Uncle Sams Boys with Pershings Troops | Page 4

in which we were ever engaged. There must be no doubts---no ifs or buts. We must have a regiment one hundred per cent. perfect. I'm going to do my share with a company one hundred percent. good, even if I don't find time for any sleep."
Up the corridor there sounded a knock at a door. Something was said in a low voice. Then the knock was repeated on Prescott's door.
"Come in!" called Dick.
An orderly entered saluting.
"Orders from the adjutant, sir," said the soldier, handing Prescott a folded paper. He handed one like it to Greg, then saluted and left the room, knocking at the next door.
"Company drill from one to two-thirty," summarized Prescott, glancing through the typewritten words on the unfolded sheet. "Practice march by battalions from two-forty-five to three-forty-five. Squad drill from four o'clock until retreat. That looks brisk, Greg."
"Doesn't it?" asked Holmes, without too plain signs of enthusiasm. "Company drill and the hike call for our presence, preferably, and yet I've paper work enough to keep me busy until evening mess."
"Paper work," so-called, is the bane of life for the company commander. It consists of keeping, making and signing records, of the keeping and inspection of accounts; it deals with requisitions for supplies and an endless number of reports.
"I have a barrelful of paper work, too," Dick admitted. "But I'm going to see everything going well on the drill ground before I go near company office."
"All good things must end," grunted Greg, rising to his feet, "even this rest. Mess will be on in eight minutes."
The instant that the door had closed Dick drew off his olive drab shirt, drew out a lidded box from under the bed and deposited the shirt therein, next restoring the box to place bring out a basin from under the bed and placing it on a chair, he found towel and soap and busied himself with washing up. His toilet completed, he took a clean shirt from a bundle on one of the neatly arranged shelves and donned the garment. A few more touches, and, spick-and-span, clean and very soldierly looking, he descended to the ground floor. A glance into the mess-room showed him that the noon meal was not yet ready, so be sauntered to the doorway, remaining just inside out of the sun's rays.
Other officers gathered quickly. A waiter from mess appeared at the inner doorway, speaking a quiet word that caused the regiment's officers, except the colonel and his staff, to file inside.
Plain pine tables, without cloths, long pine benches nailed to the floor---officers' mess was exactly like that of the enlisted men, save that officers' mess was provided with heavy crockery, while in the company mess-rooms the men ate from aluminum mess-kits.
Most of the food was already in place on the table. The meal began with a lively hum of conversation. Occasionally some merry officer called out jokingly to some officer at another table; there was no special effort at dignified silence.
"The K.O. has our number!" exclaimed an irrepressible lieutenant.
"How so?" demanded Noll Terry, Prescott's first lieutenant.
"He knows us for a bunch of shirkers, and so he gave us the 'pep' talk this morning."
"Is the 'pep' going to work with you?" asked Noll laughingly.
"Surely! I wouldn't dare be slow, even in drawing my breath, after hearing the K.O. talk in that fashion."
"Same here," Noll nodded.
"I've been working sixteen hours a day ever since I hit camp," chimed in another lieutenant. "What's the new system going to be? Eighteen hours a day?"
"Twenty, perhaps," said Greg's first lieutenant cheerfully.
The meal had been under way for fifteen minutes when Captain Cartwright entered leisurely.
"I suppose you fellows have eaten all the best stuff," he called, as he looked about and found a vacant seat, though he paused as if in no great haste to occupy it.
"Same old Cartwright," observed Greg, in an undertone to Dick. "He's late, even at mess formation."
But Cartwright heard, and wheeled about, looking half-angrily at young Captain Holmes.
"Say, Holmes, you're as free as ever with your tongue."
"Yes," Greg answered unconcernedly. "Using it to taste my food, and I've been finding the taste uncommonly pleasant."
"You use your tongue in more ways than that," snapped Captain Cartwright. "I happened to hear what you said about me in Prescott's room a few minutes ago."
"Eavesdropping?" queried Greg calmly.
"What's that?" snapped Cartwright, and his flush deepened. "See here, Holmes, I don't want any trouble with you."
"That shows a lively sense of discretion," smiled Greg, turning to face the other.
"But I want you to stop picking on me. Talk about somebody else for a change!"
"With pleasure," nodded Greg, as he shrugged his shoulders and turned to drop a spoonful of sugar in his second cup of coffee. "There are lots of agreeable subjects for conversation in Camp Berry."
"Meaning---?" demanded Cartwright, still standing, and scowling,