From Vera Wadsworth to Her Sister Frances

Dick.

Plattsburg Post, Sept. 23, 1916.

Dear Frances:—

I am so glad you are coming, but wish you were coming by train instead of with the Chapmans in their car. For I can’t get you here a minute too soon, nor have you too much to myself. The Chapmans say they want to see a hike camp, and how can I excuse myself from going too?

Everything has gone wrong, quite wrong. I thought I could keep the lieutenant off, but I did not realize what a soldier is. Last night he had to have his answer, and I was telling him as gently as I could, when the stupid servant opened the front door to the captain and let him make his own way into the parlor, where he stood before I had heard a sound. If he didn’t see what was going on, he was blind.

And then I lost my head over the sudden notion that here was my chance to get rid of him too. For the man frightens me, Frances; I never met one who was so steady and so determined and so strong. Maybe I blundered; I don’t know. But I can’t have him getting to know me any better; I want never to see him again. So I said (I know I stiffened horribly as I said it, the thing was so uncalled for and so un-nice) “The lieutenant and I were just discussing army life, captain,and how little it has for a woman. For a man ought to be able to offer the best that there is.” It hurt him; it hurt his opinion of me. He went away almost without a word. I never was so ashamed; never before have I felt like a butcher. But if I meant it why shouldn’t I say it? Let him hate me, if only he lets me alone.

They march out Monday, and as I hear the drums go by on the main road I shall be glad. But I do so want to see you. Hurry the Chapmans all you can.

Longingly,

Vera.

From David Ridgway Farnham, 3d, To HisFather

Plattsburg, Sunday the 24th.

Dear Father:—

I am writing just a few lines to say that we are off tomorrow on the hike, in light marching order, and with very little bagage. I shall not even take my pajjamas. But I’d rather you wouldn’t tell mother this; it would upset her. Will you tell her that I’m really too busy to write, but that I’m in very fine condition, and she’s not to worry about me? And she said in her last letter something about taking a trip up here so as to be near us on the hike if anything should happen to me. This is really what I’m writing you about. Please stop her, father. I’d really rather she wouldn’t even be here when we break camp to take me home in the car. For I’d like to go home with the Boston bunch in the train.

I think in my earlier letters I wasn’t fair to some of the fellows in our squad. Perhaps I didn’t know how to get at them at first. Even now I don’t suppose mother would see anything in them; yet I’m sure that if I could introduce you to them you’d understand why I like them.

Just keep mother from worrying about me on the hike. I shall be all right. Affectionatly,

David.

From Private Richard Godwin to His Mother

Plattsburg, Sunday the 24th.

Dear Mother:—

This morning it has turned chilly, without sun, and with clouds threatening more rain. As before, I did some washing before breakfast, and now have on the line considerable of my laundry, which I am anxiously feeling of from time to time. If it does not dry, then I shall have to buy some new things for tomorrow.

There being no duties today, men are neglecting church and getting ready for the hike. We must turn in our mattress covers, pillow slips, barrack bags, and for those who do not wish to buy, the overcoats. The captain has sent out word that overcoats may be bought, and I have secured mine by the payment of $9.96; for those who have not the change, the price is $10. Down the street from the store-tent extends a line of men with their surplus in their arms, while I take advantage of their necessarily slow progress to write this to you. One of my pillow-slips I shall retain by the sacrifice of seven cents; it shall serve as a bag to keep my extra things together on the march.

Men are making sure of their homeward accommodations. When I went to the D. & H.tent it was so full of waiting men that I came away, and must go again. So much for neglecting a duty till the last.

Word has just gone down the street that we must pack this morning for the hike, and give our bags in at the Y. M. C. A. for storage. So we shall be on a hike basis from now on, and tonight I shall sleep in my clothes, with my blankets and poncho made up into a sleeping bag. It is wonderful what the Y. M. C. A. does for us, giving to all who come every kind of information, cashing our checks, supplying pen and ink and paper to the epistolary, and giving minor helps constantly. It is to them a very burdensome expense, which they have no fund to meet. I shall leave something behind to show my appreciation.

For the coming ten days I have gone into woollens for the first time in years, on account of the expected contact with mother earth. I shall carry three pair of stockings, a change of underwear, an extra shirt and extra trousers and shoes, and a light sweater to supplement my service one, with several small conveniences. We shall live rough and rather dirty, and the hike will finish much of the outfit.

—It is evening, and I am all ready. The day has been given to sorting and packing, storing my suit-case, getting my berth home, and again sorting, and again packing. For when we tried to stuff into the squad-bag the eight bundles thatwe made of our extra belongings, it happened as we might have expected, and we had to discard half of our dunnage. Here is my final equipment.

In my belt, thirty blank cartridges, and in the extra pockets my flashlight, some surgeon’s plaster, and some of David’s silk patches.

In my pocket the foot-powder which it is my duty to carry as sub-squad-leader. (The other men carry the intrenching tools and the wire-cutter. The corporal carries nothing but the weight of his responsibilities.)

In my pack the usual shelter-half, poncho, blanket, tent-pins, rope, meat-can, knife and fork and spoon, with bayonet. In addition I stuff in an o. d. shirt (it dried today!) a towel, soap, tooth-brush, shaving things etc., a pair of socks, and my map.

In the pillow-case in the squad-bag, shoes, trousers, change of underwear and socks, towel, writing materials, sewing things.

In the squad-roll the blankets and sweaters.

Cool weather is certain, and having heard that the captain may send back for our coats, we who have bought ours have deposited them at the store-tent for this purpose.

My map I have at last finished with much clumsy care; dozens of us have spent hours today at the Y. M. C. A., absorbed in this work, which with the accurate inking of the route and crossroads, has been rather minute. The numberingof many crossroads is very significant of the skirmishes that await us.

The mail follows us; the address is unchanged.

Tonight the Y. M. C. A. is full of men sending last letters home. Several have dropped out of the company, on account of feet or knees or digestion, or else from natural business reasons. The company is sad to learn that we start without Loretta, business calling him home for a few days. But we shall be glad to see him when he comes.

Today I ventured something, the results of which, if there are any, I suppose I shall never know. Our two officers have been very much, on my mind. Pendleton has been his usual self emphasized, very much on his job of receiving the equipment, extra clear and precise, more subtle and more distant in his little ironical smile. The captain, also busy with the equipment work, was surprisingly gentle, patient with all our many blunders, very quiet spoken, and somehow closer to us. But while he attended to us so carefully, somehow I felt that he was thinking of something else.

Now last night Pendleton, I thank God, could not have seen me at the portieres, nor could Vera. But the captain might have, for he faced my way; surely he must have seen the curtains open. If he recognized me, I know he must have thought of it today when, the last of the men gone, and his tallies all made up, he stood up from the table that had been placed in front of his tent, justas I came along by. We were entirely apart from the rest; so I, having thought a good deal on how far I could venture, took my chance to speak.

I had to be quick, or he would have stopped me. Said I: “Miss Wadsworth doesn’t live down to her theories, captain. Certainly she didn’t do it in my case.”

Then, saluting, I was off. By the gleam that had sprung to his eyes I knew that he understood me, even though he said nothing. For of course he has been wondering whether after all I have a chance with Vera, and has been weighing his earnings against mine.

Dreary business, this love making. Lucky I’m out of it.

Dick.

Vera Wadsworth to Her Sister Frances

Plattsburg, Monday the 25th.

Dear Frances:—

In spite of my trying to stop it, it has happened.

He came walking in yesterday evening, when I was all by myself in the parlor. I have told you, you remember, that one of his qualities is a strange gentleness. He told me, in that manner of his, that he would take only a minute of my time, and while I sat perfectly tongue-tied before him, as if I were a schoolgirl, this is what he said, without any passionate declaration, or any self-assertion.

“I came last night, Miss Wadsworth, to tell you that I loved you. You saw it and stopped me. There seemed no answer to you then, but I have found one now, and I think you ought to let me say it.

“You said that a man ought to be able to offer to a woman the best that there is. I came to offer it. Our army women serve their country, not as we men do, yet they do serve the flag, and unselfishly. There is really nothing better that can be done by man or woman.

“There is only one other thing that seems to me worth while. It makes the cottage the equal of the palace. I brought it—honest love. No true woman can ask more.”

Then he went away. I could not stop him; could not try to explain. How could I say anything against those awful words? Besides, he spoke with such a thrill as if he were showing me his religion. A dreadful simplicity of belief! I know all his words by heart. All night long I have been saying them over and over; and when this morning I heard the drums, it was as if they said them too.

Do come quickly to your

Vera.

Private Godwin’s First Hike Letter

West Beekmantown, N. Y.Monday the 25th, 3 P. M.

West Beekmantown, N. Y.

Monday the 25th, 3 P. M.

Dear Mother:—

How glad I was, at the end of today’s hike, to march into the big field (where the cook tents already stood with smoking fires before them) to have the two halves of the company line up facing each other, and to hear the captain command, “Form for shelter tents!”

The file-closers scurried round and got into the vacant places. Every man gave an anticipatory hitch at the pack that had gradually grown so heavy; and the front rank men, if they thought the captain was not looking, loosened their bayonets in their sheaths.

“Take interval, to the right and left!” We rear rank men stepped four paces backward.

“Harch!” Both ranks faced away from the cook tents, and the lieutenant began to count, “One—two—three—four—One—two—three—four!” and at everyOnea pair of men, front and rear rank bunkies, stepped off together, till the whole company was marching by pairs, at intervals of four paces, and the captain thundered orders to the guides to march straight.

“Halt!” And halting, we faced inward to what was to be the company street. I unclasped my belt.

“Pitch shelter tents!” Out came the bayonets of the front rank men, and were thrust into the ground at the right heel. Then down with the rifles, off with the packs, and we on our knees were hastily opening them and dragging out the shelter-halves, the pins, and the ropes. Bann and I laid the long sides of our halves together, lapping the upper one away from the wind, and buttoned them along (how glad I was that we practised this yesterday, found where a loop was missing and some button-holes torn, and made everything good!) The ropes were tied in the loops, Bann’s rifle was stood beside his bayonet, the muzzle beneath the front loop; we aligned our sloping ridgepole at right angles to the street, drove in our front and rear pins and tied the ropes, and then I, creeping into the tent with my bayonet in its sheath, set it upright under the end of the ridge. Then quickly we pegged down the sides and back, stretching them well out, laid back the front flaps of our kennel, set our equipment in the double doorway, passed the inspection of the lieutenant, and felt proud. Then mess, with its stew and its vegetables, its bread and butter, and even with milk, which we are warned we may never see again. Since when we have been retrospecting, doctoring, washing at a poor apology for a brook, and making ourselves comfortable in anticipation of Retreat and of the night.

Remarkable things, these shelter tents, just broad enough at the front for the shoulders oftwo men, and at the back for their feet, with a further recess for the equipment. Along the edges can be stowed the toilet articles and such things as need to be handy, with the spare rifle. After removing all boulders from the floor, and digging hollows for our hips, we have carpeted with straw, bought of a thrifty farmer who hauled it here and sold for twenty-five cents per poncho- or blanket-load. We now know a little better the meaning of the term buzzard. On the thick layer we have made our beds, some of the fellows’ together, but Bann’s and mine separately, for I have warned him that I am a restless sleeper. On my tummy on my sleeping bag I am writing to you now.

We have already discovered that since we must have our rifles for Retreat it is wise to have poles for our tents, and so they have mysteriously appeared from the neighboring woods. They will travel in the blanket rolls from camp to camp. Should I come again to Plattsburg I shall get a broom-stick for the hike, provided with conveniences for hanging socks, tooth-brush, and candle-socket. Fellows are tying candles to their poles with string, convenient enough till the string burns and the candle tumbles down into the straw.

I can imagine difficulty in pitching tents under other circumstances than are provided by this ideal afternoon. In the rain we shan’t care to have the tents face the wind, nor shall we enjoy setting up tents in a gale, when we shall also hopefor better holding ground for the short tent-pins than we find here in this gravel. As it is, we have piled stones on the pins today. Some fellows have ditched their tents, but Bann and I don’t see the need of that except with more of a threat of rain than is given by this cloudless sky.

Now if you can imagine in a field, sloping gently to the west, some four hundred and fifty or more of these pup-tents, with a thousand men or less swarming around and in them, some coming back from a bath in the brook, some cleaning guns, some making fireplaces for an evening fire, some napping, some writing; if you can hear much talk and laughter, the chopping of axes at the cook tents, the call “Corporals, come and get your mail for your squads!” then you can understand what a lively, busy place this is. Just across the fence is a camp of cavalry; there is a squadron in our field also. Running across the heads of the streets are the big cook tents; close by are the tents of the Y. M. C. A. and the Exchange and the photographer; elsewhere are the officer’s big conical tents, each with the luxury of a stove; and in still another spot is the doctor’s tent, not far from the shelter-tents of the band. Men are idling everywhere, and working everywhere also. The long line of trucks is drawn up not far from the field entrance, and the drivers are tinkering them for tomorrow.

But outside the sacred enclosure of the camp, yet as near as they can squeeze, are the buzzards,each with his little outfit for following the hike. A scrawny horse, a little tent, a board on two barrels, a big sign—these with indigestibles constitute their outfits. In the camp wander men with baskets, or boys with boxes, selling fruit, tobacco, and chocolate. There are the farmer folk, too, gawking about at the show.

—And now, sitting on the ground near the bright lamp of the telegraph table outside the Y. M. C. A. tent, while a dozen others crouch in the radius of its rays, I am writing these last words. Night has fallen. Inside the tent men are almost solidly crowded together on the floor as they sit to write letters, while yet men in a steady stream step over and among them, to get at the table stamps, pen and ink, and paper.

The day of course has been crowded pretty full. This morning at Plattsburg the confusion in the company street was great. As we had to make up our blanket rolls before breakfast we had to put our sweaters in and shiver in our shirts. Packs were made up, tents were policed, cots and mattresses handed in, and then we were off, as the advance guard of an army camped at the post. But today’s problem, though explained by map to us at conference this afternoon, did not affect H company. Our battalion was only the support; the first battalion carried on the necessary skirmish that cleared the road of the cavalry, our opponents. While they were chasing them far from the line of march, we plodded safelyalong the macadam, and pitched tents before the others.

Concerning the hike, these facts. My feet are unblistered, though at one rest, being panic-stricken, I hastily filled stockings and shoes with foot-powder. At another time I found the pace telling on me, and was sadly thinking that I was still too soft, when I heard grumbling all about me. The step had been quickened, and all were feeling it. At the grumbling Corder turned to me a face of relief. “Thank Heaven!” he said piously. “I thought I was growing old.” Our route was through the edge of Plattsburg, along some miles of highway, and then by gravel roads to this camp near Ryan’s Grove, which is a fine sugar bush on the hillside below us. After only eight miles of road, there were very few of us that were not glad to get here.

Our system of serving food is curious. Each man has knife, fork, spoon, canteen cup, and meat can. Falling into line at the bugle call (in no order, every man for himself) the knife, fork and spoon are stuck into a legging, and perhaps, until we reach the serving places, the canteen cup is also carried there, by the handle. The meat-can is an oval sauce-pan with a shallow top, over which shuts down its folding handle. Opening this, one carries in one hand the can and cover, in the other the cup, and filing past the cooks, who stand in line, one receives from each some part of the ration. Then we retire to the mostconvenient spot to eat, if we are hungry come for a second helping, and if we are lucky, get it.

Of the dish-washing, since I know your passion for cleanliness and absolute sanitation, I spare you the details, except this significant one. The cooks having retired for their own meal, I saw one fellow wash his meat-can in the abandoned coffee barrel, mistaking its fine rich contents for the dishwater.

You should have seen our field at the coming of the dusk: the dying sunset, the silhouetting of the upper tents against the sky, the coming out of the many fires, and in the light of their flames, reflected in the drifting smoke, the lively picturesqueness of the camp. This is all accentuated by the dark. Such coming and going, such talking and greeting, such stumbling in the shadows and peering against the fires—well, I never could have imagined it.

I must turn in, though with regret at not being able to buy myself a knitted cap for the night, against this sharp cold. The felt hat will suffer by such use, and besides will serve badly. Love from

Dick.

Postscript.A rumor is running through the camp (we are specially warned not to believe rumors, but this one is borne out by the behavior of the officers) that someone in the regiment has a clip of ball cartridges, “swiped” from the range.The officers went down the line at Retreat, and besides inspecting the guns, made every man turn out all the pockets of his cartridge belt. Nothing found.

Private Richard Godwin to His mother

West Beekmantown. Tues, Sept. 26.

(The first section of the letter is a mere scrawl.)

Dear Mother:—

It is early dawn on Tuesday, and I have slept better, on “my pallet of straw,” than many a time in my bed at home. The cooks have for some time been stirring, as I have known by the sound of their axes, the crackling of their fires, the glow reflected on their tents, and their occasional voices. In the cavalry camp the horses stamp, I hear a distant train and a dog’s bark, and nearer at hand, from among the pup-tents, come little morning coughs. My writing is practically invisible to me on the paper. I can just see that I trace a line.

There are thistles in this straw!

Last night I saw a lost soul. Rousing, as I often do, at one o’clock, I stood at the door of the tent, admiring Orion in the east and the constellations overhead. I heard a little murmur of complaint, and saw a man come stumbling down the street, his bare feet softly thudding on the stones, and drawing from him this sad sound as he came shivering along in pajamas. He was stooping at each tent and peering in to discover his lost place. So he passed out of my sight,but when I once more turned to admire Orion I saw the same unhappy phantom wandering along the next company street, still stumbling, still shivering, still silently searching for his couch. As for me, I turned in again and slept.

(Later, and more legible.)

We have broken camp, all the tents being struck; and next we have been given a lesson in military neatness. Each company has had to police its street, to fill all tent-ditches and fireplaces, and to pick up each bit of rubbish and scrap of paper. Our squad having had a meeting upon the subject, has agreed that immediately upon making up our packs we shall police our own ground, either bury the rubbish in the ditches or burn it in the fire, using if necessary a little of our hay, and pile the rest of the latter as quickly as possible, to get the work over with. This is in response to the captain’s latest, for finding a single scrap of paper as big as a postage stamp in the street, he turned out a whole squad to pick it up. Next time, he says, it will be a platoon. We know Kirby too well by this time to suppose he doesn’t mean what he says.

I am writing as I loll on a pile of hay, while my neighbors are vigorously resenting the demand of the farmer who sold us the hay last night, that we rise and relinquish it to him—in order that he may sell it again tonight. Much angry computation as to his profits per ton, and a warning that, as on account of our ignorance heraised the tariff on us yesterday, we should never again pay more than ten cents per tent.

(As we stand waiting in rank.)

Orders for today have been issued. The enemy cavalry and machine guns are at Sciota, some miles north of us. We are to go against them, with our battalion as advance guard, Company I in the lead, our company supporting them four hundred yards behind.

(Resting on the road.)

We have been marching at hot speed, having no one to set the pace for Kirby, now that at last we have passed I company. For a while we had to wait on them while they drove the enemy, hearing their firing, and at every halt sending out patrols. At last we drew near the firing line, which had been pretty hard at work, but which drew aside by the roadside (being either dead or out of ammunition) to let us go by, while we acclaimed them as having died heroically in our defense. Then came urgent work on our part, till now, as we halt, the platoon leader is telling us that we are to go forward over a wire fence, deploy behind a stone wall, and wait for the field battery to shell the enemy.

—And now we have crawled through the wire, and are comfortably watching the lieutenant of artillery while, with his instruments all fixed, he is getting the range of the enemy, these, you know, being the cavalry, who every day, I suppose, will precede us out of camp and try to make itlively for us during the morning. A voice asks, “Where are the cavalry?” and someone answers “Intrenched,” which is not so foolish as it sounds, they being equipped for the purpose, and being drilled to fight dismounted. But intrenching should not be necessary in a country provided, as this one is, with stone walls. Other companies are deploying on our left, and we wait before that most dangerous of all attempts, a direct frontal attack. The enemy, the captain has just explained, is a half mile away across a slight depression. At Bunker Hill our men waited till they could see the whites of the red-coats’ eyes. At Fredericksburg our attacking men were helpless at a hundred yards. But here as soon as we have crossed the wall we shall be exposed to a deadly fire, not only of rifles, but of machine guns. Of these the enemy have two on motor tricycles, and it is understood that the call of their sirens is a signal that they are in action.

(And again resting.)

We have the machine guns, mother dear. The cavalry got away, all but three or four of them. This was how it went.

When the field artillery had sufficiently pounded the enemy (and having but few rounds this did not last very long) we were given the order to advance. First we went over the wall,—and you must remember that every fence in this country, stone, snake, or otherwise, is decorated with barbed wire—and formed our line, lying flat, acouple of rods beyond it. Now we put in practice for the whole battalion the tactics we had studied by platoons, sending men forward from the right by squads in rushes, making a new line by degrees, always keeping a constant fire on the enemy—for we had a hundred rounds today, so that if we were decently accurate we should make him too nervous to be very dangerous in return. We went about fifty yards at a time, our sergeants and platoon leaders in the rear, behind them the captain and his orderlies and behind all the major and his aides. Certain officers with white bands on their arms, who ventured unconcernedly into the line of fire, I made out to be umpires judging this game of war. For I find, mother dear, that this is earnest for the officers as well as ourselves—we and the enemy have maps, we know the general conditions, and then each acts as in time of war, trying to get the better of the opponent. So that if an officer has properly trained his men, and if in addition he shows good judgment, then he can feel that he is advancing in his profession. The major, working for the first time today with a battalion under him (for last camp he was but a captain) was as keen at the work as if real bullets had been flying across the little valley. Meanwhile the umpires, studying the strategy of both sides, are themselves learning.

Well, we got forward rush by rush, firing as we lay waiting, getting ready at the word, and then following Bannister as he quartered forward tothe right or left to join the new line. As we neared the stone wall behind which the enemy was firing we could see his white hat-bands, when to my disgust along came an umpire and ruled out the rear rank. Wanting to be in at the death, I changed places with Corder, who was “all in,” and so I finished out the final charge, when the captain came through the line with a rush and we up and followed him yelling. The enemy very obligingly vacated the wall as we approached, and all we saw of the cavalry was their dust as they departed, except a squad whom the umpires called back.

One machine gun I did not see, nor have I heard how it was captured. But one was stalled a little distance behind the wall, and I followed the captain as he made for it. The two men on it were swearing wonderfully, being regulars; the captain snapped his pistol in the air as he ran, and I likewise fired my gun upwards, it being the rule of this campaign neither to fire nor to present the bayonet at close quarters. Seeing they could not get away, the men were actually ready to fight, and I think had we been rookies we might have had to scrap for it; but seeing an officer they saluted and sullenly submitted.

(In camp near Crossroads 75, south of Sciota, N. Y., Tuesday evening.)

I am sitting on a piece of canvas, being one among a dozen or more men outside the Y. M. C. A. tent, all writing. Men constantlycome between me and the light or step on my outlying portions; there is much cheerful talking and laughing, and all about is the usual bustle of the camp.

We arrived at camp late, as battle-scarred warriors, and found the peaceful first battalion already encamped. At once we pitched tents and then hastily fed; at home, after hours of such exertion, I should have had a half hour’s rest before eating. But the food was ready and hot; if I did not take it at once I could not get it at all; so my stomach took the risk, and I had my meal first and my rest afterward. Then a wash in oh! such a soft-bottomed sluggish brook, where many shaved, and others to my amazement cleaned their teeth. For that ceremony I keep my canteen water, which is served out to us at the head of the company street in proper dippers by orderlies; it is all I shall have, I foresee, both for drink and for absolutely necessary washing. We have better holding-ground for our tent-pins tonight, but the sky is cloudless and again we have not trenched. There are northern lights—a change in weather? The hay today cost but ten cents, and the adjutant assures us of that tariff in future.

Imagine the camp as yesterday, and me well. Love from

Dick.

Extract from the Letter of Erasmus Corder,Assistant-Professor of English, HighPrivate in Company H, 10th TrainingRegiment, to His Wife. Same Date

... Instead of yesterday’s steady marching, with the first battalion driving the enemy away for our convenience, duties were today reversed, and our battalion took the advance-guard work, ending in a very bloody skirmish, in which, I regret to report, one dear to you was slain. We marched—and it was marching!—at a good pace after the first few miles, having no one ahead to hold us back except when we had to duck into the roadside ditches to avoid machine-gun fire. Our advance guard had died gallantly and cheered (jeered?) us as we went forward to dislodge the enemy. The problem was explained to us: the enemy was 800 yards ahead, having command of a shallow valley, which we must cross. This we did by rushes, squads or platoons at a time, three companies abreast no sooner achieving a new line than they sent forward more feelers. In this action it was very interesting for a time to simulate real firing, shooting with blank cartridges at an enemy behind a stone wall.

And yet shooting from behind hard heaps of stone, or lying on rough ground, through grass and leaves that obscured the sights, all the time troubled by a heavy pack that burdened theshoulders, poked the hat over the eyes, and hampered the free action of the arms, began to wear on me. Try as I may, I cannot master the little sidewise shift of the pack which the captain showed us, and which Godwin says makes shooting prone “just as easy!” Looking at the other men, I often saw them flop on their faces to rest; they were working as hard as on the range. The pretense of firing, when our cartridges were gone, took away some of the excitement. Then at about the fifth dash, which the others took with some briskness but which I had to finish at a slow jog, I began to get pumped. When the first sergeant asked me how I was I told him that I was shot through both lungs. Nevertheless, I finished (though at a walk) the next to last charge, but our dash had been so exposed that, by the time I had thrown myself panting on some particularly jagged stones, an umpire came along and announced that all rear-rank men were to fall out, of course as being dead. Godwin was disgusted, and evidently seeing my envy in my face, swapped places with me. Never was anyone so willing to be killed. Quite at my leisure I watched the spirited advance of the thin line of o. d. men to storm the enemy’s position. And I was perfectly willing not to be killed twice.

Our little club of middle-aged men still holds its impromptu sessions, members comparing experiences and solicitously inquiring as to each other’s condition. So far as I can see we arekeeping up pretty well, except for the ability to make such awful repeated dashes as today’s work required. And even then a few minutes’ rest sets us on our feet again.

Pitching the tents, making camp, etc., is now routine work. The encampment is as picturesque as before. Tomorrow night we also spend here; whether or not we shall mercifully be permitted to leave the tents pitched, the morning will decide. But I am well, and blisterless, and refreshed, and tomorrow shall be ready to die again.

Lovingly,

Erasmus.

From Private Godwin to His Mother

Sciota, Wednesday the 27th.

Dear Mother:—

You need not worry about my sleeping warm. When I go to bed I take off my shoes and leggings, put on an extra pair of socks, and crawl into the bag which each afternoon I make up afresh by pinning the folded blankets together with the biggest safety pins you ever saw, and buttoning my poncho around them. Over me thus there is the poncho, and as many layers of blankets as I please, up to five. Besides I have two sweaters, if I need them. So I sleep snug.

This morning it is pleasant and windless, as I wait for the order to start.

An instance of the change of orders under which we labor. (As I recall the Civil War memoirs that I have read, it seems to me that conditions are much the same.) We were assembled in line at 5.25, reported, stacked arms, and were ordered (remember that we are to camp on this same ground tonight) “Strike tents and make packs. Make up blanket rolls and squad bags, and bring them to the head of the street.” Oh, the disgust! The orders were proper for the first battalion, which marches on to Altona today; but for us it seemed needless. But the promptest fell to work, took down their tents, and began to makeup the packs. Then the word came travelling down the street, “Leave tents standing!” Luckily Bann and I had not got to the work of striking the tent, and so we jubilated while some others cussed. But we went on with making up the rolls and bags. Then the order was transmitted, “Leave blankets and extra kits in tents!” Perhaps someone blundered in the first place, and we got the order intended for the first battalion. And I do not complain, for today we travel light, with many things not in our packs.

The call has come, “Squad leaders to the head of the street.” That means a talk preparatory to setting out. So I have put on my pack, so as to wait without worry. Having marched very dry yesterday, and a pebble which I hastily scooped up proving large and rough, I have provided myself (per one buzzard) with a package of chewing gum. Oh for the old-fashioned spruce, with no sweetness or artificial flavor!—The first battalion, having packed entirely, is assembling for the march. My map is buttoned in my shirt, for consultation at halts. The day is warm, with the wind from the west; but there are gathering clouds, and I am going to use the time which is left in digging with my bayonet a ditch around the tent.

(In West Sciota? At any rate, an inhabited crossroads.) I am lying on my back in the wet grass, while the captain explains that the sound at a little distance, as of a lot of carpenters nailingat the boarding of a new house, is our patrols firing at a party of cavalry that is opposing our advance.

We left our tents buttoned, and started out in gray weather. I was glad that I had, with bayonet and fingers, dug a shallow ditch along the upper side of our pup and across the front, when this light rain began. It is not bad, and so long as I have my pack between me and the ground I cannot get chilled. Again and again I have used it so, and have seen fellows at halts napping all around me. Truly the pack is a life saver.—“Fall in!”

(North of Sciota, on the road to Mooers, near crossroads 79, the weather now dry.) We are resting after a skirmish, and as my position is somewhat more comfortable, since I am lolling in a ditch instead of lying on my back, perhaps these jottings will be more legible than the last. The skirmish went thus.

We left our resting-place at crossroads 72, and followed the popping of our advance guard, I company, while at the same time we heard at a greater distance the heavy firing of the first battalion as it fought its way westward toward Altona, we ourselves going north. As we advanced beyond a corner, suddenly fire from the left broke out upon the column behind us. At once we were halted, and Captain Kirby, ranging down the line of the company, picked out our squad and sent us at the double over the fenceand into the field north of the road that we had passed, our enemy being in a thick wood to the south of it. Here we streamed along, poor Corder as usual soon being pumped and dropping behind, while eager David was only kept from outdistancing the rest by a sharp word from Knudsen. We scrambled through a wire fence, then in a pasture with scattered heavy cedars we assembled behind a tree to survey the ground, all of us pouring out our advice upon poor Bann—to go to the road, to go further west, to plunge into the woods and attack the enemy by ourselves. This last from David, who is keen at every fight. Someone urging to send a message back to the captain, Bann got out the brand-new despatch book and pencil which since the conference this morning had been sticking out of his pocket, but put them up again for lack of something definite to say. So he took us across the road and into the field behind the enemy’s wood, where it being evident that the foe had no reserves, Bann began once more to write.

Now we heard Kirby’s voice, who having led the company along the road, and finding himself plainly behind the enemy’s fire, was putting the men, in squad columns, into the wood to search them out. We climbed the wire fence and followed through the densest undergrowth, where poor Corder, stumbling behind and having to protect his glasses, often found himself quite out of sight of the man in front. But we were toolate. We heard shouts ahead, the firing ceased, and when we desperately broke through the last of the thicket and found ourselves in the open, there stood a line of men with white bands on their hats (the sign of the opposing forces) quietly regarding us. Rumor said that they were captured, and Squad 9, being first on the ground, was feeling proud of their work. Then the rumor ran that not only was the enemy not captured, but we were killed. Squad 9 was cursing, “not loud but deep,” when the captain came along and was passionately appealed to. “We got them,” he assured us. “They were firing away from us when we broke through the wood. A single picket on that flank, firing a single shot on seeing us, would have saved them. And besides, we have their horses. Sergeant Barker has just come in reporting that he has the bunch.” Satisfied, we marched out to our present resting-place.

The cavalry has just emerged from their unsuccessful ambush, with the two machine guns, and have started northward in a hurry, an umpire warning them, “You have only five minutes before we start after you.” The men around me are laughing and talking, well content, and I have just seen the major congratulating the captain on a brisk piece of work.

(In camp again, and settled for the night at our old tents, the weather having cleared.)

A cavalryman (by the way, there was pointed out to me today the fellow with the broken jaw,jouncing along with the rest, and looking neither thin nor pale) a cavalryman has just settled down to discuss the skirmish with us. “We got some beautiful shots at you fellows. In our first position we let the point of I company walk by, and then fired into them at about fifty yards. I company drove us, and then we settled in that little wood, with the machine guns. I company’s flanking patrol came right up to the edge of the woods without seeing us. We let them go by and then fired into you. Didn’t you duck into the ditches quick!” He is talking now of a cavalryman’s work. “Here you fellows are grumbling because you have a gun to clean. I wish I got off as easily. I have my gun and my equipment; it takes a lot of time, and today I had to clean and water two horses, another fellow’s and mine. The other man got hurt, one of the regulars. His horse fell on him.”

The major, at conference, told us that he and Captain Kirby had been expecting an attack at that point, as the lay of the land was right for it. They were surprised when the flanking patrol found nothing.

Our next work was quite different, and illustrates the fact that the man in the ranks can only tell what he sees, and often cannot understand that. On our fresh advance northward our company was the advance guard, I company falling to our rear. The first platoon marched ahead as the “point,” with communicating files,and we watched its operations for a while as we followed along.

The work of the “point,” my dear mother, when you are advancing to engage the enemy, is one of the most dangerous in warfare. When the Germans sent out their advance guards as they overran Belgium, they considered that the men in each point had been given their death warrants. The object of the point, as it proceeds along the road, is to hunt for the enemy and engage him. The men of the detail march at intervals of about twenty-five yards on alternate sides of the road, the corporal about halfway of the squad, and the rearmost, or “get-away man,” having the task of falling back as soon as any serious obstacle is encountered, in order to communicate with the support. As in enemy’s country the roads are likely to be waylaid, patrols are sent out to investigate any flanking hill, or wood, or group of buildings, behind which a party could be hiding. You can imagine the grim interest in trying to walk into an ambuscade. I company’s patrols having failed to locate the enemy in his last concealment, we were particularly anxious to make no such error.

As we marched up each rise in ground I could see the point ahead of us, and the patrols working their way through the country to the right and left of the road. As the point naturally went faster than the patrols it would gradually leave them behind, the corporal or sergeant commandingwould send back for more men, the message would come through the communicating files, and men would be sent ahead for the work. Patrols outdistanced, and still finding nothing, would drop back to the road and rejoin their command as soon as they could.

After a while this work of the point had used up the first platoon, and began to eat into ours. It was then recalled and our platoon took its place, with Squad 6 as point, Squad 7 providing the patrols and communicating files, and our squad as immediate reserve. Word coming for more men, Clay and Reardon were sent forward, and I saw them despatched off to the right, Clay toward a nearby sugar-bush, a little grove with its sugar house at its edge, and Reardon further forward, toward a suspicious hollow behind which was a railroad embankment which might conceal a regiment. I was plainly among the next to go, and waited impatiently. Then we halted, and remained so for some time.

The men grumbled. Why stop? Why wasn’t the support following more closely? Where was the enemy, anyway? Hoping to be right in the middle of the next scrap, we were disappointed at any delay. Meanwhile Clay, having found nothing in his sugar-bush, returned, and attention was fixed on our flanking patrol to the left, who having discovered that we had stopped, likewise became stationary, and leaving un-rummaged the thick little growth of birch ahead of him, sathimself down in the midst of an apple orchard, and visibly regaled himself on something red.

This was exasperating, we having already had to leave untouched so many trees laden with fruit. Roars from the sergeant failing to dislodge our resting patrol, a man was starting out to order him on, when he was observed to start, crouch behind a tree, make ready to shoot, and then to fall back from cover to cover, continually presenting his gun at an unseen enemy. He rejoined us out of breath, and feverishly reported having heard men in the scrub, and a voice ordering him to surrender. The sergeant was hastily sending out our squad to investigate the birches, when a bunch of men were seen to break cover from them. As they wore no white hat-bands we knew they must be our men; and when they came nearer we saw them to be Squad 9, which a quarter hour before the captain had despatched on special flanking duty, and which, being full of energy, had done their work and more too, coming back after a practical joke on our patrol.

And then we were ordered to return! Instead of the support marching to fill the gap between us, we were to go back to it. Bannister objected that a man was missing, Reardon through excess of zeal having vanished in the distance along the railroad. “Send out a man after him,” said the sergeant. All the squad offered to go; Corder was a little the slowest, being leg-weary, but who do you think was first? David! So he was despatched,and went very eagerly, while we turned our backs and went south.

When the company had joined the battalion there was much rearranging of disjointed commands, squads continually coming in from detail duty, so that it was plain that between us we had pretty well investigated the whole landscape. David and Reardon were missing still, even after we had rested for some time. We started south again, and it was not till after another march that the lost men rejoined us, David triumphant, but Reardon very hot and weary. Said the poor fellow, “I have thought before now that I was pretty tired, but this beats everything.”

There was no rest for him, however. We turned north again, having J company in front, and after a mile heard the familiar firing. The captain sent us headlong into the field on the right, where soon we were part of a skirmish line, and for a minute were blazing away at a fence in front of us, behind which I glimpsed a single white hat-band. But Kirby was not to be caught as the cavalry had allowed themselves to be. Squad 8 was sent off at the double to the end of the line, and there at wide intervals we made a flank guard extending to the rear, where poor Reardon was allowed to rest at last, as we waited hidden behind what cover we could find, gazing across some pasture land with scattered bushes at a belt of pine in front.

As we waited we heard the voice of an umpire;I snatched a glimpse of him as he stood behind us watching. “Any enemy you see represents twenty-five men.” A cool statement that made our task perplexing, for while with one bullet I might slay so many men, conversely if one shot at us first he could wipe out the squad. But though we lay very low and watched very keenly, while the battalion banged away at our left, no one appeared in front of us. To my left was Reardon, and to my right David, very intent on spotting the first foe. It is a pleasure to see how seriously he takes the work. Pickle, beyond him, was constantly chewing gum and whispering slang, the sort of city clerk one reads about in Civil War memoirs, tough physically and mentally.

(I have thrown my chewing gum away. Too much swallowing of saliva makes you (me!) hungry. Me for a pebble from the next brook!)

We were at last called back by a whistle, and the distant cry, “Assemble on the left!” Once more we marched south, and presently were resting again at West Sciota. As we lolled there, buying apples from native buzzards, who take to the extortion of the professional without any coaching, some trucks came to the crossroads, and men began to climb into them. Watching one group, I was surprised to recognize a man of A company, at the same time that Corder exclaimed, “Those men are from the first battalion!” whose firing, you remember, we had alreadyheard at least a couple of miles away. We did not get the explanation until battalion conference, some hours later. It seems that the umpires, during our northward march, had reinforced the cavalry with an imaginary battalion of infantry, before which we had been obliged to retreat. By motorcycle messenger a call for help was sent to the first battalion commander, who was now four miles away on the road to Altona. Having sixteen empty motor-trucks, in four minutes he had filled them with two companies, and seventeen minutes later they were behind our lines, forming for our support. As we saw or guessed none of this, it only illustrates the remark with which I began, that the private soldier knows but a little of what is going on.

I would not write this to you in such detail, except that I think it will interest you to see that the hike is more than a mere march, and that it is making every one of us advance in his department of the war game. We squads, I hope, are learning to do as we are told, though you see how blind everything is to us. The intricate problems of the officers come out in conference. There the men sit on the ground in a great three-quarter-circle, grouping themselves whenever possible around the men with maps. The major likewise has hisn, and the officers theirn. The major makes a general statement of the work of the day, and the captains then report on their particular operations. When you see what exact notes theyhave taken of every operation: the precise moment of sending out parties and of receiving reports, the minuteness with which they locate every action, the science with which they carry out the work that falls to them, and the team-play that animates them, you see that this is no old-style cut-and-dried “sham battle,” but an actual study, of course on a small scale, of fighting seriously carried out by well-trained officers. It has deeply impressed me with the long and hard work necessary to make an officer; and then, turning to the man’s side of it, it becomes plainer and plainer that it takes time, much time, to train a private or a corporal into a reliable man on patrol.

One hard thing for us amateurs to learn is the proper writing of messages containing military information. It is hard to decide what is important enough to send, and then how to word the despatch. Tradition from an earlier camp has handed down this model: “The enemy are in sight and are about to do something.” Where, when, how many, some notion, however vague, of the enemy’s disposition—all forgotten between excitement and too great responsibility.

The march home was the hardest part of the day. The interest of the skirmish kept us going; but the three miles back to camp at a quick pace took it out of us all. I had not known I was so tired; the strain wore hard on me; it seemed ages before we sighted camp, and then ages andages before we reached it. But this experience was the same as on Monday, for though the very vigorous ones were able to whistle and sing, to the help of us all, again I began to hear grumbling all about me. We reached camp at last, and poor Reardon when we broke ranks dropped on the ground at his tent door, without the energy to unbutton the flaps, and in a minute was fast asleep there.

We had our dinner, which I put in my meat-can under the hay to keep hot while I rested, then ate and felt refreshed. Then the afternoon we had to ourselves, if you can so consider it when we have to clean our guns, clean ourselves, come to conference, and come to Retreat. For my own part, having yesterday sampled the slimy brook and having no taste for it again, I washed my face and hands (after cleaning my gun) in a little water from the canteen. Thus I am staying dirty. It is no more than I have done before, in the deep woods.

“That was some hike we had this morning,” calls Bannister to a friend across the street. Such is the general opinion, especially Reardon’s, who slept till he had to be roused for conference. And I want especially to chronicle that it was David who, declaring that Reardon would get rheumatism from the bare ground, roused him enough to get him onto his blankets in the tent; it was David who sat by him and prevented anyone from waking him; and it was David who aftercleaning his own gun, which work the lad does not enjoy, cleaned Reardon’s.

The story goes now that the stolen clip of ball cartridges has been found and confiscated. Its location is ascribed to every company in the regiment, including ours. Our blanks we use very freely, being supplied every morning with any number from fifty up. And wherever we shoot them in any quantity, buzzards still flock together to rummage in the underbrush.

You ask the meaning of Retreat. It is the last ceremony of the military day, when the colors are furled. The companies are called together, each at the end of its street, so that they are in order one behind the other. Sometimes we are drilled in the manual, sometimes we have rifle inspection; but as soon as the bugle sounds the warning call we come to parade rest. Then the band plays the Star Spangled Banner, after which we stand at attention while the bugler plays the beautiful “To the Colors.” The flag is furled, and everyone not in line, cooks, orderlies, all except the buzzards, likewise stand at attention during the call, and at the end salute. Then promptly we are dismissed and allowed to hope for supper.

Our diet is the same monotony of wholesome, plentiful food. I am flourishing on it; Corder is proud of requiring nothing else. On the other hand some complain, and Pickle, having a sweet tooth, at the end of a meal will often go out and feed himself with boughten pies and doughnuts.For you must understand that not only do the buzzards follow us from camp to camp, but every farmer’s wife along the line of march or near our camp bakes a batch of her favorites and puts out a sign. Those along the road must be disappointed; none of us ever fall out. But they make a good sale outside the camp. David, who has become very strict with himself, is trying to save Pickle from his indulgences, but so far without success except that Pickle has become very sly about slipping away.

A long letter, and I am cramped and stiff from sitting on the ground. When shall I sit in a chair again?

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