Biltmore Oswald

Biltmore Oswald, by J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

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Title: Biltmore Oswald The Diary of a Hapless Recruit
Author: J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
Release Date: September 3, 2005 [EBook #16634]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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BILTMORE OSWALD
THE DIARY OF A HAPLESS RECRUIT
BY
J. THORNE SMITH, JR. U.S.N.R.F.
WITH 31 ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE
BY
RICHARD DORGAN ("Dick Dorgan") U.S.N.R.F.

[Illustration]
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1918, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company All Rights Reserved
Reprinted from THE BROADSIDE A JOURNAL FOR THE NAVAL RESERVE FORCE
DEDICATION
To my buddies, an unscrupulous, clamorous crew of pirates, as loyal and generous a lot as ever returned a borrowed dress jumper with dirty tapes; to numerous jimmy-legs and P.O.'s whose cantankerous tempers have furnished me with much material for this book; and also to a dog, an admirable dog whom I choose to call Mr. Fogerty, with apologies to this dog if in these pages his slave has unwittingly maligned his character or in any way cast suspicion upon his moral integrity.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Biltmore Oswald" Frontispiece
"'Do you enlist for foreign service?' he snapped. 'Sure,' I replied, 'it will all be foreign to me'" 2
"The departure was moist" 3
"Hospital apprentice treated me to a shot of Pelham 'hop'" 4
"I feel like a masquerade" 5
"This, I thought, was adding insult to injury" 6
"Mother kept screaming through the wire about my underwear" 7
"A bill from a restaurant for $18.00 worth of past luncheons" 8
"He missed the dirty whites, but I will never be the same" 9
"Fire drill" 10
"This is designed to give us physical poise" 11
"Liberty Party" 14
"Of course I played the game no more" 20
"She was greatly delighted with the Y.M.C.A." 21
"I wasn't so very wrong--just the slight difference between port and present arms" 24
"The first thing he did was to mix poor dear grandfather a drink" 25
"I was tempted to shoot the cartridge out just to make it lighter" 28
"One fourth of the entire Pelham field artillery passed over my body" 29
"The procedure, of course, did not go unnoticed" 32
"This war is going to put a lot of Chinamen out of business" 44
"I stood side-ways, thus decreasing the possible area of danger" 45
"I'm a God-fearing sailor man who is doing the best he can to keep clean" 48
"I took him around and introduced him to the rest of the dogs and several of the better sort of goats" 49
"I resumed my slumber, but not with much comfort" 52
"I lost completely something in the neighborhood of 10,000 men" 53
"Fogerty came bearing down on me in a cloud of dust" 58
"For the most part, however, he sat quietly on my lap and sniffed" 59
"I carried all the flour to-day that was raised last year in the southern section of the State of Montana" 76
"'Oh,' said Tony, 'I thought this was a restaurant'" 77
"'I would still remain in a dense fog,' I gasped in a low voice" 82
"'Buddy' I came in and 'Buddy' I go out" 83

BILTMORE OSWALD
The Diary of A Hapless Recruit
Feb. 23d. "And what," asked the enlisting officer, regarding me as if I had insulted him, his family and his live stock, "leads you to believe that you are remotely qualified to join the Navy?"
At this I almost dropped my cane, which in the stress of my patriotic preoccupation I had forgotten to leave home.
"Nothing," I replied, making a hasty calculation of my numerous useless accomplishments, "nothing at all, sir, that is, nothing to speak of. Of course I've passed a couple of seasons at Bar Harbor--perhaps that--"
"Bar Harbor!" exploded the officer. "Bar! bah! bah--dammit," he broke off, "I'm bleating."
"Yes, sir," said I with becoming humility. His hostility increased.
"Do you enlist for foreign service?" he snapped.
"Sure," I replied. "It will all be foreign to me."
The long line of expectant recruits began to close in upon us until a thirsty, ingratiating semi-circle was formed around the officer's desk. Upon the multitude he glared bitterly.
"Orderly! why can't you keep this line in some sort of shape?"
"Yes, give the old tosh some air," breathed a worthy in my ear as he retreated to his proper place.
"What did you do at Bar Harbor?" asked the officer, fixing me with his gaze.
"Oh," I replied easily, "I occasionally yachted."
"On what kind of a boat?" he urged.
"Now for the life of me, sir, I can't quite recall," I replied. "It was a splendid boat though, a perfect beauty, handsomely fitted up and all--I think they called