At Plattsburg

Your telegram, my dear, dear Dick, I have just replied to, and will now add such facts as I know concerning Vera’s going to Plattsburg. What I can tell you comes through her sister Frances, with whom I have always been more intimate than Vera, even when you two were engaged. And Frances has come several times to the house, now that you are gone. I asked her to.

If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy, think what it was to Vera’s. I don’t know anyone prouder than she. And to publish the fact that you two had changed your minds—! She wanted to go away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she didn’t feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly, who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg. Dolly’s husband is now on the border, and Dolly could stand the separation no longer. She was going to Texas, and one of the cousins must come to Plattsburg and take charge of her house. The children wouldn’t be a burden, because there was the very capable nurse who had taken care of them since they were born. And old Colonel Marsh wouldn’t be a bother, having a certain routine which got him through his days very well. Of course it would be very dull with all the officers away from the post, and those at the instruction camp constantly busy. But one of the sisters must come and relieve her, or Dolly would go mad. She is all bound up in that husband of hers.

It was plain that she expected Frances to come, being so domestic, and so old-fashioned-womanly. But Vera, you know, in spite of her suffragism and her feminism has always been kept by her father from having anything to do, and so she had nothing to occupy herself with just when she needed occupation most. So she declared that she must go, and of course Frances let her. “But you know,” said Frances to me, looking up from her sewing with a little twinkle, “I know Vera will be in hot water with the old Colonel from the first, she is so out of sympathy with war, and the military life, and all it has (or hasn’t) to offer women.” That’s her sex independence, you see.

Vera can’t know that you’re there. She went just before you so suddenly made up your mind to go, and Frances hasn’t written her of your going. I told her I shouldn’t tell you, and begged her not to write Vera. And unless Vera recognizes you, which isn’t likely, she will know nothing of your whereabouts.

It is odd that David Farnham is in your squad, and amusing that I should have seen his mother only yesterday. She never was so proud of anything in her life as of the fact that he is at Plattsburg. So she has become a perfect nuisance to her friends, talking of him so. I met her at a Bridge, and she was crazy to see me, David having written her that you two are together. So she got herself put at my table, and our two partners were furious, because the game dwindled away to nothing, she talking of David all the time. You would have thought that he was the whole army and navy of these United States. I was at first quite frightened that she would ask me your opinion of his fitness. But not at all; that was quite settled in her mind. She talked about his deciding to go, and how he made her see that it was the best thing for him and for the country—and there is a story to that, because it was her husband that insisted on her letting David go, when she would have kept him. And she talked of his equipment, how horrid it was that he couldn’t dress like the officers, especially his legs, they are so handsome; but he wasn’t allowed to wear puttees or leather leggings, but must wear those canvas things. And she gave him everything new; she even mentioned those French silk pajamas that so amuse you. And then she was indignant that he was not at once made a lieutenant, or something. And the men in his tent, except you, Dick, are of no social standing whatever. Of course she hadn’t heard of his being called Lucy. She was so satisfied that I wanted to tell her. Do write me more of him.

Dear Mother:—

Our good Lucy is a different lad from the one that landed here a week ago. Did I tell you that he has come to the heroic resolution to clean his own gun? I suppose the strongest factor in that is his detestation of Randall. It’s quite common here for fellows to get the regulars to clean their guns, and there’s more to be said for that than for many other indulgences: at least it’s better for the rifles. The regulars drive a good little trade of this kind, and David has twice sent out his piece to be laundered, as it were. But I know that he perceived that the sentiment of the squad is against it, and I think he’s sensitive enough to understand the reasons. We’re all here to learn to be soldiers, and taking care of his gun is a pretty important part of a soldier’s job. And then we’re an economical crowd. David and I are the only ones in the squad that didn’t have to pinch a little in order to get here; even Corder spoke recently of the expense as something unwelcome. So it’s really rather bad form to pay for outside service. Yet for all that, David couldn’t quite bring himself to do the dirty work.

So when a regular came to us yesterday, before inspection, and asked for guns to clean, David began to get his gun out of the rack. He looked a little uneasily at Knudsen, but the Swede wouldn’t see it; he kept squinting through his own piece. The regular, to make matters sure, said, “Mr. Randall told me you’d give me your gun. I always clean his.” With the funniest little set of his jaw, as if he didn’t quite know how to do it, David reached for the cleaning rod. “Well,” he said, “Mr. Randall is mistaken. I clean my gun myself.” Then he sat down beside Knudsen, as if sure that the other would teach him—in which he was right. His dirty hands at the end were a sad sight to him, and yet I think he was proud of them too.

This morning Randall, who hasn’t learned (and I question if he ever will) how unwelcome he is in our tent, came in to brag a little—and of what! There stands to the south of us a big hotel whose bulk is visible from the camp, a strong temptation to all our luxurious budding Napoleons. Randall was there last night, and came in to tell us what he had to eat. Particularly he enjoyed, he said, the fresh asparagus tips. Pickle’s envy overcame his dislike, and he had nothing to say. But David’s eye gleamed. “Fresh asparagus tips?” he asked. “Scarcely that.” “Indeed?” demanded Randall. “I know asparagus when I eat it.” “But not fresh asparagus,” countered David. “It’s not to be had in September. Canned tips, Randall, that’s all.” And Pickle, in his relief, cackled aloud.

I have of late told you so little of our officers that I must say something about them here, of officers as a class, and ours in particular. We are at the stage of theoretical conferences—after the regimental meeting each night on the drill-field is a company conference at each company tent, where the non-coms are expected to go, and where all others are invited. Consequently the captain or lieutenant has forty men there each night, crowded close around the table and packed at the open side of the tent. We are learning the theory of field skirmish work, with a glance at the method of advancing by road into an enemy’s country.

And I must say that our officers have at their tongues’ ends the whole of the principle that is embodied in that strange little book, the drill regulations. As soon as you have got beyond the mere parade-ground work (and that is all the civilian ever sees) the book brings you to a region where nothing else is considered than the one thing, attack, attack, attack. There is something very grim and inexorable in this primer of war, this A B C of the principles of destruction. And if the innocent little pocket manual contains a codification, so condensed as to be amazing, of the ways to slay your enemy, the officers are ready with every possible amplification of its dry paragraphs. Get forward, always get forward, is their intention. Make your fire effective, make it destructive, make it overwhelming. With word, with blackboard plan and section, with theory, with practical illustration, each night they lay before us some new field of this really awful knowledge. We study it eagerly. Two years ago I should have been horrified at these doctrines that they preach. Today I regard knowledge of them, by a sufficient number of able-bodied men, as the great need of the country.

So much, dear mother, of things which to speak of in detail would only pain your kind heart. As to the men that teach us, I can say that they improve upon acquaintance. Each of them, the captain and lieutenant, has his own way of teaching. In the lieutenant a coolness of statement that seems to imply a calm unshakableness, as of one who has measured all risks and sees that they amount to nothing. In the captain equal clearness but more fire. Both see that the only safety is in attack. They answer our questions quite differently, the lieutenant with a crisp completeness that leaves nothing to inquire but much to ponder on, the captain with an illuminating phrase that humanizes everything and brings instant understanding. Their men will go wherever they send them in a fight, for the lieutenant because they know he must be right, for the captain because they feel it.

We never, I think, can know the lieutenant very well, because of that quality which I saw in him at his first appearance before us, an aloofness that taunts us into the determination to please him. The captain I am sure we know already, a worker, a driver, but one who shows us that he understands our mistakes by the very keenness of his irony. “I have found you men to place the hip anywhere between the armpit and the knee. So I will place it for you at the watch pocket. That is your official hip, gentlemen.” “Yes, skirmishers in Europe are now wearing steel helmets. But if you men don’t better learn to keep under cover you won’t need steel helmets, you’ll need battleships.” “You can’t take too many precautions in the use of your guns. In this game with me out in front, I’m an advocate of safety first.”

The men like him, but more than that, they respect him. You know, mother, that I can tell something at first hand about learning one’s job. But these officers put the average civilian to shame. I doubt if there is stronger professional feeling, or a higher standard of professional achievement, anywhere in the world. If all the other officers are like our two, West Pointers are a formidable body of men.

Dear Frances:—

You can’t imagine what a relief it is to be where there are no men. That may seem to you a curious statement, for here there are practically no women at all, and nothing but men in the landscape from morning till night. But there are no men buzzing about. It was disgusting to me that no sooner was my engagement to Dick broken than the rushing recommenced. I am so glad to be where no one pays me any attention at all. The place will be flooded in a few days with a thousand new rookies, but they will be nothing else to me than trees or bushes, and I can still have peace.

There are ladies here whom I have met, and shall meet again. Only I feel no interest in them just now, except that the two I am likeliest to see most of are such as always rouse my pity, overburdened with the cares of children and a social position on a small salary. And the money of one of them has just stopped coming in because her husband, at the border, allowed an emergency purchase which the auditing department at Washington will not pass. You know that in such a case the officer’s pay stops until the deficiency is made up or the matter is explained. No one questions his honesty, but his wife and children suffer. And a man will ask a woman to take that risk with him!

The Colonel is the nicest old gentleman, very courteous. There is no doubt that army officers have delightful manners; he begs my pardon every time he lights his pipe. Cannot afford cigars, of course. And threadbare, but very neat. But what is the use of courtesy and self-denial if you believe in war, make war your business?

He and I have had it out already. Neither of us made the slightest impression on the other. His argument is the old one: be prepared, and people will let you alone. He cannot be made to see that if a man has a gun, or a nation has an army, the temptation to use it will some day become too strong.

I haven’t given him my opinion of the army as a profession for women. He always ends our discussion with a charming compliment. But I am aching to point out to him the condition of the house we live in, where the new has all come off of Dolly’s wedding presents, the chair covers are wearing out, holes are coming in the napkins, and there is no money for replacements. How Dolly could pay for her trip to the border, or keep herself there, I can’t think. Suppose the children are sick!

Oh, my dear, I am so weary of genteel poverty! Why couldn’t I have married Dick? He worked so hard, and got himself such a fine position, that we should have been so comfortable! And then we had to conclude that we weren’t made for each other. I do so regret it, and yet there was nothing else possible. Perhaps I’m not made for marriage after all.

The town, as I told you, is flooded with recruits, of the amateur variety. But our post is a little oasis all by itself, and except that they come and drill on the parade ground, they do not come near us. Did I tell you that out in front of the house, merely across a driveway, is this great field where the training companies manœuvre morning and afternoon, and where they occasionally have regimental or battalion drill? Luckily our small piazza is all grown over with vines, so that I can sit outside for the air and yet not myself be seen. The old Colonel watches it all with the keenest interest, tells me what they do and what they fail to do, and I am even learning the meaning of a few military terms. He approves of the way in which the new men learn, and is very proud of what they are achieving. But it has got so with me that I pay no more attention to the drilling men than to automobiles going by. And when their hours are over the place is almost as deserted as before.

I am rather annoyed by the fact that now that the training camp is settling into its routine, its officers—the unmarried ones—find time to come calling on the Colonel. Of course the dear old man is delighted to see them, and doesn’t tell me that he has helped to spread the report that an eligible young woman is staying with him. I wish he hadn’t. For I have found out that military men are twice as bad as civilians. They are aggressive by nature, or they wouldn’t have chosen the profession; they are aggressive by education; three minutes after they are introduced they begin a flirtation. There is a lieutenant Pendleton here for whom I am sure I am the twenty-seventh, so skilful is he in his operations. I have known him two days, and I expect him to propose tomorrow. There are three others who are only a day, or at most two days, behind. You know them, the dashing, fascinating kind.

Another officer, Lt. Pendleton’s captain, named Kirby, I cannot quite make out. He doesn’t make love; he discusses tactics with the colonel. Yet he comes quite regularly, and keeps me in sight. He seems grimmer, more tenacious than the others; I’m glad he gives his time to the Colonel rather than to me. His voice has a curious quality, a most unmilitary gentleness. Pendleton, when he gets you in a corner, purrs to you alone; yet you feel that he has claws. His voice rings on the parade ground; I’m sure of it. I can’t make out what Captain Kirby’s would sound like. There is a deceptive sympathy to it, deceptive because I feel in him much purpose. When an army officer can’t flirt he either likes his profession too little or he likes it too much.

This morning, on our little porch, I was sitting sewing behind the vines when Captain Kirby came marching his company onto the parade ground before the house. And then I learned what his voice was like, my dear. Not gentle at all; very deep, very strong, curiously resonant, as if he were shouting through a trumpet. And how do you suppose he treated his men, so many of whom are gentlemen, or older than he, or earning bigger salaries. Like schoolboys! I first saw him when he was standing out in front of them, holding in his hand, swinging by the strap, a rifle that he must have taken from one of them. Said he: “When you’re at route step, I want you not to carry your guns like suit-cases. You aren’t a gang of porters. If I had the money I’d tip you all; but cut out this red-cap stuff. And don’t carry it so.” He put it across his shoulders, pointing right and left. “You’ll put out the eye of the man on your right, and bash the ear of the man on your left. Now remember, Nature is a great provider. She has made shoulders specially for the carrying of rifles. Carry your rifle on one shoulder or the other, or hang them by the straps from one shoulder or the other. And by no other way.” As if they had to obey him in every little thing!

Then he worked them! Nothing satisfied him. At each mistake, a blast of sarcasm. He spoke of the “accordion-pleated line.” He gave a fling at a lost corporal: “As soon as we recover our derelict flanking squad, now about a hundred yards ahead.” The men came slinking back. He withered one individual. “That belt is on exactly right. Except that it’s upside down and inside out, it’s exactly right.” At whatever distance he went, I could hear every word. And whenever the company came close, I could hear the men in the ranks, murmur, murmur, murmur. You can’t treat such men so. Of course they’re disgusted with him.

Such a humiliation today! And such a discovery! I suppose you didn’t tell me that Dick was here because you thought I’d prefer not to know it. We’re perfectly aware of each other’s neighborhood now. This is the way of it.

This afternoon, being tired of the continual drilling on the parade ground, I slipped away before it could begin, and leaving the Colonel at his nap, went walking out a gravel road that I’ve for some time wished to explore. It took me along a rather desolate tract of scrub land, with nothing ahead but the distant Adirondacks; so at last, seeing a little hill to the left, I thought I’d try if I could see the lake from it, and perhaps sit there awhile in quiet. I struck out across this piece of very desolate country, with little bushes growing but no grass, not good for pasture nor for anything but one purpose which I didn’t then suspect. Soon I found myself walking along a ditch which kept cutting me off from the hill, a ditch in the driest of sandy land and as deep as my chin, all shored up with cut poles, or sometimes with plank, or with bundles of twigs, or with willow basket work. And then I saw it was a trench!

The Plattsburgers must have made it. It ran all about, experimentally. It had here a shelter of sandbags, there a dugout, there a kitchen. It was made in different ways to show how to use material, I suppose. Really it was very clever. And then when I came too near it at one place, to study it, the rotten wood gave way with me, and so as not to have to fall I was forced to jump, right down into it. And there I was! When I tried to get up at the half-broken place, I was overwhelmed by a shower of sand. Everywhere else the walls were too high for me to climb out. So I took to walking along it, and it twisted all around, with passages like a maze, but nowhere a place to climb. At one corner I met a horrible great snake, helpless down there too. But it went one way and I went the other, till I came to a little niche with a cover overhead, and a loophole looking along the waste of scrub. Outside a little sign said, “Machine-gun emplacement.” And there I stood looking out for a sign of help.

Then I heard Captain Kirby’s voice, no one could mistake it, and I was relieved till I understood what he was saying. “Less noise, men! You couldn’t creep up on a dead tree that way. It would hear you coming.” The horrible thing had all his hundred and fifty men there, and in a moment I began to see them, little glimpses of olive-drab pushing through the bushes. I heard his voice again: “By squads from the right!” then corporals’ voices, then the rushing of men, then more corporals and more rushing. All the time, from nowhere that I could see, came a continual clicking—the absurd creatures were pretending to fire on the trench where I was standing. I began to get more glimpses of men running stooped and throwing themselves flat, heard the captain’s war-horn, and a little further away the lieutenant’s voice like a bugle.

For this sort of playing soldier I suppose it was really pretty well done. I knew they were all the time coming nearer, but I couldn’t get anything but glimpses of them. And after a while I knew they were behind a line of bushes some fifty yards away, where I heard their continuous clicking; but they showed only an occasional hat. Then I heard the captain’s voice, “Front rank, simulate fix bayonets!” and in a moment, full of sarcasm: “Don’t draw that bayonet! I said simulate. Don’t you understand the English language?” The clicking kept up at only half rate, and I saw a few rifle muzzles; then the rear rank pretended the same; then I heard the order, “Prepare to charge!” And it was all dead silence.

There was nothing that I could do but peep through my loophole, and think how silly it all was. I heard a roar from the captain, an outburst of yells, the crash of the bushes, and—there was the captain coming like a bull, and a long rank of men rising behind him and rolling on toward me in a wave. Oh, Frances dear, there is something awful about brute force! I felt the ground shake, the noise of the shouting seemed to burst my ears, the faces in front of me were like those of angry demons. I’m ashamed that their toy soldiering was so real to them that it [the word frightened evidently crossed out] was too much for me, and I turned away and put my hands to my ears.

Then it was all over. I heard them crying “Halt!” and walked out into the open trench, to see a line of men laughing and panting just above me. Only a few saw me at first; the rest were saying “That was some charge!” and similar self-praise. I said, “Will you please help me out?” The men nearest me were very respectful. One leaped down beside me, laid down his gun, and held his hands for me to step in, a blond man, a real soldier, with flashing blue eyes. Half a dozen hands were held for me above, and the captain came pushing in to help, with such an anxious face! But I heard someone say, “Give me your hand, Vera!” and there was Dick! He and the blond man had me out in a moment, and Dick took me through the line and got me quickly away toward the road I had left. I sent him back, but he would not leave me till he was sure I was all right. He was very handsome, and grave, and respectful. And oh! wasn’t it all stupid? I am disgusted with the whole Tenth Training Regiment, but more disgusted with myself.

... The fellows’ eyes popped as I took Vera through the line. She is a stunner! I saluted the captain when I went back, and he did not ask me to explain why I took so much on myself, though the lieutenant, who came too late, I think was furious with me. We yanked Knudsen out of the trench, and the captain, forming us instantly, marched us away in the direction that Vera didn’t take. When he gave us rest she was clean out of sight, and we lay down in the bushes and loafed for a while.

Nobody in the squad asked me a question. Young David’s face was a study in ignorance, but of course it was he who let the others know that I was to be let alone. From his squad Randall began to throw remarks at me, but Pickle turned on him very savagely. “Oh, yap, yap, yap!” Captain Kirby when he went by looked at me very intently, and I looked straight back at him. But I couldn’t look at any of the other fellows. Curious that a man feels so self-conscious. You women know how to pretend, but few of us seem to manage it.

Yet I wasn’t sorry it came about so. The squad stands together on anything that happens to any one of us. I felt proud to belong to it. When we marched back and had got to the main road again, the captain disappeared; it was the lieutenant who got us to camp and dismissed us there. I knew where the captain went when after this evening’s mess I was ordered to go to his tent. He was writing there, and turned round when I scratched, which is a little way we have in the army, as there is no way of knocking. I saluted.

“Oh, Mr. Godwin,” said he, returning my salute. “Miss Wadsworth sends a message. You’re to come to see her this evening, after general conference.”

“I was planning to go to company conference, sir,” said I.

I suppose she knew I would say that, for he was ready for me. “She made it an order, Mr. Godwin,” said he, very gravely.

“Very well, sir,” said I, saluted again, and left him writing—or pretending to. I suppose she’s got him, like the rest of them.

When I called on Vera we were very proper, and very old-friendly, and radically different in our ideas, as it seems destined for us to be. I told her how much I liked the training, and she said how much she disapproved of it, and so we passed the time. Once she insisted on telling me all about what her sister Frances is doing now. Then officers began to come in, and to chat with the old colonel in the next room, and glance through the door at us, as if saying, “When is that dam rookie going to go?” So I left. It was nearly time, anyway, for me to be tucked up in bed like a good little boy, and leave the field to my betters.

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

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