SHORTLY after one o'clock, the transport drew alongside the pier at Fort Warren, and the batteries disembarked and formed in column, with the field music at the head. Then the regiment marched up from the pier, in through the main sallyport, and on to the parade, where line of masses was formed, arms were stacked and knapsacks unslung, preparatory to the work of getting the baggage up from the transport and settling down in quarters. And here the regiment was treated to an unwelcome surprise. The rain-proof wooden village which it had expected to find waiting for its occupancy had not yet come into existence; over by the main magazine stood two or three lonely booths, but the rest of the cantonment still remained piled in disjoined pieces on the lighters lying at the pier. To be sure, a delegation from the institution at Deer Island was engaged in giving a half-hearted imitation of a working detail, but it was obvious to the most obtuse that the coming of night would find the task of village-building hardly begun—and this led the seven hundred men standing at ease behind the line of stacks on the soggy parade ground, and lunching in the cold, drizzling rain, on hardtack and canned beef, to make philosophical comments on the horrors of war in general, and of this war in particular. But the time allowed for this innocent pastime was brief. Battery by battery, details were told off for pack-train duty, and in a very short time an endless chain of men circulated between the pier and the parade, filing empty-handed through the little postern in the northwestern bastion, and returning by way of the main sallyport, heavy laden with roof and wall sections. Even the wearied men in brown from Deer Island—who promptly had been christened by the batterymen the "Third Corps of Cadets"—seemed to catch the spirit of the occasion, and showed more animation in putting one foot before the other. And it was here that the regiment added to its repertoire a new version of an old song, with the merry refrain: "They broke our backs A-luggin' shacks, In the regular army-O!" [Illustration: Photograph by W. H. Caldwell, Brockton. 15-INCH RODMANS, FORT WARREN. Gun-laying Practice on Outward-bound Steamship. ]