A cartridge belt. Easily recognized, with its many pockets and numberless eyelets.
A first-aid kit. In a sealed tin box, buttoned in a pocket attached to the belt.
A canteen in a cloth case. Not flat and circular, but solid and bulky.
A bacon tin. Hm—a small box?
A condiment can. A double ended contraption, in one end of which had once been powdered chocolate.
A meat can. An oval sauce-pan, with a lid over which the hinged handle shuts down.
A knife, fork, and spoon.
I stuffed them away again, shed my blouse, as I saw the others were doing, and was therefore ready when, our squad having filled up, the call came for us to fall in. Out into the street we tumbled, each of the dozen and a half tents furnishing a squad, the squads falling in according to number. The sergeants formed us, got us into column of squads, and marched us away down the public street, where military persons of all kinds went by, from lone privates to officers driving automobiles, and where the only notice taken of us was by civilians in motor-parties, who came to see our zoo.
So here I was, for the first time in my life marching in the ranks, like any private not knowing where or why. For a quarter, a half, three quarters of a mile we went at a quick pace on the macadam, till my soft tissues knew what was meant by the “hammer, hammer, hammer on the hard highway.” And my misery had plenty of company. The man in front of me, a bulky person, was wringing wet, and I saw another fellow with the sweat actually dripping off his chin. It was a welcome relief to turn in at a big gate, pass between brick buildings, and come onto a great grass field across which we marched directly toward a building with a long portico, on which the sight of rookies waiting promised us rest. Very willingly we broke ranks at command. We learned from our predecessors that we were there for physical examination.
When our turn came at last it was all very brisk and business-like, and soon I was passed as being sound in body and feet. With most of us the ordeal was equally successful; but one poor chap sat melancholy in a blanket, waiting for a second test. Then I straggled back to camp with Professor Corder, who confessed himself just under the age-limit of forty-five. In spite of his successful examination he acknowledged a little anxiety as to whether he could stand the work; has coddled himself, he acknowledges, for years; worries about the effect of woollen stockings: I imagine that most men of his age here have some such anxiety.