History of the 305th Field Artillery | Page 6

at all, they faced us, eager, one knew, to learn.
"One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Squad halt. Right face. Left face. About face."
Those that couldn't speak English very well got the commands confused. Others had a curious lack of balance. All had a disposition to laugh at mistakes and accidents, and to discuss and argue about them while in ranks at attention.
At morning and evening roll-call argument was warmest. No linguist existed, sufficiently facile to scan that list intelligibly. Sprinkled among remembered English names were pitfalls of Italian, Russian, Spanish, Lithuanian, German, even Chinese.
"Krag-a-co-poul-o-wiez, G."
The officer, calling the roll, would look up, expecting the response his triumph deserved. A protest would come, as likely as not in fluent lower New York accents:
"Do yuh mean me? That ain't the way tuh say my name. Me own mother wouldn't recernize it."
"Silence! Simply answer, 'here."'
In a tone of deep disgust:
"Then I ain't here. That's all. I ain't here."
An appreciative laugh would ripple down the ranks. Men learned to be officers and non-commissioned officers in those days.
Afterwards the citizen soldiers would get their mess kits, and, sitting on burned stumps or Thompson-Starret rubbish, would eat a palatable meal. For the food was coming from somewhere, and the gear to dispose of it.
We had noticed that Walters, Payne, and Savage were up to something. During long hours they sat in Regimental Headquarters studying documents. Then they filled out many forms, and sample clothing and equipment straggled into the barracks. This meant a new phase, and now, as we labelled, we equipped. We became tailors, hatters, booters. We would begin the night's work by choosing as comfortable a place as possible in the mess hall with a pile of pink qualification cards before us. The queue of awkward and pallid youths would form.
"Name? "
It would flow out in various accents. More frequently than not it would demand painstaking spelling.
Education, occupation, average wages, capacity for leadership, ability to entertain, previous military experience -it all went down. There was one question in which we took a special interest.
"For what branch of the service do you wish to express a preference? "
Some had weighed the matter carefully. They believed themselves born to the Quartermaster's Corps, but the majority had not foreseen that interrogation, nor, if they had, it is likely that the meat of their answer would have had a different texture. Its sincerity was sometimes naive.
"Oh, hell! I don't care, just so I lick the Choimans."
We concentrated on the finest. Shamelessly we prosely-tized, out of this impromptu mission came some of the regiment's best.
Those hours of dreary, yawning statistics, moreover, had their relieving moments. Here comes a slender young man in the familiar suit of remote beginnings. The officer asks him formally the formal question.
"Wages in your last job?"
"$50,000 a year."
That officer, one recalls, rose to the occasion, for the young man was not boasting.
"And I understand you wish to express a preference for the Field Artillery?"
Wasn't it Hoadley who faced a youth just the reverse of this last-that is, flashily tailored?
"What can you furnish in the way of entertainment?"
"Me?" the flashy young man replied. "I could steer the village miser into a poker game, and, believe me, bo, I can make a deck of cards lay down and roll over. What's the idea? What d'ye mean? I got to split with you? "
When he declared for the Cooks and Bakers his choice went down without argument.
Afterwards we would line our charges up again and desert qualification cards for sample shoes and hats and clothing. Sizes were limited, and we hadn't suspected before nature's infinite variety in modeling the human form. We made an axiom at the start. The more peculiar the shape, the more particular the owner.
"For the lova Mike, mister, I can't wear that coat. Makes me look as if I'd broke me breast bone."
Or:
"You got to melt me to get me into this."
Everybody worked with patience and a desire to be fair, but, just the same, you had to make both ends meet and as the hours flew by you may have hurried a little.
It was during these sessions that a rotund and good- natured officer gave us a stirring example and prophesied his own future.
"You're in luck. That's a wonderful fit," you'd hear him say to a man with a 39, chest lost in a 36 blouse. "You're a perfect 36. Might have been cut for you."
The man would gather a fistful of the excess cloth, stretching it towards the officer.
"Cut for an elephant."
"The tailor will alter it so it won't look like the same blouse."
"I'm not saying anything about its looks. All I'm saying is maybe it isn't quite big enough for a good-sized elephant."
The officer's buttons would stretch.
"If you want to get along in the army, young man, you'll do