CHAPTER XVII
A MIDNIGHT MEETING
“Put down your things and put up your hands!” Pug Kennedy fairly issuedthe order to Bob as an officer might have done.
“Why should I?” asked the stout youth. “I haven’t finished my dinner.”
“Well, you’re not going to until I finish you. Come on! Put up yourhands! I’m a scrapper, but I won’t hit any one with his hands full. Put’em up, I say, or I’ll smash you in a minute!”
“Don’t you hit him!” called Ned, hastily arising from the opposite sideof the table.
“Mind your own business!” ordered Pug.
“Take some one your size!” came a voice from the end of the hall.
“I’ll take you if you want me to!” snapped Pug.
He took a step nearer Bob, and the latter, in very self-defense, wasabout to set down his plate and cup, when Captain Trainer, who had ahabit of unexpectedly dropping into the mess hall, entered the bigroom. He took in, at a glance, what was about to happen.
“Stop!” he cried in commanding tones. “What does this mean?”
“He spilled a lot of hot coffee down my back!” growled Pug, but he hadlost some of his belligerency since the advent of his captain.
“I didn’t mean to,” explained Bob. “It was an accident, some onejostled me.”
“Very well,” said Captain Trainer. “That is equivalent to an apology,Kennedy, and I direct you to accept it as such.”
“I’m sure I’m sorry,” said Bob. “I really didn’t mean to.”
“All right,” half growled Pug. “If you do it again, though, I’ll punchyou worse than I did before!” and he glared at Bob.
The captain, seeing that he had averted hostilities for the time being,thought it best to withdraw. Enlisted men, especially at meals, like tobe free from restraint, and an officer, no matter how much he is likedby his command, is a sort of damper at times.
Pug squirmed and twisted, trying to wipe some of the coffee stains fromthe back of his coat and Bob went on to his place to finish his meal.
“There’ll be trouble with that fellow before we are through with him,”said Jerry to his chums in a low voice, as they went out of the messhall, for a little rest before drill was resumed.
“He’s made trouble enough already,” said Bob. “Though of course it israther raw to have coffee spilled down your back. But I couldn’t helpit.”
“Of course not,” agreed Jerry. “But what I meant was that we’ll havepersonal trouble with him. He seems always spoiling for a fight, andmore so when we are concerned than any one else. Maybe he doesn’t likebeing in the same squad with us.”
“He can’t dislike it any more than we do,” suggested Ned. “Just waituntil I get made a corporal and have charge! Then I’ll make him steparound.”
“Oh, are you going to get promoted to a corporal?” asked Jerry. “Ididn’t know that was on the bill,” and he winked at Bob.
“Sure I’m going to be promoted,” went on Ned. “Aren’t you working forthat?”
And Jerry and Bob had to admit that they were, though it was ratherearly in the game to expect anything.
The first step upward from private, the lowest army rank, is to bemade a corporal, and, after that one becomes a sergeant. A corporalwears two V-shaped stripes, on his sleeves. The V in each case isinverted. A sergeant has three such stripes. There are various sortsof sergeants--duty or line sergeants, staff and major sergeants, messsergeants, supply sergeants and so on. The first sergeant is oftencalled “Top,” and sometimes considers himself almost a commissionedofficer.
Sergeants and corporals are non-commissioned officers, and there is agreat difference in rank between a commissioned and a non-commissionedman.
A commissioned officer can resign, and quit when he wants to, but anenlisted man, or a non-commissioned officer can not. Commissionedofficers are appointed by the President, and the commission carries acertain rank, beginning with second lieutenant. Each step upward meansa new commission. The sergeants and corporals are appointed, nominally,by the colonel of their regiment, by warrant.
“Well, then Pug had better look out for himself, if you’re going tohave it in for him when you’re made corporal,” went on Jerry. “But say,it must be fun to be an officer--even a non-commissioned one.”
“It is,” agreed Ned. “You get out of a lot of work that isn’t any fun,such as being the kitchen police, doing fatigue work like cleaning upthe barracks and grounds, digging drains and the like, and when you’reon guard you don’t have to keep on the go--all you have to do is tokeep watch over the other sentries.”
“Fine and dandy!” exclaimed Bob.
“Me for it!” added Jerry.
“But that isn’t getting us anywhere just now,” said Ned. “I’m detailedfor kitchen police this very day.”
“So’m I,” admitted Bob, and, as it happened, Jerry was, too.
When one is detailed to the kitchen police it does not mean that theyoung soldier has to arrest those who eat too much, or too little.
In an army camp the cooking is done, in most instances, by soldiersdetailed for it, though in some cases professional cooks may be used,such having enlisted or been drafted. Each day certain members of thecompany are named to help the cooks, of which there are usually three.The helpers are known as the “kitchen police,” and they do all sortsof work, peeling potatoes, washing the pots and pans, scrubbing thefloors, waiting on table, bringing in coal and wood.
This kitchen policing goes by turn, so no one man gets too much of it,or has to do it too steadily. It was the first time Ned, Bob and Jerryhad been assigned to this duty, and they went at it without grumbling,which is what every good soldier does. Their many camping experiencesstood them in good stead in this, and the efficient manner in whichthey went about their tasks in cleaning up the pots and pans drew acompliment from the professional cook.
“We’ll know our soup comes out of a clean pot the next time we eat,”said Bob, as he gave the copper a final polish.
“And by the looks of things we’re going to have a good feed to-morrow,”added Ned.
“We always do on Sunday,” said Jerry.
On Sundays in camp, reveille, mess and sick calls are one hour laterthan on week days, giving more opportunity for slumber, and onSaturdays the first call for drill is not until 7:35 instead of 6:50,which is also a little relief.
“Yes, there’ll be a good dinner to-morrow,” resumed Bob, as he passedthe ice chest, having occasion to open it. “Plenty of chicken and thefixings.”
The Sunday dinner in camp, in fact, is usually the long-looked-for mealof the week, and the supper, likewise, is more elaborate than usual.The feeding of the boys of the army is a science, and it is worked outto what might be called mathematical exactness.
For instance, at Camp Dixton each enlisted man received, or was eachday credited with, what is called the “garrison ration.” This consistedof a certain amount of fresh beef, flour, baking powder, bran,potatoes, prunes, coffee, sugar, evaporated milk, condiments, butter,lard, syrup and flavoring extract.
Of course each man did not actually receive these things, for, if hehad, he would have had trouble in getting them cooked, or in shapeto eat. But that was his allowance and he was entitled to it or itsequivalent, each article mentioned being issued in certain specificmeasure or weight.
The soldiers were allowed to trade what they did not want for thingsthey did. They could swap beef for mutton, bacon for hash and so on.They could have rice for beans, or dried apples for prunes, there beingsubstitutes for almost every ration issued.
“And a nice thing about it, too,” said Jerry, when he and his chumswere discussing it, “is that you don’t have to eat it all.”
“Don’t tell Bob that, it’ll scare him,” suggested Ned.
“Well, I mean you can save some,” Jerry explained, “and turn it intocash.”
“Do we spend the cash?” asked Bob.
“It isn’t usual. It’s turned back into t
he company fund, and used tobuy extras for special dinners--ice cream and the like.”
While the ration spoken of is supposed to be issued to each soldier, inreality it is not. He has to take the meal the cook prepares each day,and this is supervised by the mess sergeant. This official is giventhe task of looking after the kitchen. He is supposed to save a littlehere and there, where he can, and convert mutton into ham and eggs onoccasions, and save enough on the prunes to have them turn into lemonpie once in a while.
All this Ned, Bob, and Jerry learned as they went along. They finishedtheir kitchen police work, and were relieved from duty, taking theoccasion to go to the Y. M. C. A. headquarters to write some letters.
“I wonder how things are in Cresville,” observed Bob, as he carefullysealed one envelope, and took care that his chums did not see theaddress.
“I had a paper from there the other day,” said Jerry. “The old townseemed to be getting along in spite of our absence.”
“No more fires?” asked Ned.
“No; didn’t read of any.”
“Crooked Nose wasn’t arrested for stealing the old Frenchman’s money,or my father’s watch, or Mrs. Hopkins’ brooch, was he?” inquired Bob.
“No. But the article said that the old man insisted that he did lose abig sum on the occasion of the blaze. He tells the same story he toldus, but I guess few believe he had much money.”
“All the same it was a mean trick, if some one robbed the old man, andI’d like to catch Crooked Nose, if there is such a person,” declaredNed with energy.
“I’m with you!” added Bob. “Say,” he went on, “have any of you writtento Professor Snodgrass?”
“No, and we ought to,” said Jerry. “We ought to invite him down tocamp. I heard he was given a leave of absence, and there are some queerbugs down here in camp that he might like to look over.”
“I’ll drop him a line,” promised Jerry.
That night the three motor boys went on guard together for a two-hourperiod just before midnight. Their posts adjoined, and as they marchedback and forth they could speak now and again.
It was shortly before twelve o’clock, when the camp was wrapped indarkness and very still, that, as Jerry passed a certain spot wherethere was a small hollow among some trees, he saw, dimly outlinedagainst the sky, a figure crawling along in a stooping position.
Jerry was about to challenge, for those were his orders, when he saw asecond figure crawl along, from the direction of a public road outsidethe camp, and join the first.
“That’s queer,” mused Jerry, as he observed the midnight meeting. “I’llhave to look into this.”