Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty; or, Winning Corporal's ChevronsHancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
General
Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty; or, Winning Corporal's Chevrons
Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
United States. Army -- Juvenile fiction
Just before noon the troops were halted, then marched, by companies,
into a field. The order to pitch camp was given.
It was really too bad, but one of the wagons drove up and the men on it
began to unload bear carcasses. All this bear meat was dumped before B
Company's line. C Company men tried not to look in that direction at
all, for C Company's share in the bear meat was to be--none.
Early that morning Captain Cortland had sent the wagon and men to
recover the bear carcasses from the cave. The bears had been promptly
"skinned" and dressed before loading them into the wagon.
From still another wagon sounded the whines of the five cubs. These
were to be taken back to Fort Clowdry, there to be fattened and served
at the coming Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner of B Company's men. A
few months later these cubs would be "a good size for killing."
"To the victors belong the spoils." The two older bears had been killed
as already related, and the cubs found by B Company scouts within C
Company's "territory."
Out were tumbled the Army cookstoves. Men of B Company cut up the
meat. Soon the odor of baking and roasting meats was on the air. Other
willing helpers to the cook were trimming off pieces of meat for
broiling.
It was torment to hungry C Company men to smell the appetizing odors
and to meet the grins with which B Company men favored them.
B Company must wait a while for its dinner, but was willing. The men of
C Company, to stop, as far as possible, the pangs of longing and the
watering of mouths, fell to at once to cook their own monotonous bacon.
"See here, Freeman, there's going to be an abundance of bear meat,"
remarked Captain Cortland, going over to his fellow company commander.
"Your men may as well have some of it."
"Not under the circumstances under which the meat was obtained,"
replied Captain Freeman firmly. "Let the men of my company realize
that they were disgracefully worsted, and that they have no cause for
complaint."
So the men of one company sat down to a meal of hard tack, bacon and
coffee, while B Company men waited for a better feast.
At last B's spread was ready.
"My man," said Captain Cortland to his dog-robber, "cut off some nice
pieces of bear meat and take them over to the officers of C Company
with my compliments."
But the dog-robber soon returned, bearing the platter on which the meat
still lay.
"Captain Freeman's compliments, sir, but he says that the officers of C
Company will endure a deserved disappointment along with their men."
Ere B Company's feast ended a commotion started that appeared to come
from behind C Company's street.
Hal, dropping his ration plate to the ground, leaped up.
"Look, Noll!" he called laughingly. "Corporal Raynes is certainly
'getting his.' Wow! Look at the fracas!"
As a matter of fact, Raynes, at this moment, was being made the
recipient of most unwelcome attentions.
He was being tossed in a blanket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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