The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship’s inspection. The holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the call would be sounded, and all except the day’s orderlies would be massed on decks in their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded by a bugler, who blew a seasick “Attention” at each deck. Everybody would then step on everyone else’s feet, and make a little lane for the procession. The adjutant, the ship’s captain, the colonel, the ship supply officer--poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job--would play “follow my leader,” and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand. The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills--one company using the deck at a time--and fire and boat drills. It was given out at first that four long blasts of the boat’s whistle would be the signal for “Abandon ship.” This was changed later by the ship’s captain, but somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about 10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once--twice--heads began to appear over the hammocks; thrice--the hammocks began to be agitated; four times--two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .45 and a few choice remarks in the vernacular. Then the chow--oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was none too much in quantity. There were here and there newly made n. c. o.’s who were not above holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How did we know it was currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save the ship’s cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony. “Tea” was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was hardly a success so far.