Bivouac
Mailed 4/19/43 [written over several days:] Today I’m a ‘gold-bricker’ – sitting around in the ordnance & first aid tent – medical officer of the day. So far (4 PM) I’ve had about 10 patients, - athletes foot, blisters on feet, cut fingers, jock rash, and last but not least, a fellow with a bayonet stuck through his shoe & into his foot.
Time out for a gas drill – at any time whether we are on the march or in camp, we are subject to gas mask drill. We carry them with us all the time. I can get mine on in only a few seconds. Another thing we are liable to is an air raid. If on the march, the order is ‘disperse’, & we immediately run for shelter under trees, if any are near, & fall flat 10-20 yards from the road. Some fun - yesterday I dived under a bush, rifle & all, & landed on my right arm right on a cactus plant which had inch long spines and millions of little hair-like spines. A couple of the big ones went in, & dozens of the smaller ones. Another plague are the sand burrs - little balls (1/4’’diam.) all covered with spines. You sit down, & the seat of your (pardon me - our) pants is filled with them, & they are sharp as needles.
Another thing you would like are the lizards. There are thousands all around, - just about the size of Ludwig Starling’s salamander. They run off away from you wherever you walk. They’re quite harmless and pretty little critters. I’ve mentioned the skunks, -civet cats, to be correct. We lie in our tents at night, & they run all over us – gospel truth. One woke me up last night crawling over my arm.
This really is the life! Mornings we have rifle drill, bayonet drill, marching, or listening to a talk on some military maneuvers. Afternoons we go out, starting in a large group, & breaking up into smaller groups, heading for some objective – like cowboys and Indians. Lots of fun, plowing through the endless sand, hiding behind palms, etc. Then after that, we have retreat & arms inspection. We drill in cadence, march in cadence, swing our guns up, down, right & left shoulders in cadence (32 counts for the silent manual of arms), & they say even the skunks march in cadence. After supper our time is our own until 9:30, unless we pull guard.
There are 14 outside posts, formally, and a dozen to 20 inside posts. Our area is about the size of Ferry Village from the lighthouse service place to Preble St., & from Front to Meeting House Hill. [Editorial note: From recollection of that part of South Portland, this would be at least a square mile.] Guards are posted around it in intervals, & it’s plenty wild country. Out tent area including PX (we can buy cokes, candy, & beer), officers tent, the tent I’m in, all our pup-tents scattered & camouflaged through the woods, our lister-bag (35 gallon canvas bags from which we draw chlorinated water into our canteens) is only a small part of the whole, & we have two rings of guards around it. Our tent (pup tent where I live) is in the middle of pines, & I’d feel quite at home if it weren’t for the brush which largely consists of a small type of palm. You know those small palm fans, & well the bushes are made up of those things.
Friday 3:30 PM: Our last day of bivouac, & I wish we were going to get another week of it. Of course, the ground is a hard bed, but we don’t use it a lot. I have just taken my shoes off for the second time since I put them on Monday morning. I took them off (leggings & all) Tuesday night when I went to bed. Had only been in bed a half hour (10:15) when the guards started blowing their whistles signaling an invasion by Squadron I, the squadron out here next week. In the dark I frantically tried to lace my leggings up & my shoes, but had a terrible time, & got the leggings on the wrong leg. You wouldn’t have recognized me by what I said (I hope). Then I resolved I wasn’t taking them off again except when I would have plenty of time to put them on again & in the daylight.
To continue about the “attack”: I got out to the assembly point, after struggling into my cartridge belt and gas mask outfit (we didn’t have to put the masks onto our pack, just have the outfit strapped on). I was assigned to a post behind a clump of bushes along one of the hundreds of sandy paths leading to the camp. I cocked my trusty rifle (still no bullets, but a hell of a good click when you put the trigger) & crouched, awaiting the enemy. We would hear something rustling in the bushes and would call ‘Halt’. The creeping and crackling continues, and our hearts would beat faster, again ‘Halt, who goes there?’ Then, out would come the cutest little skunk you ever saw. I say ‘our’, as it had happened to all of us no matter where we were stationed. We had got quite friendly with them; all except for a couple of the boys. One tapped a marauding skunk on the nose with his flashlight when the skunk was inspecting the inside of the tent at night. His blanket wasn’t fit for anything but airing after that. The other fellow was on guard outside the PX. He saw a skunk a few feet off & picked up an empty beer bottle out of a case and let go at him. The skunk returned fire with much more devastating effect. The fellow had to stay on guard for 3 hours after it happened, in his skunky uniform.
Again, continuing the ‘attack’. There has been only a slit of a moon this week, & you couldn’t see a person if they were close to cover. We would sit by the hour and challenge anyone who went by, but would each time be disappointed in that it would only be a roving guard. Our password the first night was “Berger” (given by the person told to halt, & “Lingenfelders” given in answer by the challenger. The boys got so excited that Berger-Lingenfelders could be heard for miles, & any enemy in the area
would soon know the passwords. The names were those of the two Lieutenants accompanying us. Another complication was the crickets. Florida crickets sound exactly like the whistles our guards were supposed to signal with. And – the crickets toot all the time at night and from every direction. Consequently, it seemed as if we were being attacked from every side, all at once. It was funny, as the reinforcements held in reserve didn’t know which way to run. Well, after three hours or so of skunk dodging, the “all clear” sounded, meaning that the attack was over. When the details were learned, we found that 3 of our scouts had been captured near the club, including two fellows carrying the “Walkie-talkie” radio. A fourth escaped, got back here, & gave the alarm that16 men from Squadron I were on the way. Then, the Squadron I men, realizing the whole camp would be on the alert, warned by the escaped scout, & thought the 16 of them wouldn’t stand a chance against all of us went back to the club & to bed. They released their captives about 1 o’clock, & it was when they got back that we got the all clear, after being on guard for hours against men who were asleep in bed.
[Continued Sunday, April 18, after bivouac; more legibly written in ink on good surface.] This was as far as I got out on bivouac, & now I’ll bring things up to date. You’ve got a picture of the atmosphere from the letter so far. We never did get a decent attack from Squadron I much to our disgust. Wednesday night we had an alarm, got to our fox-holes, & sat for a couple of hours telling the skunks to halt. We later found a guard had got nervous at a persistent rustling in the bushes & had blown his whistle, thus hauling us out of bed for nothing.
We never did get to our long hike. We started out one morning at 5:45, but it rained most of the way, and after about 3 miles of it we turned back. When we got back to the camp, & we fooled around all day. Friday night we had a beer party, & Saturday AM marched in triumph back to the Club. We had made up 4 new songs on the trip, learned them, also a military rifle drill, & we put on quite a show when we got back.
