■‘r':'"»'*r ' -;*> >
i«8g1ri!liiilit»i'^p
ilr?
INTO THE MILL
AND
OUT
BEING THE PERSONAL EXPERI
ENCES OF SELLDEM OUT
OUT LAYTE, RELATED BY
S. 0. L. HIMSELF.
As I said last week when we were
awakened in the morning with the
altogether too familiar cry of "Prison
ers Outside,” we were also greeted
the resounding patter of rain on our
tent. And how we loved that very
same rain and announced our pleas
ure with soldier like remarks of "On
Slush” and “What Goodness Praised
Weather!” We all dressed more or
less rapidly by crawling out from un
der our blanket and reaching for our
hat. The sleepy, maddened, swearing
crowd wiggled forth from under the
tied tent doors and dashed tor the
gate to line up for reveille, the rain
coming down in torrents as we stood
the formal morning call with noth
ing to save us from a drenching save
our thin denim suits.
ALL IN THE LIFE
my tent before we were called out
again, this time for breakfast, mess-
kits in hand and on a dead run. 1
managed to squeeze in line back ot
ray friend Huntly as we filed through
the gate and were given our eating
utensils and so saved a good bit ol
wait. Grabbing the knife (so called!
fork and spoon in one hand I hit it
hot and heavy for the place where
the boys were lining up in a column
of twos to be counted, we waited and
waited until some thoughtful guard
awakened the corporal who was sup
posed to be on duty and he came out
to “once over” the outfit, with a nice
new slicker over him entirely obli
vious to the soaking we were having.
After tooling around a bit he counte.i
us half a dozen times in a dejected,
fashion and marched us over to mess.
Believe me, kid, the guy that
thought ot. the word “mess” must
have done a hitch in this same mill,
for it sure was rightly named. Scorch
ed oat meal, no milk or sugar, half
fried, more greasy than cooked, po
tatoes and cowardly patriotic eggs.
What is a cowardly egg? One of
those that hit you and then run and
by patriotic I mean that .when they
run, we have all colors, red, white
and blue.
Do we work in the rain? You can
bet we do. I was assigned to the
THE CADUCEUS.
“garbage detail' in those days and
that was considered by far the best
job in the place. On a nice dry day
our work consisted of loading two
cans of garbage and three cans ot
ashes onto a wagon, hopping aboard
for a nice pleasant ride out past the
Base Hospital to the dump, where we
laid around under the trees for an
hour or so smoking and chatting with
some of the other boys and then
drove back just in time to wash up
for dinner. Some graft, eh?
The mule-skinner seemed to be
dead from the neck up and the rest
of him paralyzed for I could have
outwalked the team at any stage ol
the game. That day we did no loaf
ing out under the trees in the damp,
sloppy woods but beat it back just as
quick as we could and hit the old
Joint just in time to see the rest of
the boys file in from digging a trench,
covered with mud from head to toot
and ringing wet. How did we dry
ourselves? That was easily solved,
for We just didn’t but hung around in
our soaking clothes until they saw fit
to dry of their own accord. And we
didn’t have a single pneumonia case.
We sure did have some great sports
for guards and we had some awful
bums but it was all in the life and
when it came to keeping clean I aver
aged a bath about once every six
weeks whether I needed it or not, and
shaving, but say, that remids me ot
the razor fight we had one Sunday
that mighty near got us all in for
good. But that will go good next week
so I’ll save it till then.
13
THE CADUCEUS IS
PRINTED UPON
Warren’s
Standard
Cumberland
Machine
Finished Book
FURNISHED BY THE
Smith-Dixon Co.,
Division of the
Whitaker Paper
Company
BALTIMORE, MD.
ACADEMY
KE
vaD’deville
The Superiority of Keith
Vaudeville
has never been questioned
THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE
ACADEMY THEATRE FOR PRE
SENTING KEITH VAUDEVILLE
AT ITS BEST IS IDEAL.
REMEMBER, TOO, THE ACAD
EMY THEATRE IS THE COOLEST
SPOT IN CHARLOTTE
Matinee 3 P- m. Night 7.30 and 9
Call 2822 for seat reservations
! • I ,
t' - - u-j! ? ,
a 'i' I
li - • u '
\ !. ! i
:s6;Si