title="32"/> twelve pounds of onions; a tearful occasion, until some one with a conscience suggested that he get a bucket of water and peel them under water. O’Flynn got the water, with the remark that if he waited just a little longer the onion pan would have been full of tears, which he assumed would have served just as well.

O’Flynn is kitchen policing because he tried to come into the barracks after taps. Lights out at ten and O’Flynn arrived about 2 G.M. He avoided the fire-guard successfully and went around to the back of the barracks. There he jimmied a window with his pocket knife and got it opened, only to have it fall on his neck when he was about half-way in. By way of exercise he put his elbow through it. Then to add to the situation he found himself in the darkened mess hall instead of the dormitory, and the noise he made when he knocked over several benches naturally grated on the Sergeant’s nerves. Said Sergeant arrived in the hall in his union suit about the time O’Flynn had untangled himself, and, after cussing him out to perfection, he handed the Irishman a week at kitchen policing.

“And now,” said O’Flynn, “t’ next time I come in through t’ windey, I’ll stay out.”

A week of this and I’ll be able to qualify as a first rate housekeeper for a lumber camp. Already I can lay down a few very necessary rules which the average housewife will appreciate, as for instance:—

1. Never take it for granted that a man has only one appetite. We have two hundred and seventy men here, but they carry around an aggregate of six hundred appetites.

2. Never plunge your hands into an ash can full of greasy water without first removing your wrist watch.

3. Never attempt to mop up after your men folk. Just turn the hose on, lash the nozzle to a convenient table leg and walk away and forget about it.

4. In carrying out a pan full of hot ashes never grab the handle. Thrust a stick through it, it saves the temper and the floor.

5. Never let any one kid you into trying to take the black off the kitchen pans with sapolio, rather throw the pans away.

Never let anyone kid you into trying to
take the black off the kitchen pans

Delightfully brief and entertaining job, that of removing the black from ash cans that are used to cook soup in. Our Mess Sergeant, the pirate, noticed that for about three seconds during this afternoon I wasn’t doing anything in particular, so he gave me a cake of sapolio and a mop and told me to get busy and shine up the outside of the pots and pans and get all the black off. I went to it and stuck—until our Jap cook, the slant-eyed angel, came in about two hours later and told me the honourable ash cans always got blacked up again so what’s the use; and anyhow he wanted to use the mop. I almost kissed him.

Thank goodness the coal shovelling is all over with. Finished it yesterday. To-day during my moments of leisure I split a few cords of kindling wood and carried it into the kitchen, but I like splitting wood better than heaving coal when it comes to making a choice.

I’ve been very popular with “Local Board No. 163,” since I’ve been in the kitchen. Honestly, if that dog had intelligence enough, I could almost believe that he induced that flea to start this dirty work, for he’s the only one in the whole company who has benefited by it. He hangs around the galley all the time and is waxing fat, prosperous and greasy; greasy because he got in the way of some dishwater that was being emptied out the back door. And now I’ll have to give him another scrubbing before we turn in, or he’ll be crawling in under my blankets again.

Strange I haven’t received any letters yet. Some chaps are lucky. Letters seem to make a big difference in things, even if it’s only listening in on some other fellow’s. Every one reads letters out loud so that we can all enjoy them, for letters, no matter whom they are from, are real events here and one always gets a sinking feeling when he discovers there aren’t any for him.

Thursday:

Real luck at last. No more kitchen policing, thank goodness. It all happened thus:

About the time we had cleaned up the remains of breakfast and I was getting ready to turn out for “settin’ ups,” along comes the Captain with two Lieutenants in tow, all with official looking papers. We lined up and he looked us all over very critically. Then he read:

“Any members of this company qualified to fill the following positions, step one pace,” and a list of occupations followed that included everything from barber to horse trainer and stage carpenter. Quite a few of us stepped out. About ten of the Italian contingent responded at the word barber. Fat came forward as stage carpenter, and when he said artist I stepped three paces forward instead of one and, saluting, handed him my recommendation for the Camouflage Corps. I knew I wasn’t doing quite the proper thing. But you see we were all young and innocent of such things as military courtesy, and the Captain overlooked the fact that one pace didn’t mean three, and after he had mentally debated the question of calling me down in front of the company and had given me the benefit of inexperience, he read the recommendation.

Fat was looking for the same barracks

The result was that I was ordered to report immediately to the 2-6 Company, 5-2 Depot Battalion. And with visions of avoiding physical exercises for about two hours and the preparing of a midday meal, I needed no urging. I gathered up my bed, hay mattress, blankets and all and proceeded to find the barracks of the 2-6 Company, 5-2 Depot Battalion.

Of course, it had to be located at the other end of the twenty-four square miles of reservation. But I had company. Fat, loaded down like a dromedary under bed, blankets, a suitcase and all, was looking for the same barracks. So we started on our wanderings together, hopeful of finding our new home before dinner was served.

We found it. And we found a lot of other fellows looking for the same home. It seems this Depot Battalion, of which I am now a part, is composed entirely of specialists, lawyers, linguists, engineers, artists, architects, carpenters and what not, and just about the time we were being transferred, other specialists were being selected from other companies and sent on their way to the Headquarters Divisions of the various regiments. So our corner of the camp has been quite popular all day, with men staggering in under loads of personal belongings like a lot of gipsies looking for new places to hang their O.D’s.

We, I mean Fat and myself, are among a different class of fellows now and this moving business has changed my opinion of the camp. From a hit or miss proposition as it first appeared, it has become a very systematic and well-organized cantonment. It is being worked out like a gigantic piece of machinery and there isn’t any question in my mind now but that we will all, sooner or later, fit into the places where we will be able to serve