There was no rest for him, however. We turned north again, having J company in front, and after a mile heard the familiar firing. The captain sent us headlong into the field on the right, where soon we were part of a skirmish line, and for a minute were blazing away at a fence in front of us, behind which I glimpsed a single white hat-band. But Kirby was not to be caught as the cavalry had allowed themselves to be. Squad 8 was sent off at the double to the end of the line, and there at wide intervals we made a flank guard extending to the rear, where poor Reardon was allowed to rest at last, as we waited hidden behind what cover we could find, gazing across some pasture land with scattered bushes at a belt of pine in front.
As we waited we heard the voice of an umpire; I snatched a glimpse of him as he stood behind us watching. “Any enemy you see represents twenty-five men.” A cool statement that made our task perplexing, for while with one bullet I might slay so many men, conversely if one shot at us first he could wipe out the squad. But though we lay very low and watched very keenly, while the battalion banged away at our left, no one appeared in front of us. To my left was Reardon, and to my right David, very intent on spotting the first foe. It is a pleasure to see how seriously he takes the work. Pickle, beyond him, was constantly chewing gum and whispering slang, the sort of city clerk one reads about in Civil War memoirs, tough physically and mentally.
(I have thrown my chewing gum away. Too much swallowing of saliva makes you (me!) hungry. Me for a pebble from the next brook!)
We were at last called back by a whistle, and the distant cry, “Assemble on the left!” Once more we marched south, and presently were resting again at West Sciota. As we lolled there, buying apples from native buzzards, who take to the extortion of the professional without any coaching, some trucks came to the crossroads, and men began to climb into them. Watching one group, I was surprised to recognize a man of A company, at the same time that Corder exclaimed, “Those men are from the first battalion!” whose firing, you remember, we had already heard at least a couple of miles away. We did not get the explanation until battalion conference, some hours later. It seems that the umpires, during our northward march, had reinforced the cavalry with an imaginary battalion of infantry, before which we had been obliged to retreat. By motorcycle messenger a call for help was sent to the first battalion commander, who was now four miles away on the road to Altona. Having sixteen empty motor-trucks, in four minutes he had filled them with two companies, and seventeen minutes later they were behind our lines, forming for our support. As we saw or guessed none of this, it only illustrates the remark with which I began, that the private soldier knows but a little of what is going on.
I would not write this to you in such detail, except that I think it will interest you to see that the hike is more than a mere march, and that it is making every one of us advance in his department of the war game. We squads, I hope, are learning to do as we are told, though you see how blind everything is to us. The intricate problems of the officers come out in conference. There the men sit on the ground in a great three-quarter-circle, grouping themselves whenever possible around the men with maps. The major likewise has hisn, and the officers theirn. The major makes a general statement of the work of the day, and the captains then report on their particular operations. When you see what exact notes they have taken of every operation: the precise moment of sending out parties and of receiving reports, the minuteness with which they locate every action, the science with which they carry out the work that falls to them, and the team-play that animates them, you see that this is no old-style cut-and-dried “sham battle,” but an actual study, of course on a small scale, of fighting seriously carried out by well-trained officers. It has deeply impressed me with the long and hard work necessary to make an officer; and then, turning to the man’s side of it, it becomes plainer and plainer that it takes time, much time, to train a private or a corporal into a reliable man on patrol.
One hard thing for us amateurs to learn is the proper writing of messages containing military information. It is hard to decide what is important enough to send, and then how to word the despatch. Tradition from an earlier camp has handed down this model: “The enemy are in sight and are about to do something.” Where, when, how many, some notion, however vague, of the enemy’s disposition—all forgotten between excitement and too great responsibility.
The march home was the hardest part of the day. The interest of the skirmish kept us going; but the three miles back to camp at a quick pace took it out of us all. I had not known I was so tired; the strain wore hard on me; it seemed ages before we sighted camp, and then ages and ages before we reached it. But this experience was the same as on Monday, for though the very vigorous ones were able to whistle and sing, to the help of us all, again I began to hear grumbling all about me. We reached camp at last, and poor Reardon when we broke ranks dropped on the ground at his tent door, without the energy to unbutton the flaps, and in a minute was fast asleep there.
We had our dinner, which I put in my meat-can under the hay to keep hot while I rested, then ate and felt refreshed. Then the afternoon we had to ourselves, if you can so consider it when we have to clean our guns, clean ourselves, come to conference, and come to Retreat. For my own part, having yesterday sampled the slimy brook and having no taste for it again, I washed my face and hands (after cleaning my gun) in a little water from the canteen. Thus I am staying dirty. It is no more than I have done before, in the deep woods.
“That was some hike we had this morning,” calls Bannister to a friend across the street. Such is the general opinion, especially Reardon’s, who slept till he had to be roused for conference. And I want especially to chronicle that it was David who, declaring that Reardon would get rheumatism from the bare ground, roused him enough to get him onto his blankets in the tent; it was David who sat by him and prevented anyone from waking him; and it was David who after cleaning his own gun, which work the lad does not enjoy, cleaned Reardon’s.
The story goes now that the stolen clip of ball cartridges has been found and confiscated. Its location is ascribed to every company in the regiment, including ours. Our blanks we use very freely, being supplied every morning with any number from fifty up. And wherever we shoot them in any quantity, buzzards still flock together to rummage in the underbrush.