Camp follower

“ A camp is a resting-place for the victor, a shelter for the vanquished. How many armies to whom the fortune of battle has proved unkindly have been driven inside their ramparts and then at their own time, sometimes almost immediately, have made a sortie and repulsed their victorious foe? Here is the soldier's second fatherland, here is his abode, with the rampart for its walls; here each finds in his tent, his home and his household gods. Ought we to have fought as homeless wanderers with no place to receive us after our victory? ”

“ Early in the morning, they heard, all about them, sounds as if a camp of people were there. They heard a young man shouting a sort of war cry, as young men do; women chopping wood; a man calling for a feast, asking people to come to his lodge and smoke,—all the different sounds of the camp. ”

“ No one who has not tried it can fancy what work it is to find one's way through widely-spread camps in a pitch-dark night. Each camp is so much like its fellow that it is impossible to discriminate between one and the other; and landmarks, familiar in the day-time, are lost in one dead level of blackness. So my two companions and myself, after stumbling into Turkish and French lines, into holes and out of them, found ourselves, after three hours' ride, very far indeed from our destination in the front, and glad to stop till dawn, wet and tired, at the head-quarters' camp. ”

“ But with hardy men, fond of adventure, these were pleasures rather than pains. With their axes, in half an hour they could construct a sheltering camp. A brilliant fire would dispel all gloom, with its wide-spreading illumination. ”

“ Assuming the lodge—there was but one—as the centre of the camp, it was placed upon the edge of a small grove, and fronting the stream. From the tent to the water’s edge, the plain sloped gently downward, like the glacis of a fortification. The smooth sward, that covered the space between the trees and the water, was the ground of the camp. On this could be seen the dusky warriors, some afoot, standing in listless attitudes, or moving about; others reclining upon the grass, and still others bending over the fires, as if engaged in the preparation of their evening meal. ”

“ They had gone back to the era when man was a nomad, at night pitching his tent by the water hole, and sleeping on skins beside the fire. When the sun rose over the rim of the prairie the camp was astir. When the stars came out in the deep blue night they sat by the cone of embers, not saying much, for in the open, spoken words lose their force and the human creature becomes a silent animal. ”

“ The day closes early in these great camps. At half-past eight the recreation huts close their doors. Concerts and entertainments are over. The men stream back to their tents along muddy roads, laughing, chatting, singing. Lights appear in the tents, and a glow, red or white, shines through the canvas. One after another these are extinguished. The “Last Post” sounds from a dozen bugles. The multitudinous noises of camp life die away. The rifle-fire which has crackled all day on the ranges has long ceased. The spluttering of machine guns in the training camps vexes the ear no more. ”

“ The camp followers seeing these unusual precautions taken for the protection of the camp, and hearing the enemy‘s guns in the distance, begin to show signs of apprehension, so much so that in all probability, if in the darkness of night a hearty cheer was raised by ourselves, few, or perhaps none, of them would be found by daylight to ridicule their fears. ”

“ TO be back in the mountains and in camp is simply glorious! And to see soldiers walking around, wearing the dear old uniform, just as we used to see them, makes one feel as though old days had returned. The two colored men—chef and butler—rather destroy the technique of a military camp, but they seem to be necessary adjuncts; and besides, we are not striving for harmony and effect, but for a fine outing, each day to be complete with its own pleasures. ”

“ In these days of war everybody can see a camp. Every one who stays at home has a brother or a son or a lover quartered in one of the myriad tents that have blossomed with the daffodil-season all over our green fields of the North. ”

“ I have seen prints in shop windows of farms and soldiers, bits of country life and war mixed, a party of Lancers or Uhlans calling at some old homestead, watering their horses or bivouacking in the garden. Often what I see now makes me think of these subjects. A large camp is hideous and depressing; dirty and worn, the ground trampled deep in dust; filth and refuse lying about; the entrails and skins of animals, flies, beastly smells, and no excitement or animation. But these outlying scenes, scouts, pickets, &c., have a peculiar interest. ”

“ The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various as those of Joseph’s coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open camp, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no Volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pass or the word. ”

“ It was an interesting and exciting experience 97for them to see and feel the bustle and hustle of a military camp and to know that they were part of it. Horses were tethered under all the trees, tents sprang up on all sides as if by magic, while everywhere men were busy with the thousand and one duties of camp life. ”

“ Be it man, woman, boy or girl, if he, she or it expects to be a camper, he, or she or it must learn to be orderly and tidy around camp. No matter how soiled one's clothes may be, no matter how grimy one's face may look, the ground around the camp-fire must be clean, and the cooking utensils and fire wood, pot-hooks and waugan-sticks, all orderly and as carefully arranged as if the military officer was expected the next minute to make an inspection. ”

“ Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 12th of April, without the stirring drum or the bugle call of old, the camp awoke to the new life. Whether or not they had a country, these soldiers did not know. Home to many, when they reached it, was graves and ashes. At any rate, there must be, somewhere on earth, a better place than a muddy, smoky camp in a piece of scrubby pines;347 better company than gloomy, hungry comrades and inquisitive enemies, and something in the future more exciting, if not more hopeful, than nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. ”

“ What I call a camp is hardly what the ordinary mind would picture: there are, of course, no tents or other such luxuries; the force is merely formed in an extended square with guns and Maxims at each of the corners, and where each man happens to stand in the ranks, there is his place to cook his food, to eat, and to spread his blanket for the night. ”

“ No matter where the old camper may be, no matter how long a time may have elapsed since last he slept in the open, no matter how high or low a social or official position he may now occupy, it takes but one whiff of the smoke of an open fire, or one whiff of the aroma of frying bacon, to send him back again to the lone trail. In imagination he will once more be hovering over his little camp-fire in the desert, under the shade of the gloomy pines, mid the snows of Alaska, in the slide rock of the Rockies or mid the pitch pines of the Alleghenies, as the case may be. ”

“ The flecks lay like snow upon the earth of the Wilderness.
“We’re tired of war on the old camp-ground
Many are dead and gone....
“We’re tenting to-night on the old camp-ground,...
Tenting to-night, tenting to-night.
Tenting to-night on the old camp-ground.” All the spirit of this army was graver than it had been a year ago, than it had been six months ago. During the past winter a strong religious fervour had swept it. This evening, in the Wilderness, in many a command there was prayer and singing of hymns. Swaths of earth, black copses of cedar and gum, divided one congregation from another. ”

“ In a camp everything is left unguarded, and nothing goes astray. If you, clothed in fine linen and arrayed in jewels, were to enter the tent of some half-starving Arab, and ask of him hospitality, he would share his last few coffee beans with you, and give you his couch, if by chance he was possessed of such a luxury, and speed you on your way the morrow, and believe me, you would not find a ribbon missing from your attire, even though you had left him without the wherewith to make his beloved coffee. ”

“ When a messenger or visitor approaches a camp at night, he will not do so without announcing his arrival in advance by loudly calling from afar to the groups at the fireside. Should a person be discovered prowling the surroundings of a camp, without having heralded his coming, he runs grave risk of being speared, on the chance that he be on no good business. ”

“ The camp is surrounded with high barbed-wire fences. If we come back late from the Soldiers' Home we have to show passes. But those who are on good terms with the guard can get through, of course.
Between the junipers and the birch trees on the moor we practice company-drill each day. It is bearable if one expects nothing better. We advance at a run, fling ourselves down, and our panting breath moves the stalks of the grasses and the flowers of the heather to and fro. ”

“ Better, now, this genial glow that warms one's marrow than the camp-fire that smokes or roasts one's front while his back freezes. With what perfect contentment one mends his tackle and cleans his gun for coming days of sport, while the good wife reads racy records of camp-life from Maine to California, and he listens with attention half diverted by break or rust spot, or with amused watching of the youngsters playing at camping out. ”

“ Sometimes they stand in the midst of a populous town and we ride through long streets between dirty houses, swarming with ragged women, filthy men, and screaming children; suddenly we come to the dilapidated entrance of our temple, pass through a courtyard, close the huge gates and are in another world.
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We leave early every morning and the boys are up long before dawn. As we sleepily open our eyes we see their dark figures silhouetted against the brilliant camp fire, hear the yawns of the mafus and the contented crunching of the mules as they chew their beans. ”

“ Night in these wilds is rich with a mysterious beauty, an immensity of solitude such as day cannot dream of. Supper over, we stretched ourselves out between tent-door and camp-fire, pillowing our heads on the folded bedding. Across the yellow, fire-lit circle, through the trunks and hanging branches, we watched the still, gleaming level of the lake, whence at intervals would ring out startlingly clear the goblin laughter of the loon.
We were not so tired as on the previous evening, and it took us longer to settle down into the mood for story-telling. At last Stranion was called upon. ”

“ The men made camp in the slippery darkness, while we sat in the wagon, warm and dry, and thanked our stars there were still a few things left that men could do without our aid or competition. Presently a lantern flashed out, and spots of light shifted over them as they slaved—pounding tent-pegs, and scraping stones away from places where our blankets were to be spread, hacking and hewing among the wet willows, and grappling with stovepipes and tent-poles ”

“ The fire was soon burning cheerily. Somehow it seemed a great source of joy to everyone, especially Elmer, Lil Artha and George. As veteran scouts the crackle of a blaze instantly called up fond memories of numerous former occasions when in the woods, and camping amidst the solitudes they had met with all sorts of interesting and even thrilling adventures, never to be utterly forgotten, even when they had grown to manhood, and gone forth into the world upon their appointed life missions.
Next in order came the preparations for cooking the camp supper. ”

“ Directly afterwards bang, crack, bang! was heard from the distant camp, when, in an instant, every height was seen covered with men. The travellers and their attendants hastened on, when before them appeared three large red flags, heading a military procession which marched out of the camp, with drums and fifes playing. ”

“ Our camp is surrounded by crowds of beggars, famished, gaunt and wizened creatures, most sorry objects to behold. Boys and girls, of from ten to twenty years of age, wan, pinched, and wrinkled, whine around us in piteous tones all day and all night, and vainly call on Ali for aid. ”

“ There is confusion throughout the camp,—a trampling of feet and loud, hurried talking. In your haste you get your boots on wrong, and buckle your cartridge-box on bottom up. You rush out in the darkness, not minding your steps, and are caught by the tent-ropes. You tumble headlong, upsetting to-morrow’s breakfast of beans. You take your place in the ranks, nervous, excited, and trembling at you know not what. ”

“ Had we nothing which we could call our own except the bare ground on which to fight?' Your ancestors looked upon a camp as a safe haven for the army against every mischance, from which they went out to battle, where, after being tossed in the storm of battle, they could find a safe retreat. ”

“ What joyful stages towards the enemy whom we wished to drive back! What hours of weariness also, when, our shoulders bruised and bowed by the weight of our knapsacks, we were obliged to go on, day and night, fleeing before the invader!
The high road! At last for the first time for long months we were marching on firm ground. No longer did our feet sink into the soft sand of the camp. Our walk was lighter; it was as if chains had fallen from us. And the road which stretched in front gave us the illusion of liberty. ”