer to us. But while he attended to us so carefully, somehow I felt that he was thinking of something else.

Now last night Pendleton, I thank God, could not have seen me at the portieres, nor could Vera. But the captain might have, for he faced my way; surely he must have seen the curtains open. If he recognized me, I know he must have thought of it today when, the last of the men gone, and his tallies all made up, he stood up from the table that had been placed in front of his tent, just as I came along by. We were entirely apart from the rest; so I, having thought a good deal on how far I could venture, took my chance to speak.

I had to be quick, or he would have stopped me. Said I: "Miss Wadsworth doesn't live down to her theories, captain. Certainly she didn't do it in my case."

Then, saluting, I was off. By the gleam that had sprung to his eyes I knew that he understood me, even though he said nothing. For of course he has been wondering whether after all I have a chance with Vera, and has been weighing his earnings against mine.

Dreary business, this love making. Lucky I'm out of it.

DICK.

VERA WADSWORTH TO HER SISTER FRANCES

Plattsburg, Monday the 25th.

DEAR FRANCES:--

In spite of my trying to stop it, it has happened.

He came walking in yesterday evening, when I was all by myself in the parlor. I have told you, you remember, that one of his qualities is a strange gentleness. He told me, in that manner of his, that he would take only a minute of my time, and while I sat perfectly tongue-tied before him, as if I were a schoolgirl, this is what he said, without any passionate declaration, or any self-assertion.

"I came last night, Miss Wadsworth, to tell you that I loved you. You saw it and stopped me. There seemed no answer to you then, but I have found one now, and I think you ought to let me say it.

"You said that a man ought to be able to offer to a woman the best that there is. I came to offer it. Our army women serve their country, not as we men do, yet they do serve the flag, and unselfishly. There is really nothing better that can be done by man or woman.

"There is only one other thing that seems to me worth while. It makes the cottage the equal of the palace. I brought it--honest love. No true woman can ask more."

Then he went away. I could not stop him; could not try to explain. How could I say anything against those awful words? Besides, he spoke with such a thrill as if he were showing me his religion. A dreadful simplicity of belief! I know all his words by heart. All night long I have been saying them over and over; and when this morning I heard the drums, it was as if they said them too.

Do come quickly to your

VERA.

PRIVATE GODWIN'S FIRST HIKE LETTER

West Beekmantown, N. Y. Monday the 25th, 3 P. M.

DEAR MOTHER:--

How glad I was, at the end of today's hike, to march into the big field (where the cook tents already stood with smoking fires before them) to have the two halves of the company line up facing each other, and to hear the captain command, "Form for shelter tents!"

The file-closers scurried round and got into the vacant places. Every man gave an anticipatory hitch at the pack that had gradually grown so heavy; and the front rank men, if they thought the captain was not looking, loosened their bayonets in their sheaths.

"Take interval, to the right and left!" We rear rank men stepped four paces backward.

"Harch!" Both ranks faced away from the cook tents, and the lieutenant began to count, "_One_--two--three--four--_One_--two--three--four!" and at every _One_ a pair of men, front and rear rank bunkies, stepped off together, till the whole company was marching by pairs, at intervals of four paces, and the captain thundered orders to the guides to march straight.

"Halt!" And halting, we faced inward to what was to be the company street. I unclasped my belt.

"Pitch shelter tents!" Out came the bayonets of the front rank men, and were thrust into the ground at the right heel. Then down with the rifles, off with the packs, and we on our knees were hastily opening them and dragging out the shelter-halves, the pins, and the ropes. Bann and I laid the long sides of our halves together, lapping the upper one away from the wind, and buttoned them along (how glad I was that we practised this yesterday, found where a loop was missing and some button-holes torn, and made everything good!) The ropes were tied in the loops, Bann's rifle was stood beside his bayonet, the muzzle beneath the front loop; we aligned our sloping ridgepole at right angles to the street, drove in our front and rear pins and tied the ropes, and then I, creeping into the tent with my bayonet in its sheath, set it upright under the end of the ridge. Then quickly we pegged down the sides and back, stretching them well out, laid back the front flaps of our kennel, set our equipment in the double doorway, passed the inspection of the lieutenant, and felt proud. Then mess, with its stew and its vegetables, its bread and butter, and even with milk, which we are warned we may never see again. Since when we have been retrospecting, doctoring, washing at a poor apology for a brook, and making ourselves comfortable in anticipation of Retreat and of the night.

Remarkable things, these shelter tents, just broad enough at the front for the shoulders of two men, and at the back for their feet, with a further recess for the equipment. Along the edges can be stowed the toilet articles and such things as need to be handy, with the spare rifle. After removing all boulders from the floor, and digging hollows for our hips, we have carpeted with straw, bought of a thrifty farmer who hauled it here and sold for twenty-five cents per poncho- or blanket-load. We now know a little better the meaning of the term buzzard. On the thick layer we have made our beds, some of the fellows' together, but Bann's and mine separately, for I have warned him that I am a restless sleeper. On my tummy on my sleeping bag I am writing to you now.

We have already discovered that since we must have our rifles for Retreat it is wise to have poles for our tents, and so they have mysteriously appeared from the neighboring woods. They will travel in the blanket rolls from camp to camp. Should I come again to Plattsburg I shall get a broom-stick for the hike, provided with conveniences for hanging socks, tooth-brush, and candle-socket. Fellows are tying candles to their poles with string, convenient enough till the string burns and the candle tumbles down into the straw.

I can imagine difficulty in pitching tents under other circumstances than are provided by this ideal afternoon. In the rain we shan't care to have the tents face the wind, nor shall we enjoy setting up tents in a gale, when we shall also hope for better holding ground for the short tent-pins than we find here in this gravel. As it is, we have piled stones on the pins today. Some fellows have ditched their tents, but Bann and I don't see the need of that except with more of a threat of rain than is given by this cloudless sky.

Now if you can imagine in a field, sloping gently to the west, some four hundred and fifty or more of these pup-tents, with a thousand men or less swarming around and in them, some coming back from a bath in the brook, some cleaning guns, some making fireplaces for an evening fire, some napping, some writing; if you can hear much talk and laughter, the chopping of axes at the cook tents, the call "Corporals, come and get your mail for your squads!" then you can understand what a lively, busy place this is. Just across the fence is a camp of cavalry; there is a squadron in our field also. Running across the heads of the streets are the big cook tents; close by are the tents of the Y. M. C. A. and the Exchange and the photographer; elsewhere are the officer's big conical tents, each with the luxury of a stove; and in still another spot is the doctor's tent, not far from the shelter-tents of the band. Men are idling everywhere, and working everywhere also. The long line of trucks is drawn up not far from the field entrance, and the drivers are tinkering them for tomorrow.

But outside the sacred enclosure of the camp, yet as near as they can squeeze, are the buzzards, each with his little outfit for following the hike. A scrawny horse, a little tent, a board on two barrels, a big sign--these with indigestibles constitute their outfits. In the camp wander men with baskets, or boys with boxes, selling fruit, tobacco, and chocolate. There are the farmer folk, too, gawking about at the show.

--And now, sitting on the ground near the bright lamp of the telegraph table outside the Y. M. C. A. tent, while a dozen others crouch in the radius of its rays, I am writing these last words. Night has fallen. Inside the tent men are almost solidly crowded together on the floor as they sit to write letters, while yet men in a steady stream step over and among them, to get at the table stamps, pen and ink, and paper.

The day of course has been crowded pretty full. This morning at Plattsburg the confusion in the company street was great. As we had to make up our blanket rolls before breakfast we had to put our sweaters in and shiver in our shirts. Packs were made up, tents were policed, cots and mattresses handed in, and then we were off, as the advance guard of an army camped at the post. But today's problem, though explained by map to us at conference this afternoon, did not affect H company. Our battalion was only the support; the first battalion carried on the necessary skirmish that cleared the road of the cavalry, our opponents. While they were chasing them far from the line of march, we plodded safely along the macadam, and pitched tents before the others.

Concerning the hike, these facts. My feet are unblistered, though at one rest, being panic-stricken, I hastily filled stockings and shoes with foot-powder. At another time I found the pace telling on me, and was sadly thinking that I was still too soft, when I heard grumbling all about me. The step had been quickened, and all were feeling it. At the grumbling Corder turned to me a face of relief. "Thank Heaven!" he said piously. "I thought I was growing old." Our route was through the edge of Plattsburg, along some miles of highway, and then by gravel roads to this camp near Ryan's Grove, which is a fine sugar bush on the hillside below us. After only eight miles of road, there were very few of us that were not glad to get here.

Our system of serving food is curious. Each man has knife, fork, spoon, canteen cup, and meat can. Falling into line at the bugle call (in no order, every man for himself) the knife, fork and spoon are stuck into a legging, and perhaps, until we reach the serving places, the canteen cup is also carried there, by the handle. The meat-can is an oval sauce-pan with a shallow top, over which shuts down its folding handle. Opening this, one carries in one hand the can and cover, in the other the cup, and filing past the cooks, who stand in line, one receives from each some part of the ration. Then we retire to the most convenient spot to eat, if we are hungry come for a second helping, and if we are lucky, get it.

Of the dish-washing, since I know your passion for cleanliness and absolute sanitation, I spare you the details, except this significant one. The cooks having retired for their own meal, I saw one fellow wash his meat-can in the abandoned coffee barrel, mistaking its fine rich contents for the dishwater.

You should have seen our field at the coming of the dusk: the dying sunset, the silhouetting of the upper tents against the sky, the coming out of the many fires, and in the light of their flames, reflected in the drifting smoke, the lively picturesqueness of the camp. This is all accentuated by the dark. Such coming and going, such talking and greeting, such stumbling in the shadows and peering against the fires--well, I never could have imagined it.

I must turn in, though with regret at not being able to buy myself a knitted cap for the night, against this sharp cold. The felt hat will suffer by such use, and besides will serve badly. Love from

DICK.

_Postscript._ A rumor is running through the camp (we are specially warned not to believe rumors, but this one is borne out by the behavior of the officers) that someone in the regiment has a clip of ball cartridges, "swiped" from the range. The officers went down the line at Retreat, and besides inspecting the guns, made every man turn out all the pockets of his cartridge belt. Nothing found.

PRIVATE RICHARD GODWIN TO HIS MOTHER

West Beekmantown. Tues, Sept. 26.

(The first section of the letter is a mere scrawl.)

DEAR MOTHER:--

It is early dawn on Tuesday, and I have slept better, on "my pallet of straw," than many a time in my bed at home. The cooks have for some time been stirring, as I have known by the sound of their axes, the crackling of their fires, the glow reflected on their tents, and their occasional voices. In the cavalry camp the horses stamp, I hear a distant train and a dog's bark, and nearer at hand, from among the pup-tents, come little morning coughs. My writing is practically invisible to me on the paper. I can just see that I trace a line.

There are thistles in this straw!

Last night I saw a lost soul. Rousing, as I often do, at one o'clock, I stood at the door of the tent, admiring Orion in the east and the constellations overhead. I heard a little murmur of complaint, and saw a man come stumbling down the street, his bare feet softly thudding on the stones, and drawing from him this sad sound as he came shivering along in pajamas. He was stooping at each tent and peering in to discover his lost place. So he passed out of my sight, but when I once more turned to admire Orion I saw the same unhappy phantom wandering along the next company street, still stumbling, still shivering, still silently searching for his couch. As for me, I turned in again and slept.

(Later, and more legible.)

We have broken camp, all the tents being struck; and next we have been given a lesson in military neatness. Each company has had to police its street, to fill all tent-ditches and fireplaces, and to pick up each bit of rubbish and scrap of paper. Our squad having had a meeting upon the subject, has agreed that immediately upon making up our packs we shall police our own ground, either bury the rubbish in the ditches or burn it in the fire, using if necessary a little of our hay, and pile the rest of the latter as quickly as possible, to get the work over with. This is in response to the captain's latest, for finding a single scrap of paper as big as a postage stamp in the street, he turned out a whole squad to pick it up. Next time, he says, it will be a platoon. We know Kirby too well by this time to suppose he doesn't mean what he says.

I am writing as I loll on a pile of hay, while my neighbors are vigorously resenting the demand of the farmer who sold us the hay last night, that we rise and relinquish it to him--in order that he may sell it again tonight. Much angry computation as to his profits per ton, and a warning that, as on account of our ignorance he raised the tariff on us yesterday, we should never again pay more than ten cents per tent.

(As we stand waiting in rank.)

Orders for today have been issued. The enemy cavalry and machine guns are at Sciota, some miles north of us. We are to go against them, with our battalion as advance guard, Company I in the lead, our company supporting them four hundred yards behind.

(Resting on the road.)

We have been marching at hot speed, having no one to set the pace for Kirby, now that at last we have passed I company. For a while we had to wait on them while they drove the enemy, hearing their firing, and at every halt sending out patrols. At last we drew near the firing line, which had been pretty hard at work, but which drew aside by the roadside (being either dead or out of ammunition) to let us go by, while we acclaimed them as having died heroically in our defense. Then came urgent work on our part, till now, as we halt, the platoon leader is telling us that we are to go forward over a wire fence, deploy behind a stone wall, and wait for the field battery to shell the enemy.

--And now we have crawled through the wire, and are comfortably watching the lieutenant of artillery while, with his instruments all fixed, he is getting the range of the enemy, these, you know, being the cavalry, who every day, I suppose, will precede us out of camp and try to make it lively for us during the morning. A voice asks, "Where are the cavalry?" and someone answers "Intrenched," which is not so foolish as it sounds, they being equipped for the purpose, and being drilled to fight dismounted. But intrenching should not be necessary in a country provided, as this one is, with stone walls. Other companies are deploying on our left, and we wait before that most dangerous of all attempts, a direct frontal attack. The enemy, the captain has just explained, is a half mile away across a slight depression. At Bunker Hill our men waited till they could see the whites of the red-coats' eyes. At Fredericksburg our attacking men were helpless at a hundred yards. But here as soon as we have crossed the wall we shall be exposed to a deadly fire, not only of rifles, but of machine guns. Of these the enemy have two on motor tricycles, and it is understood that the call of their sirens is a signal that they are in action.

(And again resting.)

We have the machine guns, mother dear. The cavalry got away, all but three or four of them. This was how it went.

When the field artillery had sufficiently pounded the enemy (and having but few rounds this did not last very long) we were given the order to advance. First we went over the wall,--and you must remember that every fence in this country, stone, snake, or otherwise, is decorated with barbed wire--and formed our line, lying flat, a couple of rods beyond it. Now we put in practice for the whole battalion the tactics we had studied by platoons, sending men forward from the right by squads in rushes, making a new line by degrees, always keeping a constant fire on the enemy--for we had a hundred rounds today, so that if we were decently accurate we should make him too nervous to be very dangerous in return. We went about fifty yards at a time, our sergeants and platoon leaders in the rear, behind them the captain and his orderlies and behind all the major and his aides. Certain officers with white bands on their arms, who ventured unconcernedly into the line of fire, I made out to be umpires judging this game of war. For I find, mother dear, that this is earnest for the officers as well as ourselves--we and the enemy have maps, we know the general conditions, and then each acts as in time of war, trying to get the better of the opponent. So that if an officer has properly trained his men, and if in addition he shows good judgment, then he can feel that he is advancing in his profession. The major, working for the first time today with a battalion under him (for last camp he was but a captain) was as keen at the work as if real bullets had been flying across the little valley. Meanwhile the umpires, studying the strategy of both sides, are themselves learning.

Well, we got forward rush by rush, firing as we lay waiting, getting ready at the word, and then following Bannister as he quartered forward to the right or left to join the new line. As we neared the stone wall behind which the enemy was firing we could see his white hat-bands, when to my disgust along came an umpire and ruled out the rear rank. Wanting to be in at the death, I changed places with Corder, who was "all in," and so I finished out the final charge, when the captain came through the line with a rush and we up and followed him yelling. The enemy very obligingly vacated the wall as we approached, and all we saw of the cavalry was their dust as they departed, except a squad whom the umpires called back.

One machine gun I did not see, nor have I heard how it was captured. But one was stalled a little distance behind the wall, and I followed the captain as he made for it. The two men on it were swearing wonderfully, being regulars; the captain snapped his pistol in the air as he ran, and I likewise fired my gun upwards, it being the rule of this campaign neither to fire nor to present the bayonet at close quarters. Seeing they could not get away, the men were actually ready to fight, and I think had we been rookies we might have had to scrap for it; but seeing an officer they saluted and sullenly submitted.

(In camp near Crossroads 75, south of Sciota, N. Y., Tuesday evening.)

I am sitting on a piece of canvas, being one among a dozen or more men outside the Y. M. C. A. tent, all writing. Men constantly come between me and the light or step on my outlying portions; there is much cheerful talking and laughing, and all about is the usual bustle of the camp.