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Postscript, written at the top of the first sheet of the letter

I have just sent you off this telegram: Is You-know-who at Plattsburg, and why? I thought I saw her here today. Am well. Love.

Second postscript, written in the margin

I find I have written you a letter that will show you my difficulties in getting time to write. It is merely typical of my usual day.

Dear Mother:—

I begin this letter in the tent at about 5.30 in the morning, expecting the first assembly, yet trying to snatch a little time while the rest of the camp is still dressing. My hand no longer aches, but the wrist is plain stiff from yesterday’s exercise at trail. I have just conned over fifty paragraphs of the drill book, getting up early for the purpose.

Free time is scarce. When the captain yesterday told us to put fifteen minutes a day on our study of the rifle, and especially in learning to squeeze (a mystery which I will expound to you when I myself have mastered it) the whole company groaned. Our time is so cut up that it is

(The bugle and the whistle! Five minutes for assembly.)

hard to find many minutes at a stretch which you can devote to any one thing. And yet I think it quite right that yesterday, after returning from the open order drill, squad after squad of us should of our own accord go down to the drill field and practise the new tricks, especially in preserving the squad formation while following the corporal over whatever ground and through whatever angles. Those fifteen minutes will help us today. Bannister tends quietly to his job, an amusing fellow with his little imitations of a farmer (which some day he means to be), his chuckling Yankee wit, and his interest in telling all about his wife and children at home.

Speaking of corporals, Corder has brought out new facts regarding Knudsen. Yesterday, when the tent was empty but for us three, Corder stopped Knudsen from going out while at the same time he beckoned to me. Lucy, coming in just then, stopped and listened also. “Knudsen,” said Corder, “you’ve drilled before.” “Not infantry drill,” answered Knudsen. “Recently?” demanded Corder. Knudsen admitted, “All last winter with a troop of cavalry.” “Then why,” demanded Corder, “didn’t you say you had had experience, and try to be a corporal yourself?” “Because——”

(Bugle again, and half an hour for breakfast. Having a little time before morning drill, I go on.)

“Because,” said Knudsen, “I didn’t want to be corporal. I came here tired to death from a long hard worrying year in getting that factory of mine in good running order. I don’t want to have anything more to do, for the whole of this month, with managing a stupid gang of men.” “Thanks!” said Corder and I together, and we bowed as if we had been drilled to do it, exactly together. Knudsen was rather taken aback, but he laughed and apologized. “You ought to be corporal of a squad,” said Corder. “Do you want to get me out of this one?” demanded Knudsen. “Bannister is all right. I tell you I’m here for a rest, and I want to escape the captain’s notice.” We promised (Bugle!) to help him keep in his obscurity. Lucy stood silent, but full of admiration.

(Sergeant’s whistle, and Pickle comes running in. “Make up the packs without the ponchos!” Good by for the present.)

(Four hours later, after skirmish practice in the roughest kind of low underbrush, in which I nearly lost a legging, and wished for a pair of wooden elbows.)

The company was split in two this morning, those men who had used high-power rifles being taken away by the captain, whose specialty is shooting, while the rest of us went with the lieutenant up the Peru road, and turned into an old overgrown blueberry pasture. Luckily there were no blueberries, for whenever we threw ourselves flat we should have squashed more on our clothes than we should have had time to eat. Bannister being with the shooters, we (such as remained of our squad) were put with a neighboring corporal who did not know his business, and

(Forty minutes for mess. After a cigarette, I am trying to snatch a few minutes now)

and speedily had the lieutenant “bawling us out.” So very quietly, but very firmly, with Corder again winking at me in perfect delight, Knudsen took over corporal and squad, and managed us in an undertone from his position of number two. He kept the squad together, told the corporal when to spread it out, and that innocent person willingly gave himself into Knudsen’s hands. We had plenty to do in a series of

(Bugle and whistle. Off for afternoon drill.—Now at 3.24 P.m. after learning to pitch shelter tents)

imaginary attacks, sometimes in showers, and we steaming in our ponchos or shivering without them, ploughing through the wet bushes or throwing ourselves flat in them. Then, from whatever positions we found ourselves in, we had to “simulate firing” at an enemy until my neck was lame from trying to hold my head up, and my elbows were sore from their rough lodgings. The corporal was perfectly docile, and Knudsen even hooked his fingers in the back of the man’s belt and pulled him here and there.

(Sergeant’s whistle, and again Pickle comes diving into the tent. “Undershirts only, for the sun’s out hot. Take your towel if you want to swim.” That means calisthenics.—After forty minutes.)

Out we went to the drill field, took off (most of us) our remaining shirts, and were put through nine hundred exercises till we dripped, while ladies in their automobiles watched us from the top of the slope. Hope they enjoyed it. When it was over we were dismissed where we stood and streamed yelling to the beach, where we found Champlain, at the hot end of this changeable day, able to repay us for all our sufferings.

Well, to finish the corporal story. The squad were perfect lambs in Knudsen’s hands, none daring to bleat, while all around us the other squads were disputing in undertones and going wrong amid storms of discontent. When we had got back to the tent, and had lost our emergency non-com., Knudsen began to praise him for an excellent corporal. “He was good so long as you had him in charge,” said Corder. “Especially good on that last deployment when you yanked him into place. If you don’t want to be promoted, man, let your superiors blunder, and don’t correct them.” “The lieutenant wasn’t looking,” answered Knudsen meekly.

Now about (call for supper) about that telegram (call for regimental conference. I am now at the company tent waiting for the captain’s conference.) about that telegram of mine. Where is Vera Wadsworth? For when we were on the parade ground at the post this afternoon, learning to pitch our shelter tents (which is another complicated affair, the explanation of which I will reserve) we found ourselves deserted for a while by our mentor the lieutenant, and were at the mercy of green sergeants, who knew something, to be sure, but in whom we had no confidence. Someone discovered him—Pickle. “Gee,” said that exponent of classic English, “spot the lieutenant with a skirt.” And there he was at a distance, in talk with a tall girl, handsome, unless I miss my guess, and Vera herself, if I have any knowledge of her figure, and of a certain hat and parasol she lately affected. Quite at home there too, without a chaperon, on the walk in front of the officers’ houses, and without a waiting automobile that brought her or would carry her away. What could bring her here? Were her military relatives at this post? At any rate, I thought they were now at the border. I hope it wasn’t she; but the lieutenant, as he returned to us, smiled as men usually do as they think of Vera. Look up her whereabouts and let me know.

I see the captain coming to conference. Good night,

Dick.