Military Training Camp for Business and Professional Men (Plattsburgh, N.Y.); Military education -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction
Coming back, we found ourselves heading obliquely toward the company
street, with a half turn to make in order to enter it properly. Corder
suggested that the command should be "Left half turn," but Reardon
contended for "Half left," and at the proper moment the corporal gave
that order. Naturally there ensued at the tent another debate, everyone
putting in his oar, until by the book the Old One proved that while for a
company in column the command should have been "Column half left," for a
squad "Left half turn" was correct. A mixing business, this learning how
to fight for one's country.
Said I to Corder, "You'll take Bannister's job away from him if he
doesn't look out." He laughed. "No," said he. "I like to admire the
scenery rather than attend to business, and I'm a dreamer anyway. But
watch Knudsen. He's a soldier type, and unless I'm mistaken he's had some
training, though he doesn't claim it."
Word has gone forth that we are to go through the drill regulations at
the rate of some forty paragraphs a day. So there is much study up and
down the street, and that not merely on the part of would-be corporals.
This letter is finished under difficulties, for the lantern goes out
every few minutes, as four of us cluster around it with our pens and
paper. A puff, a pop, a flicker or two, and it's out. Then laughter,
curses, two or three failures to light the wick, and we're off again for
another short spell. Clay promises that we shall have no trouble with the
lantern after tonight. Some squads have clubbed together to buy acetylene
lanterns, which illuminate the tents most brilliantly; but the cost is
seven dollars, and though our squad has mentioned the luxury, it is
evident that most of the men wish to avoid the extra expense. Though of
course I could buy the thing as a present to the squad, I think it would
rather mar our present feeling of equality. Moreover, there was a trifle
of an explosion in Tent 13 early this evening, after which the new
lantern was thrown away as junk. If I should come again, I should bring
some compact lighting contraption. Meanwhile the little flashlight is
good for searching in one's suit case, and there is always a table and
electric light at the company tent, close by the captain's.
Good-by, with love from
DICK.
PRIVATE GODWIN'S DAILY LETTER
Monday, Sept. 11, 1916.
DEAR MOTHER:--
I began my day with my usual bucket from the tap; there are always early
birds to serve me, and my helper this morning said it made him feel
virtuous just to souse me. I prefer this to the shower baths, which are
much further away. A very few go early to the lake and make parade of it;
said one to his corporal yesterday, finding him crawling from his bed
into his clothes, "My God, man, don't you ever bathe?" But the poor
corporal was still shaking with his typhoid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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