Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/28

10 grin determination pounced upon each other. There was no reasonable drill ground, but we took ourselves to the stumps and the logs of half cleared spaces. We drilled each other. We shouted at each other. We abused each other. How, we asked, would new officers and men take this or that?

"If you make a rookie laugh it's all off," an officer said after an exceptionally piercing cry of command.

“Or," another put in dryly, "If you give him the impression you're going to murder him he won't respond cheerfully enough."

We endeavored, therefore, not to resemble fools or assassins. Sometimes it was difficult.

Each day now, for a time, Colonel Doyle rescued us from our harsh treatment of each other. He took us to the slope of Division Hill where we sat on charred logs and listened to him discourse at length on various methods of computing firing data, or interpret the Articles of War and Army Regulations, drawing on his long experience in the Regular Army.

The activity about us was frequently distracting, unreal, a trifle prophetic. In the rapping of countless hammers you could fancy the stutter of machine guns. The fall of heavy timbers was suggestive of the crash of rifles of our own calibre. At the base of the hill, to give a more realistic touch of war, lay the encampment of the colored troops of the 15th New York National Guard.

It should be recalled in passing that these dusky doughboys were a very small oasis of soldiers in a thirsty desert of officers. In salutes and courtesies they received a maximum of practice.

Lieutenant Colonel Stimson came to us during one of these classes. That was on September 6, and by evening of the next day the last of the officers sent down from the First Plattsburg Training Camp had reported and been