Other camps were all around us. The Yeoman's camp, the Seamen's camp--nothing but bluejackets from morning until night. We wondered if the whole U. S. Navy were there--it didn't seem as if there could be any more sailors in the world. The Hospital Corps didn't have much drilling to do, just squad movements and litter drills and counter-marching. We used to parade through Newport to boom recruiting, and on Saturday the whole school turned out for Captain's inspection on the green in front of the War College. There was so much to learn that we spent most of our liberties in the study hall, but once in a while we would drop in at the Army-Navy Y. M., or go down to beaches for a swim, or take in a show. At the end of three months we were through a course that takes, as a rule, eight months. Then I went to the Naval Hospital and there I made my rate. Gee, but I'm glad I'm going over at last. There's a girl down in Baltimore--I've promised her some souvenirs. Some of the fellows have been back and forth eight times without a glimpse of a submarine--but I hope we see one. I'd like to tell it what I think of it. Yes, we're leaving pretty soon now. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. CHIEF PETTY OFFICER BERTRAM SPEAKS: ZEPS AND TORPEDOES I JOINED the navy because I felt patriotic and all the rest of it. You couldn't help it down home. Everybody was doing it. My brother-in-law made the yeomanry, my chum went in for hospital corps work. Wherever you turned you found fellows discussing their branch of service and swearing it was the best in the pack. It didn't take me long to make up my mind. I sure was crazy to get "over there." It's the English in me, I guess. Yes, I've got quite a slice. Before the war I was thirty-third in direct line for the title of Earl of Northumberland. Now I am about seventeenth. It's queer how much I wanted to go to London. I just itched to. My family had come from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and settled there. That's where I was born--Johnny Rebs, you know. But that's ancient history--just plain all-round American now. I never had a chance to forget the English part of me, though. I couldn't very well. You see the solicitors send me a notice every now and then telling me how good my chances are of inheriting a thirty-three-million dollar estate and a couple of dozen titles on the side. Well, I don't care what I shipped on so long as it had a prow and a stern and kept afloat. They held me three months in the naval station waiting for a ship, and at last I got one--and what a one! An old oil tank! Ever see an oil collier? It resembles one of the countries of Europe. Which one? _Greece._ Grease everywhere. You eat grease and you drink grease and you sleep grease and you breathe grease. You never get it off your hands or your clothes or your disposition until you land.