Dog weary he strode over the stakes that held them, and looked upon the
place where he was to sleep. Its floor was almost a foot deep in water!
Rank, ill smelling water! Pah! Was this intention that he should have
been billeted here? Some of the men had dry places. Of course, it might
have just happened, but--well, what was the use. Here he must sleep for
he could not stand up any longer or he would fall over. So he heaped up a
pillow of the muck, spread his blanket out and lay down. At least his
head would be high enough out of the water so that he would not drown in
his sleep, and with his feet in water, and the cold ooze creeping slowly
through his heavy garments, he dropped immediately into oblivion. There
were no prayers that night. His heart was full of hate. The barnyard was
in front of an old stone farm house, and in that farm house were billeted
the captain and his favorite first lieutenant. Cameron could hear his
raucous laugh and the clinking of the wine glasses, almost the gurgle of
the wine. The thought of Wainwright was his last conscious one before he
slept. Was it of intention that he should have been put here close by,
where Wainwright could watch his every move?
As the days went by and real training began, with French officers working
them hard until they were ready to drop at night, gradually Cameron grew
stolid. It seemed sometimes as if he had always been here, splashing
along in the mud, soaked with rain, sleeping in muck at night, never
quite dry, never free from cold and discomfort, never quite clean, always
training, the boom of the battle afar, but never getting there. Where was
the front? Why didn't they get there and fight and get done with it all?
The rain poured down, day after day. Ammunition trains rolled by. More
men marched in, more marched on, still they trained. It seemed eons since
he had bade Ruth and his mother good-bye that night at the camp. No mail
had come. Oh, if he could just hear a word from home! If he only had her
picture! They had taken some together at camp and she had promised to
have them developed and send them, but they would probably never reach
him. And it were better if they did not. Wainwright was censor. If he
recognized the writing nothing would ever reach him he was sure. Still,
Wainwright had nothing to do with the incoming mail, only the outgoing.
Well, Wainwright should never censor his letters. He would find a way to
get letters out that Wainwright had never censored, or he would never
send any.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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