A NEW LIFE
For some time after the train had started the spirits of the men were
subdued. All were thinking of the dear ones they had left behind and
might never see again. They were thinking too of the new life--or was
it, perhaps, death?--that they were facing.
But it was not in the nature of things that this feeling should long
persist amid such a buoyant, boisterous gathering of young fellows and
before long the cars of the train were resounding with jests and
laughter.
"How far off is this Camp Boone?" asked Bart, who had secured a seat at
Frank's side.
"I haven't exactly figured it out," replied the latter, as he stretched
his long legs comfortably, "but in the rough, it's about three hundred
miles. The way the tracks are crowded now, I don't think we'll get
there much before to-morrow morning."
"I don't suppose they'll have it half ready for us," continued Bart.
"The Government's had to put it up in an awful hurry."
"We can't expect to find all the comforts of home," returned Frank.
"But as long as we have a place to sleep and three square meals a day I
guess there won't be much kick coming."
"There will be no discount on the grub," put in Billy Waldon. "Uncle
Sam's a good provider and he'll see that his boys have plenty to eat."
Frank's prediction was fulfilled, for it was early the next morning
when the train stopped at the little town from which Camp Boone was
about three miles distant.
It was a glorious morning for a hike and after the commissary
department had done its duty and each man had tucked away a good
breakfast under his belt the regiment fell into line and covered the
intervening miles in quick time. All were filled with eagerness to see
the place that was to be their home during many months of training.
It was a busy scene that met their eyes when at last they came within
view of the camp. A small army of workmen was swarming all over the
place and the sounds of hammers and groaning of derricks and hum of
machinery filled the air with a deafening din.
"Didn't I tell you it would be only half finished?" said Bart. "I hope
they've got roofs on the barracks. They say they have bad weather
around here and I don't want to get killed before I meet a German.
Gee, that would be tough luck!"
"You can't build a city in a single night," Frank replied, as he saw
the apparently endless row of buildings prepared for their reception.
"And that's what this is going to be--a city in itself. The wonder to
me is, not that they've done so little but that they've done so much."
"They say there are going to be thirty thousand soldiers here," put in
Billy Waldon. "Before a month is over there'll be more fellows living
here than people in the whole city of Camport. That gives you some
idea of the work the Government has to do. But Uncle Sam is some
worker when he once takes his coat off. Even the Kaiser will admit
that before he gets through with him."
The regiment had filed through the great gate in perfect order, but
once inside, the officers quickly gave the command to break ranks, for
they themselves were quite as eager as the men to inspect their new
quarters.
The camp had been skillfully laid out by one of the most distinguished
architects in the country. Its general form was that of the letter U
about two miles long and a mile in width. The ground was slightly
rolling and had been nearly cleared of trees in order to permit the
erection of the buildings.
But the architect had not sacrificed everything to mere utility for in
one corner of the camp a large grove of noble trees had been left
untouched and took away from the bareness of the general plan.
Along the sides of the camp stretched the barracks, plain, two-story
frame buildings hastily put together and guiltless of any attempt at
decoration.
On the floors were endless rows of cots with just enough space left to
afford a passage between them. There were no heating arrangements as
yet, but, as summer was just beginning, this was a matter of no
importance and there would be ample time for that later on.
There were separate buildings that served as mess halls for the various
regiments. The officers' buildings were grouped together in a special
section and these, although plain, were a little more elaborate than
those destined for the men.
Besides these there was a host of other buildings, stables for the
horses, laundries, lavatories, shower baths and all the other
structures that were essential to a city that had sprung up like
Jonah's gourd, almost over night.
"Not half bad, eh, old man?" said Bart, giving his chum a bang on the
shoulder.
"I should say not," replied Frank. "They don't seem to have forgotten
much. It's neat but not gaudy."
"Now if our friend, the chef, is all right," grinned Bart, "and isn't
stingy with the grub, we'll have nothing left to ask for."
"We'll get a line on that pretty soon, I hope," said Frank, his eyes
wandering wistfully in the direction of the mess tent. "That hike's
made me hungry enough to eat nails. When the mess horn toots you won't
be able to see me, I'll run so fast."
"I'll race you," said Bart. "Mother used to say I had the appetite of
a wolf. Now I feel like a pack of 'em."
Any misgivings that they might have had on that subject were promptly
dispelled by their first meal in camp. The food served was well cooked
and abundant and those who sought a second or even a third helping were
not denied.
"Well," remarked Bart, with a sigh born of comfort and repletion as he
rose from the meal, "I guess Napoleon was right when he said that an
army travels on its stomach."
"Gee, if that's so, Uncle Sam's boys will travel some distance," said
Billy Waldon with a grin.
"As far as Berlin, you bet!" cried Frank emphatically.
Before many days had passed the regiment had fully settled down into
the routine of army life at Camp Boone.
That routine was almost unvarying and therein lay its value in molding
the growing army into a perfect fighting machine. It fostered team
work of the finest kind.
At six o'clock the bugle blew reveille that called the sleepers from
their cots. There was no disregarding that imperative summons, no
turning over for another "forty winks."
In an instant the sleeping camp had sprung to life. Uniforms were
donned, faces washed, hair slicked back and cots made inside of fifteen
minutes.
Then came the "monkey drill" and setting-up exercises, when the boys
had to go through all sorts of grotesque but beneficial motions to
exercise the muscles and stir the blood.
Of course there was some grumbling at first. Bart, who with all his
physical fitness, liked to get his sleep out in the morning, had hard
work to get his eyes open and feet on the floor at the same moment.
"Gee, how do you do it?" he grumblingly asked of Frank one morning,
just after reveille and while he was rushing around with tousled head
and one eye shut. "By the time I know I'm awake you're all ready, and
worse than that, you look as if you enjoyed it. Gee, it's a gift!"
"You're like the man," Frank had remarked cheerfully, as he trussed up
his trousers, "who was sentenced to die at daybreak. 'Oh, that's all
right,' he answered. 'I never get up that early!'"
But the setting up exercises never failed to banish the last vestige of
drowsiness, and by seven o'clock breakfast began to assume gigantic
proportions. And how they ate!
After breakfast came the manual of arms, field practice, drilling in
semaphore work and sometimes--this the boys looked forward to and
enjoyed most,--a long hike in the spring sunshine to the exhilarating
beat of martial music.
Then from eleven to two they did as they pleased and as dinner came
within that period they mostly, to quote Billy Waldon, "wolfed."
The meals continued hearty and satisfying and as the days went on the
boys broadened out and seemed, by the aid of muscular training and
upright carriage, even to gain in height.
One morning Frank found a poem in a magazine he was reading and recited
it to a group of laughing comrades. Thereafter it became the popular
mess chant and the boys standing in line with their dishes would shout
it out at the top of their lusty lungs to the great amusement of all
concerned. It went something like this:
"You may mutter and swear at the reveille call
With its 'Can't get 'em up in the morning;'
And you may not be fond of assembly at all
But you drop into line at the warning;
Police call will cause you a lot of distress
Though you answer at once or regret it,
But you jump when the splinter lips bugle for mess
And the hash slinger yells, 'Come and get it!'"
Then came the chorus in which all joined:
"For you know that it means
'Form in line for your beans
With your mess kit in hand--do it now!'
And you cheerfully come for your coffee and slum,
For your coffee and slum
When the splinter lips bugle for chow!"
It was all great fun, this jolly camp life, but it had its serious side
also. All the boys felt the inspiration, almost exaltation of being
one of so great a body of men, men fired with the same enthusiasm, the
same great purpose to accomplish their glorious mission or die in the
attempt.
Training in the use of modern weapons of warfare sobered the boys a
little.
"I suppose I'm squeamish," said Bart to Frank one day, when they had
finished a lesson in the throwing of hand grenades, "and I won't blame
you or anybody else if you laugh at me. But I don't like those things.
Every time I throw one I think of the possible mark it'll find some day
in the German trenches and it makes me sick."
"Yes," said Frank, nodding gravely, "I know just how you feel, only
it's the bayonet practice that gets me most. If those dummies were
human instead of stuffed rags, I couldn't feel much worse about
sticking the point into them.'
"Oh, we're soft yet," said Billy, sauntering up to them. "I suppose it
will take us quite some time to get hardened to this wholesale
slaughter. But when we feel too squeamish, we want to remember the
Belgian women and children murdered and tortured, defenseless old men
slaughtered--"
"Yes," said Frank, his shoulders squaring and mouth setting grimly.
"There's nothing like the memory of Dinant to make a fellow grip his
bayonet!"