At Plattsburg Part 19

Today we were up earliest, packed in a hurry (which never, however, allows leaving the ground untidy) and were off as an advance flank guard to protect the march of the baggage train and main body on the straight road here, we going on a parallel line over whatever country we found. We marched out of camp, went a mile to the west, and then turned south--and a little ripple of joy went through the company. For it was our first step toward Plattsburg and _home_. The men are all looking forward to the breaking up of camp--not that they are feeling any hards.h.i.+p, but that they are antic.i.p.ating the set end of things, and thinking of home life again.

Today's work will not make an interesting story. We followed our south road till it petered out, pa.s.sed through pretty glades and around attractive knolls, and finally climbed a steep ascent to where, by a schoolhouse at a corner, we rested for a while. A platoon was sent north against a squad of cavalry; the rest went on, deployed here, deployed there, sent out squads and recalled them, then lay low in ditches and watched the movements of some of the enemy (hors.e.m.e.n and a machine gun) cautiously coming forward along a crossroad against the corner toward which we were heading, and which we knew to be held in strength by our first platoon. They consulted, came on within range, and then sent out a man to reconnoitre. Reaching the corner, he wheeled and dashed back, waving his hat and shouting. A burst of fire from the corner pursued him; and our Squad Seven, crazy to do something, let off a couple of clips at the men on the machine gun, who were frantically trying to turn it about.

The cavalry got away, all but their messenger, who was summoned back. As for the machine gun, it would not reconcile itself to capture till, as the captain said, an umpire went out and picked it by hand.

We were given another rest, this time by an odd-looking building which Corder guessed was a creamery. The fact being established, our boys were greatly excited, and some filled their canteens at wholesale prices--surrept.i.tiously, for the thing was quite as wrong though not so reckless as another performance I have seen, the filling of canteens at wells. If we escape typhoid from such water it will be because of the inoculation.

Ordered on again, our platoon was detached and sent across country to come upon the flank or rear of any cavalry that might be lurking for us.

We sent out a squad and lost it; then the three remaining squads went on and on and on, and grumblings became louder and louder as the men began to suspect that the leader did not know where he was going, nor what he was trying to do. Good David, mindful of our pact, tried in vain to cheer the boys up; but no, they would grumble, and (as inexorably follows) made their work the harder. It was a long three miles over stiff country, with a fence, usually barb wire, every hundred yards--and bogs! "What made me sore," says Knudsen at my side at this moment, "was that first swamp we came to. It was perfectly visible, with a good dry meadow on either side to travel in--but Jones had to bring us through it." Fence, bog, fence, thicket, fence, small pasture with an inquisitive bull (we went across smartly!) fence, rough climb over rocks: such was the order of our going, till at last we heard the captain's distant whistle, and found the remainder of the company resting comfortably by the roadside waiting for us. But there was no soft place for the second platoon, for on we went at once, two miles more to camp, where the other companies had long since pitched their tents, had fed themselves, and now were streaming out toward town to fill in the c.h.i.n.ks in their stomachs. The best ice cream, I am told, is at the millinery store.

For the first time since Friday I was able today to get a swim--or rather a dip in an ice-cold stream, below a broken dam. Picturesque, so many men's naked bodies, undressing, bathing, dressing, with the rus.h.i.+ng stream, the rocky bank, the overhanging trees. Then I cut my toe and had to have it dressed at the doctor's tent, where I had a glimpse at another side of camp life.

I met one of our fellows coming away grumbling. "My blisters were dressed by an artilleryman who disgusted me with his profanity, and who put the plaster on the wrong spot." But I was tended, having a more important wound, by one of the doctors. And after my experience I can declare that all doctors are divided into three kinds.

One was a volunteer, one of our own company, by the way, whose feet having given out was transferred to the medical corps, and keeps an especially kindly eye on all H company men. But he being busy, I fell into the hands of the regulars, and had a chance to judge of the opinion common among the rookies--"they treat you like a horse." Now regular officers must be short and sharp with their men, and the doctors among them are taught to be suspicious by the sojering they necessarily detect.

It must be a struggle to keep sweet the milk of human kindness.

The man who dressed my foot had succeeded in remembering that the majority of men were neither cowards nor dishonest. He was considerate of me and of the orderlies under him. But alongside was a scowl. A poor fat bandsman with a lame foot was not excused from marching the next day. The orderly who had mislaid the iodine was scalped. The orderly who had charge of the medicine chest was also scalped. The man whose foot this doctor was dressing was so certainly a man of character and a person of civilian consequence that he was not scalped for presuming to turn his ankle; but I felt the certainty that under actual campaign conditions he would have fared no better than the others. It was borne in upon me that a gentleman who is gentlemanly only to gentlemen is not a gentleman at all.

Though I have not spoken much of them, we have our daily conferences whenever the weather will permit. Today we first had battalion conference, when Major Goring spoke of recent manoeuvres--and we men were interested to see that even he spoke of Friday as an extremely successful day, and Sat.u.r.day as an unusually hard one. Then supper, then bed-making (which is desirable before the light goes--by the way, I am writing no longer in the afternoon but the evening) then regimental conference, when Major Downes spoke against time for an hour (and mighty well, upon the Philippines and army experiences there) in the hope that General Wood would come, which he didn't. Now I am writing while sitting upon a firkin of apples that I had sent from our neighbor Williams, waiting for the squad to come and help me eat them. Very bad writing this, I know, by the light of the fire, holding the paper first folded, then bent, then skewed, anything to stiffen it and catch the light, while every moment I must s.h.i.+ft it as I move my hand along the line.

The boys are gathering for a feed--the apples, Some honey, bread, shredded wheat, cream from the local creamery (Knudsen's inspiration), the first such feast since the hike began. We have invited our neighbors, Squad Nine. So, since there is no more to tell, I will close this.

"Pa.s.s up your cups," says Clay.

Love to you from

d.i.c.k.

PRIVATE G.o.dWIN TO HIS MOTHER

On the road to Ledger Corners.

Tuesday the 3d October.

DEAR MOTHER:--

I write on my back in the usual roadside ditch, our column having halted after firing has broken out in our rear. My pack was on wrong this morning, hanging too low, so that the straps cut me; I was glad to stop, so as to adjust it. Usually it is no trouble: in fact in some of the skirmishes I have not thought of it at all except to remark how little it c.u.mbered me.

But the pack can be, I have found, a detriment in case of a fall.

Yesterday, going through a boggy wood, with rocks and slimy fallen trees, I slipped and plunged forward. Without the pack I could have saved myself; but the heavy roll, shooting ahead, was just enough to overbalance me and bring me down among the stumps and boulders. To protect my face I twisted as I fell. This brought the pack under me, my head was lower than my hips, the pack wedged in a hole, and I should have had difficulty in rising had not the boys yanked me up.

Our feed at bed time was a success. We were warned of a hard day to follow, the march being extra long, and the road being so unsafe for trucks (on account of weak culverts) that we must carry our own dinners, which we must eat cold. In consequence we were given this morning an emergency ration, consisting of a slice of Bologna sausage, two pieces of dry bread, and two hard boiled eggs. These we put in our meat cans, with such chocolate as we could get from the buzzards; we are carrying them now, and are wondering if the cooks will get to camp in time to give us coffee.

Behind me, after quiet, the fire has broken out again. The boys listen critically. "We shan't have to go back for that." There is a whole battalion behind us that can stand off any attack.

(_Later._) The hike today has been steady plodding, halting at the regular intervals, also at times of attack from the rear. At first the boys sang a good deal, new songs and old. But the last two stretches, though we have had continual jokes and laughter, have been a persistent grind. For the first time we have had climbing, pretty steady from our start to the height of land, a rise of 502 feet, after which we stumbled down a very stony track till we reached a better road at Halfway House, an uninviting structure between two unknown terminals. We had one fine look-off at the highest point, over a gently descending slope of miles to a strip of Champlain, and beyond, floating above the haze, the Green Mountains of Vermont. Now we are resting again, the boys talking, smoking, studying the map, and singing quietly.

In camp at Ledger Corners.

At the mouth of my kennel.

The day's hike, ten or twelve miles, is finished, a very dreary performance indeed. The way was very dull; and though the boys were at first inclined to say they were glad not to be on skirmish duty, we having worked so hard of late, before the trudge was over we were all tired of the monotony, and would have been glad of a brush. And we got just as tired and hungry as if we had had an extra four or five miles of cross-country work. At last after pa.s.sing through a district whose only beauties were its few high views and the gorgeous colors of its maples, and whose general spa.r.s.eness of people, unattractive fields, and ill-kept houses (chiefly of plastered logs) became after a while depressing, we came to almost the only smooth field that we had seen. The first of the trucks, after its journey of thirty-six miles, was just arriving; nevertheless it was not long after we had pitched camp that coffee was ready, with which we wetted our dry snack. You should watch us veterans pitch camp. Every tent is erected in fifteen minutes at most, less if rain is threatening. I always hurry off early for the hay, leaving Bann to finish pegging down, and to ditch if necessary. My haste saves delay; today I got into the hay-barn just before a quartermaster came and formed a line. I always lug away a full poncho; though the hay almost fills the tent at first it soon packs down, and I want this amount to make sleep easy, and to make sure that even if rain gets under the tent, we shall sleep on an island in comfort. Tonight the weather promises to be fine, so that Bann did no digging except for sods to lay on the edges of the tent to keep out the wind.

Afternoons are always pretty full. We are said to have our time to ourselves--yes, and if conference on the manoeuvres is omitted (as today, when our battalion had no manoeuvres to confer about), it really amounts to something. And I have gained time by toughening myself, the rest I used to crave at Plattsburg and on the range no longer being necessary.

But I love to linger over the luxury of the swim--or rather the bath--if there is an accessible stream. There was none at Cherubusco, and to tell the truth I didn't miss it, so weary was I, and the weather so cold. But yesterday and today I enjoyed the chance to soap myself and souse. Next if there is mail (and I can always depend on my letter from you) I like to enjoy it and skim the newspaper. After that the rifle should be cleaned, even on such a day as this when I did not fire a shot, for the barrel has a habit of "sweating" which requires it to be cleaned out and oiled. And then hundreds of us fall to on our letters home, always in a public place, with talk going on all about, and with men going by who pause and interrupt.

For in our company, and I doubt not in all the others, there is the friendliest feeling for each other, and for each other's fortunes. We know that So-and-so has had a sprain, that such a man is in trouble with his digestion, that Hill has a fallen arch, and that Homans has terribly blistered his feet and is these days riding on the trucks, poor devil.

Those who have met at the hospital tent have a common interest. Thus getting acquainted, we hail each other when we meet in the street, stop at each other's fires, compare notes, congratulate on recovery, sympathize. There are, too, the recognized jokers, men who are always looking out for a chance to make a hit. And finally camp news is handed along from man to man.

With all this going on, afternoon and evening, a fellow is continually interested and, you may say, busy. There is good feeling almost everywhere, though it is interesting to see how the degree of it varies.

You see this particularly in the solidarity of squads. There is somewhere in the regiment, I am told, a squad that does nothing but squabble; the men have nearly all in turn been corporal, and no one will obey. But mostly there is bound to spring up a feeling of unity, as the eight men sleep and march and manoeuvre together. This will differ according to the men's natural sociability or feeling of loyalty, with perhaps jealousy in one man, or officiousness in another. Occasionally you will find a squad whose masterful corporal interferes too much with his men's personal freedom--and that has to be adjusted by a little plain language.

Sometimes a fellow is discontented with his squad; Randall, for example, doesn't feel himself appreciated by his mates, and seeks chums elsewhere.

But none of his new intimates stay by him very long.

Our squad holds together very well; we eat together when our tents are not too long a journey from the mess tent, a matter of consequence with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g dish, and in general we have a constant eye out for each other's movements. But more than this, we are taking Squad Nine into a little confederation; they are men of the most diverse sorts but very much of a unit, and all bright, witty, and ready to cooperate. Indeed, having a system of fetching each other's hay and filling each other's canteens, they have a better squad organization than we. It has pleased me very much that our banter between the tents at Plattsburg has turned into the friendliest of feeling, so that we naturally seek each other out. We gave them a spread last night, and today are invited to another in return.

The column on the march is an amusing thing. Taken in little, I have got very familiar with the backs and legs of the four in front, Bann's springy tread, Clay's st.u.r.dy tramp, the little stiffness that shows in ancient Corder's gait, and the untiring litheness of Knudsen's swing.

Beside me Reardon trudges silently, his hat always flopped a little over his eyes, his head up. Sometimes I make him talk, and have pried out of him much of his family history. Beyond him Pickle goes on springs, cracking jokes like a little internal combustion engine. And David, now very tanned and wide awake, finishes our four. Without looking, we know the voice of each of our neighbors behind or in front, even so far as the witless stutterer some squads ahead, or the flat-voiced constant querist somewhere behind. But now when he raises his song his neighbors shut him up.

Our company in column always remembers who commands it. The first song we begin to sing, and the last we give up, is the Buzzard song, to show our loyalty. Incidentally the song has improved discipline, for yesterday when a buzzard approached us with the inevitable chocolate, tobacco, and matches, we pa.s.sed him along down the line with the chorus, "Poor old buzzard, get away out of here," though, to be frank, the wording is somewhat stronger. No buzzard will ever get anything out of our company again when on the road, even though we may be at rest. Other little touches show our memory of the captain's injunctions. We have a sergeant who in former camps was demoralized by drilling under other officers, and who at times crosses his gun upon his shoulders as he marches. Then the whole column shouts at him till he takes it down. And when some other company pa.s.ses us, with men carrying the guns by the straps, we shout: "Porter! Suit-case men! Red-caps!"

It is fine to march in a column of men and know the current of energy that flows along it. However many miles you have marched, however tired your feet and back and arms may be, in the knowledge that you are one of a disciplined regiment there is something that strengthens you and keeps you going. For in one sense Route Step, when you may go as you please, is a fiction; we must still keep so close together that to preserve the step and the cadence is almost a necessity, and though we carry our pieces at ease, we still swing along together. And as you look along rising ground, and see the hundreds of men ahead, and know there are as many more behind, all going, going, the knowledge that you are a part of that machine, and that to fall out would be to mar it and to cut yourself off from it, keeps you still moving on your weary pins.

You see I am speaking of general things, because of particular events today there is nothing to describe. The bathing today was most shockingly public, on both sides of the bridge in this apology for a town. Whenever wheels were heard, men shouted "Cover!" and those in the water (which was very shallow) would try to get under. But I think the women folk had been warned to keep away, since none of them crossed, at least while I was there.

(_Evening._) Tonight we have had a talk from General Wood. I have not reported our conferences to you, they are so incidental, and indeed so theoretical at times. But we have had a captain from the border tell us of the coming of the green militia there at the mobilizing of the national guard, of their first helplessness under service conditions, full as every company was of new men. The work of getting this half- or quarter-trained ma.s.s ready for fighting was enormously more difficult than our Plattsburg work; and the fact that these regiments, if sent into the field at first, would have been helpless against the Mexicans, needs no explanation (disagreeable as the idea is) to every recruit here. We have at another conference been shown the detail work of supplying our camps both at the training ground and on the hike, and the immense importance of the work of the obscure quartermaster's department. Talk after talk has impressed us with the amount of work needed to drill, to equip, to work into fighting shape, even a few thousand men; and there is no Plattsburg rookie who does not fully understand, and will not in detail explain to his neighbors when he goes home, the absurdity of Mr.

Bryan's army of a million men which is to spring into being at the call of the President. It would very much relieve us to be a.s.sured that the government is ready to equip them even in the least particular.

General Wood has talked to us from time to time. Back at the training camp he told us somewhat of our military history. You know our text-books feed us up on our military glories; but looked at through the cold eyes of the statistician we know now that these were achieved at the cost of enormous and unnecessary losses, all from lack of system and readiness.

Moreover there are certain military disgraces which need to be called to our attention, to make us resolve that these things shall not happen again. Considering further that we have never yet had a war with a first cla.s.s military power (with two at least of whom we are in controversy now) and remembering that not only has our national guard proved a failure at this crisis, but that the new enlistments in the regular army have not come to pa.s.s, so that it is many thousands below its paper strength, we are now at the point of asking ourselves what we are to do to meet the military necessity which will some day suddenly come upon us.

We believe it is coming; no soldier will deny it or can more than hope against it. Therefore we must prepare--but how?

--It is time for our spread; Squad Nine has come not merely with camp delicacies, but with cakes and candies from home! So I will break off this gloomy epistle with, as usual, love from

d.i.c.k.

_P. S._ Still come the variations of the story of the clip of ball cartridges. Someone knows somebody else who found it among his cartridges one morning and slipped it into another man's belt. Thus the clip, and the story, travels.

PRIVATE G.o.dWIN'S DAILY LETTER

Cadyville, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1916.