Читать книгу Diary of an Enlisted Man - Lawrence Van Alstyne - Страница 41

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In spite of the fact that we are sumptuously fed, I have long longed for a good square meal off a clean table. This morning, early, I sneaked away to a farm house I had often looked at, and wondered if the people there would contract to fill me up for such a consideration as I could afford. I told them I was not begging, but would like to buy a breakfast. The lady was willing, and I was soon sitting in a chair at a clean table with a clean table-cloth and clean dishes on it. And such a breakfast! I forgot who or where I was. The smell of the victuals made me ravenous, and I ate until I could eat no more. They were pleasant people and seemed to enjoy seeing me eat. I felt guilty because I had not asked my friends to go with me, but I wanted first to investigate on my own hook, for I was not at all sure of getting anything when I set out, in which case I was going back to camp in time for breakfast, and say nothing about it. But when the hostess would not take anything for the hearty meal I had eaten, I was glad I had not brought my family with me. I gave them my heartiest thanks and returned to camp to find Company B getting ready for picket duty, and I was soon in my place ready for anything.

10 a. m. We are about six miles from Camp Millington, at a village called Catonsville. That is, the company is broken up into squads, and the one I am with is here, and in my charge as corporal. I am to keep one man on post and change him for another every two hours. Not a very hard job for any of us. The people seem very pleasant, and as the day is not very hot we are simply having a picnic. We are to pick up travelers who cannot give a good account of themselves and hold them until the officer of the guard comes round, and let him decide what to do with them. Coming here we passed Louden Park Cemetery, a beautiful place, and the largest of its kind I ever saw. Shade trees all over it, great fine monuments and vaults as large as small houses. I guess only rich people are buried there, for I saw no common headstones. But then I suppose we only saw a part of it, and the best part at that.

Night. The day has passed quietly. Nothing startling happened. The people have treated us royally, gave us all the peaches we could eat, and also gave us the credit of being the best behaved of any detail that has been here.

9 p. m. Some firing was heard on the post next ours, and which is the farthest out of any. I went out to learn what it meant. It seems a man came along and when halted, jumped the fence and ran for a piece of woods near by. Mike Sullivan started out to capture him. They shot at each other, but the man got away. Mike got a lot of slivers stuck in his face by a bullet hitting a post he was passing as the shot was fired. This is the only excitement we have had up to this time, midnight.