Next day a pile of lumber arrived--we carried it from the wharf to the Barracks and we were informed that after school we would find nails--plenty of them--one saw and one hammer for two hundred men to lay the floor, upright and erect tents before taps. Say, that was a staggerer! But orders were orders and we fell to. What did we do? Why, we got rocks or pipes or anything you could use for a hammer and with two hundred huskies working at top speed just to show the C.O. that they can do a thing once they make up their mind to it, we got those tents up that night right as a top!
Luckily for me, my site was 'way up on Strawberry Hill, back of the hospital, and with the crackingest view of Narragansett Bay--and a distant glimpse of the Atlantic. It was a wonderful life up there. We'd become so used to outdoors that we used to talk about how strange it would feel to live in four walls again. We took everything as it came and enjoyed it. The government certainly did all in its power to make things comfortable. We used to wonder how the Sam Hill all the busy people up in Washington could keep every one of us in mind and see that we were all supplied. It is a queer feeling--that sensation that you don't have to worry about to-morrow or what it will bring, that you are clothed and fed and housed--and that your only problems are the ones that may come with the rising sun. Great life!
Other camps were all around us. The Yeoman's camp, the Seamen's camp--nothing but bluejackets from morning until night. We wondered if the whole U. S. Navy were there--it didn't seem as if there could be any more sailors in the world.
The Hospital Corps didn't have much drilling to do, just squad movements and litter drills and counter-marching. We used to parade through Newport to boom recruiting, and on Saturday the whole school turned out for Captain's inspection on the green in front of the War College.
There was so much to learn that we spent most of our liberties in the study hall, but once in a while we would drop in at the Army-Navy Y. M., or go down to beaches for a swim, or take in a show.
At the end of three months we were through a course that takes, as a rule, eight months. Then I went to the Naval Hospital and there I made my rate. Gee, but I'm glad I'm going over at last. There's a girl down in Baltimore--I've promised her some souvenirs. Some of the fellows have been back and forth eight times without a glimpse of a submarine--but I hope we see one. I'd like to tell it what I think of it.