"What d'ye mean by sayin' vartical?" asked Koontz.
The orderly explained for the hundredth time, that vertical meant straight up and down. He had them then count off by twos, beginning at the right, then he instructed them that at the order of "right face," number one was to take a half step obliquely to the right, and number two a step and a half to the left, bringing them in double file at right face. But when he gave the order, half of the men had forgotten their number. Confusion and dismay resulted, and the long suffering orderly sat down and swore until he was exhausted.
Camp-life was new to all, and its novelty kept all in a perpetual excitement. There was but little discipline. Officers ordered men and men ordered each other. Every one had suggestions to make, and those who knew the least offered the most of them.
"I tell you," said Sergeant Swords to Corporal Grimm, "that tent is not strong. The center pole is too weak, and the guy ropes are rotten. It'll go down."
"I always knowed them boys didn't know how to fix a tent," said Corporal Grimm, plying his jaws vigorously on a huge piece of pig-tail tobacco.
"Yes, sir; they've got a good deal to learn yet," said Sergeant Swords, with a sigh.
"I do hate to see any one, who don't know anything about soldier life, pretend to know so much," said Corporal Grimm, who had had ten days' experience before he enlisted in his present company.
"So do I," said Sergeant Swords, who had seen at least six days' service. "They'll find yet they had better take some one else's advice what's had experience. Why, when I was with Captain Strong's men, and we marched forty miles to Goose Creek Bridge to keep the rebels from burnin' it, we fixed a tent up like that, and the first night after we encamped, there came up a rain-storm, and blowed the thing a quarter of a mile into a brush heap."
"Did I ever tell you what a hard time we had when I was under General Preston;" asked Corporal Grimm, by way of introduction to a story which should redound to his own greatness.