When for months you and your comrade have slept at night under one blanket and shared each other's daily bread, even though it were but hard-tack; when you have learned to depend on him and he upon you for help in trouble or comfort in sickness; when together you have entered the hell of deadly battle--after which the first question would be: "Is Joe safe?" "Where is Sam?" "Is little Gus alive?"--when together you have suffered hunger, thirst, heart-breaking weariness; above all, when, huddled together in storm or cold you have had to endure long days of dreary, monotonous, comfortless idleness then you know what it means to live a common life with a fellow-man; and if he and you meet the test, then you know what friendship means. In the routine of camp life the music of drum and fife was conspicuously audible. We were wakened at daybreak by the shrill tune of the reveille; the last sound at night was that of the drum perambulating the camp with "taps," commanding "lights out" and sleep; while all day long frequent summons to varied duties came by "call" of drum and fife. There was "sick call," which brought all the indisposed who were able to walk into forlorn squads to be conducted by the orderly serjeants to the surgeon's tent for treatment. Its absurdly merry notes seemed to say: "Come to the Doctor's And get your castor oil." Then "guard call," inevitable as the day, but always unwelcome. Drill call or "assembly" meant simply our daily work. At dress parade, which closed the day's active duties, the band discoursed its most martial strains, and after supper we heard it once more in the pleasant tones of "retreat," and later of "tattoo" the music of which comes most impressively into recollection. From one camp after another the measured minor strains would sound forth; from near and far, from camps away beyond our sight, it would melt into distance, and then beyond the westward woods the artillery bugles would take it up until it died away with their mellow notes. It was the voice of the comradeship of a mighty, invisible host. One can readily understand how persistently, how intimately this music of drum and fife wove itself into our lives. Some of those queer, old-fashioned, half-melancholy, half-merry tunes sing themselves in my memory even now. What of the band in the day of battle? Was not martial music the soldier's inspiration? Did we not charge to its thrilling strains? We did nothing of the kind. There was other work for the musicians. On the approach of battle they were always sent to the rear for duty as stretcher-bearers and helpers in the field hospital. One pretty sure sign that bloody work was before us was the disappearance of the band; and the grimmest, most sickening, yet most merciful work of war was theirs at such times.