Private Godwin’s Daily Letter
Monday, Sept. 11, 1916.
Dear Mother:—
I began my day with my usual bucket from the tap; there are always early birds to serve me, and my helper this morning said it made him feel virtuous just to souse me. I prefer this to the shower baths, which are much further away. A very few go early to the lake and make parade of it; said one to his corporal yesterday, finding him crawling from his bed into his clothes, “My God, man, don’t you ever bathe?” But the poor corporal was still shaking with his typhoid.
Clay, who was up early on mysterious errands in the dusk, has just brought in boards to lay in front of his cot. Reardon asked, “What are you going to do on the hike? You’ll have to put your feet on the ground.” But Clay evidently likes a bit of luxury, and when he gave me his surplus boards I found I liked it too, for I prefer keeping my feet out of this sand, which has a creeping quality and gets everywhere. Out in front of the tent there had appeared a bench. “Hi!” cried Bannister, “where did that come from?” Clay said nothing, and Bannister, who appreciated the new convenience, thought it best to ask no more. I, with a mind on further conveniences, suggested that we club together for a bucket for our washing. Clay offered to get this without cost, but late in the afternoon reported failure. “I couldn’t get one, though I looked in every tent in the other companies.” Then he missed our new bench. “Where has it gone?” he demanded. Corder answered dryly, “Back to its original owners, I suppose.” But the lantern works better tonight, as the fellows all remark, avoiding mention of the fact that it has a somewhat different shape.
This morning we had our first drill in calisthenics. We were spaced in very open order, advised to take off our shirts, and Captain Wheeler, a magnificent figure of a man, strong as an oak in spite of his gray hair, stood on a platform and put us through exercises that searched out, so the boys agreed, muscles that you didn’t know you had. You get a new idea of the “position of a soldier” after he has shown it to you. “Oh, no, no, no!” he cried when first we came to attention at his command, his voice rolling away over the lake into infinite distance. And then he made us try to show that we were proud of our uniforms.
This afternoon’s platoon drill, under our lieutenant, made me very sure that, though I already feel as if I had been here for weeks, I am not yet master of my work. The drill kept me thinking. As it is no pleasure to be publicly called down, I am all the while trying to make no mistakes. A fellow must instantly—instantly!—know the difference between “Platoon right,” for instance, and “Right by squads,” even though the commands may not have been given for an hour. And one must know it whether corporal or not, for half the time the corporals do not yet know it themselves, and either mumble their commands or are silent, so that they are no help. And even if a fellow knows what to do, but lags in the doing of it, then he is likely to put the whole line out. Further, freight trains rumble by at the bottom of the drill field, the wind whistles in your ears, other officers near at hand are shouting commands to other platoons, and so you are likely not to hear a command at all. But on the whole I think I am improving.
The short time that we had with the captain was enough to prove that he is, as Clay claimed, a Southerner, if only from his use of the word like. As we came down from the right shoulder, he said, “Don’t climb your rifle lahk it was a rope.” And at Present Arms, “That man is holding up his piece lahk it was a Christmas tree.” “Swing your arms,” said he, “lahk you were proud of yo’selves!” Other little localisms slip in. When a man had explained a question that the captain at first did not understand, he said when he grasped it, “Oh, Ah see; Ah didn’t locate yo’.” But it is a pity to misspell so broadly. The differences of accent, though evident, are slight and pleasing, even musical.
Love from,
Dick.
From Erasmus Corder, Assistant Professor
in Harvard University, to His Wife
Plattsburg, Monday, Sept. 11.
My Dear Priscilla:—
You will want to know, now that I have shaken down into this life, how on the whole it suits me. I feel as if I had been here a fortnight, such being the power of routine. You know I am among perfect strangers, for though Nelson is in my company, I see very little of him. We actually have not looked each other up since Saturday. And though Watson of the Philosophy department and Jones of the Library staff are both here, they are in other companies, and the best I have done is to pay each of them a hurried call. The real life is the life of the squad, and I find myself among interesting fellows.
The work is not too hard, for the officers give us periods of rest, and we are gradually hardening up. I live very cautiously, always change my stockings and rest my feet whenever I come off the drill-field, and whenever I can I lie down for a nap. But I am getting so lively that I find myself tempted to ignore these precautions, and hope that before long I can take not only the work but the fun as it comes. The excellent stockings which you knit for me are not too heavy nor too hot; you were wise to mark every thing that I wear, as in this camp articles of clothing very much resemble one another. My sewing kit, with all its threaded needles, called out the wonder of the corporal the other day, and the whole squad stood around and admired it.
I hope in time to attain a more military carriage, but it is a hard fight with habit. I wish I were as springy as these boys around me; even as I work the fat out of my bacon, I don’t find myself perfectly elastic. For I get a bit stiff in the knees from long standing at the manual; and as the evening chill comes on I find it gets more into my joints than I like. And so I am watching the development of a problem with which I, that is, my mind, can have very little to do. Question: shall I get stiffer as the days grow colder, until on the hike they will discharge me as an old man; or will it all work off as I get used to the exercise, until I am limber? It is really a very serious matter, my dear, this being forty-five years old. One should turn life into a profession, and study how to become young. There are a number of men of my age or older here at camp, and I find we all have this same preoccupation, and very eagerly ask each other how we are getting on, and give advice. And the hike—that looms ahead of us all as an ordeal which we are afraid we shan’t pass.
I never tire of the view from our drill field. The mountains are never twice the same, and the lake is quite as changeable; they vary their aspect every hour from morning to evening. We are lucky just now in our full moon, to light us about the unaccustomed streets. In contrast are the ugly tents, which yet have a romantic interest in their possible warlike use, and in their perfect uniformity, which is so forbidding that it becomes interesting. And for one who has come from a skirted sea-side resort, it is not unpleasant to see around me nothing but men, men, men.
Your letters make me feel easy about the family. We are very lucky that Mildred did not get a bad fall when the handle of her bicycle broke. Tell Florence to make a proper distinction between to and too, and to form her capital Cs more carefully. Little Elinor’s letters are much admired in the whole tent. It must be about time to pick the Gravenstein apples. Tell Robert to handle them as if they were eggs.
You see I am well. Do not worry about me. Love to all the youngsters.
Erasmus.