Part 4

Back in the barracks an interesting scene was taking place, scores of tickets of leave had been handed out to the men, to take the night and following day off, but to get out of camp they must be able to pass inspection with perfect and well-fitting equipment, and since all of us had not our full outfit, we had to hustle around and borrow articles of clothing that would fit and look satisfactory. I, for instance, have a full winter uniform except for overcoat (which I have not received) and tunic, the one I am wearing being a summer coat of cotton and hardly matching the wool trousers I possess. So I had to join the crowd who were bartering, exchanging and renting uniforms. And since the first men to leave had done the same thing to a certain extent, there was not much desirable clothing left in the barracks. Overcoats were going at a dollar a day and breeches and jackets for fifty cents each. After a diligent search I did find a chap who had a winter tunic and summer trousers and, wonder of wonders, his jacket fit me perfectly. We made an exchange and I borrowed an overcoat at one dollar for the day, from a chap who was not leaving camp, and sallied forth.

Tramping down Twenty-third Avenue (the streets are all named here and our barracks is on Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue), whom should I behold but friend Billy, bound in the same direction. He had had the same inspiration as I and he, too, had a pass for R----. We wandered on together, but upon reaching the railroad station, our hopes of getting to our destination were dashed. There were no more trains for R---- until the morning!

We wept. But our tears didn't blind us to the fact that there were occasional machines passing along the highway. So we walked out and stood there in the moonlight and looked as lonesome and forlorn as possible.

And the first machine to come along was a beautiful big Pierce Arrow limousine, with an old dowager, a pleasant and generous old soul, its single occupant, save of course the chauffeur. We went to R---- in style; and, moreover, we went there in a hurry, for with khaki in the machine the chauffeur assumed that he had the right of way and full permission to wreck the speed laws.

At R---- we looked up time tables and discovered that we could get a train into the city at ten-thirty, which was not so bad. Then, because our passes really limited us to R----, we concluded that it was only fair to the Government to at least eat a meal in that town and since we were both hungry in spite of our recent mess, we searched for a restaurant.

We found one; a French restaurant, which looked peculiarly deserted. The door was locked, for some strange reason, yet there were several men in aprons inside apparently hard at work. We rattled on the door and in a moment the frowning proprietor came forward. But the frown changed to a smile when he saw us. It was the khaki. He unbolted the door and, with a ceremonious bow, welcomed us in, then closed the door and bolted it.

And then he explained that this was a new restaurant not yet opened for patronage. He expected to open up in a day or maybe two. But, of course, he could not turn away two hungry soldiers, never. _Merci non!_ He had nothing to serve us with, but what were our desires? Express them and he would send out for the provisions, cook them and serve them. Steak! Indeed, yes. In twenty minutes we would have a wonderful steak, French fried potatoes, salad, coffee and ice cream. Jean would attend to it.

And Jean did. He rustled up the steak and the rest and we alone occupied the restaurant, and soon were eating the most delicious piece of beef we believed we had ever put our teeth through. The bill! Nothing; nothing at all--what?--well if we insist, one dollar each. Thank you! And now here is a pen and some ink. You will please autograph each bill and behold, when you return from glorious France, covered with glorious glory, you should come in and see these two bills--the first money taken in at the restaurant--framed and hanging there over the desk. And so, I suppose, the future generation of visitors to R---- will be able to view these immortal monuments to our--I don't know what, unless it be our khaki uniforms--hanging there in the French restaurant possibly surrounded by wreaths as each anniversary of day before yesterday rolls 'round.

We got the ten-thirty train for the city, and we almost got into trouble too; or at least I did, for as we hurried into the smoker whom should I see sitting buried in a magazine but the First Lieutenant of our Company. Had he made the trip the same way we did? I don't know and, of course, I didn't ask. We just walked through the car very swiftly and he never looked up.

It was fifteen minutes of midnight when I arrived home, let myself in with my latch key which I have been carrying as a silent reminder of my former terrifically wild (?) career; routed out the folks, and sat swathed in bath-robe and dressing-gown until 3 o'clock, just talking. It was bully. And then I tumbled into my own bed and slept and slept and slept. I woke up at reveille all right--(it was just daylight)--grinned, rolled over and slept and slept and slept some more.

Then I had a real bath in a real tub with real hot water, and a lot of real things to eat and real cigars to smoke and real friends to talk with until five o'clock in the afternoon, when I crawled into my regimentals once more, and went out to meet Billy by appointment.

Going back via R---- route (which was necessary) curtailed our leave which really continues until to-morrow morning at reveille, but then we were very happy; so happy that when we arrived in R---- we chartered a taxi-cab for the twenty mile drive out here and now I'm nearly frozen through from the cold wind that blew in at us. And I'm tired, too, but I'm happy and ready to turn in ten minutes before taps.

Monday:

I'll need no "Melody in Snore Minor" to lull me to sleep to-night, for I am thoroughly weary. It was intimated a day or so ago that our training would be hurried a little so that we would be ready for a quick shift at any time. But hurried doesn't exactly describe it. It looks like an early fall drive to me.

We began at the beginning, this morning, and had our squad drills all over again, and somehow in the juggling about of men to make up our company formation I managed to get last place in line, and pivot man in the front rank of the last squad.

Before to-day I've been in the rear rank and had a screen of front-rank men to cover up any blunders I might make, but being in the first file gave me stage fright. And, of course, with the stage fright I bungled;--forgot which was left and which was right. We began by facing, and first chance I managed to turn left when the command was right. That blunder made me more self-conscious. If I had had to talk I'm sure I would have stuttered. As it was I stammered with my feet.

Then "About Face."

I faced about all right, only I pivoted on a stump root that some stupid had forgotten to dig out. The result was I lost my balance, and made several movements instead of one before I came to position.

At drills the Sergeants, who do most of the drilling, are equipped with sticks about a yard long so that they can poke a rear-rank man in the back without disturbing the front-rank men, and thus call attention to blunders. Being a rear-rank man on the about face, I presently felt the stick poking into my ribs and the command:

"You step out here."

I stepped out, and was requested, along with much language, to go up in front of the company and give a demonstration in the proper method of "about facing."

My self-consciousness fled immediately. I was mad. I wanted to talk back, and make a few remarks about the Sergeant and the stump and things. But I suddenly thought of a tour of kitchen police and restrained myself. Instead I about faced with such energy that the Sergeant knew I was boiling inside, and being a decent sort of a chap, he sent me back to the ranks after a couple of demonstrations, instead of keeping me out there for fifteen minutes as I have seen them do to some fellows.

After that I felt more at ease in the front rank. All morning long we ambled across the landscape, doing squad and company movements. It was just drill, drill, drill, for fifty out of every sixty minutes, the ten minutes being allowed as rest periods. We reviewed all our previous instructions and worked up to the point of forming company fronts, with the movements of right and left front into line and on right into line, and as pivot man, I think I did mighty well. Our squad never stepped off a pace ahead of time on any of the formations. And when we were marching back to the barracks at mess time, the Sergeant came up beside me, and remarked, by way of apology for hauling me out of the ranks earlier in the morning, that I was doing good pivot work.

Perhaps we didn't enjoy mess! Three helpings of navy beans for me with pineapple marmalade, and a piece of salt pork on the side, not to mention three cups of coffee and three slices of bread. I sure had luck on the mess line to-day.

This afternoon the First Lieutenant took charge of the company, and he had us traipsing all over the landscape again, doing the same sort of close order manoeuvres, and when we lined up just before retreat he announced that we would have rifles to-morrow morning.

It is interesting to see how rumours travel and gather force in the barracks. Some one, somehow, heard that an artist and a stenographer from our company are to sail for France in a day or two. Of course, all my friends have come to the conclusion that I am the artist. A chap told me about it at mess this evening, and since then several dozen have looked me up to shake hands with me and tell me good-bye, with such remarks as: "Hear you have orders to sail for France to-morrow; great." "They tell me you got a commission from Washington and that you are going across in a day or two," or, "Say, you're a lucky chap; where'd you get the drag down in Washington?"

But these queries fail absolutely to thrill me. I am quite calm and undisturbed. I deny any "drag" whatever, and I know that I am not the artist mentioned in the order for transfer, if there is any such order, which I doubt. This is only about the _n_th time that same rumour has been afloat as a result of which I have bade good-bye to my friends about every other day only to discover myself still with them a week later with the same old rumour bobbing up again.

Tuesday:

I'm really a soldier. I know the manual of arms.

This morning, true to the First Lieutenant's prediction, we drilled with rifles and now I am quite convinced of the truth of the old saying that a gun is dangerous without lock, stock, or barrel. Fat turned around suddenly when he had his rifle over his shoulder and poked the muzzle of it into my mouth; a regular Happy Hooligan performance, and now I have a split (and considerably puffed) lip and a loose tooth to my credit in this horrible war.

We were marched over to one of the infantry barracks on the edge of the big parade grounds and there we found our rifles; I mean ours for the day only, because there are hardly enough in camp to equip us all yet and we have to take turns using them. In the same way there is only one field piece to each artillery company, but that doesn't seem to worry the artillery men much.

They are doing some real drilling over on the other side of the camp. I was surprised to discover a company at work digging trenches, another company practising throwing hand grenades, with stones representing the deadly Mill's bombs, still another group constructing parapets of sand bags, and working out machine gun emplacements, and in the distance artillery companies hovering about a sleek looking gun, learning the complicated parts and where and how the animals are served.

Krags, instead of Springfields, are the rifles available for drilling purposes here, and for the first hour this morning we devoted our time to learning the floor plan of the thing. I was getting along famously until Fat interrupted my investigations with the muzzle of his weapon.

Soon after that we started drilling. And I think it is to our credit that before noon we had mastered all the movements and that our pieces snapped up to position with real vigour.

"Let me hear them hands slap them pieces," said the Sergeant; then "Ri--sholler--harms! One-two-three-four! Pep, that's it, pep an' snap. Slap 'em hard. Ordah--harms! One-two-three! _Done_ drop 'em--_done_ slam 'em down. Nex' man slams 'em gits kitchen p'lice."

So we drilled until our arms ached, and rifles that weighed about eight pounds at the beginning of the drill seemed to have increased to fifty pounds, and felt as long as telephone poles. Perhaps we weren't glad when our First Lieutenant put a stop to the punishment and started us in the general direction of the mess hall.

And we had beef stew for dinner; beef stew with rich brown gravy, such as our old biscuit shooter alone can make.

But after mess we were back at it again. Only this time it was bayonet practice, but not of the variety pictured in most magazines. We haven't reached the stage of charging trenches and swinging bundles of sticks. Such advanced work comes later.

Bayonets are awkward, ugly things, and I could not help being grateful that Fat took it into his head to poke me in the mouth with his rifle this morning instead of this afternoon. If he had waited until after mess he wouldn't have split my lip; he would have cut my head off. When I saw him with bayonet fixed I gave him a wide radius of action. Indeed I avoided him as if he were a plague.

In open, or extended, order we lined up on the parade grounds in front of one of these movable elevated platforms. Our Second Lieutenant mounted this, and with a bayonetted rifle in hand went through the various lunges, thrusts and parries of the bayonet manual, meanwhile giving us a lecture, to the effect that no matter what the War Department intended to do with us, a knowledge of bayonet fighting would be essential. He assured us that the logical weapon for an American soldier was the rifle. One of our birthrights is markmanship and another is bayonet fighting. He briefly cantered over a century and a half of history of the Republic and pointed out how we had won fame and honour with bullet and bayonet, and he wound up by telling us that every American soldier should prepare himself so that he would be as dangerous to fool with as a stick of dynamite. Picture good-natured Fat impersonating a stick of dynamite.

Then we went at it. We lunged and thrust and parried until perspiration began to stand out on our foreheads. From the corner of my eye I had a vision of Fat trying to disguise himself as a high explosive. Every time he lunged, he would scowl viciously and emit a loud grunt. I discovered a few moments ago, however, that it was a case of over-eating at mess time that caused him to grunt and frown every time he tried to move very fast; not a desire to look ferocious, although I guess it passed for that in the eyes of the instructor.

And now I'm told we are to get this sort of training daily for a long period; close order formation in the morning, with rifle and bayonet drill in the afternoon and later on we will do skirmish work, trench work and open order work with rifles. Some of the infantry companies are already doing that. I was treated to the spectacle of two companies scurrying across the upper end of the parade grounds like so many rabbits. Now and then they would fling themselves down on their stomachs and begin snapping away merrily with empty rifles at an imaginary enemy.

We are a tired-looking company to-night. Already half the cots are filled with men, some of them snoring lustily and it is only a quarter to ten.

Wednesday:

There are a lot of things calculated to stir a chap's sentimental streak about this camp, particularly the nights; moonlight nights like to-night for instance. Every hard outline of the huge place is softened under the blue-black mantle of night, and the disagreeable things are lost in the heavy shadows and the moonlight floods the open places, and glistens on the rows upon rows of tin roofs and tall, gaunt-looking tin smoke-stacks. Watch-fires (a sanitary precaution) blaze in their deep holes in the rear of each barracks building, and the lonesome fire-guard, bundled in his overcoat and with rifle over his shoulder, stands silhouetted against the night sky beside each flaring pit.

Out on the main streets of the camp are thousands of fellows in khaki, walking aimlessly up and down, while in the by-streets between the barracks buildings one sees shadowy figures and glowing cigarette ends moving about in the darkness. Through the tiny panes of each barracks window, partly obscured by overcoats and sweaters which dangle from pegs inside, filters a warm yellow light, and as one moves down the row, one hears from one building the music of an accordion and the rhythmic shuffle of feet which tells of a "stag" dance being held in the mess hall; while from another comes the soft plunk-plunking of a banjo and the occasional drone of a mouth organ that seeks after harmony, but only succeeds with an effort.

Off to the right toward the parade grounds some fellows are singing and their songs sound mighty good in the moonlight. And from far beyond where the thick pine woods stand out black against the sky comes faintly the hooting of a distant owl.

On the main streets that skirt the outer edge of the cantonment on three sides, the arc lights glisten, like rows of far off diamonds against the velvet of a jewel box, and here and there, where two twinkle, like low-hung stars, stand out the Y.M. shacks where the men are gathering for an evening's recreation.

It is wonderful to wander out such nights as these. Bundled in a sweater to keep out the chill of evening, and with only my pipe for company, I often go tramping off through the by-streets of the camp. The smoke of the hundreds of watch-fires is wafted to me on every breeze and in wood smoke there is a charm; the charm of camping out. Never in my life will I smell the smoke of burning pine wood, but that these nights will come trooping through my memory, and I'm certain that I will be homesick then and want to come back and live them all over again.

And the things I often see:--the fire-guard for instance, who alone out there behind the barracks was trying hard to read a letter by the light of his flickering watch-fire. Was it a letter he had just received and could not wait to open, or was it a letter that he had read many, many times before and was rereading once again? Then the lonesome dog who sat out in the company street and stared up solemnly at the moon, like a lone wolf on the prairie. What instincts were being waked within him by the moonlight? And the silhouette through the window of the chap sitting on his cot patiently plying needle and thread and the two fellows who leaned against the jacketed field piece in front of an artillery barracks and talked in whispers, while through the opened door of the buildings on either hand came the noise of a rousing good time within.

Then the tramp up Tower Hill, where the headquarters building with its darkened windows like sightless eyes stands out from the sparse remains of the pine woods, flecked here and there with patches of moonlight.

Far off across the great camp, and across the tops of the pines one can dimly see from the top of the hill the ocean with the moonlight flashing on its surface, and occasionally comes a breath of chilled salt air that stirs a longing, vague and fleeting, as the ocean has always stirred a longing in the soul of the adventurer. From here one can look down upon the great camp. Thousands and thousands of roofs stand out in the moonlight, and the watch-fires twinkle in orderly rows up and down each camp street. Far off to the left are the big machine shops and forges of the construction company, the forge fires glowing red against the night, while faintly comes the far-off ring of anvils. Those forge fires, like the bakery fires, never die.

To the eastward is the railroad terminal with its panting engines and its medley of noises, while nearer at hand but in the same direction is the transport headquarters with its ceaselessly moving caravan of rumbling, grumbling army trucks. All combines to make a picture that holds one spell-bound.

The days here are pleasant indeed, but the nights are almost intoxicating. They cast a spell upon me and leave a memory that can never fade.

Monday:

This place looks like a growing mining town somewhere out West, but for real atmosphere, the civilian camp, outside the reservation, has the cantonment looking really civilized. I went out there this evening after mess; for I heard that there was a cigar store included in the outfit, and the impression I got was a lasting one. Everything of the frontier was there save the saloons and the gambling halls. Shacks, tents (rows upon rows of them), lean-tos and all forms of domiciles. And the men who walked the streets were of every variety, including real lumber jabs in mackinaws and spiked boots, who had come down to cut away the timber; Italians, Poles, Swedes, Slavs and what not, and a real cowgirl, in short skirts and high leather boots, with a silk handkerchief scarf, sombrero and a big thirty-eight strapped to her hip. She, I learned, runs a motor bus between the civilian camp and the nearest towns.

Cook fires twinkled outside of the tents, lights showed through the canvas walls reflecting the huge, grotesque, shadowy figures of the occupants. From one emanated the strains of an accordion and from another the babble of voices that suggested a quarrel over a card game.

I found the cigar store. I found other stores, too, just shacks thrown together, but carrying a stock of everything in the line of wearing apparel and eatables. One displayed the sign of "Jack's Unsurpassable Lunch," another "The Elite," and another "The Emporium." There were hundreds of squalid booth-like structures besides, where a host of curious things were for sale to the hordes of big-fisted, deep-chested men who were brought there to build the cantonment. But they tell me that the civilian camp is fast breaking up now, for the cantonment is almost completed. The remount stables for the artillery, the refrigerating plant and the huge bakery are all that remain to be built and the labourers are leaving in big groups.

The temporary bakery (I passed it to-night on my way back to camp) is represented by a double line of tents, before each of which is a big field baking oven, its coal fire glowing from lower doors like huge, red eyes and its gaunt smoke-stack reaching upward to terminate in a cloud of black smoke which ascends higher and higher in long, graceful spirals until it is lost in the darkness of the night.

Before these ovens work the bakers, in khaki, of course, but each swathed in a flowing white apron. With sleeves rolled up and shirts opened at the throat, they wield their long bakers' paddles, and as they pass to and fro in the dull red firelight, they look elfish and grotesque; exactly like a lot of gnome bakers off in the "nowheres" baking bread for some ferocious ogre who bids them work incessantly.