At Plattsburg Part 3

It takes three lacings below the knee to get yourself dressed, and three unlacings to get to bed, unless you want to be a real soldier boy, and sleep in your clothes. And only two hooks in all these lacings--the rest eyelets, eyelets. The cartridge belt has ten pockets; I found a clip of blanks in mine, and am keeping it to celebrate with. The proper way to draw your bayonet is not to cut your ear off. They tell me it's been done. The outfitter lied to me. He sold me a tight blouse because we wore our sweaters over them, and here it's against the rule and my sweater will never go under the blouse and I'll freeze to death. Never believe anybody that says he knows.

When the horn blows pay no attention. It's the top sergeant's whistle you've got to jump for. If you want to know what to wear don't ask him; the lieutenant will change the order and the captain will change it again. Ask the major, unless the general happens by. Always salute unless you happen to be smoking; if you have a pipe in your mouth, don't see him. Fall River!

SAM.

PRIVATE RICHARD G.o.dWIN TO HIS MOTHER

Sunday evening, Sep. 10th, 1916.

DEAR MOTHER:---

I had no sooner closed this morning's addenda than I had to prepare for the bugaboo of tent inspection. A good bugaboo, of course, as at home it always pays to have visitors, we redd up the house so carefully. Our job this morning was not only to have the tent perfectly neat, but also to have our kits laid out on our beds according to regulations. One blanket was spread over the cot, the others were folded at the head, and on them the sweater and pillow. At the foot were folded the poncho and shelter half; then all the equipment was spread out. Under the head of the bed was the blue barrack-bag and the suit-case; under the foot the shoes.

Then we stood in line in front of the tent, and watched while the lieutenant, coming from tent to tent, left each squad in a state of despair behind him. To cheer us, someone at the sergeants' tent started a victrola, but a snap from the lieutenant ended that diversion. Result of it all: we were told to inspect a certain bed in Tent One, fold our blankets and ponchos _right_, and lay out our equipment according to a sacredly prescribed order. A meek procession filed in and out of the tent for the next half hour.

It appears that blankets must be folded in a certain manner and laid in a certain way, so that the inspector can see at a glance whether the proper number of them is present--that none are in hock, I suppose. The manner of folding ingeniously insures that on making the bed at night the blankets must first be entirely shaken out; ditto in the morning. Some sanitary martinet evolved that scheme. We are told that a fourth blanket will be served out to us. Folded double lengthwise, four will allow seven thicknesses over us and one below, or any other proportion, according to the temperature. Sleeping as I do with the tent wall looped up, I shall be glad of the seven thicknesses.

Cleanliness being next to G.o.dliness, many of the men washed clothes instead of going to church. A little daily was.h.i.+ng in this fair weather keeps a wardrobe always ready for service. It's simple if you combine your laundry work with your swim.

Bannister, our corporal, got us out on the drill field this afternoon for squad practice. But as even he is new to many of our evolutions, instead of monarchy we found democracy, so many of us had something to say. Part of the time Knudsen gently but firmly managed the squad; we taught each other how to stack arms; and finally from one argument we could only be rescued by appeal to the drill regulations. We knelt around the little blue book, while the opponents of two apparently conflicting ideas eagerly debated, until of a sudden each saw the other's point, and discovered that they meant the same thing.

Coming back, we found ourselves heading obliquely toward the company street, with a half turn to make in order to enter it properly. Corder suggested that the command should be "Left half turn," but Reardon contended for "Half left," and at the proper moment the corporal gave that order. Naturally there ensued at the tent another debate, everyone putting in his oar, until by the book the Old One proved that while for a company in column the command should have been "Column half left," for a squad "Left half turn" was correct. A mixing business, this learning how to fight for one's country.

Said I to Corder, "You'll take Bannister's job away from him if he doesn't look out." He laughed. "No," said he. "I like to admire the scenery rather than attend to business, and I'm a dreamer anyway. But watch Knudsen. He's a soldier type, and unless I'm mistaken he's had some training, though he doesn't claim it."

Word has gone forth that we are to go through the drill regulations at the rate of some forty paragraphs a day. So there is much study up and down the street, and that not merely on the part of would-be corporals.

This letter is finished under difficulties, for the lantern goes out every few minutes, as four of us cl.u.s.ter around it with our pens and paper. A puff, a pop, a flicker or two, and it's out. Then laughter, curses, two or three failures to light the wick, and we're off again for another short spell. Clay promises that we shall have no trouble with the lantern after tonight. Some squads have clubbed together to buy acetylene lanterns, which illuminate the tents most brilliantly; but the cost is seven dollars, and though our squad has mentioned the luxury, it is evident that most of the men wish to avoid the extra expense. Though of course I could buy the thing as a present to the squad, I think it would rather mar our present feeling of equality. Moreover, there was a trifle of an explosion in Tent 13 early this evening, after which the new lantern was thrown away as junk. If I should come again, I should bring some compact lighting contraption. Meanwhile the little flashlight is good for searching in one's suit case, and there is always a table and electric light at the company tent, close by the captain's.

Good-by, with love from

d.i.c.k.

PRIVATE G.o.dWIN'S DAILY LETTER

Monday, Sept. 11, 1916.

DEAR MOTHER:--

I began my day with my usual bucket from the tap; there are always early birds to serve me, and my helper this morning said it made him feel virtuous just to souse me. I prefer this to the shower baths, which are much further away. A very few go early to the lake and make parade of it; said one to his corporal yesterday, finding him crawling from his bed into his clothes, "My G.o.d, man, don't you ever bathe?" But the poor corporal was still shaking with his typhoid.

Clay, who was up early on mysterious errands in the dusk, has just brought in boards to lay in front of his cot. Reardon asked, "What are you going to do on the hike? You'll have to put your feet on the ground."

But Clay evidently likes a bit of luxury, and when he gave me his surplus boards I found I liked it too, for I prefer keeping my feet out of this sand, which has a creeping quality and gets everywhere. Out in front of the tent there had appeared a bench. "Hi!" cried Bannister, "where did that come from?" Clay said nothing, and Bannister, who appreciated the new convenience, thought it best to ask no more. I, with a mind on further conveniences, suggested that we club together for a bucket for our was.h.i.+ng. Clay offered to get this without cost, but late in the afternoon reported failure. "I couldn't get one, though I looked in every tent in the other companies." Then he missed our new bench. "Where has it gone?" he demanded. Corder answered dryly, "Back to its original owners, I suppose." But the lantern works better tonight, as the fellows all remark, avoiding mention of the fact that it has a somewhat different shape.

This morning we had our first drill in calisthenics. We were s.p.a.ced in very open order, advised to take off our s.h.i.+rts, and Captain Wheeler, a magnificent figure of a man, strong as an oak in spite of his gray hair, stood on a platform and put us through exercises that searched out, so the boys agreed, muscles that you didn't know you had. You get a new idea of the "position of a soldier" after he has shown it to you. "Oh, no, no, no!" he cried when first we came to attention at his command, his voice rolling away over the lake into infinite distance. And then he made us try to show that we were proud of our uniforms.

This afternoon's platoon drill, under our lieutenant, made me very sure that, though I already feel as if I had been here for weeks, I am not yet master of my work. The drill kept me thinking. As it is no pleasure to be publicly called down, I am all the while trying to make no mistakes. A fellow must instantly--instantly!--know the difference between "Platoon right," for instance, and "Right by squads," even though the commands may not have been given for an hour. And one must know it whether corporal or not, for half the time the corporals do not yet know it themselves, and either mumble their commands or are silent, so that they are no help. And even if a fellow knows what to do, but lags in the doing of it, then he is likely to put the whole line out. Further, freight trains rumble by at the bottom of the drill field, the wind whistles in your ears, other officers near at hand are shouting commands to other platoons, and so you are likely not to hear a command at all. But on the whole I think I am improving.

The short time that we had with the captain was enough to prove that he is, as Clay claimed, a Southerner, if only from his use of the word _like_. As we came down from the right shoulder, he said, "Don't climb your rifle lahk it was a rope." And at Present Arms, "That man is holding up his piece lahk it was a Christmas tree." "Swing your arms," said he, "lahk you were proud of yo'selves!" Other little localisms slip in. When a man had explained a question that the captain at first did not understand, he said when he grasped it, "Oh, Ah see; Ah didn't locate yo'." But it is a pity to misspell so broadly. The differences of accent, though evident, are slight and pleasing, even musical.

Love from,

d.i.c.k.

FROM ERASMUS CORDER, a.s.sISTANT PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TO HIS WIFE

Plattsburg, Monday, Sept. 11.

MY DEAR PRISCILLA:--

You will want to know, now that I have shaken down into this life, how on the whole it suits me. I feel as if I had been here a fortnight, such being the power of routine. You know I am among perfect strangers, for though Nelson is in my company, I see very little of him. We actually have not looked each other up since Sat.u.r.day. And though Watson of the Philosophy department and Jones of the Library staff are both here, they are in other companies, and the best I have done is to pay each of them a hurried call. The real life is the life of the squad, and I find myself among interesting fellows.

The work is not too hard, for the officers give us periods of rest, and we are gradually hardening up. I live very cautiously, always change my stockings and rest my feet whenever I come off the drill-field, and whenever I can I lie down for a nap. But I am getting so lively that I find myself tempted to ignore these precautions, and hope that before long I can take not only the work but the fun as it comes. The excellent stockings which you knit for me are not too heavy nor too hot; you were wise to mark every thing that I wear, as in this camp articles of clothing very much resemble one another. My sewing kit, with all its threaded needles, called out the wonder of the corporal the other day, and the whole squad stood around and admired it.

I hope in time to attain a more military carriage, but it is a hard fight with habit. I wish I were as springy as these boys around me; even as I work the fat out of my bacon, I don't find myself perfectly elastic. For I get a bit stiff in the knees from long standing at the manual; and as the evening chill comes on I find it gets more into my joints than I like. And so I am watching the development of a problem with which I, that is, my mind, can have very little to do. Question: shall I get stiffer as the days grow colder, until on the hike they will discharge me as an old man; or will it all work off as I get used to the exercise, until I am limber? It is really a very serious matter, my dear, this being forty-five years old. One should turn life into a profession, and study how to become young. There are a number of men of my age or older here at camp, and I find we all have this same preoccupation, and very eagerly ask each other how we are getting on, and give advice. And the hike--that looms ahead of us all as an ordeal which we are afraid we shan't pa.s.s.

I never tire of the view from our drill field. The mountains are never twice the same, and the lake is quite as changeable; they vary their aspect every hour from morning to evening. We are lucky just now in our full moon, to light us about the unaccustomed streets. In contrast are the ugly tents, which yet have a romantic interest in their possible warlike use, and in their perfect uniformity, which is so forbidding that it becomes interesting. And for one who has come from a skirted sea-side resort, it is not unpleasant to see around me nothing but men, men, men.

Your letters make me feel easy about the family. We are very lucky that Mildred did not get a bad fall when the handle of her bicycle broke. Tell Florence to make a proper distinction between _to_ and _too_, and to form her capital Cs more carefully. Little Elinor's letters are much admired in the whole tent. It must be about time to pick the Gravenstein apples.

Tell Robert to handle them as if they were eggs.

You see I am well. Do not worry about me. Love to all the youngsters.

ERASMUS.

PRIVATE RICHARD G.o.dWIN TO HIS MOTHER

Plattsburg, Tuesday, September 12.

DEAR MOTHER:--

Today we have had something new. We have so far been drilling in close order formation, so called because we always maintain our front and rear ranks together as such. This order has two purposes, one for parade and review, the other for quickest marching to any given place. But for fighting, which after all is our real purpose, the close order must be discarded in favor of extended order, which you will understand better if I call it skirmish line formation. Here front and rear rank form in one long line, in order not to do damage to each other in firing.