Conscript 2989 Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sick Call]

That's the call that brings out all the shirkers. They line up in the morning and present all sorts of ailments from sore throat to heart disease.

The line is especially long on mornings when they know we are in for two hours of "settin'-ups" or when some especially hard detail such as camp orderly or kitchen police has been handed out. A day in the hospital will relieve one of all these duties. This morning I was on the long line. But I hasten to explain that _I_ was sick (that's what they all say, of course,) with chills and a sc.r.a.py feeling in my throat; and since we are forbidden to take any medicine of our own, I shame-facedly line up with the rest of them. There were about twenty all told and the doctor made short work of us.

"What's the matter with you?" very cross.

"I-I-I-here-it hurts," said one, pointing to his back and looking quite scared. The M. D. poked his finger into the spot designated.

"Man you're not sick," said the doctor in a very startling manner, "you're almost dead, only you won't lie down. You've dislocated a couple of vertibraes, ruptured a half-dozen ligaments and like as not you have a chronic case of pneumonia. The only thing that I can recommend for you is two hours of strenuous exercise. You may pull through and you may not." Then, with a malicious grin, he turned to the next man and the first invalid shuffled off, mumbling something about horse doctors without any horse sense.

Two out of twenty of us got by. The rest went to work. I was one of the two. I had a slight temperature and an inflamed throat. Nothing serious, but report to the hospital. I did. And the best thing about the hospital was the fact that there were two sheets on the bed and I had an abbreviated flannel nightshirt to sleep in. Three big pills, the size of bullets and just as deadly, and then I turned in, went to sleep and slept right through mess time.

Four o'clock I was feeling very much better and ravenously hungry and at five o'clock I was discharged as cured. I don't know what I was cured of, but I'm feeling much spryer just now after three helpings of beef stew and apple marmalade and I'm ready to turn in and sleep some more.

Thursday:

If there is one thing that I want to remember more than anything else about this Conscript Camp it is the spectacle I witnessed and took part in this evening.

Fancy if you can Tower Hill with its big headquarters building snuggled in among the scattered and gaunt pines, the tall, ungainly water-tank propped up on all too spindly-looking stilts. On top of this a single figure thrown in bold relief by the golden yellow light of a big watch-fire, beating time with his baton, and below him, clothing the slopes of the hill five thousand men, his chorus, thundering forth across the starlit night "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." That chorus was wonderful; that crowd was wonderful; everything about it was wonderful.

We were all singing; thousands of fellows in khaki, some snuggled in their big army overcoats, some puffed out like pouter pigeons with the sweaters they had piled on under their tunics against the cold chill of night. Intermingled were the lumber jacks and labourers from the civilian camp, most of them in gay mackinaws and caps; with now and then an officer immaculately clad in clean cut uniform, or a Y. M. C. A. man in grey-green suit with red circle and triangle gleaming in the firelight. And how well they could sing; I have never heard a more stirring chorus and as we raised our voices loud and clear shivery thrills raced up and down our spines, and we were stirred to the highest pitch of patriotic fervor. Indeed, there were some among us who could find no better way of expressing the emotion that swelled within save by tears. They cried. I was one of them.

"America" and "Dixie" and "Maryland" followed and every one produced its own thrill and its own heartache. Never was there anything more stirring, Never was there anything finer. We sang till our voices were husky and the great chorus surged loud and clear across the night, until it must have echoed against the crags of the Rhine and caused the Hun to shudder.

Then the breaking up of the big meeting, when groups detached themselves and wandered out of the fitful flicker of the dying firelight into the misty blue blackness of the night, still singing. Out through the streets of the camp we tramped, stepping to the cadence of our own songs. We were all happy, very, very happy and draft or no draft, down in our hearts we all knew that we were in the very place we were meant to be, and we were doing the very things that we should do, and that when the time came we would do other and greater things with as much eagerness and enthusiasm as we had sung up there on Tower Hill to-night.

The whole camp was singing even after the concert, but the character of the songs changed. "Over There" swelled forth everywhere and "The Yankees Are Coming" was chanted in every street. Out toward our own barracks our little group swung, pa.s.sing the railroad siding where, partly shrouded in the canvas jackets, new artillery pieces were waiting to be moved in the morning. A cheer for these and a cheer for everything and anything that suggested patriotism, and on we tramped, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with enthusiasm.

And now I'm back to the barracks again, but the mysteries of the night and the spell of the whole wonderful occasion is still over me and I know I shall lie awake a long, long time and think and dream of all that waits for me in the not very distant future. And the promises I made myself up there on Tower Hill will all be fulfilled, that's certain.

Friday:

Momentous news. We of the headquarters company, or rather eighty-seven of us, start Monday on the first leg of that longed-for journey to France. We go to a Southern training camp where new units are being formed into which each of us will fit. And along with this news came the announcement that none of us will be given a pa.s.s to go home for a last good-bye. This has stirred the men more than the news of the transfer South. Several impromptu indignation meetings were held this morning and this afternoon, just after mess, a real demonstration took place in the mess hall and most of the eighty-seven of us were loud in our a.s.sertions that we would go home anyway, even though we were arrested for desertion afterward.

This little incident served to impress upon me more than anything else the freedom that is accorded the men of this new American Army, for behold, before the meeting broke up a Lieutenant came in and addressed us on the penalties for desertion, the difficulty of dealing with headstrong soldiers and similar subjects, and then when we all felt and looked like slackers he announced that although orders had gone forth that no pa.s.ses were to be granted, our commanding officer, knowing our feeling in the matter, was at that time trying very hard to arrange to secure permission for the men to go home over Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday.

As I left the mess hall I wondered vaguely how such a ma.s.s meeting would have been treated in the German Army, for instance, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was an American.

But there are a thousand and one things remaining to be accomplished to-day. I have been hurrying from one place to another since reveille and now at taps all that I should do is not done yet. But to-morrow is another day.

First of all we were rushed off to receive our third and fourth inoculations together. Then came the announcement that we would be relieved of all our winter clothing and given a complete summer outfit instead, for it appears there is no need for woollens in this Southland camp to which we are going.

And between times, there were a score of personal things I wanted to do, not the least of which was to join the line of waiting men before the telephone booths in the Y. M. C. A. shacks to tell them at home the news of our going. In all this, poor Fat seems to be sadly left out, for he is not among the fellows who are to leave. He stands helplessly by and watches the hurry and bustle going on about him, and sometimes I think there is a sad, wistful sort of a look in his big, good-natured face, for I know he doesn't like the idea of staying here when the snow begins to fall and winds whistle disconsolately around the corners of the barracks building. I am glad that _I_ will not have to spend the winter here and I'm sorry, too, that Fat is not to be with me.

Sat.u.r.day:

[Ill.u.s.tration: A soldier-boy in his native haunts]

To-day, for the first time since I have been here, I had visitors. Those at home, eager to get a glimpse of their soldier-boy in his native haunts, came down to see things as they are. I'm quite certain that the general arrangement of the barracks, with its cluttered appearance suggested by many pairs of shoes standing around and many hats and coats and old sweaters hanging about, did not accord with mother's ideas of good housekeeping. And she a.s.sured me that many of the old rose, pink and baby blue comforters would not have suffered from a washing, all of which I had never noticed before, until she drew my attention to it. She intimated, too, that my dish towel and my hand towel would never testify as to my respectable up-bringing, and she felt that I should make a practice of taking off those abominably heavy trench shoes in the evening and putting on a pair of slippers which she would send down to me. She thought that a bath-robe might come in handy for lounging in the evening and perhaps after we got comfortably settled in our Southern quarters, she might send one of the big, roomy library chairs down to me, for she did not approve of one's sitting on one's bed the way most of us did. She deplored the total lack of chairs about the barracks and she was quite sure that taking an ice cold shower out in that horrible big tin building would certainly result in innumerable cases of influenza, if nothing more serious. She's a dear old mother and I don't know that I have ever appreciated her so much as I have since I've been down here.

Then with my visitors caring for themselves for a while, and mother chumming up with the always affable Fat, whom she took quite a fancy to, I hurried about my work of being re-outfitted with summer uniforms.

Fortunately they allowed me to retain my overcoat (which I received but a few days ago) until we are ready to entrain.

Then came the pa.s.ses. The officer was successful and we who are to go South are given a release from duty until to-morrow night at retreat.

Other pa.s.ses were distributed, too, and Fat fortunate for once, yet unfortunate, got one to go home until Monday morning. But poor Fat!

Still the military tailors lag and now that he has the pa.s.s that he has been trying to get for this last month, he cannot use it, for he is not properly uniformed to leave the cantonment, having still just his flannel shirt. He tried frantically to borrow parts of a uniform to fit him and while he could find a pair of breeches that he could get into, a jacket was lacking, so in disgust, and with a most unhappy smile, he gave it up and went over to the Y.M. telephone booth to ask his mother to come down and visit him over Sunday.

And to-night there are no taps for me, for I am home once more and writing this at my own desk. We all came home together and had a bully trip and now, after the best dinner I have eaten in many a day, I shall see a real show at a real theatre, and sit up as late as I choose and when I go to bed I will be between clean sheets again and there will be no officers' whistles to wake me in the morning.

Sunday:

Back again, but back to a sad and very unhappy barracks. Fat, poor, poor Fat, who felt downcast because he was not going South, has gone on a far longer journey. It is the first tragedy that has come into our life here in our barracks and with the thoughts of the breaking up of the big family on the morrow, and the homesickness, that most of us feel because of our all too brief trips home, has cast a gloom over us all.

Unfortunate Fat, done out of using his pa.s.s by the slowness of the army tailors, telephoned home yesterday to have his mother come out to see him. At train time this morning he was at the terminal awaiting her arrival. But in the shifting of the cars back and forth in the yard an accident happened and Fat, in the way of it, was one of its victims.

Both his legs were crushed and he was hurried away to the hospital.

Meanwhile, his grey-haired old mother arrived and stood about the terminal hour after hour wondering why he did not come for her, and it was not until late this afternoon that one of the boys in our company thought to go down and try and find her; which, fortunately, was not too late to bid her son good-bye.

And now we are on the eve of our departure. As I came through the terminal an hour ago the troop train, a long line of nondescript coaches, was being made up. As each car was made ready it was shunted into line by the ever-grumbling engine and to-morrow at daybreak all will be ready for us. Then we will go and some of us will be sorry, and some of us will be glad. As for myself, all that I can say is "Adieu, camp," and if the place I am bound for, wherever it may be, holds the charms that I've found here, I'll be happy.

Monday:

The mere suggestion of troop movements has a thrill to it, and we have had a lot of thrills to-day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I was alone in line]

After a long period of restless waiting, and good-byes to every one and everything about the old barracks, came the command to fall in. Then in summer uniforms, and each with a big blue barracks bag crowded with personal belongings, extra uniform, shoes, blanket and what not, on our shoulders, we lined up, shouted last farewells and stepped off, down the barracks street and out toward the railroad station. There was no whistling nor singing for we were all very solemn, and I was lonesome, for I was alone in line, the only member of our entire squad to go.