September 12th.
The town, as I told you, is flooded with recruits, of the amateur variety. But our post is a little oasis all by itself, and except that they come and drill on the parade ground, they do not come near us. Did I tell you that out in front of the house, merely across a driveway, is this great field where the training companies manœuvre morning and afternoon, and where they occasionally have regimental or battalion drill? Luckily our small piazza is all grown over with vines, so that I can sit outside for the air and yet not myself be seen. The old Colonel watches it all with the keenest interest, tells me what they do and what they fail to do, and I am even learning the meaning of a few military terms. He approves of the way in which the new men learn, and is very proud of what they are achieving. But it has got so with me that I pay no more attention to the drilling men than to automobiles going by. And when their hours are over the place is almost as deserted as before.
Sept. 13.
I am rather annoyed by the fact that now that the training camp is settling into its routine, its officers—the unmarried ones—find time to come calling on the Colonel. Of course the dear old man is delighted to see them, and doesn’t tell me that he has helped to spread the report that an eligible young woman is staying with him. I wish he hadn’t. For I have found out that military men are twice as bad as civilians. They are aggressive by nature, or they wouldn’t have chosen the profession; they are aggressive by education; three minutes after they are introduced they begin a flirtation. There is a lieutenant Pendleton here for whom I am sure I am the twenty-seventh, so skilful is he in his operations. I have known him two days, and I expect him to propose tomorrow. There are three others who are only a day, or at most two days, behind. You know them, the dashing, fascinating kind.
Another officer, Lt. Pendleton’s captain, named Kirby, I cannot quite make out. He doesn’t make love; he discusses tactics with the colonel. Yet he comes quite regularly, and keeps me in sight. He seems grimmer, more tenacious than the others; I’m glad he gives his time to the Colonel rather than to me. His voice has a curious quality, a most unmilitary gentleness. Pendleton, when he gets you in a corner, purrs to you alone; yet you feel that he has claws. His voice rings on the parade ground; I’m sure of it. I can’t make out what Captain Kirby’s would sound like. There is a deceptive sympathy to it, deceptive because I feel in him much purpose. When an army officer can’t flirt he either likes his profession too little or he likes it too much.
Sep. 14.
This morning, on our little porch, I was sitting sewing behind the vines when Captain Kirby came marching his company onto the parade ground before the house. And then I learned what his voice was like, my dear. Not gentle at all; very deep, very strong, curiously resonant, as if he were shouting through a trumpet. And how do you suppose he treated his men, so many of whom are gentlemen, or older than he, or earning bigger salaries. Like schoolboys! I first saw him when he was standing out in front of them, holding in his hand, swinging by the strap, a rifle that he must have taken from one of them. Said he: “When you’re at route step, I want you not to carry your guns like suit-cases. You aren’t a gang of porters. If I had the money I’d tip you all; but cut out this red-cap stuff. And don’t carry it so.” He put it across his shoulders, pointing right and left. “You’ll put out the eye of the man on your right, and bash the ear of the man on your left. Now remember, Nature is a great provider. She has made shoulders specially for the carrying of rifles. Carry your rifle on one shoulder or the other, or hang them by the straps from one shoulder or the other. And by no other way.” As if they had to obey him in every little thing!
Then he worked them! Nothing satisfied him. At each mistake, a blast of sarcasm. He spoke of the “accordion-pleated line.” He gave a fling at a lost corporal: “As soon as we recover our derelict flanking squad, now about a hundred yards ahead.” The men came slinking back. He withered one individual. “That belt is on exactly right. Except that it’s upside down and inside out, it’s exactly right.” At whatever distance he went, I could hear every word. And whenever the company came close, I could hear the men in the ranks, murmur, murmur, murmur. You can’t treat such men so. Of course they’re disgusted with him.