Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

        They were speeding along to the first review at Custer—the jitney driver and the press correspondent.  The Ford was making time and the correspondent was making mental calculations of his current assignment.  “This is important,” the editor had said.  “This is epochal stuff.”  But the reporter could see nothing in it but a stiff military occasion—just one of the tiresome marchings—that were to inevitably become a part and parcel of our daily life.  He did not expect to be thrilled by the trim rows of marching khaki (he’d seen too many in the movies); he didn’t anticipate an inward throb when the music blared by or the colors passed.  He hadn’t an inkling of inspiration for “epochal stuff.”

        But suddenly the chauffeur gave him one.  Turning a corner into the camp road, the driver bore down upon an old man—some old step-and-fetch-it who evidently didn’t realize that concrete roads are for automobiles—honked his horn violently, ground his brakes, stopped and swore.  “Damn these buzzards,” he grumbled, swinging his car with a jerk, “they slow up the generation.”

        The correspondent smiled as though welcoming an idea.  “Wait a second,” he mused, “let’s pick him up.”  Then to the still oblivious pedestrian, “Want a ride, old timer?”

        “Thought you were in a hurry,” snapped the jitney man.

        “I am.  That’s why I bought out this jitney.  But a ride’s a ride, y’know—even to old-fashioned feet.: They had come along side the trodding figure.  “Ride?” he repeated.    

        The old man blinked at him incredulously, looking the car over carefully and chirped in a high squeaky voice, “Right smart I do.  Which way be yuh headin’?”

        “To camp.  Climb in.  We’re late now.”  The old man settled himself carefully.  The car lurched forward.  “Can’t be yer headin’ for this here review?” he ventured, half in doubt and half in interrogation.

        “Right.” The reporter slumped down.  Just another garrulous old man, he thought.  A bore no doubt.  No inspiration in him.  He wasn’t even wearing the faded blue of ‘61. The old passenger was silent, too, while the car skimmed over the ribbon road.  But he looked out when they curved around and bumped over the railroad track.  “Hum,” he mumbled, “hum.  And that’s whar Jed Perkins used to cross on Sundays.”

        “How’s that” queried the writer, still half lost in his thoughts.

        “Oh, I’se sayin’—times have changed around here somewhat.”

        “Oh, yes—yes indeed.”

        “This road, frinstance.  Funny little strip o’ skatin’ rink.  Gets there, though—gets there.”  And he leaned forward to look out better.  “Well, I’m hornswaggled–the old swamp is licked!”

        The reporter began to arouse himself.  “How’s that?  Where?”

        “Well, sir, when I used to live here I used to git stuck in that swamp jes as regular as spring.  Now Uncle Sammy’s licked her.”  Grandpa seemed to enjoy the reflection.

        The reporter sat up.  “You mean you used to live in this country when—when it was cornfields and swamps.”  His imagination could trespass no further.

        “Right you are, sonny.  I lived here when thar wasn’t nothin’—but land—and work.”  A reminiscent light came into his eyes.  “Why sonny, I helped—“ But he checked himself as the car straightened out and bore into the long climb up the grade.   The old man gazed silently at the sight winding up before him—like a movie film form a train—and gasped.
    
        “Lawzee, conny, lawzee!  It’s a city!  The reporter had never thought of it before in that light, neither in the hurried days of breaking ground nor in the irksome days of getting construction under way.  But an inspiration began to come to him at last.  “And you—you know this country in the old days, before Mars struck it with his lamp of Alladin, eh?”

        “Never met Mars personally and never heard of Alladin.  But I was born and raised around here, sonny.  Helped clear the soil ***why just over yonder whar that big cow-shed.***”

        “Warehouse,” corrects the writer.

        “—warehouse stands***Gosh all hickory, how my back used ter ache***”

        They had topped the hill and swung into the military city proper.  Trucks rumbled, jitneys scurried, sidecars barked and skidded, soldiers and workmen thronged here and there.  The old man was silent now, overwhelmed with the magic of war.  Modern war—or was it the tragedy of time?

        The reporter attempted to find out.  He went on to explain how the camp was to be build in a night, as it were, to house an entire army of Civil War size, and was to cost twelve millions of dollars.  But these comments were lost on the venerable passenger.  He was buried in his own reflections.  Only once did he rouse himself to remark,  “She’s gone!  Not a stick, nor a stone in the old back yard.”

        “What’s gone?”  The reporter was insistent.  Old Timer shook off his reverie and replied., “Jest noticin’ whar the old place used to be.”

        “You can TELL?  You can locate it in all this flubdub of barracks and shacks and lumber and construction?”

        “Yeh—sure.  See that little gully whar the creek used ter overflow down in Spring?  Well, right this side of it.  Thar’s some sort of o’ warehouse—“

        ”Barracks—“

        ”—barracks thar now.  My old dad—“ But reflection was too much for him.  The tears welled up.  He perked up and changed the subject.  “Kin you take me to this here parade, sonny?  An old geezer like me’d git lost in this—“ He waved his arm in a gesture that was both a compliment to modern industry and a tribute to bygone scenes.

        “Sure thing,” gulped the reporter, a new light in his eyes, “that’s just where I’m headed for.  I’m a—I’m, that is I WAS out looking for an inspiration.  You gave it to me.”

        “Don’t understand ye, sonny.  Yer talk’s new.  But if yer lookin’ for inspiration, as ye call it, what’s a matter with this here place—bigger an’ faster than anything they ever build in fairy tales—?”

        “Nothing, but—“ The reporter glanced at his watch—“We’ve got to hurry.  Step on her, Jaques!  Look out for that truckload!”

        So they rolled up to the reviewing grounds, alighted and prepared to separate.   But a thought came to the writer.  He could horn into a good place—but how about this old timer.  “Come along with me if you like, uncle—if you’re interested particularly.  We’ll hunt a good hole.”

        “I be, bud, I be—interest.  My grandson’s in that army.”  And he motioned towards the troops, fresh clad in their neat O. D. , already beginning to pass.  The reporter whistled to himself.  Carefully he guided the old man to an acceptable vantage point.  Watching his charge from time to time, he could only read disappointment or blank amazement on the weather-beaten face.  “They don’t stand out so well these days,” was the old man’s sole comment.

        Then the band swung by—a new band, with new men and new instruments—on its first review. The writer’s hair tingled to the roots at the music’s thrill.  Then the colors came and, from a slouchy, almost weary man, his companion was galvanized into a statue of patriotic fervor.  His hat came off.  The old hand snapped to the quaint old salute, a new light shone in the old grey eyes.
 
        “The spirit of ‘61" breathed the reporter, as he shamefacedly removed his hat.

        And then—after it was all over—while he rode back in an ultra-modern conveyance into ultra-modern surroundings again, the thought came to him: “I wonder if these lads in khaki, these raw recruits, stepping high and proud in their first review, will get that spirit under their skin, I wonder—.“  Which reflection stayed with him through the weary weeks of routine drill, routine expansion, routine camp life.  When, upon witnessing the last review of these “rookies” no longer raw, and upon talking with them on the eve of their departure overseas, he decided, quite without music or inspiration—“THEY DID.”

            *        *        *        *
        It was Saturday afternoon at Camp Custer.  Spring had definitely arrived—after a seemingly hopeless tussle with wind, rain, mud and flood—and with it encouraging sunshine, renewed activities—and dust.  To the list of arrivals, also, should be added baseball.

        But, before we take up that phase of the spring referred to, we want to dispose of said dust.  The wind tried to, but only aggravated matters.  It blew in gritty clouds along and whirled them in our faces, into the barracks and onto the cots.  (O memory forsake us when we try to picture those days of cot airing in the open—and the dust!)  Our “garrison shoes” (issue defunct) turned up their smiling morning countenances and choked.  The windows we labored long and regularly to clean presented streaked exteriors to prying eyes. Even our ice cream cones, bought at the window of the dehibernated canteen, collected their share of Custer dust before they disappeared down the insatiable gullet of Custer’s stomach.  Dust settled everywhere.  And when the wind wasn’t disturbing it, trucks or MATERIEL or passing pleasure cars were.  Even the concrete road was strangely able to yield its quote of grime, rolled and eddied under whirling tires.  Dust was king.

        But baseball went on.  Over on the drill ground back of officers’ quarters a regimental battle was flourishing.  Rooters hugged the base lines and cussed the umpire—officer or no.  Nearer to the barracks several inter-battery games were waxing hot and enthusiastic.  Substitutes chased lost balls through battery streets and battalion lines.  Someone made a hit that went through “A” Battery’s corner window.  But what boots a window more or less when spring is everywhere and baseball is on?  And—war is on?

        Signs of the reason for this whole panorama were nowhere lacking.  Dealer wagons, catering to mess needs, rolled in and dumped their loads at small back porches.  A switch engine worried up and down the track, leaving cars of forage, MATERIEL and ammunition. (Thank heave, the coal pile was finee!)  Over in a battery corral—where the long-tethered horses romped and felt their oats—a stable sergeant and helper or two were snubbing a broncho to a hitching post. Back of them, under the shed, an industrious mechanic tinkered with the veteran—and ramshackle—pieces.  (Wonder if we’ll ever forget those roaring, rickety old heavers of three inch shells!)  Mule skinners, driving four and six, wheeled on and off the concrete on regimental police work or stable duty.  Side-cars chugged by occasionally, and, now and then, a big bus car stopped to unload its freight of visitors and “residentials.”

        A single buck private stood under the awning of the canteen munching a cone as one of these too rare vehicles drove up.  He watched idly as the bus stopped and a lone passenger got out.  It was an elderly lady.  Just a little old gray-haired, motherly-looking soul, he noted casually, probably toting the flock of packages under her arm to some husky six-footer.  Mother to Custer to son in baseball language, with no assists, probably, on that run.

        The motherly soul stood still a moment after the jitney moved out—a look of tired bewilderment on her kindly face.  She started nervously as a side-car honked fretfully by and turning moved toward the sole observer of her actions.  Buck Private finished his cone and made as though to leave.  But he paused when he saw the white-haired visitor hesitate as though uncertain of which course to take, removed his hat and inquired: “Looking for someone, madam?”

        “Yes, I am,” said the old lady soberly, “and I have been for a couple of hours.  Oh, this big citified place with its buildings all alike!  It’s—it’s got me all nervous.”  And she smiled a tired little smile but the sort no mother’s son of us can resist.  Buck responded to it and started to enlarge on her description of Custer.  But she hurried on: “I’ve been traveling for a week, it seems.  I thought when I got to camp it would be easy.  But the jitney man was busy and I got off too soon.  And I didn’t find the artillery—“

        ”You’re looking for the artillery?”

        “Yes, Jimmy said it was the artillery.  To just ride up the road and get off.  But—“

        ”Jimmy, eh?” thought the soldier.  “I wonder how many little, old-fashioned American mothers have got lost finding Jimmy—“

        Then—“But here I am, and I don’t know how close I am.”  She looked at her packages.

        “Let me take them,” grunted the private gruffly.  “This is the artillery and we’ll find Jimmy, all right.”  He gathered up the bundles.  “What battery was he in?”

        “Battery?”

        “Yes, his outfit. The company, the unit he belongs to.”  Buck’s military terms were clumsy.    

        “Why, I don’t know.  Let me see—“ and wrinkled fingers fumbled in a worn purse.  There was an awkward pause.  “Well, I do declare!  I’ve LOST his exact address.  But”—brightly—“I know his regiment!”  And she named the unit whose territory they were in.

        “And do you know the outfit he is in?”
    
        Perplexity made this motherly old soul more lovable than ever.  “No, son, I don’t.  We can’t find him then?  Don’t you reckon there’s some way?  You see, our name’s Perkins.”  The private thought rapidly.  They’d go to regimental headquarters and get the sergeant major to look up Jimmy Perkins.  But he did not tell his quaint visitor all that.  He guided her up the board walk with an assurance that Jimmy was as good as found.  About the place where a guy wire through the sidewalk lends confidence to a telephone pole, he met a friend.

        “Billy, ever heard of a Jimmy Perkins?”

        “Perkins?  Jimmy Perkins?  Yeh—“ He seemed about to spill something but caught himself as Buck put in with, “Well, this is his mother.  We’re looking for him.”

        The friend signed Buck aside.  In low tones he hurried to explain that Jimmy Perkins had only that week been transferred to somewhere outside the state, maybe overseas.  And this tired little lady had come all the way from Buck didn’t know where to bring him loads of goodies.  The pathos of the little tragedy rather got both of them.  And together they made rather a blotch of telling this gray-haired mother that her Jimmy had been sent away á la army.  The tired eyes widened for an instant and the thin lips quivered, but no “scene” was forthcoming.  “Well, well,” she shrilled, all cheerfulness, “so I missed him after all.  But—but, what on earth will I do with all this?”  She indicated the package-load her chief benefactor toted.  Both soldiers were stumped, just a fleeting vision of side-tracked “eats” coming their way crossed through their minds.  Developments shamed them.  “I know. I’ll leave them with you—you boys,” declared the visitor triumphantly.

        “No,” said Buck.  “No—we get plenty of things—canteen n’everything.”  Then he got an inspiration.  “I’ll tell you.  We’ll get Jimmy’s address and mail them to him.”

        ”Could we?”  And her eyes sparkled.

        “Watch us!” said Buck.  And together they found Jimmy’s old battery clerk, got the forwarding address, visited the pleasant “Y” and had an all-around pleasant time sending Jimmy his packages—all except one which his mother decided to keep.

        Afterwards it came to Buck that maybe there would never be another chance for this disappointed but cheerful little body to see Old Custer.  So he showed her the camp, after the manner of countless other showings, took her to mess at the battery—with the K. P.’s after the boys were through—and turned an otherwise idle—and, mayhap, lonesome—afternoon into pleasure for both of them. This was a wonderful place to the mother of Jimmy.

        And when he put her on the bus, about sundown, and couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say—being just an ordinary Yank like you or me—she turned to him and said: “Son, why, I don’t even know your name!  Oh, yes, it matters to ME.  There’s something I want to say to you.  You’re just a—a common soldier, aren’t you?”  There was no embarrassment in Buck’s acknowledgment of that fact.  “Well, all the better.  But I was going to tell you.  I used to worry a little about letting my Jim come into this army—with men like—like I don’t know what.  But now, son, I want to tell YOU.  I”m glad he was able to come.  I’m proud he’s in it.”  The car was starting.   “Good-bye, my boy, and—oh yes, this is yours.”  And she left an embarrassed buck private standing by the road, holding that last package and looking after a Camp Custer jitney with mist in his eyes.