“Oh, that would never do,” was the sergeant’s reply. “We want to absent ourselves only on our ‘off’ days—that is, on days when there is no work to be done in surveying, or in artillery and rifle-practice. You know I am to complete the course this year, and as I want to pass a good examination, I must be on hand to receive all the practical instruction I can. I wouldn’t like to miss that.”
“But we don’t seem to have any ‘off’ days,” answered Don. “We are kept busy all the time. What’s the use of surrounding the camp with these rifle-pits?”
“There are two reasons for it. In the first place, the enemy may be hovering around watching for a chance to make an attack upon us.”
Don laughed outright.
“And in the next place, you want to learn just how to go to work to fortify a camp in case you should ever have command of one.”
“Which is not at all likely,” interrupted Don. “Why can’t the engineers stake out the works so that we could see the shape of them, and stop at that? I didn’t come here to handle picks and shovels for so many hours every day, and I don’t see any sense in it.”
Almost the first thing the superintendent did after the students were fairly settled in their new quarters, was to put the engineers at work laying out a very elaborate system of fortifications with which the entire camp was surrounded. The boys would have made no complaint if he had been satisfied with that; but he wasn’t. When the fortifications had been laid out, he detailed working-parties to build them, just as he would have done if the camp had been located in an enemy’s country. Such a thing had never been done before, and Don Gordon was not the only one who could not see any sense in it. At first the boys laughed at their sergeants and corporals, who urged them to greater exertions with their picks and shovels, assuring them at the same time that an attack might be expected at any moment, and finally they began to get angry with them; but the attack was made all the same.
But these days of toil were ended at last, and when the old soldiers who lived in Bridgeport came out and inspected the works, and declared with one voice that, in everything except extent, they were equal to any with which the Confederates had surrounded Vicksburg and Richmond, the boys felt that they were in some measure repaid for their labor. They made the most of the days of recreation that followed. Passes were freely granted, and every boy who went outside the lines made it a point to bring back something for his mess-table.
One day, while Don was lounging in his tent, Egan appeared at the door and beckoned him to come out. In one hand he carried a huge yellow poster, which he passed over to Don, with the request that the latter would read it at his leisure, and at the same time he held up the forefinger of the other hand as if he were listening to something. Don listened also, and presently the breeze bore to his ear the enlivening strains of martial music.
“They’ve come,” said Egan, “and they are now making their street parade. Are you ready?”