The clerk, with a lieutenant by his side with a duplicate list, calls out, “First Sergeant Smith.”
“Here, sir.”
The sergeant is handed a ticket, goes up the gangplank where he meets another sailor who sends him below; there he meets another sailor who sends him still further below, and so on until he is at the bottom of the ship where the bilge water smells. The others follow until the ship is stowed with a human freight of three thousand five hundred men.
Every man has his bunk of collapsible iron tubing which stand in tiers three high, with a passage way between. Later on, the top sergeant gets a second class room. No dogs allowed; but I smuggled Muddy in under my big coat.
We were all on board by night, and slept in our new quarters, but were surprised to awake in the morning and find our ship still at the dock. We were allowed to go ashore for exercise on the dock, and the ship routine began. Our canteens were ordered to be filled but not to be used except in an emergency.
Before daylight, next morning, we swung out into the river and down into the broadening harbor, to the sea. We were all allowed on deck. As I stood viewing the scene on every side, of brilliantly lighted cities and towns, Jot came up, touched me on the shoulder and, with a sweep of his hand, said, “Don’t it put you in mind of that verse in the Bible,—‘Gazar and her towns and villages, unto the river of Egypt and the great sea and the border thereof?’” Then, as we waved an adieu to the Statue of Liberty he added, “We are the vanguard of the army to make good the meaning of that Statue that France has prophetically placed there. We go to deliver France and the world.”
The land began to fade as daylight brightened. The broad sea spread out before us and with it a possible broader vista of life’s great drama and of the freedom of men as yet unborn, whose destinies we were perhaps carrying across the sea.
The naval officers were in supreme command of all on board and we soldiers were put to ship routine at once.
“It looks to me,” said Sergeant Nickerson, “like a huge job to feed all of us in this one dining room.”
“But it isn’t our business,” I replied, “so long as we get the grub.”