At Plattsburg Part 9

He knelt beside me, coaxed, encouraged, purred. "Now, Mr. G.o.dwin, this time you will do better." And actually I did, a four at seven o'clock.

Once more he adjusted the sights and gave advice as to aim. "And squeeze!" he said. "Squeeze!" I made a five at six o'clock--only a nipper, but still a bull! Someone else coming for him, he left me with a "See, you're shooting better!" And I believed him.

That is what he was doing all day, correcting, advising, giving confidence. Every man after shooting brought his score-book to him, and was told how to improve his work. But it was too late for me to make a good score on this target: I made but twenty-two. Yet other men did worse, nine, eleven, and even four! Corder, disgusted, reported a twenty.

Knudsen was quietly pleased with his thirty-nine. Then I hunted up David, and found him just as Randall approached with a "Lucy, what did you make?" David acknowledged a twenty-one, and Randall gloated over his own forty-two. When he had gone, I said "He ought to shoot, being pure animal. He has no nerves."

"Hasn't he?" demanded David, meaning, "I know he has." But he would say no more.

I found that the men with low scores were more troubled about the effect on the company total, and the captain's record, than they were for their own credit.

But as for this game of shooting, it is certainly a test of nerve.

Nothing else can quite equal it--the strain to get position, to line the sights just right, to hold steady, and then to squeeze. By me on the firing-line the irregular shots were loud and startling, and people were talking and calling all around. Golf, with its reverence for the man about to play, is mild compared to this. The nervous strain of firing is greater, the bodily shock is abrupt and jarring, you have no real chance to make up for a miss by later brilliance or by any luck. No, golf teaches patience and it requires poise, but--as played by the ordinary man--it is no such game as this.

And as between the experts, target shooting is still the bigger sport.

The knowledge and judgment required to meet the varying conditions, the steadiness demanded, the fact that the rifleman is preparing himself to meet his country's greatest emergencies--these put golf (and you know I have loved the game) into the lower place.

I put on my greatcoat again, took the nap that longed to be taken, and then, refreshed and more confident, went to my next turn.

This was at five hundred yards. If you will consider that I was shooting from our house across the meadow, across the railroad bridge, at a circle twenty inches in diameter (about the size of our largest pewter platter) you will understand my task. But I was fussed to begin with, for someone had taken my rifle from the rack, and I had therefore not blacked the sights, nor adjusted the sling, of the one that I hastily borrowed. As I came to the stand I was met by an artillery corporal, evidently a kind of super-coach, who curtly ordered me to do the one thing and the other, and hurried me to my place. I told him how the captain had wanted the sights set for this distance; I had put them so. "That doesn't go here," he said, readjusted them himself, and ordered me to lie down. He was so overbearing, and I was so uncertain of my rights, that I took my position and fired my shot. A miss! He blamed me severely, and in general treated me like the dirt under my feet. At my next shot, a poor two, he said, "There you go, thinking you know all about it, and jerking your trigger again." I said, "On the contrary, I'm not used to the pull of this trigger, and the gun went off before I expected." From that time on I paid no more attention to him, and perhaps from my manner he saw that it was just as well to let me alone; but he attacked the other man on this target, who feebly protested, and who made a wretched score. My score was coaxed along by our company coach, a nice chap named Haynes, who was most interested and sympathetic. As for me, the artilleryman vexed me so that I shot to kill _him_, and by imagining him at the target made a thirty-six.

It was an entirely new sensation, to be so bedevilled by such a man, and to know that in wartime I could not reply. When at noon we were marched back to camp and dismissed I sought out Haynes and asked, "What is your opinion of that artillery coach?" Said he, "I'm going to speak to the captain about him." "Thanks," I said. "You'll save me the trouble." And when again I came back to the post in the afternoon, though the corporal was there, he was very quiet and good.

This incident makes me doubt the value, for such volunteers as we, of the regular non-coms whom they hope to have here next year, if by that time the troops are off the border. What help could such an overbearing conceited drill-master, with no inkling of our difficulties or our point of view, give to such a squad as ours? Would he last a week out of hospital, or we a week out of arrest? No, give us a Plattsburg veteran of one camp as corporal, and appoint as sergeants those who have served two, and we shall come on faster. Further, more men would thus be trained for responsible positions.

In the afternoon we shot at 600 yards. We now had sandbag rests for our left hands (not for our guns) and once more the captain showed his foresight. He had us bring intrenching shovels and a dozen new burlap bags, and soon we were provided with the best sandbags on the range. I had the same nice little Haynes who had coached me on my second target.

Unsatisfied as I still am with my showing, I think he drilled into me some idea of my errors, and my score again improved, standing at forty. I feel better than if it had wavered up and down, even if the total had been the same, and can reasonably argue that if the captain kept on increasing the distance, say to 2000 yards, I should make a perfect score. But many men, I find, did their worst at this distance, Randall ending up at 24. Lucy has pegged steadily along, and got into the thirties.

The supper-tables buzzed tonight as never before, every man having his tale to tell, generally a tale of woe. Poor Knudsen is very sore, as his last shot went into his neighbor's bullseye, and though the neighbor had finished shooting, the shot could not be credited to Knudsen. There are many other stories of misses that spoiled the score, and on the other hand when a man has made a ricochet hit he is not inclined to brag of it.

Even those who from my point of view did very well are a little inclined to grumble; and the only really satisfied man is Percy of Squad Nine, who holds today's record.

Concerning Knudsen's miss, I now have the whole story. He had as scorer an artillery sergeant who read the flags through field-gla.s.ses, and was an unusually long time in scoring the last shot. At last he said "A bull," and scored a five, which gave Knudsen a perfect record; but he, suspecting something, made the man admit that the bulleye was in the wrong target. Knudsen changed the score himself, a bit of personal heroism that roused the wonder of Pickle, who told me the tale, and ended "Chee, I couldn't a done it!"

Here is a story of Lieutenant Pendleton, told me by a man who watched the incident. Our top-sergeant was scoring badly at six hundred yards, and the lieutenant said, "Let me try your gun." So he lay down, and without putting his arm in the sling, rested the gun on the bag, drew it tightly into the shoulder by a hand-grip of the strap, and fired. It was a "two at one o'clock," which means that the shot struck the outer side of the target about the line, on a clock face, between one o'clock and the centre. "Your sight is too high," said he, and corrected it. Then he tried again, and got a "three at three o'clock," which means that he struck on the level of the bull, but still out at the right. "You must correct for windage," said he then. "I'll give her one and a quarter." So once more, with the same rest and grip, he fired. Before the targets could be changed and the shot marked the lieutenant got up, gave the gun to the sergeant, and walked away, saying, "That's a bull's eye. You can depend on that sighting, sergeant." Then the scorer called the shot. A bull's eye it was, and the sergeant went on to shoot a string of them.

There is some pleasure in being drilled by such men as our officers. I wish you could see the lieutenant on parade, in his best clothes, which somehow are more becoming to him than the undress uniform, in which Kirby shows best. Watch Pendleton walking with his springy, tireless step, always with his eye on us. A dandy he is then, but one of the fighting dandies, an athlete in good training, and a man that knows his business.

Our day was so completely taken up by the shooting that at the end it was too late even for Retreat, and we in the middle of our was.h.i.+ng up watched the other battalion at parade, stood at attention while the band played the Star-Spangled Banner, and saluted at the end. I have spent much of the evening writing; and now, the first call having blown, the camp is getting ready for bed. In the inner company tent I am left alone, the other letter-writers and diarists having drifted away. In the outer, open tent, where the conferences are held, three men are sitting at a corner of the big table, still discussing their scores, their rifles, the squeeze, the kick, the serious mistake it is to cant the gun. And here is a fact for you. Captain Kirby declares that the rifles do not kick, and in his own case he is probably right. But I got today a very sharp recoil each time I fired, so that by noon my arm was lame to the elbow, and my shoulder sore. I expected much difficulty in the afternoon, and the first shot hurt consumedly; but whether or not I learned to hold the rifle better, or whether the gradual toning up of my muscles is accustoming me to what comes, the rest of the kicks seemed to act as a sort of ma.s.sage, so that I forgot about them, and tonight I am entirely free of lameness.

Outside, at the head of the company street, the fire is gradually dying down. Wood is always provided for it, a hole is dug, the men feed it as long as they please, and in the morning the police squad, I suppose, smooth the ground. On benches or on the ground the men sit about the fire, sing, discuss, or chat in groups. There is in the store tent an easy chair made of rough lumber and sacking; when the captain can be induced to stay after conference the men bring it out, seat him in it, and make him talk. On his own doings he is silent, but on the work of the camp, the formations, drill, skirmish work, patrolling, outpost duty, and especially just now the ways of his beloved tool, the rifle, he has much to say. Around him are men often much older than he, others who in civil life command several times his pay, fellows who have every luxury at command, as well as chaps bred and indeed wedded to the most peaceable pursuits. But they all are here for a purpose; they never talk patriotism but they all act it; and everything he can tell them that bears on their efficiency as soldiers they will pump from him if they possibly can. It is fine to see how they recognize in him complete mastery of the subject that occupies us all, and how they sit at his feet for instruction.

But he has left us nearly half an hour ago, and the groups that remain are slowly separating, as one by one the men go to their tents. I can tell you just what is happening in ours. The lantern is lighted and hanging on the pole. Clay is probably finis.h.i.+ng a letter to his "mother."

Bannister is doubtless already abed, but ready from his cot to add a sleepy jest to the quiet talk that is slowly going on. Reardon is putting the last stamps on the sheaf of post-cards that he daily sends, for he, you must understand, has more correspondents at home than any of the rest of us. Rather big and burly, the quietest of men, with a very active eye but very intensely committed to the minding of his own business, I know him to be the most popular man in his own little town, where as the managing clerk of the grocery he knows every man, woman, and child in the place. He knows the taste of each, what he habitually needs or demands, whether to trust or require cash. He gets through his day without a clash with anyone. And knowing both his customers and the market he looks after the needs of the town, warns of a rise in prices, calls attention to special bargains, advises to lay in a stock of this or that. They miss him now that he's gone; I know it by the pleasure he takes in the letters and post-cards that come daily, bits from which he cannot help reading out to us--from the Civil War veteran who half believes in Plattsburg, and half doesn't; the drug-store clerk that has to go off on his vacation alone; the "boss" that has nothing personal to say, but quotes the market changes; the neighbor who doesn't quite venture to trust to the post the doughnuts she wishes she might send. And nightly Reardon sits on his cot and writes in the dim light careful answers to every message.

Lucy and Corder are putting themselves to bed most systematically, Corder because of his middle-aged habit, Lucy on account of that aristocratic cleanliness in which he has been scrupulously bred. They have their system and their order, the toilet, the costume, the making of the bed, all very careful and precise. Knudsen, still dressed, is lolling on his cot and jollying; this is the time of day when he most comes out of himself, and I know that presently when I approach the tent it will be his ringing tenor that I shall hear. He is poking fun at the others, cursing that last shot on the range, interrupting Reardon and Clay in their writing, philosophizing on his favorite subject, baseball. Yet if you get a little closer to him you find that he has interests that it takes a little coaxing to disclose: religious convictions that he has changed with his growth, curious hard business experiences that make him declare that he is a self-seeker, while you have only to watch him with Lucy to know that he is not. Yet he sedulously knocks and batters at every feminine quality that the boy discloses, and will exaggerate any statement if he thinks you suspect him of tenderness.

I shall presently make a dash, for the tent, s.n.a.t.c.h my tooth-brush and make for the spigot, and bring back a basin of water for my feet. Then Knudsen will bestir himself and race me for bed, at the same time that Reardon lays by his pen and accepts our warning. We crawl between the blankets, nine over us tonight. I shall put my poncho over me next, and my overcoat on that, and with the tent-wall looped up shall be practically outdoors.

Last of all Pickle will come slipping in from some rendezvous with friends. He sleeps in his clothes, minus shoes and leggings, and he is likely to be curled up before I am.

And then float to us the notes of Taps. "Love, good night. Must thou go...?" It is the signal. The last one of us puts out the lantern, and it is soon "Good night, boys," and silence. Usually I go to sleep at once; if not I soon hear the feet of two of the sergeants in the street and see the gleam of their lantern. They come from tent to tent, enter ours and throw the light on each cot, and pa.s.s on. Often I hear from the neighboring tents a sleepy "Good night, sergeant," but never yet the question "Who sleeps in that cot?" A high average, then, of obedience to the rules. The men are here for business.

I have lingered almost too long. Good night!

d.i.c.k.

THE SAME TO THE SAME

Plattsburg, 20th Sept., 1916.

DEAR MOTHER:--

It promises today, Wednesday, to be showery once more, so we are making up our packs with the ponchos out, ready for use. Post-mortems of yesterday's scores are still going on. The boys are all well and lively, except that I have just pa.s.sed Randall standing gloomy at the door of his tent, feeling very much insulted because someone at breakfast called him a grabber. Apart from him the street is humming with talk, as the boys make up their packs upon the hard-trodden sand.

It is a very amusing thing, this confusion and talk of the street, as men on errands make their way among the kneeling figures, the police squad tries to do its work, the sergeants pa.s.s, and jokes or criticism are bandied about. We are becoming very well acquainted, except for those who have not the habit of noticing their neighbors. There are a couple of men who have for ten days sat opposite me at table, and yet do not know me when we meet outside. But most of the men are very companionable.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the opportunity has not been very great. Unless a man is Number One or Number Four in his squad, he is likely to be swallowed up by it. I have felt very fortunate to be Number One, for in all formations in line I stand beside a man of another squad, and whenever we fall in or stand at rest I chat with them. Since Bannister has neglected the advice, given by the captain, to s.h.i.+ft the men about, I am glad that I have had this advantage, and am more lucky in getting a wider acquaintance than is possible to some of the others. For as you have seen, we eat together, march together, dress and sleep together, the squad being the unit on which everything is based. Captain Kirby has said that when we rest on the hike squads must sit down together, so as to waste no time in falling in.

But the shooting has done a great deal to break down this isolation. It was impossible, on the range or the gallery, to keep the squads together, whether in shooting or in waiting. The men compared their scores, explained their mistakes, gave advice, and fished for sympathy, with everyone they met. Men in squads widely separated in the line got quite chummy over their misfortunes, and grew friendly in encouraging each other. The scorers and especially the coaches met many new men. So at the table and the camp-fire the talk is now much more personal, and I think that from this time on the company will be more of a unit in feeling, if not more in unison in drill.

On this last point Captain Kirby is certainly unanimous. The shooting, with its necessary disorder, has got us out of our habits of snap, and today we have been put through a course of sprouts that has taken away any conceit that we might have had. This morning he gave us ten rounds of blank cartridges and took us out into our usual ground, the Peru road and the fields adjoining. First, in antic.i.p.ation of tomorrow, by platoons we were given rapid-fire practice, sitting and firing our ten shots at a count of ninety seconds. To our delight, it being a little windy, the big paper target had to be held by a couple of the sergeants, one of them being Loretta, at whom most of us aimed. (Some day I shall find time to tell you about him.) This practice was valuable to me, helping me with my squeeze. It was amusing to watch the other men fire (cool and clever, or nervous and clumsy) and to listen to a little echo close behind our backs as we waited, like a bunch of firecrackers going off all by itself.

And an incident. Before leaving the ground I gathered up ten sh.e.l.ls and some clips, to practice with at camp. After Recall I went to the end of the company street, made up my clips, and had nearly finished simulating the shooting of the second one, when we were called for calisthenics, and I came running, and put away the gun. When later we fell in for parade, and were given "Inspection arms!" on my opening my rifle a sh.e.l.l flew out, right at the feet of the first sergeant, much to my disgust. When later still I came back and found it, I discovered it to be not an "empty" but a "blank," which someone this morning must excitedly have pumped out of his gun unfired, and left lying for me to pick up. Lucky I didn't fire it in practising at the foot of the street!

But it shows that I am still a greenhorn if I will put away my gun with anything in it, even though I had supposed it to contain but an empty sh.e.l.l. I don't intend ever to do such a thing again. There is another trifling mistake we are liable to, as ill.u.s.trated today. Halted at "company front," that is, with the two ranks in long lines, the captain ordered us to load. At the command the men half turn to the right, but keep the rifle pointing forward and up; the rear rank men also come close to the front, so that the muzzles of their guns are in advance of the front rank men. Standing thus they open the breeches of their guns, thrust in the clips, shove the bolt handle forward and turn it down--and then somebody's gun goes off! So you see why the rear rank men have their guns where no one will be hit, and why the captain stands off at one side. My, but he read us a lecture this morning! "Who let off that gun?--Mr. So-and-so, some blunders are crimes. That was one!" And a few more well chosen words. One hundred and forty-nine of us were glad we hadn't made that little slip.

After our firing the captain broke the company into two, and took my half himself. Then he proved to us that in skirmish drill we had forgotten all we had ever known, briefly expressed his opinion of the corporals, and splitting us into squads, told the sub-squad-leaders to take command. Now Reardon, who has drilled at Number Four in the rear rank since the formation of the squad, is by virtue of that position the corporal's subst.i.tute, and he manfully tried to lead us. I saw in a moment, first that he knew twice as much as I about the drill regulations, second that never before having given an order, he could not do himself justice.

Further, with the captain in that mood every man of us was scared. So presently the captain, after a few beheadings in other squads, came and watched ours for a minute, sent Reardon to his place in the ranks, and as his eye roved over the rest of us, picked me out, probably as being the only one whose name he knew. "Mr. G.o.dwin, put the squad through the skirmish drill!" A bad five minutes! I can order men about _informally_, and I knew what I wanted done in this case, but to give the order in the precise words of the drill book was more than my memory could compa.s.s. It was very interesting, even quite exciting; continually I racked my brain for something to do next in which I should not make a fool of myself. We got back into company formation after a while, and the captain tried the line in a skirmish advance; then abruptly he put all the corporals back into their places, and my little reign was over.

I should like, as anyone would like, to be corporal. Yet I should not make a good one, being nowadays in an absent-minded state and likely to fall into fits of brooding from which I could not give my orders correctly or promptly. I wonder if the captain will find out Knudsen. But it is right that Bannister should remain corporal, for he is daily improving in the work.

Nor can it be at all easy for our two officers to find, in the midst of all their work and among so many men, the one man in every eight capable of leading the squad. In the early stage of the school of the soldier it was not difficult to find those men who could best handle their guns and drill others in the same simple art. But such a test, even if mentally sufficient, does not take in the moral qualities necessary for the handling of eight men, keeping them up to discipline, seeing that they understand and are at all times ready for their work. Experienced sergeants might make this quickly possible, but our sergeants, even when they have been here before, are mostly very new to their duties. I take it that the captain and lieutenant are doing as well as they can.

In the afternoon the captain formed us in the street and drilled us in the manual, then took us down on the field and explained battalion parade, after which he put us through and through and through its simple evolutions, we blundering all the time. We had merely to march in line, to march in column, to halt and bring our rifles down together, and to do the customary movements of the manual in unison. But try as we might, we couldn't please the captain. For my part, I was as scared as a schoolboy, fearing to make some slip. But such little ones as I know I made pa.s.sed unnoticed; in fact, our part of the line attracts very little of his attention, so I conclude we do fairly well. Yet in the picture which I send, of the captain looking at our squad as we march company front, the camera has caught Squad 8 in a great mistake. The sun, as it lies exactly along the line of the company, with only the right hands and knees in full light, shows my part of the line pushed wholly forward out of the shadow, and the Captain looking at us in disgust. His att.i.tude shows his fighting quality. "The sc.r.a.ppiest captain in the army," says Knudsen. So often he has to look back thus and warn us: "Steady!" or "Guide!" or "Hold back on the left!"

How little you as a spectator would get of what goes on in the ranks on such an occasion as today's final parade! Suppose you were where I so often wish you, at the top of the slope above the field, which in spite of certain unevennesses would look to you fairly level. You would see the band march down and take its place in the left corner; then away to your right the companies would appear in their separate columns, and perhaps you would think they were very interesting as they halted and waited.

Then when the major came and took his stand below you, the music would strike up, and the three companies would march straight onto the field, along the bottom of which they would one after another swing into line and stand in apparently beautiful order. Then an adjutant with a clear high voice would give orders, and the men would present arms, come to attention, and then to parade rest. In this position they would remain while the band, playing a march, would go down the whole line and back again, the music, when they were once more in place, abruptly stopping.

Then the officers would gather and march forward in line, they would return, the major would call a command, and the companies would all break into squads, the rifles coming to the shoulders. To the right they would pa.s.s, turn up the slope, and then one by one would again swing into line and pa.s.s, with more or less beautifully wavering fronts, before the major. The first two companies would evoke applause from the spectators; the third, in which you would see a familiar face, would rouse none--and though you might clap your best, in this case you are but a ghost, and no one would hear you. Then the companies would for last time break into squads and so would march off the field. And you would sigh and think, "Isn't it fine?"

Well, you would never get the true inwardness unless I told you. It went this way.

Down out of the street we marched into the field, I a small part of a big machine, very much afraid that I might make some blunder. The men's feet thudded in unison on the sod, and to each tramp came the rustling echo of our stiff breeches, always an accompaniment to us as we march in good order. We waited, we marched forward to the music, we heard the captain give his first order--to the guides, I realized, not to us--but then came "Squads left--march!"

I swung to the left, the men in front of me marched to the right. Just grazing the last of them, as these rear-rank men filed to their places, I stepped into my position in the front rank just as the corporal finished counting "Six" below his breath, and at "Seven!" the whole line, which had been waiting for us Number Ones to complete it, strode straight forward. "Company--!" and we took this last moment, each out of the corner of his eye searching to the right, to get in good line. "Halt!"

Low voices counted "One, two!" and the halt was completed. "One, two, three!" and the pieces were at the order. The captain commanded "Right--dress!" and we edged forward, our heads turned to the right, to align the rank.

Such eager work we make of it--"Forward on the right--back in the next squad--Frothingham, you're too far forward--tell Neary to get back!" Such commands, all under the breath, run up and down the line. At last we are in place, the Captain says "Front!" and takes his place before the middle of the line, facing away from us. But he says in reminder, "The next command for _you_ will be Parade Rest."