The onerous guard duty they were now called upon to perform had perforce caused a change in their spirits since our new camp was established. Each man was called upon to do forty-eight consecutive hours of guard duty out of seventy-two. Thus for two days he would be constantly on duty, managing to snatch in all about four hours’ sleep each night, rolled up in his blanket with his rifle constantly by his side, not daring to remove even his leggings. The third day, from six o’clock one evening till six o’clock the next, very naturally became a day of laziness. Having had only eight hours’ sleep during the preceding forty-eight, and knowing that the succeeding forty-eight hours would be but a repetition, it is little wonder that the men in camp each night, only about one-fourth of the regiment, retired willingly to their tents at the first beat of the tattoo.
B Company received an accession this evening of three of its members who had reported at the armory on the night of the third too late to leave with the regiment, or who failed to receive their orders, namely, Privates George Bowne, A. B. Snell, and Fred Pariser. On Tuesday evening Sergeant Taylor and Privates Beseman, Casebolt, and Ungerman arrived. These were the last arrivals before Companies A and B left for Truckee.
One arrest was made by this guard. The event occurred in the “wee sma’ hours,” the principal actors being Frech, a featherweight, and one of Uncle Sam’s children, a giant marine. Frech, catching the marine trying to sneak across the line after a night’s carouse, facetiously ordered him to throw up his hands, and then bawled lustily for the “Corporal of the Guard, No. 6!” The corporal found Frech and his captive holding quite a heated argument as to the propriety of the rather Black Bart style in which the marine had been halted, the captive still pointing to the clouds, under the persuasive powers of the little German’s Springfield, though threatening dire vengeance, and Frech promising to “fix it” with the corporal if the marine “would be good.”
At about 6 A. M. the strikers who had returned to work began to arrive, coming across posts 9 and 10, especially, in such numbers as to require the assistance of a corporal in examining the passes. The increase in the number of men who came across each morning seemed to indicate an approaching stampede in the ranks of the strikers. It could not come too soon to please us.
The trouble with the subsistence department still continued. Despite the most frantic efforts of our quartermaster sergeant, we could neither steal, borrow, nor persuade the commissary department to give us enough kitchen and table utensils with which to properly feed the men. Surely, it would seem, sufficient time had elapsed since company mess was talked of and inaugurated to secure dishes enough to supply even Emperor William’s army. But doubtless we, the great uninitiated, cannot appreciate the stupendous amount of work necessary to be done to supply such an immense army as we, a few hundred men, camped in the very heart of a large city, constituted. Probably it still continued to be a “holiday, and the stores closed,” as they told us on the Fourth, for which weighty reason we had taken in an extra hole or two in our belts, and consoled ourselves with the knowledge that if we were hungry, we at least knew the patriotic motives which caused us to be so. What! Ask a man to open his store on the Fourth of July, that greatest of all days in the history of our country! Never! Rather let our patriotic rank and file hunger (we may eat at an hotel) than desecrate that glorious day by common barter.
“And we praised the little General
And we spoke in better cheer.”
And so the trouble continued. On such days as this, when the company was divided, no separate rations were issued to the guard; of what use would it have been? The guard had no means of cooking it. But full rations for the company were issued at the camp. Though in other companies we have known this to have been cooked and eaten entirely by those in camp, no account being taken of their tired and hungry comrades on duty, in B Company, the best possible, though still very unsatisfactory, system was in use. Having received the rations the cooks prepared the meal, if possible, enough for all; if not, enough for the guard. This, at least, having been prepared, all the available tin plates, forks, knives, and cups were gathered, and, with the pots of food, were placed upon a handcar and pumped up the line to the place at which the guard was located. Here, those not on actual duty finished their share as quickly as possible, and then went out to relieve the sentries. These, too, having finished, the now empty utensils were returned to the handcar and brought back to camp. Here, of course, the men were by this time rampant, and another scurry would have to be made to appease their inner man, who seemed to find such loud expression of his woes.
The afternoon of this day, Tuesday, became so hot that the men on guard at the tracks felt constrained to organize and set in operation another shower-bath company; this they succeeded in doing, utilizing a shady and quiet spot amongst the lumber-piles in the yard, fortunately very close to a faucet, to which they attached a hose, purloined from, Heaven and the “taker” only know where.
At 6 o’clock Tuesday evening our guard was relieved, very tired, and glad to return to camp; though the dust did cover every thing, tents included, an inch thick, every incautious step raising a cloud which obscured even the sun.