Notes of a War Correspondent

by Richard Harding Davis

My carry-all is of canvas with a back of waterproof. It is made up of three strips six and a half feet long. The two outer strips are each two feet three inches wide, the middle strip four feet. At one end of the middle strip is a deep pocket of heavy canvas with a flap that can be fastened by two straps. When the kit has been packed in this pocket, the two side strips are folded over it and the middle strip and the whole is rolled up and buckled by two heavy straps on the waterproof side. It is impossible for any article to fall out or for the rain to soak in. I have a smaller carry-all made on the same plan, but on a tiny scale, in which to carry small articles and a change of clothing. It goes into the pocket after the bed, chair, and the heavier articles are packed away. When the bag is rolled up they are on the outside of and form a protection to the articles of lighter weight.

The only objection to the carry-all is that it is an awkward bundle to pack. It is difficult to balance it on the back of an animal, but when you are taking a tent with you or carrying your provisions, it can be slung on one side of the pack saddle to offset their weight on the other.

I use the carry-all when I am travelling “heavy.” By that I mean when it is possible to obtain pack-animal or cart. When travelling light and bivouacking by night without a pack-horse, bed, or tent, I use the saddle-bags, already described. These can be slung over the back of the horse you ride, or if you walk, carried over your shoulder. I carried them in this latter way in Greece, in the Transvaal, and Cuba during the rebellion, and later with our own army.

The list of articles I find most useful when travelling where it is possible to obtain transport, or, as we may call it, travelling heavy, are the following:

A tent, seven by ten feet, with fly, jointed poles, tent-pins, a heavy mallet. I recommend a tent open at both ends with a window cut in one end. The window, when that end is laced and the other open, furnishes a draught of air. The window should be covered with a flap which, in case of rain, can be tied down over it with tapes. A great convenience in a tent is a pocket sewn inside of each wall, for boots, books, and such small articles. The pocket should not be filled with anything so heavy as to cause the walls to sag. Another convenience with a tent is a leather strap stretched from pole to pole, upon which to hang clothes, and another is a strap to be buckled around the front tent-pole, and which is studded with projecting hooks for your lantern, water-bottle, and field-glasses. This latter can be bough ready-made at any military outfitter’s.

Many men object to the wooden tent-pin on account of its tendency to split, and carry pins made of iron. With these, an inch below the head of the pin is a projecting barb which holds the tent rope. When the pin is being driven in, the barb is out of reach of the mallet. Any blacksmith can beat out such pins, and if you can afford the extra weight, they are better than those of ash. Also, if you can afford the weight, it is well to carry a strip of water-proof or oilcloth for the floor of the tent to keep out dampness. All these things appertaining to the tent should be tolled up in it, and the tent itself carried in a light-weight receptacle, with a running noose like a sailor’s kit-bag.

The carry-all has already been described. Of its contents, I consider first in importance the folding bed.

And second in importance I would place a folding chair. Many men scoff at a chair as a cumbersome luxury. But after a hard day on foot or in the saddle, when you sit on the ground with your back to a rock and your hands locked across your knees to keep yourself from sliding, or on a box with no rest for your spinal column, you begin to think a chair is not a luxury, but a necessity. During the Cuban campaign, for a time I was a member of General Sumner’s mess. The general owned a folding chair, and whenever his back was turned every one would make a rush to get into it. One time we were discussing what, in the light of our experience of that campaign, we would take with us on our next, and all agreed, Colonel Howze, Captain Andrews, and Major Harmon, that if one could only take one article it would be a chair. I carried one in Manchuria, but it was of no use to me, as the other correspondents occupied it, relieving each other like sentries on guard duty. I had to pin a sign on it, reading, “Don’t sit on me,” but no one ever saw the sign. Once, in order to rest in my own chair, I weakly established a precedent by giving George Lynch a cigar to allow me to sit down (on that march there was a mess contractor who supplied us even with cigars, and occasionally with food), and after that, whenever a man wanted to smoke, he would commandeer my chair, and unless bribed refuse to budge. This seems to argue the popularity of the contractor’s cigars rather than that of the chair, but, nevertheless, I submit that on a campaign the article second in importance for rest, comfort, and content is a chair. The best I know is one invented by Major Elliott of the British army. I have an Elliott chair that I have used four years, not only when camping out, but in my writing-room at home. It is an arm-chair, and is as comfortable as any made. The objections to it are its weight, that it packs bulkily, and takes down into too many pieces. Even with these disadvantages it is the best chair. It can be purchased at the Army and Navy and Anglo-Indian stores in London. A chair of lighter weight and one-fourth the bulk is the Willisden chair, of green canvas and thin iron supports. It breaks in only two pieces, and is very comfortable.

Sir Harry Johnson, in his advice to explorers, makes a great point of their packing a chair. But he recommends one known as the “Wellington,” which is a cane-bottomed affair, heavy and cumbersome. Dr. Harford, the instructor in outfit for the Royal Geographical Society, recommends a steamer-chair, because it can be used on shipboard and “can be easily carried afterward.” If there be anything less easy to carry than a deck-chair I have not met it. One might as soon think of packing a folding step-ladder. But if he has the transport, the man who packs any reasonably light folding chair will not regret it.

As a rule, a cooking kit is built like every other cooking kit in that the utensils for cooking are carried in the same pot that is used for boiling the water, and the top of the pot turns itself into a frying-pan. For eight years I always have used the same kind of cooking kit, so I cannot speak of others with knowledge; but I have always looked with envious eyes at the Preston cooking kit and water-bottle. Why it has not already been adopted by every army I do not understand, for in no army have I seen a kit as compact or as light, or one that combines as many useful articles and takes up as little room. It is the invention of Captain Guy H. Preston, Thirteenth Cavalry, and can be purchased at any military outfitter’s.