In open, or extended, order we lined up on the parade grounds in front of one of these movable elevated platforms. Our Second Lieutenant mounted this, and with a bayonetted rifle in hand went through the various lunges, thrusts and parries of the bayonet manual, meanwhile giving us a lecture, to the effect that no matter what the War Department intended to do with us, a knowledge of bayonet fighting would be essential. He assured us that the logical weapon for an American soldier was the rifle. One of our birthrights is markmanship and another is bayonet fighting. He briefly cantered over a century and a half of history of the Republic and pointed out how we had won fame and honour with bullet and bayonet, and he wound up by telling us that every American soldier should prepare himself so that he would be as dangerous to fool with as a stick of dynamite. Picture good-natured Fat impersonating a stick of dynamite. Then we went at it. We lunged and thrust and parried until perspiration began to stand out on our foreheads. From the corner of my eye I had a vision of Fat trying to disguise himself as a high explosive. Every time he lunged, he would scowl viciously and emit a loud grunt. I discovered a few moments ago, however, that it was a case of over-eating at mess time that caused him to grunt and frown every time he tried to move very fast; not a desire to look ferocious, although I guess it passed for that in the eyes of the instructor. And now I’m told we are to get this sort of training daily for a long period; close order formation in the morning, with rifle and bayonet drill in the afternoon and later on we will do skirmish work, trench work and open order work with rifles. Some of the infantry companies are already doing that. I was treated to the spectacle of two companies scurrying across the upper end of the parade grounds like so many rabbits. Now and then they would fling themselves down on their stomachs and begin snapping away merrily with empty rifles at an imaginary enemy. We are a tired-looking company to-night. Already half the cots are filled with men, some of them snoring lustily and it is only a quarter to ten. Wednesday: There are a lot of things calculated to stir a chap’s sentimental streak about this camp, particularly the nights; moonlight nights like to-night for instance. Every hard outline of the huge place is softened under the blue-black mantle of night, and the disagreeable things are lost in the heavy shadows and the moonlight floods the open places, and glistens on the rows upon rows of tin roofs and tall, gaunt-looking tin smoke-stacks. Watch-fires (a sanitary precaution) blaze in their deep holes in the rear of each barracks building, and the lonesome fire-guard, bundled in his overcoat and with rifle over his shoulder, stands silhouetted against the night sky beside each flaring pit.