As soon as he was out of sight, in trotted the ship's tailor with a portable sewing machine. Funny little man, so intent on his tiny task of sewing little strips of white cloth inside our clothes for marking. I suppose he felt as important in his way as the Navigator.
Somebody passed out stencils with our names on them, and the C.P.O., rather out of breath from scooting all over the station, dropped in long enough to tell us how to mark our clothes—then he was off on the wing. Busiest man I ever saw. I bet he lost ten pounds a morning. Well, he could afford to.
We were dying for lunch. You are always ready to eat in the navy, and the food is great. Lots of it, too. A new bunch of men had arrived—we felt like veterans as we gave them a hand at cluing their hammocks—and say, advice! We told them all there was to know about climbing into your swinging bed.
That night, when I crawled in, I found I could manage much better. I was dead to the world, and I slept the sleep of the just. Nothing short of reveille or an earthquake could have made me open an eye.
Next morning we parted from our room-mates. In peace times you are supposed to spend twenty-one days in detention. This was war, so we had spent three. We were to be shipped straight off to our respective division stations.
We Hospital Corps men reported to the head doctor and were assigned to classrooms. It seemed queer to be going to class again, after you'd been out making your living for a few years in business, but we got used to it. The lecture was on regulations, then they marched us over to Barracks B, our new home. We three from Baltimore stuck together. We were all assigned to quarters on the second deck—it's really the second floor, but you don't call them that in the navy.
It was a big place, but with a hundred and fifty men in it there was scarcely room to turn around—packed like sardines. We found a tiny space up by a window and put up our hammocks. Supper was in the mess hall, then back we'd go to school for a lecture; after that you could study or write letters until nine o'clock and taps.
We were up at five every morning, chow at six-thirty, mustered at seven-fifteen, and marched down to school in time to clean the lecture rooms inside and outside. Spick and span is the watchword of the navy. You get so you wonder how you ever lived inside of a house that didn't shine from top to bottom.
We didn't have to know much to pass exams—oh, no! Only Anatomy and Physiology, and First Aid, and Minor Surgery, and Operating Room Technique, and Nursing, and Hospital Management, and Pharmacy, and Materia Medica, and Toxicologies, and Chemistry, and Litter Drill, besides a little "lab" work in the compounding of medicines. Oh, no—anyone could learn that with one eye shut!
I stayed in Barracks B for three weeks, then the government sent down some big circus tents holding about one hundred and fifty, and we pitched them. We slept on cots for a change. Queer how we had to get used to them. Hanged if we didn't long for our hammocks.