Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/87

Rh out personality to us—just so many things, counted and recounted, to fill the ranks of a regiment about to go to war.

Taking up the march again, after a rest in which two groups had got a trifle mixed, an officer counted his objects and found one missing. He and his non-commissioned aides ran up and down through the mist.

"I'm shy a man. Have you got an extra man? Count up.

"What's he look like? Know his name?"

“How the deuce could I? Doesn't make any difference. All I want's a man. Anything'll do."

After many counts he was supplied, and the nameless things, taking up their barrack bags, stumbled on through the mist.

It was four o'clock when we reached the area, but lights burned in the mess halls, and mess sergeants and battery clerks were about their tasks. The odor of coffee was prophetic.

Each barrack swallowed its quota. The old men neglected the sleepy, half-frightened expressions of the recruits to stare at the amazing variety of hat cords. Only on a very few hats did the red of the artillery show. On the rest were the colors of the infantry, the signal corps, even the medical corps. With sinking hearts we remembered how our artillerymen had gone to fill the ranks of the infantry. By what curious chances during those days did a man find himself here or there? By what devious contrivances was such a circle drawn?

With so many men in them the mess halls were curiously silent. The drone of voices, reading service records or questioning, increased an atmosphere of somnolence. There was the familiar variety of names and accents and countenances. Most of these men were, in fact, from the