Chapter 6
Saturday evening, Sept. 16. At the company tent.
DEAR MOTHER:--
We have just come back from general conference, a nightly occurrence except in bad weather. Tonight, because it was cold, the men went grumbling and tardy, having put on sweaters under their blouses, and the wise ones, on account of the recent rains, bringing something to sit on. In default of anything better a legging will do, slipped off when we are on the ground. Our speaker tonight told us of army law, too technical for me to make it interesting to you. Some speakers have hard work in making their subjects interesting to us, not that these are dull, but that the speakers are. Said Corder to me after one such, "When I was a Sunday School superintendent I let no one speak to the school that hadn't something to say." Yet on the whole I am surprised how well the officers can give us the gist of their subjects.
Our best speaker so far (excepting always the General, who has a way of getting at us that explains his success) was a youngish doctor, who gave us a plain talk concerning personal hygiene. When he spoke of cleanliness, briefly referring to it as a matter of course, I thought of a man whom I had seen on the beach that afternoon, Wednesday, looking at his feet and exclaiming in disgust: "Look at them! And I washed them Monday morning!" Some of our lads, who come here with expenses paid by their employers, have a little to learn in this particular.
But to return to our doctor. He was very jocose, expressed himself in perfectly decent men's slang, and kept us laughing _with_ him all the time, while at the same time he drove home his advice. And yet it was very striking how once, not disrespectfully, the men laughed _at_ him. While speaking of our diet he said, "I advise you to eat freely of the excellent fruit provided at the camp table." Now with us fruit, cooked or raw, is almost lacking, and nothing exasperates me quite so much, when I remember the wonderful apples that were just ripening at home, as to see the small bruised insipid fruit that they serve us here. So the men began to laugh, quietly at first; but the laughter rippled from one end of the crowd to the other, and then rose in waves, and then boomed louder and louder, in one great hearty roar. Whether or not the doctor saw the point, it was worth taking.
Today we went on outpost duty, posting our squads at proper vantage points along the further edge of our old familiar field, beyond the trenches where Vera was trapped. The lieutenant took us out, explaining as he went, dropping a squad on every-other rise of the ground, and leaving its corporal to post his men. Soon we were strung out along half a mile of rough country, a railroad in our front, and beyond it the enemy's territory. Looking from our vantage-point it was hard to suppose that the barren pasture was hiding all our men. Of them we saw but two, an advance post lying on the hither side of the railroad embankment, peering over the top, and our squad's own foremost man at his place where he could command a railroad cut. The rest were hidden in little hollows, in scattered clumps of pine, or in patches of scrub oak. After a while along came the visiting patrol, directed by each squad onward to the next, and so covering the whole front. And last came the captain, inspecting each post, and when he was satisfied, sending us back with orders to pick up the rest of our platoon and re-form by the trenches. An incident of this short march. Randall, when we routed out Squad Six, produced his last cigarette. His front rank man asked him for half. "No one divides a cigarette," said Randall, borrowed a match from the man, and lighted the cigarette himself. Our Lucy, after watching this in silent amazement, took out his cigarette-box, found he had but one smoke, and handed it over. Really, if he becomes a man Randall should have half of the credit.
This afternoon we have at last made a beginning on another part of our work, the use of the rifle. Some few days ago the captain called for those of us who had used high-powered rifles; he has since been weeding them out, till he has a couple of dozen of them to use as coaches. Today we went "on the galleries," which is a convenient phrase for the use of small-bore rifles against small targets at short range. At the bottom of the drill field we hung on wires small wooden frames on which were tacked paper targets; behind was the low railroad embankment, behind that the lake. Our rifles were in every detail like the service pieces, except the smaller bore. We used dummy cartridges as long as the gun usually requires, but so made as to receive much smaller cartridges, carrying weak charges of powder--if you understand the lingo, they were "22 shorts." One gang of us was kept at work perpetually loading these gallery cartridges, and assembling them in clips of five; another gang was steadily tacking new targets on the frames; and bunch by bunch we were moved from these duties to the more interesting one of shooting the cartridges and spoiling the targets.
Since our recent talk in the gymnasium we have been practising, at all odd minutes, how to hold and sight the guns, and how to pull the trigger. Never before coming here had I heard of the _squeeze_, in which (of another kind) all army men are popularly supposed to be proficient by nature, but which here is technically a special study. The greenhorn naturally supposes that all he has to do with the gun is, like Stephen in the classic rhyme, to "p'int de gun, pull on de trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and steadily contract his whole hand, all the fingers together, till in a moment--Bang!
It sounds so easy!
On the galleries, then, we were tested for our understanding of this new art. The size of the target and the distance, considered in relation to the power of the two rifles, were about equal to service conditions at five hundred yards. The weight and size of the gun made the test a fair one. We tried out the two chief postures, sitting and prone, and had both slow and rapid fire, or as the captain prefers to say, slow and deliberate.
These are summaries and general facts. Personal details are: long service in the two gangs, long waits for my turn, and five minutes with the gun. "Be sure to shoot on Number Twelve target," warned the coach as he helped me adjust the sling. "Now get your position right. Now put in the clip. And now remember your squeeze." I was trying slow fire, handling a gun for the first time since I was a boy. "The top of the U of the open sight an inch below the bull," chanted the coach. "But the bullseye," I complained, "dances all about." "Of course," said the coach. "Make it dance less, hold as steady as you can, squeeze when the front sight is under it.--There, you jerked!" So I did, but I squeezed a little better as time went on, till I was pretty sure I was doing all right. The gun didn't kick, and by my tenth shot I was fairly steady. I gave up the gun after making sure it was empty, waited till all the rest had finished, and at the order we walked forward with new targets, hung them in place of the old, tore ours off the frames, and gave the frames over to the tacking squad, while at the same time trying to compute our scores before we filed up to the captain.
I was amazed and disgusted to find that three of my shots had missed the target quite. To the captain, as he studied my target, I expressed my mortification. "What target were you shooting on?" he asked, in the lingo proper to our trade. I answered "Number Twelve." "Three shots shy," said the captain, "and here's Number Fourteen lacking two hits. Where's Number Thirteen?" "Here, sir," said Bannister, "and there's fifteen shots in my target." "Then three are mine," said I. "And two are mine," said Number Fourteen. My shooting hadn't been very good, threes and fours, with only one bull. Bannister had nine bullseyes, some of which I may have made; but he was privileged to count all the best shots on his score.--I know now a little more about target shooting than merely holding the gun.
Tomorrow we are to have more of this, although it is Sunday. The captain has given us our evening to ourselves, and has asked us (_asked_, you notice, for our Sunday afternoon is our own) to give him the time tomorrow. He has the reputation, I am told, of always making his company the best at rifle shooting. And if he works us, he is also working himself.
This spell of cold weather which has followed our rains and is going to make life quite different for us, has this evening driven everyone from the company tent except myself, who sit here wrapped in a blanket to my waist, finishing this letter. There has been a very pleasant little group of us here, using each other's ink, interrupting our work to stop and chat, showing each other our photographs. And perhaps I had better explain why it is that I have appeared in two or three of the camp scenes which I have already sent you. There is here an official photographer, who sends out camera men to take us in all sorts of occupations--on the skirmish line, on parade, cleaning our teeth or our rifles, marching, skylarking. The pictures are all of the post card size, and in due course are exhibited at the studio, where we go and inspect and buy. He is always out of pictures of lieutenants, captains, the general, and other popular subjects. But by perseverance and patient waiting one can accumulate a record of his life here. Luck will put a fellow, on an average, into a few groups a week, as you see in the ones I have sent you.
I am shivering. The captain has promised us another blanket for tomorrow, and there are rumors of an issue of overcoats. At this rate we shall need them.
Love from
DICK.
PRIVATE GODWIN TO HIS MOTHER
Sunday evening the 17th.
DEAR MOTHER:--
Not a minute for writing all day, and yet I have been idle, idle, idle. My own personal work began very early, for I got up about quarter of five, took my shower-bath in the shivering dawn, and then, while the camp was just beginning to stir, and when I had the bucket and spigot to myself, I washed out shirt, underclothes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and pajamas. The water was painfully cold, and often I had to stop and warm my hands in my sweater. But I got the work done, and hung the clothes on the lines, knotted together, that are used to regulate the caps on tents 8 and 10. The clothes-pins were most useful, for the wind blew strongly all day, and many a piece of laundry went sailing off to leeward. Inspection compelled me to take the things in once, but I got them out again, and in the evening I had the pleasure of putting on again, dry, the pajamas that I washed in the morning. I never should have been able to fold them properly for stowing away.
Our inspection was very formidable this morning, for the major was expected, and the captain came down the street, and in his mildest voice gave strictest orders. Washing was taken in, extra clothes were taken down from tent-poles, and tents were made perfectly neat inside and out. I was tent-policeman for the day, but my job was light, for everyone was concerned to have the place look well, and picked up round his cot, borrowed the broom and wielded it, and laid out his kit in the best of order. From the next tent we heard Randall in his usual controversy with his squad, refusing to help his neighbor roll up the walls of the tent, and loudly complaining when his washing and his rubber coat were thrown on his cot with orders to put them out of sight. But in spite of himself he was compelled to share in the housecleaning. Outside, the street was policed of every cigarette-butt and scrap of paper, and then the two police squads, with rakes and brooms, went down the whole length of it and made it as orderly as a garden walk.
Then at command we lined up outside the tents, dressed in two lines down the street, facing each other. Down this aisle came the Major, glancing keenly about, and peering sharply into each tent. Of our corporal he asked if we had blankets enough. Captain Kirby came next with the first sergeant, and carefully inspected each tent. Then he called us all together in a circle, said that the major had been unusually pleased with us; a man of few words, he has seldom praised a company so heartily. This set us all up. Then the captain, for his own part, gave us his thanks, told us we'd done well, and apologized for working us so hard. "I know you hate me like the devil for it," he said, "but you're coming on finely." And he sent us to the galleries for more practice. We went in some surprise at his opinion of himself. "Hate him like the devil?" exclaimed Corder. "The devil we do!"
The waiting on the drill-field became very tedious. So poor is our equipment that we have but eighteen gallery rifles for our hundred and fifty men, and it was nearly an hour before I got my first try. My score this time was the reverse of yesterday, for I got fifty-four out of a possible fifty, one hundred and eight percent! That was because there were thirteen holes in the paper, someone having presented me with the extra three. Counting all the best shots as my own, my official score was 42; yet none of the shots were outside the second ring, and at worst my score was 39.
In the afternoon my pride had a fall, for after the same tedious wait I fired my ten rounds at the target. This time I fired prone, both clips within two minutes. This position, flat on my belly with my legs apart (in our close quarters it was difficult not to kick my neighbor, and destructive of aim to have him kick me) with my elbows under me and the gun, and my head bent back, is in itself hard enough to maintain during a single shot. But for rapid fire the process is thus. After the first shot the gun is kept at the shoulder, the muzzle slightly lowered and turned aside to give the right hand a chance to work; I grasp the bolt handle, turn it up, pull it back full length, shove it sharply home, turn it down, and thus have reloaded. Then again I must sight the gun, be sure not to cant it, be sure not to have my eye too close to the cocking piece, must get the sights right, hold steady, and squeeze. All this on a ten seconds' average. After the fifth shot there is a change, for the gun must be taken from the shoulder and the fresh clip inserted. Then five more shots at the same rate. No wonder that, though all these days I have been hardening my elbows and toughening my neck, at the end of my ten shots I fell over gasping.
And my luck was bad. First my clip would not go easily into the gun, and made me feel hurried. Next a cartridge jammed, and lost me ten seconds. Then out of the ten cartridges four missed fire, which put me off my aim. My coach was ready with more, but they had to be loaded singly, and I had time to fire only a total of eight, making a miserable score of sixteen. The captain, after briefly scanning my target, told me that I was aiming too low. After another long wait I had another chance; but this time I was thoroughly chilled by the wind that had been blowing through us all the afternoon. Then the worn cartridges and the old breech mechanism behaved badly again, and though by following the captain's hint I did better, making 27, it was very unsatisfactory. The officers hope for more, and new, gallery rifles. Without them it is difficult to give us good preliminary practice. For all this, you know, is to get us ready to shoot with the service rifle.
Many of us came shivering off the field, and huddled in our tents with our new extra blankets around us till we warmed up again. But very few of the men failed to turn up at this volunteer practice, and to stay it through on the chance of one more round. In the whole company there were but six who slipped away to pleasures in the town. One of them was Randall.
I am warm now, and fed. Love from
DICK.
PRIVATE GODWIN'S DAILY LETTER
Monday the 18th September, 5.40 A. M. On my cot, while the others sit about and chat.
DEAR MOTHER:--
The reason why the others sit and chat, and why I have time to write, is this. Young David, fresh from his shave (which he has learned to do at speed, and without injury, and is very proud of) came into the tent and said: "We have ten minutes for making up our packs before mess." "Lucy," said Knudsen, "there's a chance of showers. Why do up packs that we may have to undo again?" So David is polishing his shoes (likewise a new art with him) and Pickle is sewing on a button, and they all are talking, while elsewhere, chiefly in the street, the men are making up their packs for the morning's work that is sure to require them. And now comes in Bannister, chanting "Soupy, soupy, soupy!" It is time for mess.
--And now, forty-five minutes later, the whole company is at work over the packs, most of the squads grumbling, but we very happy, for it is showering in a dispirited way, and the order is, "Ponchos out of the packs!" Wise Knudsen, and fortunate Squad 8! Now the next question is, where to carry the ponchos--in the two lower straps of the pack? Everybody gives everybody else his opinion. The word comes down the street, "Carry them as you please." So mine is looped in the strap that supports my belt, and the pack is slung. And while everyone else is adjusting his pack, or dropping the sides of the tent near his cot, or loosening the tent guy-ropes, I scratch this.--Now the bugle, and the whistle, and the last hasty running and calls, and in a moment we shall be assembled, each with ten blank cartridges in his belt (the first time we have had them) and shall be off in the drizzle.
Evening. In my OVERCOAT!
But it was not many minutes before our ponchos were on, for the day was "open and shut," and sometimes it opened pretty wide. In our full equipment, ponchos over everything, we turned off the main road, went by new and strange ways, and found ourselves for the first time on the range, where we lined up at the 600 yards mark. As we looked toward the butts the scene was very picturesque.
The field was level, rising at the further end to a low ridge, below which stood the targets. These, seen through the drizzle, were but great squares of pale tan color, only slightly relieved against the wet sand bank. In the middle of each of them I could just see a black dot. Between us and them, three hundred yards away, was extended a dark line of men, with here and there a smoking fire around which groups warmed themselves. From the thin line came irregularly spurts of smoke, and the spattering of rifle shots. It reminded me of an old picture of the field of Antietam, spiritless in itself, but here made alive by the movement, the noise, the drifting smoke, and the gray monotone. I watched it while the captain explained tomorrow's work; then, glad that today had not fallen to our lot, we marched on, taking up our route step in the soft sand of an old railroad bed.
We were glad of our ponchos when the rain increased. As it poured down heavily we were a disreputable lot, all streaked with the wet, our hats slouched, our ponchos bunched in every direction with elbows, packs, and rifles. The rubber turned the cold wind and shed most of the rain; but as before, where our knees touched the ponchos the water came through, and wet us finely. Then the rain stopped and the clouds became thinner, but the wind remained cold; and when the captain slowly led us along the specimen trenches, explaining as he went, we all got pretty well chilled for lack of motion. I looked at David and saw that he was turning blue. The only mental relief came when we arrived at the shelter where a few days ago we found Vera.
Corder looked at the sign in front of it, and read it out. "Machine gun emplacement! Very appropriate!"
I couldn't help smiling, nor could the rest, except David, who for politeness tried to be blank, and thoroughly warmed himself by the inward struggle, turning quite red. When the captain got us back to the road and "fell us out" (note the idiom!) we had calisthenics, with pushing matches that put warmth into us. And then we marched in skirmish line through low bushes for half a mile, till the captain lined us up for blank cartridge practice.
We had struck another part of the same abandoned railroad, from which was plainly visible, at perhaps two hundred yards, the gable of a deserted shack. The captain sent to it a couple of men, who tacked up a target on it. Then first the coaches, our experienced riflemen, and after them the platoons one by one, came forward, every man being ready with his two clips of blank cartridges. The slings were adjusted, each line as it came up loaded with the first clip, and at the command "Targets--up!" threw itself flat, took position, and began to fire. The lieutenant called out the ten second intervals. Proper firing would bring the exhaustion of the first clip at about one minute. Then the second clip would be inserted, and should be finished with the second minute.
I cautioned my coach to remind me to keep my eye away from the cocking piece, and after testing sling and ground, threw myself down and got into position at the word. Well, it wasn't difficult to fire; though the noise of the gun was much greater than that of the gallery rifle there was no recoil; and I tried to be as steady as possible in aiming and squeezing. The bullseye was the silhouette, life size, of a man lying prone and firing at me. Instructions were to aim at the bottom of the target, about a foot below him. The crack of my neighbor's piece, very loud and sharp, was the most uncomfortable part of the performance, and I shall shoot tomorrow with cotton in my ears; many decided likewise. I plugged away steadily, the ammunition worked well, and I finished my second clip with about fifteen seconds to spare. Then I stood up and brushed myself, with no one to prove that I had not made a perfect score.
One hundred and fifty men shooting ten rounds each--that meant 1500 shells left on the ground, with 300 clips, all of brass. I noticed some rather untidy figures, emerging from the miserable little shacks that dotted the scrub, slinking through the brush in our direction and gathering on the flanks of our firing line, eight or ten men and boys and girls, one of the latter carrying a baby. Near me Captain Kirby cursed them under his breath as "human buzzards," and I understood that these camp followers had not gathered merely to admire. As soon as the last platoon filed off the ground, these persons slipped forward, and began eagerly to pick up the treasure that lay scattered there. With brass at twenty-five cents a pound, war prices, they made enough, scratching in the dirt, to keep them going for the next week or so.
Back to camp then, still glad of our ponchos, for though there was no more rain the wind was steadily colder. Then the job of cleaning, with one rod per squad, and patches always few, our fouled rifles.