At Plattsburg Part 14

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 pa.s.sionate declaration, or any self-a.s.sertion.

"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 G.o.dWIN'S FIRST HIKE LETTER

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 antic.i.p.atory 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 every _One_ a 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 b.u.t.toned them along (how glad I was that we practised this yesterday, found where a loop was missing and some b.u.t.ton-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, pa.s.sed the inspection of the lieutenant, and felt proud. Then mess, with its stew and its vegetables, its bread and b.u.t.ter, 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 antic.i.p.ation of Retreat and of the night.

Remarkable things, these shelter tents, just broad enough at the front for the shoulders of two 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 circ.u.mstances 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 hope for 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 const.i.tute 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 safely along 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 most convenient 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 pa.s.sion 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

d.i.c.k.

_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 G.o.dWIN 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 pa.s.sed 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 sc.r.a.p 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 sc.r.a.p 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 he raised 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.