anything in it, even though I had supposed it to contain but an empty
shell. I don't intend ever to do such a thing again. There is another
trifling mistake we are liable to, as illustrated today. Halted at
"company front," that is, with the two ranks in long lines, the captain
ordered us to load. At the command the men half turn to the right, but
keep the rifle pointing forward and up; the rear rank men also come close
to the front, so that the muzzles of their guns are in advance of the
front rank men. Standing thus they open the breeches of their guns,
thrust in the clips, shove the bolt handle forward and turn it down--and
then somebody's gun goes off! So you see why the rear rank men have their
guns where no one will be hit, and why the captain stands off at one
side. My, but he read us a lecture this morning! "Who let off that
gun?--Mr. So-and-so, some blunders are crimes. That was one!" And a few
more well chosen words. One hundred and forty-nine of us were glad we
hadn't made that little slip.
After our firing the captain broke the company into two, and took my half
himself. Then he proved to us that in skirmish drill we had forgotten all
we had ever known, briefly expressed his opinion of the corporals, and
splitting us into squads, told the sub-squad-leaders to take command. Now
Reardon, who has drilled at Number Four in the rear rank since the
formation of the squad, is by virtue of that position the corporal's
substitute, and he manfully tried to lead us. I saw in a moment, first
that he knew twice as much as I about the drill regulations, second that
never before having given an order, he could not do himself justice.
Further, with the captain in that mood every man of us was scared. So
presently the captain, after a few beheadings in other squads, came and
watched ours for a minute, sent Reardon to his place in the ranks, and as
his eye roved over the rest of us, picked me out, probably as being the
only one whose name he knew. "Mr. Godwin, put the squad through the
skirmish drill!" A bad five minutes! I can order men about _informally_,
and I knew what I wanted done in this case, but to give the order in the
precise words of the drill book was more than my memory could compass. It
was very interesting, even quite exciting; continually I racked my brain
for something to do next in which I should not make a fool of myself. We
got back into company formation after a while, and the captain tried the
line in a skirmish advance; then abruptly he put all the corporals back
into their places, and my little reign was over.
I should like, as anyone would like, to be corporal. Yet I should not
make a good one, being nowadays in an absent-minded state and likely to
fall into fits of brooding from which I could not give my orders
correctly or promptly. I wonder if the captain will find out Knudsen. But
it is right that Bannister should remain corporal, for he is daily
improving in the work.
Nor can it be at all easy for our two officers to find, in the midst of
all their work and among so many men, the one man in every eight capable
of leading the squad. In the early stage of the school of the soldier it
was not difficult to find those men who could best handle their guns and
drill others in the same simple art. But such a test, even if mentally
sufficient, does not take in the moral qualities necessary for the
handling of eight men, keeping them up to discipline, seeing that they
understand and are at all times ready for their work. Experienced
sergeants might make this quickly possible, but our sergeants, even when
they have been here before, are mostly very new to their duties. I take
it that the captain and lieutenant are doing as well as they can.
In the afternoon the captain formed us in the street and drilled us in
the manual, then took us down on the field and explained battalion
parade, after which he put us through and through and through its simple
evolutions, we blundering all the time. We had merely to march in line,
to march in column, to halt and bring our rifles down together, and to do
the customary movements of the manual in unison. But try as we might, we
couldn't please the captain. For my part, I was as scared as a schoolboy,
fearing to make some slip. But such little ones as I know I made passed
unnoticed; in fact, our part of the line attracts very little of his
attention, so I conclude we do fairly well. Yet in the picture which I
send, of the captain looking at our squad as we march company front, the
camera has caught Squad 8 in a great mistake. The sun, as it lies exactly
along the line of the company, with only the right hands and knees in
full light, shows my part of the line pushed wholly forward out of the
shadow, and the Captain looking at us in disgust. His attitude shows his
fighting quality. "The scrappiest captain in the army," says Knudsen. So
often he has to look back thus and warn us: "Steady!" or "Guide!" or
"Hold back on the left!"
How little you as a spectator would get of what goes on in the ranks on
such an occasion as today's final parade! Suppose you were where I so
often wish you, at the top of the slope above the field, which in spite
of certain unevennesses would look to you fairly level. You would see the
band march down and take its place in the left corner; then away to your
right the companies would appear in their separate columns, and perhaps
you would think they were very interesting as they halted and waited.
Then when the major came and took his stand below you, the music would
strike up, and the three companies would march straight onto the field,
along the bottom of which they would one after another swing into line
and stand in apparently beautiful order. Then an adjutant with a clear
high voice would give orders, and the men would present arms, come to
attention, and then to parade rest. In this position they would remain
while the band, playing a march, would go down the whole line and back
again, the music, when they were once more in place, abruptly stopping.
Then the officers would gather and march forward in line, they would
return, the major would call a command, and the companies would all break
into squads, the rifles coming to the shoulders. To the right they would
pass, turn up the slope, and then one by one would again swing into line
and pass, with more or less beautifully wavering fronts, before the
major. The first two companies would evoke applause from the spectators;
the third, in which you would see a familiar face, would rouse none--and
though you might clap your best, in this case you are but a ghost, and no
one would hear you. Then the companies would for last time break into
squads and so would march off the field. And you would sigh and think,
"Isn't it fine?"
Well, you would never get the true inwardness unless I told you. It went
this way.
Down out of the street we marched into the field, I a small part of a big
machine, very much afraid that I might make some blunder. The men's feet
thudded in unison on the sod, and to each tramp came the rustling echo of
our stiff breeches, always an accompaniment to us as we march in good
order. We waited, we marched forward to the music, we heard the captain
give his first order--to the guides, I realized, not to us--but then came
"Squads left--march!"
I swung to the left, the men in front of me marched to the right. Just
grazing the last of them, as these rear-rank men filed to their places, I
stepped into my position in the front rank just as the corporal finished
counting "Six" below his breath, and at "Seven!" the whole line, which
had been waiting for us Number Ones to complete it, strode straight
forward. "Company--!" and we took this last moment, each out of the
corner of his eye searching to the right, to get in good line. "Halt!"
Low voices counted "One, two!" and the halt was completed. "One, two,
three!" and the pieces were at the order. The captain commanded
"Right--dress!" and we edged forward, our heads turned to the right, to
align the rank.
Such eager work we make of it--"Forward on the right--back in the next
squad--Frothingham, you're too far forward--tell Neary to get back!" Such
commands, all under the breath, run up and down the line. At last we are
in place, the Captain says "Front!" and takes his place before the middle
of the line, facing away from us. But he says in reminder, "The next
command for _you_ will be Parade Rest."
Alas, Lieutenant Pendleton's high tenor (he is the adjutant for the day)
calls "Guides--posts!" We knew--we ought to have known--the order; we had
been warned to ignore it. But some of the men come to parade rest. The
captain hears, though he cannot turn to look. "Stupid!" he hisses. "As
you were!" Then comes the command for us all, "Parade--rest!"
It was very comfortable, waiting while the band marched up and down. We
were not much stirred by this; we knew by heart all the few tunes; we
thought the drum-major very tiresome with his bent head and his elbow
jogging for the time. But there was, above the ugly mess-shacks straight
in front, the finest sunset to look at: angry clouds to the right, to the
left wide reaches of pure blue, with tiny white clouds stretching in rank
to infinite distance, and in the middle the yellow glow of fire behind
broken masses, through which shot, not beams of light, but rather, it
seemed, wide bars of shadow.
The captain, as we thus stood at parade, hissed back over his shoulder,
"Bad! Some of you men have your feet too far back." This would
particularly disgust him, for at previous practice, taking a gun from a
sergeant, he stood in front of us and said, "Let me show you how Rip Van
Winkle here in the second squad comes to parade rest," and gave us a
ludicrous example of slowness and slovenliness. Then he illustrated, in
briskness and correct position, just how we should do it.
Returned to his place after saluting the major, he said, looking straight
in front, "Your next command is Squads Right." The major's big voice
boomed: "Pass in review--squads right--March!" I turned sharply to my
right, marked time, and when the other three had come into line, together
we stepped out. The band blared out, we were in step, and so approached
the corner. "Column left!" and we did our best to turn correctly, though
nobody could see. Then we marched up the slope, knowing that the real
test was now coming. "Squads left!" and as the rear rank man made way for
me, I stepped into place, and in one line we all strode out together. To
hold the line straight! You on the top of the slope may have cried "How
pretty!" at the rifles all with the same slant, the hands at the same
height, the heads straight front, the feet--one, two! one, two!--in
perfect time with the music. But with us in the line there was intentness
to remedy any unevenness, strain to hold ourselves just right. We could
not look except out of the corners of the eyes; all was done by the touch
of the elbows. For a few yards, rods, it was good. We safely crossed a
slimy patch where a great puddle had just dried, through which on Monday
I tramped ankle deep, and where now a fall would be natural. Then--ah! we
expected this! Frothingham, I, Knudsen, found ourselves marching alone,
the other men out of touch with us, having drawn away to the right and
left. I heard my mates grumble, I knew what I was to do: spread myself to
occupy all possible space and march straight onward, for--there! they
were back again, surging from the left and right, back in their proper
places, and the line had not really broken. "Good!" murmurs Knudsen.
"Hold it!" exhorts the captain over his shoulder. Then "Eyes right!" and
thus saluting as we passed the major we could see, or thought we saw, a
perfect line. "Front!" We swept on; we listened. The ladies had clapped
the first two companies, but there was no applause for us. Had it then
been bad after all?
Back to the street we marched, and formed in line. Lieutenant Pendleton
came and spoke to the captain, then walked away smiling. "The lieutenant
says you did well," said the captain briefly. But he was so short that we
thought him grumpy, especially since the lieutenant had never before been
seen to give us anything else than his little ironical smile. Yet at
company conference, in the evening, one of us ventured to ask the captain
if we really had done badly. "No," said he. "I was pleased with you. You
did well. The major said you did best." So the lack of applause meant
nothing. I saw men whose home affairs are so large that this might
properly be small to them, look at each other in relief.
Today I got a letter from Walt Farnham about his cousin Lucy. He says: "I
know you won't baby him. The camp ought to do him good. It was I that put
the idea into his head, but his father, afraid that he might back out at
the last minute, or not stick it through, has promised him an auto of his
own when he gets back, anything up to twelve thousand dollars. How can
even Plattsburg save such a boy?"
And Vera is after him now. After conference I was writing in the company
tent, the inner one, while the captain still talked outside to half a
dozen men. To my surprise a bell rang behind me, and while I sat looking
at a curious instrument on the post, wondering if it were a telephone,
the captain came in, took from it a strange receiver-transmitter, and
spoke into it. I heard Vera plainly answering, and the captain, saying
"Mr. Godwin is right here," gave me the thing to hold. She said "Oh,
Dick!" so plainly that of course the captain heard it as he went out
again. Vera told me that Mrs. Farnham has written her, asking her to keep
an eye on her darling, and I was to send Lucy to call. I warned her she'd
much better leave him alone, but she laughed and insisted. The telephone
was in that state, or she spoke so plainly (you know how it occasionally
happens) that anyone could have heard her even in the outer tent. When I
hung up and went out, there was the captain just saying good night to the
men, and the table and benches would not let me slip by before he turned
and saw me.
You know there are moments when eyes meet and seem to catch, and it is
difficult to pass without speaking. That is why, I am sure, the captain
said: "You are very well acquainted with Miss Wadsworth?"
I thought that here was a chance for the truth. "I ought to be," I said.
"I have been engaged to her for the past two years." And then seeing, by
the instant change in his face to one of deepest gravity, what he
supposed me to mean, I added, "She broke the engagement a month ago."
"Oh," said he, not relieved, mother, or not showing relief, but very
seriously kind, "I'm sorry, Mr. Godwin."
"Thank you, captain," I said, and got myself away. I don't mind having
told; indeed I did it deliberately, quite for the good of his peace of
mind. It's always a relief to strike one rival off the list, and if ever
he gets really interested in Vera he'll find plenty of others blocking
the way.
When I gave David Vera's message he flushed up at first with pleasure,
then remembered that an evening call would spoil a company conference,
which he has taken to attending. As usual, he looked to Knudsen for
advice, and that wily person said, "Go in the afternoon and perhaps
you'll miss her," which relieved the boy considerably. Our time is too
horribly full for social calls.
Tomorrow evening there is to be a company boxing match, one-minute
rounds, no decision given. It is said that Randall has entered, and
Pickle remarked thereupon, "I'd like to have the laying of him out." "No
fear," said Corder. "Randall is to box a man he knows, for points only,
very gently." "Yellow," said Clay. Lucy said nothing, but looked a good
deal. There actually are coming lines of firmness around his mouth.
Good-by.
DICK.
PRIVATE GODWIN TO HIS MOTHER
Plattsburg, Thursday the 21st Sept.
DEAR MOTHER:--
I am writing at about 7.30 o'clock on the range, after having fired my
practice shots to make my sighting sure, and now with time to wait before
my rapid-fire test. Imagine the usual confusion, the heavy rapping of the
shots, the calling over of names, and the buzz and laughter of the men
waiting near me. A perfect morning, the dew just burning off, a little
breeze from the lake, and not a cloud in the sky.
We are shooting from the two hundred yard mark, sitting position, and
since I have watched a few rounds, I am able to tell you the way of
it.--As the guns become silent with the disappearance of the targets the
Lieutenant calls, "Next men up!" Those who have just shot rise and
nervously stand aside, to watch the scoring of their ten shots. The new
men, while loading and locking their pieces, also watch the record of
their predecessors. Passing behind D Company a few minutes ago, I saw the
flag cross one target six times. I did not see the beginning of the
score, and how many more misses the poor devil made, I can only guess.
The men go away with their scores, the new ones stand waiting.
From the left rings the high call, "Ready on the right!" The lieutenant
responds to his men, "Unlock your pieces." To the waiting men the
interval is long. Then slowly the blank targets begin to sink and the
tops of the true ones to rise. It is the signal. The men drop to the
sitting position and settle the butts in their shoulders; the muzzles
rise, waver, and steady. Then together "Pol-lop!" and the whole line,
faster and faster, bursts into the rap-rap-rapping of the continued fire.
Along the line, little spurts of flame; a thin haze rises from the
muzzles and at once disappears. Beside each shooter kneel two coaches,
one calling the time, the other exhorting, warning, entreating. A
distinct lag in the firing between forty-five and fifty seconds--the men
are loading their second clips. Then the fire gradually quickens to the
full rate, the coaches urging the slow ones on, holding the hasty ones
back. The fire slackens, and seems stopped, when as the targets sink at
the ninety seconds, two last hasty shots slap out. The round is over. In
the brief time the three dozen men have fired three hundred and sixty
shots.
(_Later._) My turn approached, and I stood waiting, the sling clasped on
my arm. I felt the strain of the long wait before there came the call,
Ready! To my coaches I had said--to one, "Don't let me shoot too fast,
and keep me on _my_ target"; to the other, "Remind me to squeeze." Then
the blank target, beside the great 28, began to sink, and down I dropped.
I was not nervous now; at least I did not tremble. I tried to fire slow,
to squeeze, to keep on my own target, (for truly, as the captain lately
said, firing on another man's target is one of the sad things of life.)
My second clip I had to shoot quicker until my last shot, when the coach
said, "Plenty of time." So I sighted and squeezed my best, felt that I
could call the bullseye, and pulling out the bolt for the last time, to
show that the breech and magazine were empty, stood up and stepped back.
Now for the score.
The target rose at last. The red disk was all I hoped for, but there came
the white, again the white, again the white, again, again, again, then
three times the red, and once the black. I still waited, having lost
count. Would the flag come now? But no, the target sank, and my coaches
congratulated me on a forty-five!
(_Evening. In the tent._) Well, I won't put in too much detail for you,
to whom perhaps this shooting has no interest. We finished at two hundred
yards and moved back, carrying benches, racks, chairs, flags, everything,
and began over again at three hundred yards, prone. The men were mostly
very much on the stretch, and I admit that I was, for while I now was
practically sure of my grade of marksman, I might, by shooting especially
well, even become a sharpshooter. Lucy was in a similar state, marksman
being within his grasp. Randall was swaggering; he had been shooting
well. But Knudsen was very anxious, surprising in so cool a fellow. "To
be Expert," he said, "I've got to make a fifty. Confound it, I'm afraid
that shot I sent into the wrong target will ruin my chances. I need the
little leeway it would give."
Well, he missed it by two, and that little error undid him. Lucy got his
grade of marksman, and his excitement was delightful. He sought out each
member of the squad and called for congratulations. How disgusted his
mother would be to see him with his hand on Pickle's shoulder, discussing
the score, for really, don't you know, socially Pickle is less than
nobody! I made my grade as sharpshooter, just made it, with a forty-nine.
Poor Reardon! His scores had not been good, only a miracle could make him
marksman, but he lost his chance. Loretta--
I'll tell you about Loretta, a sergeant whom the boys have nicknamed
thus. Luckily he is not in our platoon; but we soon got to know the lofty
smile with which he passed up and down the street, and his contempt for
the enlisted man. Such, my dear mother, is the inflating power of a
little authority.
Well, he has been very busy with the shooting, making a good record
himself, and helping, as all the sergeants did, with the scoring. Needing
a scorer at one of the targets, he took poor Reardon and put him at work
just when his last turn was coming on, and in spite of the fact that he
had already served long hours at the job. Reardon protested, Loretta
promised to let him have his turn, but when the shooting was all over
there was poor Reardon still at the desk, and his last round was not
fired. We noticed that on the way back to camp he was very silent and
cast down, but we did not know why till we were cleaning our guns in the
tent, all the racks being occupied outside. Then I questioned Reardon,
and the facts came out.
All of us were wrathy, but you should have seen Lucy! Tears of anger came
into his eyes as he started up. "I'll go at once and tell the captain!"
Reardon clutched him. "No," said the good fellow. "I hadn't a chance to
qualify. It's perfectly true. Loretta told me so."
"Loretta told you so!" echoed David. He was quite white and shaking at
this instance of adding insult to injury. "By God!"
He was for going at once and complaining, but Reardon wouldn't let him.
"Then," said David, "wait till the hike. If you don't get even with him
then, I will!"
I wouldn't tell this story to David's mother. She might think her son too
sympathetic with an "outsider."
The fellows have been in the habit of cooing at Loretta as he passes
their tents. His pet name precedes him down the street, the coos come
from the shadowed interiors. It has been meant harmlessly. But this story
of Reardon has spread rapidly, and I thought I detected a snarl in the
cooing when Loretta just went by. There is something in David's threat.
Wait till the hike!
This afternoon we had our usual drill and calisthenics, after which I
went swimming in the lake, as I do daily, though under certain
difficulties. The beach is very stony and bruises the feet, and the piers
that have been built at our two bathing places are quite inadequate, both
as accommodating too few men at a time, and next as not going out into
deep water. Perhaps early in the summer the water at the ends may be up
to one's shoulders, but now it is scarcely above the waist, and none but
the cleverest and most venturesome dare to dive. So many would like the
diving that it is a pity that a little money can't be expended here.
However, the water is fine, even if it is now getting so cold that some
of the men are giving up their swim. We often have surf here, when the
southeast wind quarters across the bay all the way from Burlington, and
then the fun is notable.
The scene at the foot of the pier particularly struck me today, after the
men were out. There were nearly a hundred of them in a rather narrow
compass, so close to each other, on the boulders of the beach, that they
reminded me of the pictures one sees of big birds in their colonies. The
men were naked, and every one in active motion, rubbing down. The sight
of so much brown and pink skin, of so many moving bodies and arms and
legs, was most peculiar and amusing.
The list of company officers has been published. Two of our best
sergeants becoming lieutenants, other sergeants have been named, and the
list of corporals and sub-squad-leaders has been fixed. In our squad
Bannister and Reardon stand as before. Ban quietly told us that he was
glad to get the appointment. "I had my eye on you," he said to Knudsen,
"and on you," to me. "This will please my old father: he was a corporal
in the Civil War." And good Ban forgot us as he thought of the
satisfaction of the old man at home.