But it was late in February before they saw Camp Hancock. Meanwhile the
boys continued at school and Ted, in his leisure, read everything he
could find about the cantonments in Georgia and elsewhere in addition to
keeping up with the war news as usual. For more than a year now he had
read the papers eagerly every day and in consequence, as Hubert
expressed it, could "talk a blue streak" about the war. Hubert, who was
no reader and was content to get his news at second hand, thought Ted
knew all about the situation in England, France, Italy, Russia and even
Germany. Obviously this was a slight exaggeration, but Ted did grip much
current information, and he was never unwilling to give Hubert and other
boys the benefit of his knowledge.
During the time of waiting Ted received a letter from his Uncle Walter
in Georgia which greatly interested him.
Bring your Boy Scout uniform when you come down [it read.] I was
glad to hear you had earned the right to wear it by first-rate
examinations, and I want to see you in it.
This pleased Ted the more because he did not often wear his khaki in
North Carolina. The reason for this was that his sensitive and quick
perceptions unerringly informed him that the sight of it was not quite
agreeable to his perfectly polite Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred. Having
failed to pass the examinations, Hubert had no Boy Scout uniform and
Ted's was a reminder that the son and heir had not measured up to the
standard of the orphan cousin.
And perhaps [Uncle Walter's letter continued] your soldierly
uniform may make an impression on the slackers hiding in the
Okefinokee if we should run across any of them when we take that
hunting trip. It is reported that some of the backwoods boys of
this county evaded registration and are now camping on an island
far in the Okefinokee in order to escape being drafted into the
war. The sight of your uniform and a tongue-lashing from me, with
well-grounded threats of prosecution and punishment, may make them
ashamed of themselves and perhaps even scare them into their duty.
The suggested effect of Ted's uniform on fugitives from the draft was
little more than jest, but Ted accepted it quite seriously and was at
once thrilled with ambition and aspiration. His prospective hunting trip
into the Okefinokee took on the character of a mission in his country's
service. Was he not actually in the country's service now that the
President had made the 370,000 Boy Scouts of America "dispatch bearers"
in the matter of the circulation among the people of "bulletins of
public information"? Would not the government also be willing and even
pleased for him to undertake to show the hiding draft-evaders the error
of their way? What if he could really find them and persuade them to
renounce their cowardly course, thus contributing more fighters to the
armies of Uncle Sam! But when he spoke of his glorious plan, the
unimaginative and unaspiring Hubert merely said:
"If you can get at them, you'll talk a blue streak about the war, all
right; but what good will that do such fellows? _They_ don't care. Papa
says slackers can think only of their own skins."
"There's nothing like trying," insisted Ted, accustomed to discouraging
comment and not in the least inclined to abandon his scheme.
At last the impatiently awaited hour for their departure arrived and the
two boys boarded the train for Augusta. They were almost too excited for
speech when, early in the morning of a fine day, their train rolled into
the Georgia city widely famed for the great war cantonment in its
neighborhood, and they looked forth to see groups of young men in khaki
tramping its streets. They were met at the station by Lieut. John
Markham, a cousin of both boys who was with the Pennsylvanians at Camp
Hancock because his mother, another sister of the Ridgway brothers, had
married a Philadelphian and lived many years in the city by the
Delaware.
Never will Ted forget that day. As he and Hubert took the train that
night for southern Georgia he declared that his eyes were "dead tired
from so much looking." First they drove out to the camp and over its
extensive area, wherein Ted's wish to see thousands of soldiers was
abundantly gratified. Later they walked about, saw the quarters of the
officers, looked into the tents of the privates, and at many points
watched the soldiers drill, drill, drill--infantry drill, physical
drill, bayonet exercise and target practice. They even found opportunity
in the course of another long drive to witness actual firing of field
artillery on a ten-mile range, and, as the sound of the great guns
lifted the awed boys to their highest pitch of excitement, they felt
that they saw war in the making indeed.
But the most inspiring sight of all, to Ted, was the infantry drill. The
measured, simultaneous movement of so many men, to the beat of drums and
the martial airs of the bands, thrilled the boy from head to foot, and
it seemed to him that all things centered in this brave and beautiful
array which it was his wonderful privilege to see. As he looked and
listened, he would not have changed places with a king, and for the
moment to have been anywhere else in the world but at Camp Hancock would
have been like exile from all that he held dear.
They also looked at the experimental military bridge building of the
engineering corps and inspected the practice trenches, learning that the
extensive system of the latter had been built under the personal
supervision of French and English officers. Both Ted and Hubert asked
many questions and much was explained to them--points about the
first-line trenches and the great communicating ditches that led off
zigzag instead of straight in the rear, "so that they could not be
enfiladed" by the enemy's cannon.
At noon they dined with Lieut. Markham in the officers' quarters of his
regiment. This in itself was a great event and Ted could hardly eat for
watching and learning the rank of each, his interest heightening when
two or three French and English officers were pointed out to him. With
the eye of a hawk he noted the manners of the French, the British and
the Americans, hoping to achieve a successful imitation. Several of the
friends of Cousin John were very attentive to the delighted and
flattered boys, being especially polite to Ted who proudly thought they
recognized a coming comrade in a Boy Scout in khaki.
"Now let's go to the bayonet run and see the boys spit the Boches," said
Lieut. Markham early in the afternoon.
This was one of the forms of bayonet exercise, and both boys watched it
absorbed, fascinated, oblivious of everything else in the great camp.
Strapping young fellows in khaki sprinted up an incline, leaped over
obstructions in their path, and plunged down toward suspended dummies,
at which or through which they thrust their bayonets. This was spitting
or impaling the Boches in a bayonet charge.
"Why do they call them 'Boches,' Cousin John?" asked Hubert, quite
superfluously in the opinion of Ted, who knew already.
"It's a French nickname for the Germans--not very complimentary," was
the answer. "Means something like 'blockhead,' I'm told."
At the railway station in Augusta that night, as they took leave of
their kindly kinsman, who had exerted himself both to entertain and
instruct, Ted could hardly take his mind off the vivid and crowding
recollections of the day, but he did not forget his manners.
"It's been a great day and you've been just lovely to us, Cousin John,"
he said. "I can never thank you enough."
"I wanted you to see all you could," said Lieut. Markham, smiling and
patting Ted on the shoulder, "because you'll take your turn here or in
some other camp after a while--if the war lasts long enough."
This prospect brought thrills and delighted smiles to Ted, but he
checked the first words that rushed upon his tongue--reflecting that it
might be wrong to hope that the war would last long enough--and only
said, with the manner of one already devoted to a cause:
"Yes, I'll be here--if the war lasts."