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To
Arthur Hyatt Williams
and
the late John Derg Sutherland
CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments XV

Part I
The Origins of Object Relations Theory
1. The Major Trends in Object Relations Theory
and Practice 3
Part II
Sigmund Freud
2. Three Essays on the Theory ofSexuality* 27
3. Mourning and Melancholia* 31
4. The Ego and the Id* 34
Part III
W. R. D. Fairbairn
5. "Schizoid Factors in the Personality"* 43
6. "A Revised Psychopathology of the Psychoses and
Psychoneurosis"* 50
7. "Endopsychic Structure Considered in Terms of
Object Relationships"* 64
8. "Observations on the Nature of Hysterical States"* 78
9. ''The Nature and Aims of Psychoanalytic Treatment"* 98
*excerpt or abridgement
X CONTENTS

Part IV
Melanie Klein
10. ''The Psychoanalytic Play Technique: Its History and
Significance"* 113
11. "Some Theoretical Conclusions Regarding the Emotional Life
of the Infant"* 130
12. "Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms"* 136
13. ''The Origins of Transference"* 156
14. "A Study of Envy and Gratitude"* 161

PartV
D. W. Winnicott
15. "Primitive Emotional Development"* 179
16. "Hate in the Countertransference"* 187
17. "Aggression in Relation to Emotional Development"* 194
18. '"'i'ansitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena"* 197
19. "Metapsychological and Clinical Aspects of Regression
within the Psycoanalytical Setup"* 211
20. "Clinical Varieties ofTransference"* 216
21. ''Primary Maternal Preoccupation"* 221
22. ''The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship"* 225
23. "Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self'* 236
24. ''The Use of an Object and Relating through
Identifications"* 248
25. "Playing: Its Theoretical Status in the Clinical
Situation"* 256
26. ''The Location of Cultural Experience"* 262
27. "Mirror-Role of Mother and Family in Child
Development"* 265
28. Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry* 271
CONTENTS xi

Part VI
Wilfred Bion
29. Experiences in Groups: "Group Dynamics: A Re-View"* 279
30. Secor.d Thoughts: "The Development of Schizophrenic
Thought" and "Attacks on Linking"* 289
31. Summary of''The Differentiation of the Psychotic from
the Non-Psychotic Personalities (1957) and "A Theory of
Thinking" (1962) 303
32. Learning from Experience "The K-Link"* 306
33. Attention and Interpretation: "Reality Sensuous and
Psychic," "Opacity of Memory and Desire," "Container and
Contained Transformed," "Prelude to or Substitute for
Achievement"* 309
Part VII
Klein's Theory Elaborated
34. Susan Isaacs' ''The Nature and Function of Phantasy"* 321
35. Hanna Segal's "Notes on Symbol Formation"* 332
36. Herbert Rosenfeld's "A Clinical Approach to the
Psychoanalytic Theory of the Life and Death Instincts"* 341
Part VIII
Early Contributions of the Independent Group
37. Michael Balint's The Basic Fault* 353
38. Harry Guntrip's ''The Schizoid Problem, Regression, and the
Struggle to Preserve an Ego"* 366
39. John Bowlby's ''The Role of Attachment in Personality
Development"* 381
Part IX
Transference and Countertransference
40. Paula Heimann's "On Countertransference"* 393
41. Heinrich Racker's ''The Meanings and Uses of
Countertransference"* 400
xii CONTENTS

42. Joseph Sandler's "Countertransference and Role-


Responsiveness"* 406
43. Betty Joseph's "Transference: The Total Situation"* 412

Part X
Advances in Theory
44. John Steiner's "A Theory of Psychic Retreats"* 421
45. Elizabeth Bott Spillius's "Varieties of Envious
Experience"* 427
46. Esther Bick's "The Experience of the Skin in Early Object
Relations" 432
47. Thomas Ogden's "On the Concept of an Autistic-Contiguous
Position"* 438
48. John D. Sutherland's ''The Autonomous Self'* 450

Part XI
Advances in Clinical Concepts
Contributions to the 'Ireatment of Splitting
and Projective Identification
49. James Grotstein's Splitting and Projective Identification* 460
50. Jill Savege Scharff's Projective and lntrojective Identification
and the Use ofthe Therapist:r Self* 465
51. Otto Kernberg's ''Transference and Countertransference
in the Treatment of Borderline Patients"* 471

Advances in Understanding the Role of the Therapist


in Promoting Growth
52. Nina Coltart's" 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' ...
or Thinking the Unthinkable in Psychoanalysis"* 478
53. Patrick Casement's On Learning from the Patient:
"The Internal Supervisor''* 484
54. Neville Symington's ''The Analyst's Act of Freedom as
Agent of Therapeutic Change"* 488
CONTENTS xiii

The Relational Matrix of Growth and Change


55. Stephen Mitchell's Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis
and "Contemporary Perspectives on the Self: Toward
an Integration"* 495
56. Christopher Bollas's Forces ofDestiny and Being a
Character: "Psychic Genera"* 500
57. Thomas Ogden's Subjects ofAnalysis* 505
Part XII
Treating Groups, Families, and Institutions
58. Henry Ezriel's "A Psychoanalytic Approach to Group
Treatment"* 511
59. Henry V. Dicks' Marital Tensions: Clinical Studies Towards
a Psychological Theory ofInteraction* 517
60. David E. Scharff and Jill Savege Scharff's Object Relations
Family Therapy* 523
61. Elliott Jaques' "Social Systems as Defence Against
Persecutory and Depressive Anxiety"* 533
Part XIII
Suggestions for Further Reading
Credits 547
Index 557
Preface and
Acknowledgments

This collection is designed to give the reader a familiarity with the


literature of each of the major contributors to object relations theory and
practice, written in their own words, and to pave the way for the reader to
pursue the areas that are of interest. The book can stand on its own as an
introduction and overview, but I hope that it will lead to further explora-
tion. In the table of contents, the reader will note asterisks indicating
those selections which are excerpts or abridgements from longer works.
The reader who is unfamiliar with this field may be helped by first
reading a book I previously wrote with Jill Savege Scharff, ScharffNotes:
A Primer of Object Relations Therapy (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson,
1992). This primer is the equivalent of an introductory workshop on the
ideas that are developed by the original contributors in this volume.
However, the comments provided in this book should be an adequate
guide in themselves, so that this volume can stand on its own.
This book grew out of my experience in object relations teaching, first
in the program that I developed at the Washington School of Psychiatry in
1989, in other courses that I have taught over many years, and now full-
time at the International Institute of Object Relations Therapy. Collect-
ing the readings for such programs has always been a problem because
the essential literature is scattered among many journals and books. As I
began to select readings for inclusion here, I realized that these readings,
accompanied by a suitable introductory framework, could provide the
readings for a program in object relations theory and practice.
As always in such endeavors, I owe a considerable debt to teachers and
colleagues who have taught me so much. This includes especially those
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xvi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

many British colleagues who taught me during my time in London many


years ago, and those who worked with my colleagues and me at the
Washington School during my time there, and since then at the IIORT.
Arthur Hyatt Williams, who has taught me so much for more than twenty
years, was perhaps the most doggedly dedicated teacher among this
wonderful group, and I am especially indebted to him. I am also grateful
to my colleagues in the object relations programs at the Washington
School and the IIORT for their encouragement and collaboration, and
especially to Jill Savege Scharff, who has shared in the rewards and
travails of the endeavor throughout. One learns most from students, and I
am grateful to the many students who have persisted in studying and
questioning concepts, and have taught me in the process.
I am also grateful to previous collectors of anthologies or writers of
exegeses whose guidance I have used in part in making this selection,
such as Juliet Mitchell for The Selected Melanie Klein (London: The
Hogarth Press, 1986); Elizabeth Spillius for her account of the develop-
ment of Klein's views and those of her English colleagues and students in
several places, including especially her 1994 article, "Developments in
Kleinian Thought: Overview and Personal View" (Psychoanalytic In-
quiry 14(3). Particularly, I want to thank her for her close reading of
much of my material, and the generosity of her comments on and
contributions to this volume. In some places I have directly acknowl-
edged her help, but there are many areas in which she helped sharpen my
understanding and added immeasurably to the process of representing
the Kleinian tradition. Among other influences are the written guidance
provided by Masud Khan in his introduction to Winnicott's work re-
printed in The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment;
Jock Sutherland, a mentor, for his 1980 article, "The British Object
Relations Theorists: Balint, Winnicott, Fairbairn, Guntrip" (Journal of
the American Psychoanalytic Association 28:829) and Eric Rayner for
his survey of the Independent Tradition in his The Independent Mind in
British Psychoanalysis. (Northvale NJ: Jason Aronson, 1991). But these
are only representatives of my general indebtedness to the many who
have tilled the soil before me and whose influence is surely evident, even
if blended beyond specific recognition.
Finally, I am indebted to those who have specifically and generously
helped in this project: to Jason Aronson, who suggested and supported it,
to Judy Cohen, the editor, who slaved over it with me, to Nancy D'Arrigo,
who designs such fine covers with such cheer. David Thckett was enor-
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii

mously facilitating in obtaining permission for reprinting from the


various trusts and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis and the
International Review ofPsycho-Analysis. Ellinor Fairbairn Birtles, Eliz-
abeth Bott Spillius, and Arthur Hyatt Williams also helped generously in
this regard. Jo Parker, Anna Innes, and Zoe Scharff helped with the
details of acquiring and checking resources. My wife Jill Savege Scharff,
as always, stood by with encouragement and support. This has been a
labor of love, but it is a labor that could not have been accomplished
without their loving support and that of many others.

August 25, 1994


Nantucket, Massachusetts
I

THE ORIGINS OF
OBJECT RELATIONS
THEORY
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hungry in my life.” So Bob went to it, to the extent of stuffing his
pockets with crullers, and carrying away as much else as he could in
his hands.
The girl at the lunch counter would have been swamped, but Jerry
organized a sort of helping corps, and dealt out the food to his
fellow recruits, making payment in due course, until the counter
looked as fields do after a visit from the locusts.
Back to the car, only just in time, rushed the boys, bearing things
to eat to those of their comrades who had remained in their seats,
for some were detailed to remain as a sort of guard over the
luggage.
“Ah! This is something like!” exclaimed Bob, as he sat in his seat
when the train had again started, holding a sandwich in each hand,
while his pockets bulged suspiciously.
“You seem pretty well provided for,” remarked Ned to his stout
chum, as the three motor boys sat together again.
“Well, I don’t aim to starve if I can help it,” retorted Bob, as he
munched away.
“You must weigh five or six pounds more,” added Jerry, with a
glance at Bob’s pockets. “That’s dangerous business, old man!”
“What?” asked Bob, pausing half-way to a bite of his sandwich.
“Putting on weight like that. You must remember that you’re not
more than just tall enough to break in under the military
requirements, and if you are too heavy for your height—out you go.”
“You can’t take away my appetite!” exclaimed Bob, but he did not
see Ned wink at Jerry and motion with his head toward the bulging
pockets of the stout lad.
For a time there was a merry scene in the car, where the
prospective soldiers were riding. Hungry appetites were being
appeased, and this caused a line of small talk, which had rather died
away after the first part of the journey.
Many of the lads were friends, and a number knew the motor
boys, having lived in Cresville. Others were from surrounding towns,
and some of them Ned, Bob, and Jerry knew, or had heard about.
Others were total strangers, and one or two seemed quite alone.
These had come from small villages, where not more than one or
two had volunteered. One such lad, who gave his name as Harry
Blake, the motor boys made friends with, and shared their food with
him, as he had not seen fit, for some reason or other, to get off and
provide himself.
“Have you any particular branch of the service in view?” asked
Jerry of Harry, as he saw Ned and Bob jointly looking at a paper.
“I did hope to get in the aviation corps, but they tell me it’s pretty
hard.”
“Hard to get in?”
“Well, yes, and hard to learn the rudiments of the game.”
“Oh, no, that isn’t exactly so,” Jerry answered. “Of course I don’t
know much about military aeroplanes, but my friends and I have
been operating airships for some time. It’s comparatively easy, once
you get over the natural fear. Though of course becoming an expert
is another matter. I think you could soon learn. You look as though
you were cool-headed.”
“No, I don’t get excited easily, but I don’t know beans about an
airship. I’ve read a little; but the more I read the more I get
confused. I’d like to understand the principle.”
“Perhaps I can help you,” Jerry said. “I’ve got a book here on
aeroplanes, and my friends and I have helped build some. I can give
you a little book-knowledge for a starter.”
“I wish you would,” pleaded Harry, and then he and Jerry plunged
into a subject that interested them both.
Meanwhile the train rushed on, carrying the recruits nearer to the
training camp, or rather, to the city where they would be given a
more careful examination and separated into units, to be divided
among the various cantonments where Uncle Sam was getting his
new armies ready to face the Kaiser’s veterans.
Jerry had just finished telling Harry something about the way in
which the double rudders controlled an airship—one guiding it up or
down, and the other to left or right, when there came a howl from
Bob—a veritable wail of anguish.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ned, who had moved out of the seat
beside his stout chum, and was sitting back of him. “Did you bite
your tongue?”
“Bite my tongue? Come on! You know better than that. Hand ’em
over!” and Bob, extending his fist, shook it under Ned’s nose.
“Hand what over? What do you mean? If you mean these
magazines, I’ve just started ’em. Besides, they’re mine!”
“No, I don’t mean the magazines, and you know it!” declared Bob.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you do mean. What’s the row,
anyhow?”
“My crullers!” exclaimed Bob. “You snitched ’em out of my pocket
when you were sitting in the same seat with me. Come on; a joke’s
a joke, and I don’t mind if you keep one for yourself, and another for
Jerry. But hand over the rest!”
“The rest of what?” asked Ned, innocently enough.
“Oh, quit! You know! My crullers. I bought ’em to eat when I got
hungry, and now they’re gone,” and in proof Bob stood up and
turned both coat pockets inside out.
“Yes, I see they’re empty,” observed Ned coolly. “But I haven’t got
’em!”
“You have so!”
“Indeed I haven’t. Search me!” and Ned, with an air of injured
innocence, stood up and extended his arms at either side, an
invitation for Bob to feel in his pockets. It was an invitation which
the stout youth did not ignore, and he felt about Ned’s clothes with
thoroughness, and convinced himself that the crullers were, as Ned
had declared, not on his person.
“Well, you know where they are!” declared Bob.
“No, I don’t!”
“Jerry does, then!”
“What’s that?” asked the tall lad, looking up from his book on
aeroplanes, which he and his new acquaintance were going over.
Bob explained, and Jerry’s denial was such that the stout lad felt
inclined to accept it as final. Especially as he remembered that Jerry
had not been near him since the purchase of the food at the lunch
counter.
“Well, somebody’s got my crullers and I’m going to get ’em back!”
exclaimed Bob. “I paid for ’em and I want ’em. A joke’s a joke, but
this is too much! Shell out, fellows!” and he looked around at those
nearest him.
The truth of the matter was that Ned had slyly slipped the bags of
crullers out of the two side pockets of Bob’s coat, and had passed
them, surreptitiously to two fellow conspirators. And then, as is
usual in such cases, the crullers had gone from hand to hand until,
reaching the far end of the car, they had been quickly eaten.
But Bob did not give up. Satisfied that Ned did not have the pastry
on his person, Bob set about a search for it. He walked down the
aisle, looking in various seats, and poking his fingers in the pockets
of those he knew, until he came to the end of the car.
In one of the seats sat a heavily-built youth, whose face was not
of a prepossessing type. He had a sort of bulldog air about him, as
though “spoiling for a fight,” and he had had little to say to the other
recruits.
Bob, looking at the coat of this lad, as the garment was spread
out over the unoccupied half of a seat, made a grab for something in
one of the pockets, at the same time crying:
“Here they are! I knew you’d snitched ’em!” and he pulled out a
bag, and drew therefrom a cruller.
The lad in the seat turned quickly from looking out the window,
and, without a moment’s hesitation, sent his fist into Bob’s face.
“Maybe that’ll teach you to let Pug Kennedy’s things alone!” he
growled.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE CAMP

Bob, surprised as much by the suddenness of the other’s action as


by the violence of the blow, staggered back, his hands going to his
bruised face. There was a moment of silence, and then Jerry, who
had seen the whole occurrence, cried out in ringing tones:
“Here, fellow, don’t you hit him again!”
“Who says so?” demanded “Pug” Kennedy, as he called himself. “If
you’re looking for trouble come down and get yours!” and he
stepped out into the aisle and struck a characteristic pugilistic
attitude.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” said Jerry calmly; “but I like fair play,
and I’m going to see that my friend gets it.”
“Oh, you’re going to butt in, are you?” sneered the other.
“No, I’m not in the habit of doing that,” said Jerry. “But what did
you strike Bob for?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is our business, too,” said Ned, walking up beside
Jerry. Bob’s nose had begun to bleed and he was holding his
handkerchief to it. He seemed dazed, and acted as though he did
not know how to account for what had occurred.
“What happened, Bob?” asked Jerry, as Ned walked up to the
heavily-built lad.
“Why, I was looking for my bag of crullers, and I saw them in his
pocket and——”
“You did not!” burst out Pug Kennedy. “That’s my own grub that I
bought in the station, and if you want to fight for it——”
“What are you always talking about fighting for?” asked Ned
suddenly, as he put out his hand and swung the bully around
sharply. “I guess you aren’t the only one who can do that.”
“Keep your hands off me!” roared Pug Kennedy. “If you’re looking
for trouble——”
“I generally find what I’m looking for,” said Ned softly, and he did
not give back an inch as Kennedy took a quick step forward.
Then, with a quickness that showed he understood considerable
about the pugilistic ring, Kennedy made a sudden shift, and his fist
shot out toward Ned. But the latter was just as quick, and, dodging
the blow, he put out his hand in a stiff arm movement and pushed
Kennedy back into his seat. The bully fell heavily. He tried to get up.
“No you don’t! Just sit there awhile!” cried Ned, and he plumped
himself down on the struggling one, holding him in place.
Seeing how matters were going, the others who had crowded up
drew back as well as they could in the aisle of the swaying car, to
give room to the struggling ones. If there was to be a fight it was no
more than right that it should be a fair one.
“Let me up!” spluttered Pug Kennedy.
“Not until I get ready,” answered Ned coolly.
He could afford to be cool. For he had dodged what Pug had
thought was going to be a “knockout blow” in such a clever way that
the bully was disconcerted, and now Kennedy was held down in such
a position that he could not use his strength to advantage.
But he was strong, Ned had to admit that. Only because of the
fact that he had the larger boy at a disadvantage, sitting on him, so
to speak, and holding him down by bracing his legs against the
opposite seat, was Ned able to keep himself where he was, for Pug
struggled hard.
“Just stay there until you cool off a bit,” advised Ned, “and until
you learn not to hit out so with your fists. If you want to fight, we’ll
find some one your size and weight in our crowd to take you on.
How about it, Jerry?”
“I’ll agree if he will,” was the answer, and the tall lad grinned
cheerfully.
“Who said I wanted to fight?” growled Pug Kennedy, as he saw
several unfriendly looks cast in his direction, and noted the athletic
build of Jerry Hopkins.
“Well, you sort of acted that way,” commented Ned, who did not
intend to give the bully the slightest advantage. “What did you want
to hit Bob for?” and he nodded at his chum, who had finally
succeeded in stopping his nose hemorrhage.
“What’d he want to go and shove his hands into my pocket for,
without asking me if he could?” demanded Pug, and it must be
admitted that he really had right on his side. Bob had acted hastily,
and perhaps indiscreetly, considering that he did not know the lad
who had had the encounter with him.
“I was only looking for my crullers,” Bob explained. “Some one
took ’em for a joke, and when I saw the bag in your pocket I
thought you had ’em.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” growled Pug, who, in truth, looked
something like the animal from which had come the nickname.
“You didn’t give me a chance,” said Bob. “If you wanted to fight
why didn’t you say so?”
“Well, you mind your own business, and let me alone!” growled
the belligerent one. “And you’d better let me up if you know what’s
good for you!” he added fiercely to Ned.
“Oh, I guess I know my business,” was the calm rejoinder. “At the
same time I’m willing to let you up provided you promise to keep
your hands off my friend. If you want to fight, as I said, that can be
arranged.”
“I won’t promise anything!” growled Pug.
“Then you’ll sit there until you do,” observed Ned. There is no
telling how long this deadlock might have kept up, but at this point
Sergeant Mandell, who had been in the smoking car, came back to
see how his recruits were getting on. He took in the scene at a
glance.
“Let him up, Slade,” he ordered Ned. “And you, Kennedy, keep
quiet. Remember you’re soldiers now, and you must obey your
superiors. For the time being I am your officer, though I want to be
your friend, too. Now what’s the row?”
It was explained in various ways, but all agreed that Kennedy had
struck first, and with little provocation, for Bob’s action, though
thoughtless, poking his hands into the pockets of another lad, had
been innocent enough.
“You had no right to hit him for that,” declared the sergeant. “But
I am not saying that Baker did exactly right, either. Though it was
natural for him to want his crullers.”
With mutterings and growls, Pug Kennedy shook himself after Ned
let him up, and slunk into his seat, away from the others. Ned, Bob,
and Jerry went back to their places, and quiet was once more
restored.
“Bob, old man, I’m sorry,” said Ned. “It was my fault. I did take
your crullers, but I haven’t ’em now. I passed ’em down the line as a
joke. I’ll see if I can get ’em back.”
“Let ’em go, I don’t want ’em,” growled Bob.
It was perhaps a good thing he did not want them, since the
crullers had been eaten. When Ned learned that he offered to buy
some more at the next lunch counter.
But there was no time for this, as Sergeant Mandell said they
would soon reach Yorktown, where they would be quartered until
they could be more carefully examined and a decision arrived at as
to where to send them for preliminary training.
As the motor boys, with their old and new friends, were gathering
up their luggage, preparatory to getting off the train when it should
stop in Yorktown, a lad slipped up to Ned.
“You want to look out for that fellow,” he said in a low voice.
“What fellow?”
“That Pug Kennedy. The one you sat on.”
“Why?”
“Oh, he’s a scrapper and always looking for a fight. He comes
from the same town I do, and he’s licked every boy in it, some
bigger than he is, too.”
“Thanks for telling me,” said Ned. “I’m not afraid of him. But, just
the same, it’s as well to be on the watch. He seems like a bully.”
“He is. He doesn’t mind fighting a fellow smaller than himself. I
don’t like him, but I’ve got to hand it to him—he is some scrapper! I
hope the army takes some of the mean wrinkles out of him.”
“The army is just the place to get it done,” observed Ned. “Thanks
for telling me. See you again some time.”
He looked over to note what Kennedy was doing, but the latter
had left the car. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with their fellow recruits, were
formed into a squad, and, amid the friendly looks of a crowd that
gathered at the station, they marched to the barracks, which were
not far away.
“So Pug Kennedy is a scrapper, is he?” observed Jerry, when Ned
told him the result of the talk with the other boy. “Well, it’s as well to
know that first as last. I hope he isn’t sent to our camp. But, if he is,
we’ll have to make the best of it.”
It was noted that “Pug” answered to the title of Michael, and it
was assumed that “Pug” had been the characterization given him
because of his fancied resemblance to a dog of that breed—a
resemblance more real, in certain ways, than fancied.
In the following days the recruits were measured, weighed, tested
in various ways, and finally were all sworn in as privates in the
United States army that was eventually to fight, in France or
elsewhere, the troops of the Central Powers.
To Bob’s distress he was held up by one doctor, as being
overweight, and was close to being rejected. But his chums took him
in hand, and for a day starved him on a most reduced diet, and
made him take so much exercise that Bob lost about five pounds,
and passed.
“But it was a close call,” said Jerry, when all was safe. “Don’t go to
stuffing yourself with pie or crullers until after you’re in the camp.
Then they won’t put you out, I dare say.”
“I’ll be careful,” promised Bob, now quite anxious.
And, three days later, the motor boys, with a number of their
friends from Cresville, and with others whom they did not know,
including the unpleasant Pug Kennedy, were sent to Camp Dixton,
there to be given a thorough training for their new life in the army.
CHAPTER XIV
SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT

Out of the gray, chilly, and silent dawn came the sharp notes of a
bugle. The sound echoed among the mist-enshrouded hills, the
notes vibrating in and out among the trees, and then seemed to die
away in the distance.
But if any one of the several thousand prospective soldiers,
sleeping the sleep of the more or less just in the tents of Camp
Dixton, thought it was but a dream, those notes of the bugle, he
was sadly, if not rudely, awakened when the sound came with
greater insistence, as if calling over and over again:
“Get up! Get up! You must get up!”
“I say, Ned!” lazily called Bob from his bed amid the blankets on
the ground under a khaki tent, “what day is it?”
“What difference does that make?” asked Ned. “What time is it?”
“You ought to know without asking, when you hear that horn,”
grunted Jerry.
“Horn? Bugle you mean,” came a voice from the other corner of
the tent, if a conical tent, the shape used in the army, can be said to
have “corners.”
“Have it your own way,” assented Jerry. “I’m anxious to know what
Bob meant by asking what day it was.”
“If it’s only Sunday we’ll get a chance to rest,” explained the stout
Chunky, peering out from under his blankets. For he and the others
had wrapped up well, as the night had been chilly.
“Chance to rest!” exclaimed Ned. “Say, we haven’t done anything
yet.”
“Done anything!” challenged Bob. “Don’t you call that drill we
went through yesterday anything?”
“Just a little setting up exercise, and some marching to get you to
know your hay foot from your straw foot,” commented the tall lad.
“If you’re going to kick about that the second day in camp what will
happen in about a week?”
“Oh, I’m not kicking,” hastily said Bob. “In fact, I’m too lame and
sore to kick. And my arm feels like a boil.”
“Anti-typhus germs,” explained Ned. “You’ll be a whole lot worse
before you’re better. We have to have two more injections, I
understand.”
The rousing notes of the bugle, “rousing” in a double sense, again
sounded, and, not without considerable grumbling and growling, in
which even Jerry, by the look on his face at least, seemed to join,
the boys got up and prepared for another day in camp—their
second.
The young volunteers, with a lot of other recruits, had reached the
camp ground the day before, but there was so much confusion, so
many new arrivals, and such a general air of orderly disorder about
the place, that the impressions Ned, Bob, and Jerry received were
mixed.
Camp Dixton was situated in one of the Southern states, and was
laid out on a big plain at the foot of some hills, which, as they rose
farther to the west, became sizable mountains. The plain which had,
until within a short time of the laying out of the cantonments, been
several large farms, consisted of level ground, with a few places
where there were low rounded hills and patches of wood. It was an
ideal location for a camp, giving opportunity for drills and sham
battles over as great a diversity of terrain as might be found in
Flanders or France.
As to the camp itself, it was typical of many that have since
sprung up all over the United States to care for the large army, or
armies, that are constantly being raised. And the building of Camp
Dixton, like the making of all the others, had been little short of
marvelous. On what had been, a few months before, a series of
farms, there was now a military city.
The place was laid out like a model city. The barracks for the
soldiers were, of course, made of rough wood, and few of them
were painted, but there was time enough for that. A great level,
center space had been set aside as a parade ground, and in the
midst of this was the division headquarters. North and south of the
parade ground were the long rows of “streets” lined with the
wooden buildings, some of which were sleeping quarters, some cook
houses and others places where the officers lived.
There were long rows of warehouses, into which ran railroad
sidings; there were an ice house, an ice plant, a big laundry, a
theater, and many other buildings and establishments such as one
would find in a city.
As for the military units themselves, there were infantry, cavalry,
machine gun companies, artillery companies, a motor corp and even
a small contingent of aeroplanes.
On their arrival the day before, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with the other
recruits, had been met at the railroad station by a number of
officers, who looked very spick and span in their olive-drab uniforms,
with their brown leather leggings polished until one could almost see
his face in them.
In columns of four abreast, carrying their handbags and suitcases,
the new soldiers were marched up to camp, a most unmilitary
looking lot, as the boys themselves admitted.
A few at a time, the lads were ushered into booths, where officers
took their names, records, and other details, then they were given
something to eat.
“For all the world like a sort of picnic in a new mining town,” as
Ned wrote home.
Then had come a preliminary drill, and some setting-up exercises.
The boys were so tired out from this, and from their journey, that no
one thought of anything but bed when it was over.
“And now we’ve got to do it all over again,” murmured Bob, as he
began to dress. “This is somewhat different from what we were used
to at home. Home was never like this!”
“Quit your kicking!” exclaimed Jerry. “Aren’t you glad you’re in this,
and are going to help lick the Huns?”
“Sure I am!” declared the stout lad.
“Then keep still about it!”
“Say, I’ve got a right to kick if I want to, as long as I get up when
the bugle calls,” declared Bob. “It’s the constitutional right of a free-
born American citizen to kick, and I’m doing it!”
“Showing you how much like the mule an otherwise perfectly good
fellow can become,” murmured Ned, and then he had to duck to get
out of the way of a shoe that Bob tossed at him.
“Come on, fellows! Hustle!” called a non-commissioned officer,
thrusting his head in the doorway of the tent where the boys were
dressing. “Roll call soon!”
“We’ll be there,” announced Ned. “I hope we get shifted to one of
the barracks to-day,” he went on. “It’s a bit damp in this tent.”
“Yes, a wooden shack will be better,” agreed Jerry.
Most of the new arrivals were in the wooden buildings, but in the
hurry and confusion of the day before, some had to be assigned
temporarily to tents. New barracks were in the course of
construction, however, to accommodate the constantly growing
number of volunteers. Later the great camps would be filled with the
men of the draft.
When Ned had finished his hasty dressing, he strolled over to look
at the posted notice in the tent, which gave a list of the day’s duties
and the hours for drills. The bulletin was headed “Service Roll Calls.”
The first thing in the order of the day is reveille, but this is
preceded by what is known as “First call.” This is sounded at 5:45 in
the morning, rather an early hour, as almost any one but a milkman
will concede. But one gets used to it, as Bob said later.
“First call” is a series of stirring notes on the bugle which has for
its purpose the awakening of the buglers themselves, to get them
out of their snug beds to give the reveille proper. March and reveille
come ten minutes later, the buglers marching up and down the
streets in front of the tents and barracks, and “blowing their heads
off,” to quote Jerry Hopkins. This is calculated to awaken each and
every rookie, but if it fails the various squad leaders see to it that no
one is missed.
“Assembly,” is the call which comes at six o’clock, and then woe
betide the recruit who is not dressed and in line, standing at
attention. As can be seen, there is but five minutes allowed for
dressing; that is, if a man does not awaken until the reveille sounds.
If he opens his eyes at first call, and gets up then, he has fifteen
minutes to primp, though this is generally saved for dress parade.
Roll call follows the assembly.
On this morning, when it had been ascertained that all were
“present or accounted for,” Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with their new
comrades, were dismissed to wash for breakfast. With soap and
towels there was a general rush for the wash room, and then
followed a healthful splashing.
“It isn’t like our bathroom at home,” said Bob, as he polished his
face, “but I suppose the results are the same.”
“Sure,” agreed Ned. “They have showers here, and that’s more
than they have in some camps, yet, I hear.”
“We’ll need a shower after drill,” declared Jerry. “It’s going to be
hot and dry to-day.”
Breakfast was the next call, only it was not called that. It was
down on the schedule as “mess,” and so every meal was designated
though, of course, in their own minds, each recruit thought of the
first meal as breakfast, the second as dinner, and the third as
supper. But to the army cook each meal was a “mess.”
But before breakfast the boys had to make up their beds. They
had been given a lesson in that the previous day. Soon after their
arrival the recruits were divided into squads, and under the guidance
of a squad leader they were taken to a big pile of straw and told to
fill the heavy, white cotton bags that were to serve in the place of
mattresses. There was a hole in the middle of the bag, and through
this the straw was poked, and the whole made as smooth as
possible on the bunks.
After their first night, Ned, Bob, and Jerry were transferred to a
wooden barracks. When they carried the straw mattresses to this
building, they found that each squad room contained about fifty
bunks arranged around the walls, with two rows down the middle.
On each bunk, besides the mattress, or “bedsack,” as it is officially
called, were a pillow and three blankets. These must be neatly
arranged after the night’s sleep. Beds in a military camp are not
made up until just before they are used, but during the day the
blankets must be neatly folded, laid on the bunks and the pillow
placed on top of the blankets.
There were no clothes closets, and the only place Ned, Bob and
Jerry had to put their things was on a shelf back of each lad’s bunk,
and on some nails, driven into the wall near by. On these were all
the possessions they were allowed, and, as can be imagined, they
were not many—or would not be, once the boys were in uniform.
As yet, none of the new recruits wore a uniform. All were dressed
just as they had come from their homes, and there was the usual
variety seen at any baseball game.
“Mess call!” sang out Jerry, as he and his chums heard the notes
of the bugles again. This time the call seemed to the boys to be
more cheerful.
“I hope they have something good for breakfast,” murmured Bob,
and this time his chums did not laugh at him. They were as hungry
as he was.
CHAPTER XV
IN UNIFORM

“Um! Oh! Smell that!” cried Bob, as he hurried out in answer to


the first mess call of the day. “Bacon, or I’m a sinner!”
Breakfast call was sounded at 6:15 and half an hour was allowed
for it.
As soon as the mess call had sounded each man, acting under the
directions of his squad leader, got his mess kit, consisting of plate,
cup, knife, fork and spoon. Later the boys needed no instructions in
producing these implements of “warfare.”
The signal being given, they marched to the kitchen where there
was dished out to each one what was to be the first meal of the day.
This proved to be steamed rice and milk, bacon, scrambled eggs,
fried potatoes, buttered toast, bread and coffee.
With this as a starter the boys marched into the mess hall and sat
down at long tables to eat.
“How goes it, Chunky?” asked Ned, as he noticed his stout chum
beginning to eat.
“Tell you better when I’ve had my second or third helping,” was
the somewhat mumbled reply.
“Talk it out, Chunky,” advised Jerry. “Don’t scramble your reply;
leave that to the eggs you’re sailing into.”
“Huh, I’ll sail clear through these, and then some.”
“Can you have as much as you like?” asked a rather timid lad next
to Ned.
“All you want, son, and more,” answered the squad leader, who
was walking about, and who had overheard the question.
As each one finished he took his mess kit down to the end of the
hall, where there was a kettle of scalding water, and washed his
cutlery and dishes. There are no official dishwashers in the army,
save those who serve in the officer’s mess.
“Well, do you feel better?” asked Ned, as he and Jerry filed out
with Bob.
“Lots,” was the answer. “What call’s that?” he inquired, as another
bugle note blared out.
“Sick call and fatigue,” answered Jerry, who was learning the army
orders and regulations.
This call came at 6:45 and gave opportunity for such as were
physically disabled in any way to escape drill for the day. If a man is
not feeling physically fit in the morning he so reports to his first
sergeant, who places the name on a list. Then, when the proper call
comes, and all who are in need of medical attention are collected, an
officer marches them to an infirmary.
Of course, this applies only to those slightly “under the weather.”
In case of a very ill recruit the doctor goes to him, instead of having
him go to the medical man. If a man is taken ill, or feels the need of
medical attention at any time other than the official sick call, an
officer is detailed to take him to the doctor, or the doctor comes to
him, at any hour it may be necessary.
Fortunately there were very few who responded to sick call the
first morning in Camp Dixton. When it was over, at 6:50 o’clock,
came the first call for the day’s drill. Five minutes later came the
assembly, which meant that every man, not excused, must be in
line. Then the drill began. It was to last an hour.
There were six drills during the day (or were at Camp Dixton),
besides guard-mount in the late afternoon. Between the drills came
dinner, of course. But the new soldiers were impressed with the
drills. There were so many of them, and when there was no drill
there was a school of instruction.
Drills, or the assembly calls for them, came at the following hours:
8:15, 9:30, 10:45, 1:00, and 2:15. At 3:30 came a school of
instruction, which lasted an hour. There was guard-mount, too,
which is another sort of drill, at 5:00. This lasted half an hour, and
mess call for supper sounded shortly after 5:30, followed by retreat,
meaning that the main part of the day was over.
From supper time till the call to quarters, which sounded at 9 P.M.,
the recruit was allowed to do about as he pleased, though
sometimes there was instruction in the evening. The call to quarters
was the signal for all lights to be out in the squad room, though it
was not necessary for all the soldiers to be there at that hour. They
were, however, expected to be there at ten o’clock when taps were
sounded, this being a bugle call for all lights to be out, and every
one in bed, except the officers and sentries.
“Well, I don’t see where we’re going to have an awful lot of time
to scrabble around and have fun,” said Bob, in a half-growling tone,
as he looked over the printed list of the camp schedule. “We have
from four-thirty to five-forty-five with nothing to do, if we’re not in
the guard-mount stunt, and then we have time after supper. But that
isn’t much.”
“Say, what do you think you’re on—a vacation?” asked Jerry.
“Well, no, not exactly,” answered Bob slowly.
“Not exactly! I should say not! Most emphatically—not! You’re
here, and so we all are, to do our duty and beat the Germans, and if
it takes all day I’m willing!” went on Jerry.
As has been mentioned there are many kinds of drills in the army,
but the new recruits, such as Ned, Bob, and Jerry, found, according
to their squad leader, that the physical drill was the most important
one for them at first. Later on would come rifle drill, drill in the
trenches, bayonet practice, machine gun drill, rushes with hand
grenades and so on. There seemed to the boys to be no end to it.
The boys of course, began at the very bottom to learn about army
work, and one of the first things they were told was in regard to
different formations, or units. The squad is the smallest unit of the
infantry, to which branch of the service the three chums were
attached. A squad consists of eight men, seven privates and a
leader, who is, generally, a corporal. This squad is the foundation of
the army, and the members of it generally stay together, sleeping,
eating and fighting in unison with other squads.
After the squad comes the platoon, which is made up of from two
to six squads, and the men are in charge of a lieutenant with a
couple of non-commissioned officers to help him. Four platoons
make a company, and this is in charge of a captain, with two
lieutenants to aid him.
The battalion of four companies comes next and a major
commands a battalion, while three battalions usually make up a
regiment, which is commanded by a colonel, with a number of staff
officers to advise and aid him. It takes two regiments of infantry to
make a brigade, which is in charge of a brigadier general. Next
comes a division, which is the largest group in the army, and is
made up in various ways, from infantry and artillery and machine
gun battalions.
“I wonder what’s up?” said Ned, as he walked with his chums to
the designated place. None of them was in uniform, as yet. That
would come later.
“What do you mean—up?” asked Jerry.
“I mean it looks as though we were going to listen to a speech,”
went on Ned.
And this was just what was going to happen. The captain of the
company to which they were temporarily assigned, had gathered the
recruits about him.
“I want to tell you a few things before we begin the physical drill,”
he said, “so you will appreciate the importance of it. If I did not, you
might think that some of it was of little use. But I want to say that it
all has a value that has been tried and proved.
“You know the army that is to help whip Germany is just like a big
machine. You are all parts in that machine, and every part, no
matter how small, must work in perfect unison with every other part,
or there will be failure. To begin with, you must be physically fit to
stand much hard work, and this drill is to get you in good condition.
“Some of the motions you are made to go through may seem
foolish to you, but they are all for some good purpose. You have
muscles which, ordinarily, you seldom use. It is to bring out these
muscles, and make them fit for service, that certain motions and
practice are necessary. You’ll be surprised on finding what a little
exercise will do for certain weak and flabby muscles that you have.
They will be waked up and made to do their duty.”
And the boys found, before the day was over, that their captain
spoke the truth, and with a knowledge that could not be questioned.
“Oh, look who’s here,” said Bob to Ned in a low voice, as they had
a little respite from twisting and turning and stooping and rising.
“Who?” asked Ned.
“That Pug Kennedy we had the row with in the train. They’re
going to put him in our squad, I’m afraid.”
“That’s bad,” said Jerry. “But still it won’t do to kick. This is only
temporary, and he may be changed, or we may. Don’t give up the
ship now.”
Pug Kennedy was, indeed, put in the squad with the three
Cresville friends, and his unpleasant face grinned at them as the drill
went on.
Pug Kennedy lived up to his reputation. He was a “scrapper,” and
he did little but growl at every new order. He did not see any reason
for this, nor sense in that, and only the fact that he did his growling
in a low voice saved him from being disciplined. The officers did not
hear him.
It was three or four days after the arrival of Ned, Bob, and Jerry at
Camp Dixton that Bob came hurrying up to his chums with a pleased
look on his face.
“What is it, Chunky?” asked Ned. “Have you managed to squeeze
another mess call into the day’s program?”
“No. But we’re going to get into uniforms to-day. I just heard our
captain say so,” answered the stout lad. “Now we’ll look like real
soldiers!”
Bob was right. A few minutes later came the call for the recruits to
line up and proceed to the quartermaster’s department to be
measured for uniforms.
“Now this is something like!” exclaimed Bob.
CHAPTER XVI
HOT WORDS

“What’ll we do with our old suits?” asked Ned, as, with his chums,
he walked toward the clothing department, a store in itself.
“They go into the discard,” answered Bob, who, it seems, had
been making inquiries. “I suppose we can send ’em home and have
’em kept for us until after the war.”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” declared Ned. “This is a good suit,
though it looks a bit mussy now. I’m not going to throw it away.”
“You might as well,” put in Jerry.
“Why so? This war may not last as long as we think,” Ned made
comment. “And suits, and everything else, will be a lot higher after
it’s over. Might as well save what I can. Don’t see why it won’t do
me any good.”
“Because it won’t fit you,” Jerry returned. “Don’t you know what
our captain told us? He said the new uniforms we get will hang on
some of us like bags for a while, but when we fill out our muscles by
the exercise and drill, we’ll fill out the uniforms, too.
“Now your tailor, Ned, and I will say he is a good one, made your
civilian suit to fit you. In other words he favored you. He padded the
hollow places and so on. But in a couple of months you’ll fill out so
that the suit you’re wearing now will look like a set of hand-me-
downs from the Bowery in New York.”
“Well, I’ll send it home, anyhow,” decided Ned.
“Yes, it may come in handy for your mother’s charity work,”
agreed Jerry.
Before going to the tailor shop, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with others of
the recruits, were measured. These measurements were
standardized, so that when each young man went in to get his
uniform, the officer in charge merely called off a certain number to
designate coat, trousers, hat and so on.
The first outfit issued to the boys consisted of one coat, a pair of
trousers, a hat, with cord, three pairs of drawers, two pairs of laces,
a pair of leggings, a set of ornaments, an overcoat, two flannel
shirts, two pairs of shoes, six pairs of socks, a belt, a pair of gloves
and three undershirts. The value of each article was set down and
varied from a hat cord, marked as worth six and a half cents, to an
overcoat, which cost the government $14.50, making a total of
about $45 for each young soldier. For this, of course, Ned, Bob, and
Jerry paid nothing. A private gets his uniform and food for nothing,
but an officer has to buy his.
“Return to barracks and get into your uniforms for inspection,” was
the order the boys received, and they were glad to do it. There were
some, like Ned, who sent their civilian clothes home to be used as
parents saw fit, and there was a general opinion, coinciding with
Jerry’s, that they would be of little use to the owners themselves
after their army service, for the young men would, indeed, be of
different physical appearance and size.
“Well, how do I look?” asked Ned, as he and his two chums
finished dressing in the barracks.
“It fits you sort of quick,” answered Jerry.
The new uniform was, in truth, a trifle loose.
“Yours fits the same way,” laughed Ned. “I guess I’ll do a double
stunt of exercise to fill out quicker.”
“Bob looks good in his,” commented the tall motor boy. “It’s
because he’s so fat. When he loses some of his flesh he’ll look as
though he was wearing a meal sack.”
“Watch your own step,” said Bob, with a laugh. “I’m satisfied.”
There were jokes and jests among the recruits about the
appearance of one another, and when Pug Kennedy walked out on
the way to drill, to which the squad was summoned, Jerry called to
him:
“You’ve got your hat cord on backwards, old man.”
It was not that Jerry felt any particular liking for Michael Kennedy,
to give him his real name, but the tall lad did not want any member
of his squad to look unmilitary, nor did he want a reprimand to be
directed toward Pug, as it might reflect on his companions. But Pug
Kennedy was still in an ungracious mood, it seemed, for he
answered Jerry’s well-meant remark with:
“Mind your own business! It’s my hat cord.”
“True enough,” agreed Jerry, good-naturedly; “but it may not be
long, if you wear it that way.”
“Um!” grunted Pug, as he went out. But Ned took notice that, as
soon as he was out of sight around the corner of the barracks, the
bully put the cord on differently. It was a light blue cord, and
indicated to those who knew the regulations, that the man under the
hat belonged to the infantry, or foot-soldier, branch of the army.
The cavalry wear yellow cords on their hats; and the artillery, red.
The engineers have a red and white mixed cord; the signal corps,
orange and white; the medical corps, maroon; and the
quartermaster corps, buff.
In addition there are certain ornaments on the collars of the coats
to distinguish the different branches of the service. The infantry
wear crossed rifles, the cavalry crossed sabers, the field artillery
crossed cannon, the engineers a castle, like the castle in a set of
chessmen, the signal corps crossed flags with a torch between, the
quartermaster corps wheel with a pen and sword crossed and an
eagle surmounting, while the members of the medical corps wear
something that looks like an upright bar with wings at the top and
two snakes twining around it. This is a caduceus, and is a form of
the staff usually associated with the god Mercury. The word comes
from the Doric and means to proclaim, literally a herald.
“He took your advice, Jerry,” announced Ned, when he saw what
Pug Kennedy had done.
“Glad he did. He might have been a little more polite about it,
though. I wish he was in some other squad, but I suppose there’s no
use trying to graft him somewhere else. We’ll just have to make the
best of him.”
“Or the worst,” added Bob.
In their new uniforms the recruits went through the drill, and it
could not be denied that now there was a little more snap to it. It
was more inspiring to see men all dressed alike doing something in
unison than to watch the same company going through motions, one
in a brown suit, another in a green and a third in a blue.
The drill was hard, and it never seemed to end. When one
stopped, there was only a brief rest period, and then came another.
But it was necessary, and the boys were beginning to feel that.
“I wonder what the folks at home would think if they could see us
now?” asked Ned, as their respite came.
“Well, I guess they wouldn’t be ashamed of us,” replied Jerry.
“I should say not!” declared Bob, smoothing out some imaginary
wrinkles. “I think we look all to the mustard!”
“Or cheese!” chuckled Ned. “Come on—there goes mess call,” he
added, for it was noon, and time for dinner.
As it was Friday there was chowder as the main dish. There were
fried fish, candied sweet potatoes, green peas, fruit pudding,
mustard pickles, bread and coffee. It was a plentiful meal, and
several made a trip to the kitchen for a second helping.
Bob was one of these, and it was when he was walking back to his
place at the long table that something happened which nearly
caused considerable trouble.
Bob was carrying his filled plate in one hand, and his cup of coffee
in the other, when, as he passed the bench where Pug Kennedy was
sitting, some one bumped into the stout lad, jostling his arm, and
the coffee—or part of it—went down Pug’s back.
Up the bully sprang with a howl, though the coffee was not hot
enough to burn him.
“Who did that?” he demanded, wrathfully.
There was no need to answer. The attitude of Bob, standing
directly back of Pug, with the half-emptied cup in his hand and the
queer look on his face, told more plainly than words that he was the
guilty one.
“Oh, so it’s you again, is it, you sneak!” and Pug fairly snarled the
words.
“What do you mean?” demanded Bob, justly angry.
“I mean that you’re trying to make trouble for me again—like the
time when you accused me of stealing your crullers. You’re trying to
spoil my uniform so I’ll get a call-down. I’ll fix you for this!”
“It was an accident,” insisted Bob. “Some one ran against me, and
——”
“Accident my eye!” sneered Pug. “I’ll accident you! I’ll punch you
good and proper, that’s what I’ll do!” he yelled, and he leaped back
over the bench-seat and advanced toward Bob who stepped back.
A fight was imminent.
CHAPTER XVII
A MIDNIGHT MEETING

“Put down your things and put up your hands!” Pug Kennedy fairly
issued the order to Bob as an officer might have done.
“Why should I?” asked the stout youth. “I haven’t finished my
dinner.”
“Well, you’re not going to until I finish you. Come on! Put up your
hands! I’m a scrapper, but I won’t hit any one with his hands full.
Put ’em up, I say, or I’ll smash you in a minute!”
“Don’t you hit him!” called Ned, hastily arising from the opposite
side of the table.
“Mind your own business!” ordered Pug.
“Take some one your size!” came a voice from the end of the hall.
“I’ll take you if you want me to!” snapped Pug.
He took a step nearer Bob, and the latter, in very self-defense,
was about to set down his plate and cup, when Captain Trainer, who
had a habit of unexpectedly dropping into the mess hall, entered the
big room. He took in, at a glance, what was about to happen.
“Stop!” he cried in commanding tones. “What does this mean?”
“He spilled a lot of hot coffee down my back!” growled Pug, but he
had lost some of his belligerency since the advent of his captain.
“I didn’t mean to,” explained Bob. “It was an accident, some one
jostled me.”
“Very well,” said Captain Trainer. “That is equivalent to an apology,
Kennedy, and I direct you to accept it as such.”
“I’m sure I’m sorry,” said Bob. “I really didn’t mean to.”
“All right,” half growled Pug. “If you do it again, though, I’ll punch
you worse than I did before!” and he glared at Bob.
The captain, seeing that he had averted hostilities for the time
being, thought it best to withdraw. Enlisted men, especially at meals,
like to be free from restraint, and an officer, no matter how much he
is liked by his command, is a sort of damper at times.
Pug squirmed and twisted, trying to wipe some of the coffee
stains from the back of his coat and Bob went on to his place to
finish his meal.
“There’ll be trouble with that fellow before we are through with
him,” said Jerry to his chums in a low voice, as they went out of the
mess hall, for a little rest before drill was resumed.
“He’s made trouble enough already,” said Bob. “Though of course
it is rather raw to have coffee spilled down your back. But I couldn’t
help it.”
“Of course not,” agreed Jerry. “But what I meant was that we’ll
have personal trouble with him. He seems always spoiling for a fight,
and more so when we are concerned than any one else. Maybe he
doesn’t like being in the same squad with us.”
“He can’t dislike it any more than we do,” suggested Ned. “Just
wait until I get made a corporal and have charge! Then I’ll make him
step around.”
“Oh, are you going to get promoted to a corporal?” asked Jerry. “I
didn’t know that was on the bill,” and he winked at Bob.
“Sure I’m going to be promoted,” went on Ned. “Aren’t you
working for that?”
And Jerry and Bob had to admit that they were, though it was
rather early in the game to expect anything.
The first step upward from private, the lowest army rank, is to be
made a corporal, and, after that one becomes a sergeant. A corporal
wears two V-shaped stripes, on his sleeves. The V in each case is
inverted. A sergeant has three such stripes. There are various sorts
of sergeants—duty or line sergeants, staff and major sergeants,
mess sergeants, supply sergeants and so on. The first sergeant is
often called “Top,” and sometimes considers himself almost a
commissioned officer.
Sergeants and corporals are non-commissioned officers, and there
is a great difference in rank between a commissioned and a non-
commissioned man.
A commissioned officer can resign, and quit when he wants to, but
an enlisted man, or a non-commissioned officer can not.
Commissioned officers are appointed by the President, and the
commission carries a certain rank, beginning with second lieutenant.
Each step upward means a new commission. The sergeants and
corporals are appointed, nominally, by the colonel of their regiment,
by warrant.
“Well, then Pug had better look out for himself, if you’re going to
have it in for him when you’re made corporal,” went on Jerry. “But
say, it must be fun to be an officer—even a non-commissioned one.”
“It is,” agreed Ned. “You get out of a lot of work that isn’t any fun,
such as being the kitchen police, doing fatigue work like cleaning up
the barracks and grounds, digging drains and the like, and when
you’re on guard you don’t have to keep on the go—all you have to
do is to keep watch over the other sentries.”
“Fine and dandy!” exclaimed Bob.
“Me for it!” added Jerry.
“But that isn’t getting us anywhere just now,” said Ned. “I’m
detailed for kitchen police this very day.”
“So’m I,” admitted Bob, and, as it happened, Jerry was, too.
When one is detailed to the kitchen police it does not mean that
the young soldier has to arrest those who eat too much, or too little.
In an army camp the cooking is done, in most instances, by
soldiers detailed for it, though in some cases professional cooks may
be used, such having enlisted or been drafted. Each day certain
members of the company are named to help the cooks, of which
there are usually three. The helpers are known as the “kitchen
police,” and they do all sorts of work, peeling potatoes, washing the
pots and pans, scrubbing the floors, waiting on table, bringing in
coal and wood.
This kitchen policing goes by turn, so no one man gets too much
of it, or has to do it too steadily. It was the first time Ned, Bob and
Jerry had been assigned to this duty, and they went at it without
grumbling, which is what every good soldier does. Their many
camping experiences stood them in good stead in this, and the
efficient manner in which they went about their tasks in cleaning up
the pots and pans drew a compliment from the professional cook.
“We’ll know our soup comes out of a clean pot the next time we
eat,” said Bob, as he gave the copper a final polish.
“And by the looks of things we’re going to have a good feed to-
morrow,” added Ned.
“We always do on Sunday,” said Jerry.
On Sundays in camp, reveille, mess and sick calls are one hour
later than on week days, giving more opportunity for slumber, and
on Saturdays the first call for drill is not until 7:35 instead of 6:50,
which is also a little relief.
“Yes, there’ll be a good dinner to-morrow,” resumed Bob, as he
passed the ice chest, having occasion to open it. “Plenty of chicken
and the fixings.”
The Sunday dinner in camp, in fact, is usually the long-looked-for
meal of the week, and the supper, likewise, is more elaborate than
usual. The feeding of the boys of the army is a science, and it is
worked out to what might be called mathematical exactness.
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