CHAPTER II
ON THE GREAT SUMMER HIKE
FROM up the mountain road one of a little group of officers ahead sent back an informal signal.
"B Company fall in!" called out Lieutenant Dick Prescott.
"C Company fall in!" followed Lieutenant Greg Holmes.
These two young West Pointers had been left temporarily in command of the companies with which they served.
Some hundred and eighty men rose from their by no means soft seats on the ground along the trail and fell into single file.
Another hand signal came down the trail.
"B Company forward, route step, march!" commanded Lieutenant Prescott.
"C Company forward, route step, march," echoed Lieutenant Holmes a moment later.
Tortuously the line moved forward once more. To one well up in the air that long line might have looked like a thin serpent trailing its way up the mountain side. But it was a very real, human line.
Each private soldier carried rifle, bayonet, cartridge belt, intrenching tool, canteen, haversack and blanket roll. It was a heavy pack. In addition, men here and there carried either a pick or a shovel.
Noll was carrying an extra shovel just now. Hal Overton had no such extra pack to-day, but all the day before he had toiled along with a pick added to the rest of his equipment.
What have soldiers to do with a pick and shovel? Theoretically these two companies now engaged on field duty were marching through a hostile country. After a battle the pick and shovel may be used for the work of burying slain comrades. Such tools are also useful in the swift digging of trenches in which to fight.
It was past the middle of the afternoon now, and the day of the week Monday. This little column was winding up the third day of its work in field.
As B Company traveled tediously along, Hal Overton was nineteenth man from the first sergeant. Noll was twentieth; directly behind Terry marched Private Hyman.
"Terry?" called Hyman in a low tone.
"Yes?" returned Noll.
"How do you like field work now?"
"Fine."
"You're a cheerful liar," growled Private Hyman.
"No, I'm not," laughed Noll. "I'm telling the truth."
"You really enjoy this hike?"
"Yes; and so does Hal."
"Huh! He's a bigger liar than you are."
"What's that human calamity behind you howling about?" demanded Private Overton.
"He's intimating that the truth isn't in us because we claim to like field duty."
"Hyman always was a bake-house soldier," laughed Hal cheerily.
"What's that kid saying about me?" demanded Hyman.
"Overton says," reported Noll, not very accurately, "that he can't understand why you're in the Army at all. He says that one of your temperament could find a job in civil life that would suit you much better."
"What job is that?" asked Hyman.
"Nurse girl," grinned Terry.
"For that," threatened Hyman, "I'll put salt in that kid's coffee to-night."
The conversation was carried on in a low tone of course. Troops in the field, marching at route step, are allowed to carry on quiet conversations when not supposed to be near the enemy.
"You want to look out for Hyman, Hal," Noll passed word forward.
"Why?"
"He says you stole his bacon from his haversack this morning and he's going to set a steel trap in his haversack to-night."
"Hyman doesn't know the truth when he halts it on sentry post," Overton retorted. "Hyman hasn't had any bacon in his haversack since we started from Fort Clowdry."
"How do you know?" demanded Private Hyman, who happened to overhear this statement.
"Because I've gotten up every night and looked through your haversack for bacon," declared Private Overton unblushingly.
"I heard to-day why you joined the Army," grunted Hyman.
"Yes?" grinned Hal.
"Sure! You had some trouble with the sheriff at home over stealing the flowers from the cemetery and selling them to get cigarette money. You're a nice one, Overton, to be entrusted with government property!"
"Oh, come, now, Hyman," Hal laughed back. "That wasn't so bad as your case. You enlisted because the judge said you'd either have to go to jail for robbing the Salvation Army's Christmas boxes, or else turn soldier."
Half a dozen men in the long line were laughing now.
"I'll fix you for that when you're asleep to-night," growled Hyman.
"Yes; I notice you never do anything to a fellow when he's awake," jeered Private Hal.
The two men were not on bad terms, nor in any danger of becoming so. This was merely an instance of the way soldiers "josh" one another.
The sun was now disappearing behind the western hill tops. It would be daylight, however, for more than two hours to come.
Fifty minutes after this last start Lieutenant Prescott again received a hand signal from the officers on ahead.
"B Company halt; fall out," ordered the young West Pointer.
Holmes repeated the command to C Company.
The head of the line had halted near a grove through which a brook bubbled along on its way to the stream down in the canyon to the right of the trail.
"The officers are going to inspect the grove as a site for camp," was the word that passed back along the line.
"A soldier's first duty," quoth Hal, as he sank upon the ground, "is to make himself as comfortable as he can."
Noll, too, dropped to the ground, and Hyman followed the example.
"Overton, I'll have to borrow some of that baby powder of yours to-night," sighed Hyman.
"For your complexion?" grinned Hal.
"No; to put in my shoes. This mountain hike has my feet in bad."
"I'll tell you what you ought to do, just before every big hike," laughed Hal.
"Don't tell me anything about the hospital," murmured Hyman disgustedly. "I tried that, day before we left Fort Clowdry, but the rainmaker warned me that if I tried to make hospital report, he'd see to it that I was left on thin gruel diet for a month."
"The rainmaker knew his business," mocked Hal. "And I've heard another yarn about that rainmaker."
"What?"
"After a malingerer gets his thin gruel down the rainmaker gives him a stiff dose of syrup of ipecac, and the gruel comes up again."
"There's no show for a man in the Army nowadays," sighed Hyman, who, with all his pretense at "kicking," was a keen soldier and dependable man.
In every regiment are some soldiers who would shirk every arduous duty if it were possible. The favorite device, with such men, is to turn malingerer – that is, to pretend illness and gain admission to hospital, which means a solid rest while comrades are working hard. But the successes of malingerers in the way of shirking have made Army surgeons keener, also. Lucky is the suspected malingerer who doesn't get put on thin diet and fed nauseating medicines.
From the group of officers ahead on the trail came Captain Freeman and First Lieutenant Ray of C Company.
"Mr. Holmes," called Captain Freeman, "let C Company fall in and take up the march again."
Young Lieutenant Holmes instantly gave the order to fall in. A moment later C Company moved off at the route step.
"What does that mean?" Hal asked Hyman.
"Oh, some new scheme that the officers have hatched up," replied Hyman. "There'll probably be a sham engagement on between C and our company to-morrow."
"We're lucky if it doesn't take place in the night," grunted another soldier.
"Well, my man, suppose it does?" demanded Sergeant Hupner, appearing behind the "kicker." "What do you suppose these manœuvres are for? They're to teach you the soldier's trade. They're to fit you so that, in actual war, you'll know what to do under any given conditions. The better you know your trade, in war, the better chances you have to come out of the war alive. This field duty, which so many of you dislike, is for the training of every officer and man in the very things he does in war time. The better every officer and man understands them the better is each fellow's chance of keeping alive in war time. Those of you who grumble ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Look around you at some of the older soldiers who've seen service, and you'll find they never kick."
"B Company fall in!" rang the order, this time from Captain Cortland.
But the march was to be a short one. The command was led into the grove and halted. The order to pitch camp was given. Now a lively scene followed.
As the outer covering of his blanket roll each soldier carries a flap of canvas, which constitutes one half of a shelter tent, as it is officially termed. The soldier's name for it is dog tent or pup house. Each man also carries two jointed sticks. One pair of sticks is jointed to form the front pole of the tent, the other the rear pole. In front of the tent site a peg is driven, and a cord passed from this peg up over the front pole, across to the rear pole, and down to a peg at the rear. Now the two flaps of canvas are fitted over this frame and the tent is up.
"Let's beat the company to it, Noll?" breathed Hal in his bunkie's ear. In the Army the "bunkie" is the man with whom the tent is shared. Usually two bunkies become close chums, even if they were not before joining the service.
"We've done it," breathed Hal, as he and Noll straightened up and gazed about them. "That takes the crimp out of a few veterans."
"Get a hike on, some of you men!" called First Sergeant Gray briskly. Then he turned to glare mildly at Hooper and Dowley, who were finishing last.
Corporal Cotter, his own tent up with Corporal Reynolds, turned to look down the company street.
"Hooper, you and Dowley are going to hear something," predicted the corporal dryly.
"That's done well enough," grumbled Dowley, glancing at his tent.
Captain Cortland stood at the head of the company street glancing down.
"One tent forward out of alignment," called the company commander, then stepped down the street. "Who are the men that occupy this tent?" he demanded, halting.
"My tent, sir," mumbled Hooper.
"And mine, sir," added Dowley.
"Don't you men know how to erect a tent in alignment with the street front?" inquired Captain Cortland. "Take it down. Corporal Cotter, stand by to see that these men set up their tent in soldierly fashion."
"I told you you'd hear something," remarked Cotter.
"Aw, what's the use of being so finicky about a tent a quarter of an inch out of alignment?" grumbled Hooper.
"The tent is more than that out of alignment," returned the corporal. "And there's every use in the world in performing every duty in the most soldierly fashion."
"Say," began Dowley argumentatively.
"Silence, and get on with your work," ordered Corporal Cotter sharply. "Hooper, you're close to thirty-five years old. Dowley, you're around thirty. Yet those two kids, Overton and Terry, are only eighteen, and they beat you at every point in soldierliness."
"Soldiering is a kid's game," growled Dowley.
"The best men we get in the Army are those we catch young," retorted Corporal Cotter. "Stop! Tighten that cord a whole lot more." "How does that suit you, Corp?" demanded Dowley when, at last, the sulky bunkies had again finished their task.
"Address me as Corporal, not Corp," returned Cotter stiffly.
"Well, Corporal, how do you like the set of our tent now?" insisted Private Dowley.
"It looks better this time," assented the corporal. "But, after this, you men, instead of sneering at the kids of the company, will do well to show yourselves as good men."
"We're always getting the kids rubbed into us," growled Hooper.
"Because they're head and shoulders over you both as soldiers," rejoined Corporal Cotter, turning on his heel. "Even William Green is a lot ahead of you as a soldier."
As Dowley turned to glance scowlingly up the street he caught the glance of Captain Cortland, glancing once more down the street.
"Your tent is in proper alignment this time, men," nodded the company commander, and went away.
Now the creaking of heavy wagons was heard along the trail, accompanied by the loud voices of the drivers. The expedition was accompanied by six heavy wagons, each drawn by four mules.
"Water in the brook; wood two hundred yards southeast!" shouted Lieutenant Prescott, who had been sent scouting for these necessities. On pitching camp the first task is always to learn where wood and the best drinking water can be found in the neighborhood. Often the water close at hand is forbidden for cooking and drinking purposes in favor of clear water at a distance.
Three of the approaching wagons continued along the trail, while the other three turned in at the side of the grove.
Corporal Reynolds and four men were detailed to unload and put up the eight-by-ten khaki-colored tent that was to be occupied by the three company officers.
"I notice that the wide stripes don't care about sleeping in pup-houses," grumbled Hooper to his bunkie.
"Wide-stripe" is the nick-name sometimes given an officer on account of the fact that the side stripe down the trousers' leg of the blue uniform is much broader than that worn by the non-commissioned officer. Privates wear no stripes on the trousers' leg, with the exception of musicians, who wear two very narrow parallel stripes.
Soon after the erection of the little village of tents, the soldiers scattered, though they soon returned with bundles of fire wood.
"You had better go and chase the stuff for our fire, Bill," proposed Dowley.
"Chase it yourself," retorted Hooper.
"Not this trip," retorted Dowley. "It's up to you this time."
Hooper swore that he wouldn't, but it ended by his starting tardily after fagots. Dowley was already gaining the ascendancy over Private Bill and making a half servant of him.
Presently some forty fires were blazing brightly in an irregular line at a distance of some yards from the line of dog-tents. American soldiers were preparing their evening meal in the field. The operation was an extremely simple one. First, each soldier dropped a handful of coffee beans into his agate drinking cup. With the butt of the bayonet he crushed these beans, the fineness depending upon his skill. Then from the canteen each man poured water enough nearly to fill the cup, which was then set on the fire for boiling.
By the time that the coffee had boiled for a few minutes each soldier returned his cup to the ground beside him. A dash of cold water from his canteen was sufficient to "settle" the coffee.
Now, each man placed two or three strips of bacon in his frying pan and laid it on the coals. While these morsels were sizzling the soldier turned his attention to sweetening his coffee. Then, when the bacon was cooked to his satisfaction, each man brought out his field hard tack, munching alternately on biscuit and meat.
"Yesterday was Sunday, and we had raised biscuits, roast beef and potatoes, with real gravy," grunted Dowley. "If a stingy government would give us more wagons we could have that every day."
"In war time," broke in Sergeant Hupner, "you might feel lucky if you saw the Army oven working once in a month. I've been there, and I've had to live for weeks on bacon, hard tack and coffee. Sometimes we didn't have the coffee or the bacon, either."
"That's a dog's life," grumbled Dowley.
"No; it's a man's life, at need, but only a man can stand it in the field," returned the sergeant gravely.
After supper many of the men smoked, but Hal and Noll, as they did not indulge in the weed, strolled down toward the trail.
"Isn't this great?" breathed Hal Overton, staring off over the distant mountain tops. "The field duty, I mean."
"It's great, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything," agreed Noll. "But it would do no good to try to tell anything of the sort to fellows like Hooper and Dowley."
"They're bad eggs," muttered Hal. "I wonder how such men ever got past with their references and managed to be accepted for the service."
"It is queer," nodded Noll. "But neither will stay in the service beyond the first enlistment."
"Yet they conduct themselves just well enough to escape any real censure from the company officers."
First Sergeant Gray was now moving through the camp, notifying the men who were chosen for guard duty that night. But neither Hal nor Noll were warned for detail that night.
Not long after dark tattoo was sounded by one of the buglers. Fifteen minutes later taps sounded, and all but the guard turned in in their dog-tents.
Each soldier is provided with a warm blanket and a rubber poncho, which is a blanket with a slit in the middle so that the head may be thrust through and the poncho worn, at need, as a rain coat. But to-night Noll Terry spread his poncho on the ground, Hal laying his a-top. Then both young soldiers lay down, drawing up their combined stock of blankets over them, for the early night had turned out chilly.
"Rest enough, now, for to-morrow's hike," mumbled Hal drowsily.
"Yes; unless we're turned out to meet a night surprise," returned Noll dryly.
In another part of the camp Hooper and Dowley, both warned for the guard, but not yet on post, were whispering by themselves.
"To-morrow Kid Overton begins to get his," chuckled Hooper.
"Yes; he'll begin to see those corporal's chevrons fading in the distance."
"We ought to fix Terry with him."
"One at a time; that'll be surer," scowled Private Dowley.
Hal and Noll slept the night through. Hal dreamed he was chasing an elusive rascal, who performed wretchedly on the cornet. As the rascal fled he continued to play on the cornet.
Then young Private Overton opened his eyes. The cornet player turned out to be the bugler, who was blowing lustily, twice through, the first call to reveille. Hal sprang up from his blankets. After he had crawled out of the pup-house, Noll joined him.
Wood and water were quickly brought. The field breakfast was like the field supper of the night before. Then the bugler got busy without delay. The men fell in and roll-call was read. Immediately Captain Cortland's crisp voice gave the orders that opened up the ranks. An unexpected inspection was on.
Lieutenant Hamilton stepped before the first platoon, Lieutenant Prescott before the second. Inspection of pieces was on.
Hal and Noll stood in the second platoon, about half way down the line.
Noll held his piece at port arms as soon as Lieutenant Prescott reached the man before him. By the time that the young West Pointer halted before Noll, Hal, as the next man, threw his rifle over to port arms.
The inspection of Noll's rifle proved satisfactory. Then the lieutenant halted before Overton.
"Open your magazine," commanded Lieutenant Prescott.
Hal obeyed.
"Draw your bolt."
Hal did so, after a hard tug, holding the bolt in his hand.
"Let me look at that bolt," ordered Prescott, gazing at the piece of steel mechanism in astonishment. He took it from the young soldier's hand and looked thunderstruck.
"Don't replace your bolt until ordered, Private Overton. Fall out to the rear."
Overwhelmed with amazement, his face flushing hotly with shame, Private Hal Overton gave his officer the rifle salute, then obeyed.
Noll Terry's face went white with anxiety over his bunkie's misfortune.
When inspection had been completed, Lieutenant Prescott made his report to Captain Cortland, who immediately followed his young second lieutenant to where Hal stood.
"What's this, Overton?" asked the captain coldly. "I thought you were one of our model young soldiers. Why, your rifle-bolt must have been in the fire. The end is out of shape, the temper is drawn – and here are file-marks on the bolt. It's unserviceable. I don't believe you could fire the piece."
"I'm afraid not, sir," Hal admitted.
"Load with a blank cartridge, my man, and try to fire the piece."
Returning the bolt, Hal slipped in a blank. But he could not drive the bolt home for firing.
"Ruined, my man," commented the captain stiffly. "Overton, this piece has been in your care. How did this happen?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Corporal Cotter!"
The corporal came over briskly.
"Corporal, Private Overton is in arrest until released. You will march him as a prisoner at the rear of the company and turn him over to the guard at night."
Corporal Cotter again saluted. Then, as the company officer and the young lieutenant started away, Cotter stationed himself beside Overton.
"Put your bolt back in the piece as far as it will go," ordered Cotter. "Tie it in place."
The men in ranks ahead had heard enough to realize that Private Hal Overton was in disgrace, and most of them were sorry.
Noll Terry was more than sorry.