_ FROM ERASMUS CORDER, ASSISTANT 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 Saturday. 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 pass.
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 GODWIN 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.
Our drill field at the camp distinctly has its drawbacks. Across part of it are open drainage ditches; and another part, where no ditches are, is a slippery bog after any rain. Drilling on such a field distracts you between the natural desire to pick your footing, and the officers' constant command to keep your eyes up. We are told that the city of Plattsburg is very generous in providing this ground, and doubtless it was to begin with; yet I wonder if after two very prosperous seasons, due to our presence and our visitors', the city couldn't afford to put a few hundred dollars (it would cost no more) into finishing draining the field with tile, and filling the ditches in. That would give us good dry ground and firm footing.
At any rate, it was a relief to be marched this morning to the military post, to practice our new formations on its great smooth field. The parade-ground is a wide level space by the edge of the lake, and on the inner side is a long row of the married officers' houses, all exactly alike, yet with shrubs and vines not unhomelike. I saw three children at one place, two at another, plus two nursemaids; but as a whole the houses look deserted, as they are. For all our regiments of this department are on the Mexican border, and while papa is away it is natural for mamma to take the babies to visit grandpa, if indeed she doesn't go to the border too. As a consequence of this absence of the infantry regiments, we are ministered to here by some companies of coast artillery, which are useless to the government in this crisis, and so are unwillingly serving here as cooks, waiters, and equipment orderlies. Our officers are scraped up from everywhere, the captain of my company even coming from Panama. Unless they can persuade themselves that there is to be no more fighting in Mexico, they must hate to settle down here as mere missionaries of the preparedness movement.
Well, we were taken onto the field, and were given our first dose of skirmish drill. The captain explained how the squad should do the expanding movement on which the whole is based. "Being at a halt," as the regulations are fond of saying, the corporal takes position three paces in front of his Number Two man, extends his arms as a signal or gives his order, and the men at a run take given positions on a line with him. A corporal and his squad being ordered to illustrate this for the benefit of the rest of us, the corporal forgot to stand fast, and so away the eight of them went, heading directly for the lake, the captain watching them with amusement, the rest of us snickering. Over the edge of the bluff they went, we heard crashes in the bushes, and presently, when the rest of us were beginning our demonstration, we saw the sheepish return of our lost squad. No one in our company will ever now forget that when we begin our deployment at a halt, we advance those three paces and no more.
You see now the real value of the corporal. He is of use in close order formation, yet there, with a little drill, the company could get along without him. But in extended order he is in independent command of the squad, takes his orders from his superior, translates them according to circumstances, and separately leads his little bunch of men to the place where they are to deploy. Moreover, since his problem varies according as we are marching or at a halt, in line or in column, and according as we are to guide centre, right, or left, the corporal needs (we proved it today) to have a cool head and a firm hold of his men. In one case we go forward, in another we march to one side before deploying, in still another we make a letter S, going backward and then forward again. There was a wonderful confusion this morning, with all of us greenhorns trying to learn this new work. Moreover, since we are volunteers, and men of intelligence, and by this time pretty well acquainted, every man of us thought he understood everything, and was bursting to tell the others how it should be done.
And then began to appear which of our corporals were corporals indeed. Some squads were little Babels, each man uttering forth his voice, with the poor squad-leader either vainly trying to make himself heard, or silently trying to make his own ideas square with the contradictions of the other seven. Other squads may have been repressed volcanoes, but still they were repressed, with the corporal making his mistakes in his own way, but learning by blundering how the thing should be done. As for Squad 8, Knudsen was guarding the corporal's peace of mind. Once when Bannister had mistaken the order, and I burst out with a whispered "Too far!" Knudsen snapped at me, "No speaking to the corporal!" Now since once or twice he had given advice, that was a touch too much; but I caught a significant twinkle in Corder's eye, and held my peace. I shan't soon forget the puzzled expression on Bannister's round, honest face when he found himself many yards out of the way, and his involuntary "Whoa!" Then Knudsen quietly took charge of us, and led us where we belonged.
"This is going to be interesting," whispered Corder to me. "Remember what I told you."
In the afternoon, among other drill work, we were taught how to make our packs. The strangely shaped piece of webbing which I once tried to describe to you, with all its straps and hooks, is a haversack worked out by a commission headed by a Major Stewart, who evolved this Stewart pack, the lightest by many pounds of any army pack in the world. Now give attention. On the ground you spread your poncho, rubber side downward. On it you lay your shelter-half and fold it till it too is an oblong, smaller than the poncho. Next you fold one blanket thrice and lay it with its stripe lengthwise of the poncho. Lay on it your tent-pegs, rope, bacon box and condiment can, a change of underclothes, your soap and razor, tooth-brush and towel. Lap over it the edges of the poncho and the shelter-half. Now roll this from the blanket end, packing tightly; and when you approach the end of the poncho, fold eight inches of it toward you, and into this pocket work the roll. Thus you have made a tight waterproof sausage, firmly enough packed to be thrown about without coming open. The first stage of making your pack is now finished.
The roll is now, by means only to be learned by actual doing, to be strapped to the haversack, which also carries the bayonet and, in its big pocket, the meat-can, knife, fork, and spoon. The pack is next, by its complicated straps, attached to the belt, and the whole is put on like a vest, the arms through its broad straps. These should be so tightened that the top of the pack comes well above the level of the shoulders, so that the straps will not drag and cut. The belt is buckled in front, but should be loose enough to hang over the hips. Thus the whole weight of the pack and belt is carried by the shoulders, which are braced back as by the old-fashioned shoulder brace, leaving the chest free for expansion, and carrying no weight.
The pack weighs about eighteen pounds, the belt (with full canteen and cartridge pockets) another eight, the rifle nine. Thirty-five pounds, for light marching order, is much less than any other army than ours is blessed with. And this outfit is to be, as our captain grimly remarked today, our constant companions. Oh my poor back!
I know it will be hard to read this letter, my hand shakes so. This is because all this morning I carried my rifle "at trail," which means that I gripped it a foot from the muzzle and carried it with the butt just off the ground, the butt constantly exercising a heavy leverage on the wrist. Naturally I am lame.
Your letters come daily, which saves me much anguish. At each distribution of the mail there is much quiet disappointment, which later is very likely to express itself in the tent. Said Reardon today, the silent man of the squad, "I'm going to write a letter home that will raise hell." Bannister, whose wife had missed a day, remarked gravely, "I'll have to say something to her." And Pickle came into the tent mad, savagely remarking, "If I don't get a letter next mail, I'm going home." Luckily it came.
But yet the men don't always sympathize with each other. Clay was bitterly complaining of his luck. Said Knudsen, "But man, you can't expect an answer to your letter yet. It had to go to Maryland." Then Bannister, taking his mind from his own disappointment, added, "And great Scott! look at the letter you writ. It was so long that she would need three whole days to read it in, before she could begin her answer. And as to your writing such an amount to your mother--!" "It was only eight pages," said handsome Clay, blushing. Bannister had no mercy. "Only eight pages? Man, it was a young novel! To your mother? Your grandmother, more likely." Clay was silenced.
Our fourth blankets are served out, and we sleep very snug. Food is the same, wholesome but not delicate. David and Pickle, having each a sweet tooth, buy rather freely outside, and David occasionally slips away for a hotel meal. As a consequence, they sometimes need doctoring. The rest of the squad, whether from economy or on principle, stick to the daily mess and are well. Love from
DICK.
TELEGRAM FROM PRIVATE RICHARD GODWIN TO
HIS MOTHER AT HOME
Plattsburg, Wednesday, Sep. 13.
is you know who at plattsburg and why i
thought i saw her here today am well love
DICK.
LETTERS FROM THE SAME
Postscript, written at the top of the first sheet of the letter
I have just sent you off this telegram: Is You-know-who at Plattsburg, and why? I thought I saw her here today. Am well. Love.
Second postscript, written in the margin
I find I have written you a letter that will show you my difficulties in getting time to write. It is merely typical of my usual day.
DEAR MOTHER:--
I begin this letter in the tent at about 5.30 in the morning, expecting the first assembly, yet trying to snatch a little time while the rest of the camp is still dressing. My hand no longer aches, but the wrist is plain stiff from yesterday's exercise at trail. I have just conned over fifty paragraphs of the drill book, getting up early for the purpose.
Free time is scarce. When the captain yesterday told us to put fifteen minutes a day on our study of the rifle, and especially in learning to squeeze (a mystery which I will expound to you when I myself have mastered it) the whole company groaned. Our time is so cut up that it is
(
The bugle and the whistle! Five minutes for assembly.)
hard to find many minutes at a stretch which you can devote to any one thing. And yet I think it quite right that yesterday, after returning from the open order drill, squad after squad of us should of our own accord go down to the drill field and practise the new tricks, especially in preserving the squad formation while following the corporal over whatever ground and through whatever angles. Those fifteen minutes will help us today. Bannister tends quietly to his job, an amusing fellow with his little imitations of a farmer (which some day he means to be), his chuckling Yankee wit, and his interest in telling all about his wife and children at home.
Speaking of corporals, Corder has brought out new facts regarding Knudsen. Yesterday, when the tent was empty but for us three, Corder stopped Knudsen from going out while at the same time he beckoned to me. Lucy, coming in just then, stopped and listened also. "Knudsen," said Corder, "you've drilled before." "Not infantry drill," answered Knudsen. "Recently?" demanded Corder. Knudsen admitted, "All last winter with a troop of cavalry." "Then why," demanded Corder, "didn't you say you had had experience, and try to be a corporal yourself?" "Because----"
(
Bugle again, and half an hour for breakfast. Having a little time before morning drill, I go on.)
"Because," said Knudsen, "I didn't want to be corporal. I came here tired to death from a long hard worrying year in getting that factory of mine in good running order. I don't want to have anything more to do, for the whole of this month, with managing a stupid gang of men." "Thanks!" said Corder and I together, and we bowed as if we had been drilled to do it, exactly together. Knudsen was rather taken aback, but he laughed and apologized. "You ought to be corporal of a squad," said Corder. "Do you want to get me out of this one?" demanded Knudsen. "Bannister is all right. I tell you I'm here for a rest, and I want to escape the captain's notice." We promised (
Bugle!) to help him keep in his obscurity. Lucy stood silent, but full of admiration.
(
Sergeant's whistle, and Pickle comes running in. "Make up the packs without the ponchos!" Good by for the present.)
(
Four hours later, after skirmish practice in the roughest kind of low underbrush, in which I nearly lost a legging, and wished for a pair of wooden elbows.)
The company was split in two this morning, those men who had used high-power rifles being taken away by the captain, whose specialty is shooting, while the rest of us went with the lieutenant up the Peru road, and turned into an old overgrown blueberry pasture. Luckily there were no blueberries, for whenever we threw ourselves flat we should have squashed more on our clothes than we should have had time to eat. Bannister being with the shooters, we (such as remained of our squad) were put with a neighboring corporal who did not know his business, and
(
Forty minutes for mess. After a cigarette, I am trying to snatch a few minutes now)
and speedily had the lieutenant "bawling us out." So very quietly, but very firmly, with Corder again winking at me in perfect delight, Knudsen took over corporal and squad, and managed us in an undertone from his position of number two. He kept the squad together, told the corporal when to spread it out, and that innocent person willingly gave himself into Knudsen's hands. We had plenty to do in a series of
(
Bugle and whistle. Off for afternoon drill.--Now at 3.24 P.M. after learning to pitch shelter tents)
imaginary attacks, sometimes in showers, and we steaming in our ponchos or shivering without them, ploughing through the wet bushes or throwing ourselves flat in them. Then, from whatever positions we found ourselves in, we had to "simulate firing" at an enemy until my neck was lame from trying to hold my head up, and my elbows were sore from their rough lodgings. The corporal was perfectly docile, and Knudsen even hooked his fingers in the back of the man's belt and pulled him here and there.
(
Sergeant's whistle, and again Pickle comes diving into the tent. "Undershirts only, for the sun's out hot. Take your towel if you want to swim." That means calisthenics.--After forty minutes.)
Out we went to the drill field, took off (most of us) our remaining shirts, and were put through nine hundred exercises till we dripped, while ladies in their automobiles watched us from the top of the slope. Hope they enjoyed it. When it was over we were dismissed where we stood and streamed yelling to the beach, where we found Champlain, at the hot end of this changeable day, able to repay us for all our sufferings.
Well, to finish the corporal story. The squad were perfect lambs in Knudsen's hands, none daring to bleat, while all around us the other squads were disputing in undertones and going wrong amid storms of discontent. When we had got back to the tent, and had lost our emergency non-com., Knudsen began to praise him for an excellent corporal. "He was good so long as you had him in charge," said Corder. "Especially good on that last deployment when you yanked him into place. If you don't want to be promoted, man, let your superiors blunder, and don't correct them." "The lieutenant wasn't looking," answered Knudsen meekly.
Now about (
call for supper) about that telegram (
call for regimental conference. I am now at the company tent waiting for the captain's conference.) about that telegram of mine.
Where is Vera Wadsworth? For when we were on the parade ground at the post this afternoon, learning to pitch our shelter tents (which is another complicated affair, the explanation of which I will reserve) we found ourselves deserted for a while by our mentor the lieutenant, and were at the mercy of green sergeants, who knew something, to be sure, but in whom we had no confidence. Someone discovered him,--Pickle. "Gee," said that exponent of classic English, "spot the lieutenant with a skirt." And there he was at a distance, in talk with a tall girl, handsome, unless I miss my guess, and Vera herself, if I have any knowledge of her figure, and of a certain hat and parasol she lately affected. Quite at home there too, without a chaperon, on the walk in front of the officers' houses, and without a waiting automobile that brought her or would carry her away. What could bring her here? Were her military relatives at this post? At any rate, I thought they were now at the border. I hope it wasn't she; but the lieutenant, as he returned to us, smiled as men usually do as they think of Vera. Look up her whereabouts and let me know.
I see the captain coming to conference. Good night,
DICK.
TELEGRAM FROM MRS. RICHARD GODWIN, SENIOR,
TO HER SON AT PLATTSBURG, DATED THURSDAY,
SEPTEMBER 14, 1916
she is taking charge of her cousins children
at the plattsburg post am writing mother.
PRIVATE GODWIN'S DAILY LETTER
Thursday, Sept. 14, 1916.
DEAR MOTHER:--
Your telegram, reaching me, made me uncomfortable at first. However, I don't suppose I shall meet Vera, so I shall put the matter out of my mind.
Last night there was a rain, which wakened me as it came down pretty heavily. Knudsen, with a groan, got out of bed and put on his poncho. "What is up?" I asked, whispering; and he, likewise trying not to wake the others, answered, "Rain is coming in. Must fix the tent-cap." So I got up and helped him. I did not tell you, I think, that the tent is open at the top like a wigwam, providing perfect ventilation; but when the rain comes in it wets the clothes hung around the poles, and also the rifles. But a canvas cap, which in fair weather is laid back, may be dragged over the opening by ropes hauled from below, and Knudsen and I managed to close it. Maybe you think it was fun, falling over the tent-ropes in the windy dark.
By daylight it was raining still, and we were ordered out in our ponchos for the assembly. Poor Lucy has so far always been helped into his, and stood looking at it hopelessly. "Which side is front?" As usual, Knudsen came to his help. "The long side. No, that's inside out. Don't you see the collar? Button it under your chin. Now button the sides of the lower part round behind you. Fix the two remaining corners to hang down over your hands. Now you're good for anything that may happen all day."
"All day?" demanded poor Lucy. "Do you mean to say we'll drill in the rain?" "Shall we sit and suck our thumbs here?" demanded amused Pickle. Knudsen, more subtle, merely remarked, "Oh, damn the weather!" and Lucy stiffened as he got the idea that the rain wouldn't hurt him.
He is really improving. Daily he manfully shaves himself for practice (every other day would be enough) and his early wounds are healing nicely, while he has none of recent date. The poor lad's hands are pretty sore from handling his gun. The captain halted before him the other day as we were doing the manual, and fixed him with a cold eye. "Hit that gun harder," he said. "You can't hurt it with your hands." David faintly smiled, and now he is trying to callous his palms.
We ate our breakfasts in our ponchos: there is no place to hang them up, and they make very good bibs. And in our ponchos we marched; they covered the packs, making us look like pedlers, or as Knudsen said, like camels. We kept our rifles dry under them, but were not long dry ourselves, for these service ponchos not being exactly waterproof, soon wet through at the knees, or wherever else we rubbed as we marched. I am therefore rather envious of David's fine new poncho, of best rubber. If I come again I shall have one of my own--a poncho, remember, and not the civilian rubber coat with which some have supplied themselves.
They marched us this morning first to the post gymnasium, and there we sat in a great half-circle while Major Stewart explained to us the history of army packs, and some facts about the one that bears his name. Our men in other wars have abandoned their packs on entering battle, they were such encumbrances in skirmishing. In the battle of San Juan thousands of packs were dropped by the roadside, and the men finished their fighting without rations. But the new pack may be worn both in marching and in shooting; further, on expecting battle the rolls may be made short, and then are strapped to the lower part of the haversack. This part, on drawing out a leather strap, falls to the ground, and the men go forward lightened of the heaviest part of their burden, but yet carrying food enough for the day's work. At its worst the Stewart pack is, compared to the old blanket roll, many pounds to the good.
And yet, mother, though wise Mr. Bryan has bragged of our ability to put an army of a million men into the field overnight, of the few thousands at the border a fair half are still equipped with the old pack. Is the rest of the million to be proportionately well fitted out?
In order to show that the pack will fit anyone, the Major called for the tallest man in the regiment. A strapping big fellow of perhaps thirty-five got up and stepped confidently onto the platform, amid the cheers of the crowd, and the Major prepared to strap the pack onto him. But I heard from behind me various urgent cries of "Go on up!" and a fine young fellow, straight as a lance, walked round the seated men, and also stepped upon the platform. Though much slenderer than the other, the newcomer was a good inch taller. A roar of applause came from the regiment, and the first man, understanding, laughed and stepped down. Then he turned back and spoke to the younger man, evidently asking his height. "How tall? How tall?" demanded the crowd, and the young fellow held up six fingers, indicating six feet six. A similar scene occurred for the shortest man, a thin little fellow getting the honor; then a third aspirant, being evidently taller, was laughed back. But what struck me was the reception given a head-headed, round-headed, roly-poly little mustached fellow, who hesitated near at hand. The crowd instantly nicknamed him. "Come on, Cupid, and measure yourself." But Cupid had his doubts, and so retired.
The lecture being over, luckily so was the rain; but the captain took us out on that rolling country that flanks the Peru road, and gave us a fight with an imaginary enemy, through wet bushes, across a dump, over and among little sand and gravel pits, finally ambushing with great care an innocent Catholic cemetery. As we did this badly, on our advance exposing ourselves to the fire from the ornamental statuary, we had to do it over again. It was difficult practice, keeping in line; but it was fairly exciting to throw yourself, at command, flat on your face wherever you happened to be. I thus gained intimate acquaintance with a pile of tin cans, a scrub hard pine, and a big hill of black ants. As the proper method of moving sideways, when in skirmish line, is to roll, I rolled away from the latter position, not to the betterment of my poncho.
This afternoon, again in rain, we marched to the gymnasium once more, and the building not having been ventilated, found the air very oppressive after our hearty dinner. The captain talked to us of the rifle and its use in target shooting; but conditions were against him, for it was a very sleepy crowd that listened. I found myself drowsy, men were nodding all about me, and Corder declared that he had 247 distinct and separate naps. But it was necessary to rouse when we were required to adjust our slings and take position for snapping at a mark. The sling is the strap of the gun, which when fitted to the upper arm, and the arms and body braced against the pull of it, in some mysterious way gives steadiness. Our calisthenics were partly devised, I am sure, to help us take the contortionists' attitudes necessary for this graceful exercise. But nothing, not even our skirmishing, prepared my elbows for our final stunt of throwing ourselves prone on the hard floor, and in approved target-shooting posture snapping ten shots at the third button of the captain's shirt, while the lieutenant counted ninety seconds by his watch.
Returning, we found that rifle-inspection was scheduled, with a special warning that the captain was not satisfied with the way we kept the guns. So we got out our single cleaning-rod and passed it from cot to cot, with the nitro-solvent and the oil, and such few patches as yet remained to us. For no amount of them will satisfy one company, or even one squad, and we are always short. The rifles cleaned, we policed the tent, making it absolutely neat. Now such are the acoustic properties of these canvas dwellings that we can hear what goes on in our neighbors', and so it happened that we heard, from tent 6, Randall's controversy with the rest of his squad. It is seldom that one man will talk down seven, but we heard the whole of his obstinate defense, how that he hadn't known that he was tent-policeman for the day, that no one had policed the tent yesterday, or eke the day before, that it was a sin and a shame to make him do other men's work, that especially in the matter of the smoky lantern, which no one had cleaned since the opening of camp, it was wrong to make him bear the burden of accumulated neglect. Some of us chuckled at all this, but at such a clamor raised for the purpose of escaping duty David listened soberly. "He works very hard to avoid work," said the boy, whose good manners will not let him evade any duty which he clearly perceives--though I will admit that his perceptions are still rather dull.
The row died down, we heard the rattle of the lantern, and then Randall's voice. "I was only jollying you." No answer, but still the lantern rattled. "I'm willing to do my share of the work." Still no answer. "Oh, well," said Randall finally, "if you feel that way about it, give me the lantern. I'll clean it." We heard the corporal's voice. "I've got it nearly cleaned. And you can squeak out of your work, Randall; but just the same, we've got our opinion of you."
I thought the corporal had the best of it. It is no small penalty to carry around the squad's opinion of one's shortcomings.
At inspection time the rain was heavy, and word was passed to wait for the captain in our tents. For this we blessed him, seeing no fun in standing in line in the street; and Lucy found that after all the weather is considered in the army. When it was the turn of tent 8 we lined up facing each other, and the captain, stooping to get his hat safely through the door, came in between our two lines. He said "Just give me your guns as I'm ready for them," a deceptively mild beginning, we feared, knowing how sharp he could be. But at the fourth gun he said, "The rifles are not so bad." I handed him mine, breech open, hoping that it was up to the average. He tried to look down the barrel; then when he snorted I declare I felt like a boy before his schoolmaster. But to my relief he laughed, took from the muzzle the plug that I had put there in expectation of a long wait in the rain, looked through the barrel, and passed it. When he left he told us to turn out for Retreat with ponchos only--for which again we blessed him.
As the absence of conference, on account of rain, gives me extra time, I shall write a dissertation, not on roast pig, but just on pig, in other words on table manners. Our company has a corner of one of the mess shacks, into which we are marched. When first we came our method was to stand, hats on, by our places, where our cups and plates were waiting upside down. At the command "H Company, take seats!" (and much merriment a sergeant once made when he commanded "Be seated!") we took off our hats very decorously, hung them up (whether behind us on the walls or in front of us under the tables) sat down, turned over our plates, and reached for the dishes. Now some tables, or sections of tables, still maintain this lofty standard of good breeding, by the sheer fact that the most of the men are well bred and the rest are ashamed not to be. But where the proportion is reversed degeneration is rapid. The men furtively hang up their hats and turn over their plates before the order, and if a bunch of them take to doing this, there appears to be no remedy for it. "It's up to you," said a sergeant to us on the first day. "You can be gentlemen, or you can be the other thing."
So it is after we are seated. Certain actions are natural, as determined by the fact that while there is plenty of food, there is never on the table at one time enough of any one thing. (A few more dishes and platters would apparently remedy this.) Further, we haven't time to wait. So we begin on what happens to be in front of us, cereal first at one end of the table, fruit first in the middle (if there is any!), eggs and bacon further along; thus by degrees we work through the bill of fare. And this is not improper.
But when the fellows take to laying in supplies of whatever is within reach, and surrounding themselves with plates heaped with the substance of future courses, it is first unfair and next demoralizing. If one man hogs the available supply for merely later use, he teaches his neighbor to do the same in self-defense. And so you can watch the proof of the old copy-book motto concerning evil communications.
A word concerning reaching at table, for your guidance, my dear mother, when next you find yourself at a table d'hote. I calculate that for this method of helping one's self there is a wrong way and a right. Imagine yourself beside a busy person beyond whom lies the wished-for dish. If you reach with the arm nearest the dish, your arm goes across your neighbor's plate, a fact which my neighbors have frequently proved to me. But if you reach with the arm furthest from the dish you will not cross his plate, your body swinging your arm in over the table. I come to this interesting social discovery rather late in life, on account of the excellent table service to which you have accustomed me.
There goes the warning bugle. If I am not safely tucked up in my little bed at taps, the sergeant will say "Tut! Tut!" So good night.
DICK.
MRS. GODWIN TO HER SON RICHARD, IN A LETTER
DATED SEPTEMBER 14, 1916
Your telegram, my dear, dear Dick, I have just replied to, and will now add such facts as I know concerning Vera's going to Plattsburg. What I can tell you comes through her sister Frances, with whom I have always been more intimate than Vera, even when you two were engaged. And Frances has come several times to the house, now that you are gone. I asked her to.
If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy, think what it was to Vera's. I don't know anyone prouder than she. And to publish the fact that you two had changed your minds--! She wanted to go away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she didn't feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly, who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg. Dolly's husband is now on the border, and Dolly could stand the separation no longer. She was going to Texas, and one of the cousins must come to Plattsburg and take charge of her house. The children wouldn't be a burden, because there was the very capable nurse who had taken care of them since they were born. And old Colonel Marsh wouldn't be a bother, having a certain routine which got him through his days very well. Of course it would be very dull with all the officers away from the post, and those at the instruction camp constantly busy. But one of the sisters must come and relieve her, or Dolly would go mad. She is all bound up in that husband of hers.
It was plain that she expected Frances to come, being so domestic, and so old-fashioned-womanly. But Vera, you know, in spite of her suffragism and her feminism has always been kept by her father from having anything to do, and so she had nothing to occupy herself with just when she needed occupation most. So she declared that she must go, and of course Frances let her. "But you know," said Frances to me, looking up from her sewing with a little twinkle, "I know Vera will be in hot water with the old Colonel from the first, she is so out of sympathy with war, and the military life, and all it has (or hasn't) to offer women." That's her sex independence, you see.
Vera can't know that you're there. She went just before you so suddenly made up your mind to go, and Frances hasn't written her of your going. I told her I shouldn't tell you, and begged her not to write Vera. And unless Vera recognizes you, which isn't likely, she will know nothing of your whereabouts.
It is odd that David Farnham is in your squad, and amusing that I should have seen his mother only yesterday. She never was so proud of anything in her life as of the fact that he is at Plattsburg. So she has become a perfect nuisance to her friends, talking of him so. I met her at a Bridge, and she was crazy to see me, David having written her that you two are together. So she got herself put at my table, and our two partners were furious, because the game dwindled away to nothing, she talking of David all the time. You would have thought that he was the whole army and navy of these United States. I was at first quite frightened that she would ask me your opinion of his fitness. But not at all; that was quite settled in her mind. She talked about his deciding to go, and how he made her see that it was the best thing for him and for the country--and there is a story to that, because it was her husband that insisted on her letting David go, when she would have kept him. And she talked of his equipment, how horrid it was that he couldn't dress like the officers, especially his legs, they are so handsome; but he wasn't allowed to wear puttees or leather leggings, but must wear those canvas things. And she gave him everything new; she even mentioned those French silk pajamas that so amuse you. And then she was indignant that he was not at once made a lieutenant, or something. And the men in his tent, except you, Dick, are of no social standing whatever. Of course she hadn't heard of his being called Lucy. She was so satisfied that I wanted to tell her. Do write me more of him.
Lovingly
MOTHER.
PRIVATE GODWIN'S DAILY LETTER
Before morning drill, Friday, Sep. 15, 1916.
DEAR MOTHER:--
Our good Lucy is a different lad from the one that landed here a week ago. Did I tell you that he has come to the heroic resolution to clean his own gun? I suppose the strongest factor in that is his detestation of Randall. It's quite common here for fellows to get the regulars to clean their guns, and there's more to be said for that than for many other indulgences: at least it's better for the rifles. The regulars drive a good little trade of this kind, and David has twice sent out his piece to be laundered, as it were. But I know that he perceived that the sentiment of the squad is against it, and I think he's sensitive enough to understand the reasons. We're all here to learn to be soldiers, and taking care of his gun is a pretty important part of a soldier's job. And then we're an economical crowd. David and I are the only ones in the squad that didn't have to pinch a little in order to get here; even Corder spoke recently of the expense as something unwelcome. So it's really rather bad form to pay for outside service. Yet for all that, David couldn't quite bring himself to do the dirty work.
So when a regular came to us yesterday, before inspection, and asked for guns to clean, David began to get his gun out of the rack. He looked a little uneasily at Knudsen, but the Swede wouldn't see it; he kept squinting through his own piece. The regular, to make matters sure, said, "Mr. Randall told me you'd give me your gun. I always clean his." With the funniest little set of his jaw, as if he didn't quite know how to do it, David reached for the cleaning rod. "Well," he said, "Mr. Randall is mistaken. I clean my gun myself." Then he sat down beside Knudsen, as if sure that the other would teach him--in which he was right. His dirty hands at the end were a sad sight to him, and yet I think he was proud of them too.
This morning Randall, who hasn't learned (and I question if he ever will) how unwelcome he is in our tent, came in to brag a little--and of what! There stands to the south of us a big hotel whose bulk is visible from the camp, a strong temptation to all our luxurious budding Napoleons. Randall was there last night, and came in to tell us what he had to eat. Particularly he enjoyed, he said, the fresh asparagus tips. Pickle's envy overcame his dislike, and he had nothing to say. But David's eye gleamed. "Fresh asparagus tips?" he asked. "Scarcely that." "Indeed?" demanded Randall. "I know asparagus when I eat it." "But not fresh asparagus," countered David. "It's not to be had in September. Canned tips, Randall, that's all." And Pickle, in his relief, cackled aloud.
I have of late told you so little of our officers that I must say something about them here, of officers as a class, and ours in particular. We are at the stage of theoretical conferences--after the regimental meeting each night on the drill-field is a company conference at each company tent, where the non-coms are expected to go, and where all others are invited. Consequently the captain or lieutenant has forty men there each night, crowded close around the table and packed at the open side of the tent. We are learning the theory of field skirmish work, with a glance at the method of advancing by road into an enemy's country.
And I must say that our officers have at their tongues' ends the whole of the principle that is embodied in that strange little book, the drill regulations. As soon as you have got beyond the mere parade-ground work (and that is all the civilian ever sees) the book brings you to a region where nothing else is considered than the one thing, attack, attack, attack. There is something very grim and inexorable in this primer of war, this A B C of the principles of destruction. And if the innocent little pocket manual contains a codification, so condensed as to be amazing, of the ways to slay your enemy, the officers are ready with every possible amplification of its dry paragraphs. Get forward, always get forward, is their intention. Make your fire effective, make it destructive, make it overwhelming. With word, with blackboard plan and section, with theory, with practical illustration, each night they lay before us some new field of this really awful knowledge. We study it eagerly. Two years ago I should have been horrified at these doctrines that they preach. Today I regard knowledge of them, by a sufficient number of able-bodied men, as the great need of the country.
So much, dear mother, of things which to speak of in detail would only pain your kind heart. As to the men that teach us, I can say that they improve upon acquaintance. Each of them, the captain and lieutenant, has his own way of teaching. In the lieutenant a coolness of statement that seems to imply a calm unshakableness, as of one who has measured all risks and sees that they amount to nothing. In the captain equal clearness but more fire. Both see that the only safety is in attack. They answer our questions quite differently, the lieutenant with a crisp completeness that leaves nothing to inquire but much to ponder on, the captain with an illuminating phrase that humanizes everything and brings instant understanding. Their men will go wherever they send them in a fight, for the lieutenant because they know he must be right, for the captain because they feel it.
We never, I think, can know the lieutenant very well, because of that quality which I saw in him at his first appearance before us, an aloofness that taunts us into the determination to please him. The captain I am sure we know already, a worker, a driver, but one who shows us that he understands our mistakes by the very keenness of his irony. "I have found you men to place the hip anywhere between the armpit and the knee. So I will place it for you at the watch pocket. That is your official hip, gentlemen." "Yes, skirmishers in Europe are now wearing steel helmets. But if you men don't better learn to keep under cover you won't need steel helmets, you'll need battleships." "You can't take too many precautions in the use of your guns. In this game with me out in front, I'm an advocate of safety first."
The men like him, but more than that, they respect him. You know, mother, that I can tell something at first hand about learning one's job. But these officers put the average civilian to shame. I doubt if there is stronger professional feeling, or a higher standard of professional achievement, anywhere in the world. If all the other officers are like our two, West Pointers are a formidable body of men.
DICK.
EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF VERA WADSWORTH
TO HER SISTER FRANCES
Sep. 6, 1916.
DEAR FRANCES:--
You can't imagine what a relief it is to be where there are no men. That may seem to you a curious statement, for here there are practically no women at all, and nothing but men in the landscape from morning till night. But there are no men buzzing about. It was disgusting to me that no sooner was my engagement to Dick broken than the rushing recommenced. I am so glad to be where no one pays me any attention at all. The place will be flooded in a few days with a thousand new rookies, but they will be nothing else to me than trees or bushes, and I can still have peace.
There are ladies here whom I have met, and shall meet again. Only I feel no interest in them just now, except that the two I am likeliest to see most of are such as always rouse my pity, overburdened with the cares of children and a social position on a small salary. And the money of one of them has just stopped coming in because her husband, at the border, allowed an emergency purchase which the auditing department at Washington will not pass. You know that in such a case the officer's pay stops until the deficiency is made up or the matter is explained. No one questions his honesty, but his wife and children suffer. And a man will ask a woman to take that risk with him!
The Colonel is the nicest old gentleman, very courteous. There is no doubt that army officers have delightful manners; he begs my pardon every time he lights his pipe. Cannot afford cigars, of course. And threadbare, but very neat. But what is the use of courtesy and self-denial if you believe in war, make war your business?
He and I have had it out already. Neither of us made the slightest impression on the other. His argument is the old one: be prepared, and people will let you alone. He cannot be made to see that if a man has a gun, or a nation has an army, the temptation to use it will some day become too strong.
I haven't given him my opinion of the army as a profession
for women. He always ends our discussion with a charming compliment. But I am aching to point out to him the condition of the house we live in, where the new has all come off of Dolly's wedding presents, the chair covers are wearing out, holes are coming in the napkins, and there is no money for replacements. How Dolly could pay for her trip to the border, or keep herself there, I can't think. Suppose the children are sick!
Oh, my dear, I am so weary of genteel poverty! Why couldn't I have married Dick? He worked so hard, and got himself such a fine position, that we should have been so comfortable! And then we had to conclude that we weren't made for each other. I do so regret it, and yet there was nothing else possible. Perhaps I'm not made for marriage after all.
* * * * *
September 12th.
The town, as I told you, is flooded with recruits, of the amateur variety. But our post is a little oasis all by itself, and except that they come and drill on the parade ground, they do not come near us. Did I tell you that out in front of the house, merely across a driveway, is this great field where the training companies manoeuvre morning and afternoon, and where they occasionally have regimental or battalion drill? Luckily our small piazza is all grown over with vines, so that I can sit outside for the air and yet not myself be seen. The old Colonel watches it all with the keenest interest, tells me what they do and what they fail to do, and I am even learning the meaning of a few military terms. He approves of the way in which the new men learn, and is very proud of what they are achieving. But it has got so with me that I pay no more attention to the drilling men than to automobiles going by. And when their hours are over the place is almost as deserted as before.
* * * * *
Sept. 13.
I am rather annoyed by the fact that now that the training camp is settling into its routine, its officers--the unmarried ones--find time to come calling on the Colonel. Of course the dear old man is delighted to see them, and doesn't tell me that he has helped to spread the report that an eligible young woman is staying with him. I wish he hadn't. For I have found out that military men are twice as bad as civilians. They are aggressive by nature, or they wouldn't have chosen the profession; they are aggressive by education; three minutes after they are introduced they begin a flirtation. There is a lieutenant Pendleton here for whom I am sure I am the twenty-seventh, so skilful is he in his operations. I have known him two days, and I expect him to propose tomorrow. There are three others who are only a day, or at most two days, behind. You know them, the dashing, fascinating kind.
Another officer, Lt. Pendleton's captain, named Kirby, I cannot quite make out. He doesn't make love; he discusses tactics with the colonel. Yet he comes quite regularly, and keeps me in sight. He seems grimmer, more tenacious than the others; I'm glad he gives his time to the Colonel rather than to me. His voice has a curious quality, a most unmilitary gentleness. Pendleton, when he gets you in a corner, purrs to you alone; yet you feel that he has claws. His voice rings on the parade ground; I'm sure of it. I can't make out what Captain Kirby's would sound like. There is a deceptive sympathy to it, deceptive because I feel in him much purpose. When an army officer can't flirt he either likes his profession too little or he likes it too much.
* * * * *
Sep. 14.
This morning, on our little porch, I was sitting sewing behind the vines when Captain Kirby came marching his company onto the parade ground before the house. And then I learned what his voice was like, my dear. Not gentle at all; very deep, very strong, curiously resonant, as if he were shouting through a trumpet. And how do you suppose he treated his men, so many of whom are gentlemen, or older than he, or earning bigger salaries. Like schoolboys! I first saw him when he was standing out in front of them, holding in his hand, swinging by the strap, a rifle that he must have taken from one of them. Said he: "When you're at route step, I want you not to carry your guns like suit-cases. You aren't a gang of porters. If I had the money I'd tip you all; but cut out this red-cap stuff. And don't carry it
so." He put it across his shoulders, pointing right and left. "You'll put out the eye of the man on your right, and bash the ear of the man on your left. Now remember, Nature is a great provider. She has made shoulders specially for the carrying of rifles. Carry your rifle on one shoulder or the other, or hang them by the straps from one shoulder or the other. And by no other way." As if they had to obey him in every little thing!
Then he worked them! Nothing satisfied him. At each mistake, a blast of sarcasm. He spoke of the "accordion-pleated line." He gave a fling at a lost corporal: "As soon as we recover our derelict flanking squad, now about a hundred yards ahead." The men came slinking back. He withered one individual. "That belt is on exactly right. Except that it's upside down and inside out, it's exactly right." At whatever distance he went, I could hear every word. And whenever the company came close, I could hear the men in the ranks, murmur, murmur, murmur. You can't treat such men so. Of course they're disgusted with him.
* * * * *
Sep. 15.
Such a humiliation today! And such a discovery! I suppose you didn't tell me that Dick was here because you thought I'd prefer not to know it. We're perfectly aware of each other's neighborhood now. This is the way of it.
This afternoon, being tired of the continual drilling on the parade ground, I slipped away before it could begin, and leaving the Colonel at his nap, went walking out a gravel road that I've for some time wished to explore. It took me along a rather desolate tract of scrub land, with nothing ahead but the distant Adirondacks; so at last, seeing a little hill to the left, I thought I'd try if I could see the lake from it, and perhaps sit there awhile in quiet. I struck out across this piece of very desolate country, with little bushes growing but no grass, not good for pasture nor for anything but one purpose which I didn't then suspect. Soon I found myself walking along a ditch which kept cutting me off from the hill, a ditch in the driest of sandy land and as deep as my chin, all shored up with cut poles, or sometimes with plank, or with bundles of twigs, or with willow basket work. And then I saw it was a trench!
The Plattsburgers must have made it. It ran all about, experimentally. It had here a shelter of sandbags, there a dugout, there a kitchen. It was made in different ways to show how to use material, I suppose. Really it was very clever. And then when I came too near it at one place, to study it, the rotten wood gave way with me, and so as not to have to fall I was forced to jump, right down into it. And there I was! When I tried to get up at the half-broken place, I was overwhelmed by a shower of sand. Everywhere else the walls were too high for me to climb out. So I took to walking along it, and it twisted all around, with passages like a maze, but nowhere a place to climb. At one corner I met a horrible great snake, helpless down there too. But it went one way and I went the other, till I came to a little niche with a cover overhead, and a loophole looking along the waste of scrub. Outside a little sign said, "Machine-gun emplacement." And there I stood looking out for a sign of help.
Then I heard Captain Kirby's voice, no one could mistake it, and I was relieved till I understood what he was saying. "Less noise, men! You couldn't creep up on a dead tree that way. It would hear you coming." The horrible thing had all his hundred and fifty men there, and in a moment I began to see them, little glimpses of olive-drab pushing through the bushes. I heard his voice again: "By squads from the right!" then corporals' voices, then the rushing of men, then more corporals and more rushing. All the time, from nowhere that I could see, came a continual clicking--the absurd creatures were pretending to fire on the trench where I was standing. I began to get more glimpses of men running stooped and throwing themselves flat, heard the captain's war-horn, and a little further away the lieutenant's voice like a bugle.
For this sort of playing soldier I suppose it was really pretty well done. I knew they were all the time coming nearer, but I couldn't get anything but glimpses of them. And after a while I knew they were behind a line of bushes some fifty yards away, where I heard their continuous clicking; but they showed only an occasional hat. Then I heard the captain's voice, "Front rank, simulate fix bayonets!" and in a moment, full of sarcasm: "Don't draw that bayonet! I said
simulate. Don't you understand the English language?" The clicking kept up at only half rate, and I saw a few rifle muzzles; then the rear rank pretended the same; then I heard the order, "Prepare to charge!" And it was all dead silence.
There was nothing that I could do but peep through my loophole, and think how silly it all was. I heard a roar from the captain, an outburst of yells, the crash of the bushes, and--there was the captain coming like a bull, and a long rank of men rising behind him and rolling on toward me in a wave. Oh, Frances dear, there is something awful about brute force! I felt the ground shake, the noise of the shouting seemed to burst my ears, the faces in front of me were like those of angry demons. I'm ashamed that their toy soldiering was so real to them that it [the word
frightened evidently crossed out] was too much for me, and I turned away and put my hands to my ears.
Then it was all over. I heard them crying "Halt!" and walked out into the open trench, to see a line of men laughing and panting just above me. Only a few saw me at first; the rest were saying "That was some charge!" and similar self-praise. I said, "Will you please help me out?" The men nearest me were very respectful. One leaped down beside me, laid down his gun, and held his hands for me to step in, a blond man, a real soldier, with flashing blue eyes. Half a dozen hands were held for me above, and the captain came pushing in to help, with such an anxious face! But I heard someone say, "Give me your hand, Vera!" and there was Dick! He and the blond man had me out in a moment, and Dick took me through the line and got me quickly away toward the road I had left. I sent him back, but he would not leave me till he was sure I was all right. He was very handsome, and grave, and respectful. And oh! wasn't it all stupid? I am disgusted with the whole Tenth Training Regiment, but more disgusted with myself. _