SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT
Out of the gray, chilly, and silent dawn came the sharp notes of a
bugle. The sound echoed among the mist-enshrouded hills, the notes
vibrating in and out among the trees, and then seemed to die away in
the distance.
But if any one of the several thousand prospective soldiers, sleeping
the sleep of the more or less just in the tents of Camp Dixton, thought
it was but a dream, those notes of the bugle, he was sadly, if not
rudely, awakened when the sound came with greater insistence, as if
calling over and over again:
“Get up! Get up! You must get up!”
“I say, Ned!” lazily called Bob from his bed amid the blankets on the
ground under a khaki tent, “what day is it?”
“What difference does that make?” asked Ned. “What time is it?”
“You ought to know without asking, when you hear that _horn_,” grunted
Jerry.
“Horn? Bugle you mean,” came a voice from the other corner of the
tent, if a conical tent, the shape used in the army, can be said to
have “corners.”
“Have it your own way,” assented Jerry. “I’m anxious to know what Bob
meant by asking what day it was.”
“If it’s only Sunday we’ll get a chance to rest,” explained the stout
Chunky, peering out from under his blankets. For he and the others had
wrapped up well, as the night had been chilly.
“Chance to rest!” exclaimed Ned. “Say, we haven’t _done_ anything yet.”
“Done anything!” challenged Bob. “Don’t you call that drill we went
through yesterday anything?”
“Just a little setting up exercise, and some marching to get you to
know your hay foot from your straw foot,” commented the tall lad. “If
you’re going to kick about that the second day in camp what will happen
in about a week?”
“Oh, I’m not kicking,” hastily said Bob. “In fact, I’m too lame and
sore to kick. And my arm feels like a boil.”
“Anti-typhus germs,” explained Ned. “You’ll be a whole lot worse before
you’re better. We have to have two more injections, I understand.”
The rousing notes of the bugle, “rousing” in a double sense, again
sounded, and, not without considerable grumbling and growling, in
which even Jerry, by the look on his face at least, seemed to join,
the boys got up and prepared for another day in camp--their second.
The young volunteers, with a lot of other recruits, had reached the
camp ground the day before, but there was so much confusion, so many
new arrivals, and such a general air of orderly disorder about the
place, that the impressions Ned, Bob, and Jerry received were mixed.
Camp Dixton was situated in one of the Southern states, and was laid
out on a big plain at the foot of some hills, which, as they rose
farther to the west, became sizable mountains. The plain which had,
until within a short time of the laying out of the cantonments, been
several large farms, consisted of level ground, with a few places where
there were low rounded hills and patches of wood. It was an ideal
location for a camp, giving opportunity for drills and sham battles
over as great a diversity of terrain as might be found in Flanders or
France.
As to the camp itself, it was typical of many that have since sprung
up all over the United States to care for the large army, or armies,
that are constantly being raised. And the building of Camp Dixton, like
the making of all the others, had been little short of marvelous. On
what had been, a few months before, a series of farms, there was now a
military city.
The place was laid out like a model city. The barracks for the soldiers
were, of course, made of rough wood, and few of them were painted,
but there was time enough for that. A great level, center space had
been set aside as a parade ground, and in the midst of this was the
division headquarters. North and south of the parade ground were the
long rows of “streets” lined with the wooden buildings, some of which
were sleeping quarters, some cook houses and others places where the
officers lived.
There were long rows of warehouses, into which ran railroad sidings;
there were an ice house, an ice plant, a big laundry, a theater, and
many other buildings and establishments such as one would find in a
city.
As for the military units themselves, there were infantry, cavalry,
machine gun companies, artillery companies, a motor corp and even a
small contingent of aeroplanes.
On their arrival the day before, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with the other
recruits, had been met at the railroad station by a number of officers,
who looked very spick and span in their olive-drab uniforms, with their
brown leather leggings polished until one could almost see his face in
them.
In columns of four abreast, carrying their handbags and suitcases, the
new soldiers were marched up to camp, a most unmilitary looking lot,
as the boys themselves admitted.
A few at a time, the lads were ushered into booths, where officers took
their names, records, and other details, then they were given something
to eat.
“For all the world like a sort of picnic in a new mining town,” as Ned
wrote home.
Then had come a preliminary drill, and some setting-up exercises. The
boys were so tired out from this, and from their journey, that no one
thought of anything but bed when it was over.
“And now we’ve got to do it all over again,” murmured Bob, as he began
to dress. “This is somewhat different from what we were used to at
home. Home was never like this!”
“Quit your kicking!” exclaimed Jerry. “Aren’t you glad you’re in this,
and are going to help lick the Huns?”
“Sure I am!” declared the stout lad.
“Then keep still about it!”
“Say, I’ve got a right to kick if I want to, as long as I get up when
the bugle calls,” declared Bob. “It’s the constitutional right of a
free-born American citizen to kick, and I’m doing it!”
“Showing you how much like the mule an otherwise perfectly good fellow
can become,” murmured Ned, and then he had to duck to get out of the
way of a shoe that Bob tossed at him.
“Come on, fellows! Hustle!” called a non-commissioned officer,
thrusting his head in the doorway of the tent where the boys were
dressing. “Roll call soon!”
“We’ll be there,” announced Ned. “I hope we get shifted to one of the
barracks to-day,” he went on. “It’s a bit damp in this tent.”
“Yes, a wooden shack will be better,” agreed Jerry.
Most of the new arrivals were in the wooden buildings, but in the hurry
and confusion of the day before, some had to be assigned temporarily
to tents. New barracks were in the course of construction, however,
to accommodate the constantly growing number of volunteers. Later the
great camps would be filled with the men of the draft.
When Ned had finished his hasty dressing, he strolled over to look at
the posted notice in the tent, which gave a list of the day’s duties
and the hours for drills. The bulletin was headed “Service Roll Calls.”
The first thing in the order of the day is reveille, but this is
preceded by what is known as “First call.” This is sounded at 5:45 in
the morning, rather an early hour, as almost any one but a milkman will
concede. But one gets used to it, as Bob said later.
“First call” is a series of stirring notes on the bugle which has for
its purpose the awakening of the buglers themselves, to get them out
of their snug beds to give the reveille proper. March and reveille
come ten minutes later, the buglers marching up and down the streets
in front of the tents and barracks, and “blowing their heads off,”
to quote Jerry Hopkins. This is calculated to awaken each and every
rookie, but if it fails the various squad leaders see to it that no one
is missed.
“Assembly,” is the call which comes at six o’clock, and then woe betide
the recruit who is not dressed and in line, standing at attention. As
can be seen, there is but five minutes allowed for dressing; that is,
if a man does not awaken until the reveille sounds. If he opens his
eyes at first call, and gets up then, he has fifteen minutes to primp,
though this is generally saved for dress parade. Roll call follows the
assembly.
On this morning, when it had been ascertained that all were “present
or accounted for,” Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with their new comrades, were
dismissed to wash for breakfast. With soap and towels there was a
general rush for the wash room, and then followed a healthful splashing.
“It isn’t like our bathroom at home,” said Bob, as he polished his
face, “but I suppose the results are the same.”
“Sure,” agreed Ned. “They have showers here, and that’s more than they
have in some camps, yet, I hear.”
“We’ll need a shower after drill,” declared Jerry. “It’s going to be
hot and dry to-day.”
Breakfast was the next call, only it was not called that. It was down
on the schedule as “mess,” and so every meal was designated though, of
course, in their own minds, each recruit thought of the first meal as
breakfast, the second as dinner, and the third as supper. But to the
army cook each meal was a “mess.”
But before breakfast the boys had to make up their beds. They had been
given a lesson in that the previous day. Soon after their arrival the
recruits were divided into squads, and under the guidance of a squad
leader they were taken to a big pile of straw and told to fill the
heavy, white cotton bags that were to serve in the place of mattresses.
There was a hole in the middle of the bag, and through this the straw
was poked, and the whole made as smooth as possible on the bunks.
After their first night, Ned, Bob, and Jerry were transferred to
a wooden barracks. When they carried the straw mattresses to this
building, they found that each squad room contained about fifty bunks
arranged around the walls, with two rows down the middle. On each
bunk, besides the mattress, or “bedsack,” as it is officially called,
were a pillow and three blankets. These must be neatly arranged after
the night’s sleep. Beds in a military camp are not made up until just
before they are used, but during the day the blankets must be neatly
folded, laid on the bunks and the pillow placed on top of the blankets.
There were no clothes closets, and the only place Ned, Bob and Jerry
had to put their things was on a shelf back of each lad’s bunk, and
on some nails, driven into the wall near by. On these were all the
possessions they were allowed, and, as can be imagined, they were not
many--or would not be, once the boys were in uniform.
As yet, none of the new recruits wore a uniform. All were dressed just
as they had come from their homes, and there was the usual variety seen
at any baseball game.
“Mess call!” sang out Jerry, as he and his chums heard the notes of the
bugles again. This time the call seemed to the boys to be more cheerful.
“I hope they have something good for breakfast,” murmured Bob, and this
time his chums did not laugh at him. They were as hungry as he was.