This soliloquy brought me to the verge of an emotional break-down.  I departed the spot in silence.  On my way back through Probation I chanced upon a group of rookies studying for their examinations and was surprised to remember how much I had contrived to forget.  Nevertheless I stopped one of the students and asked him what a “hakamaback” was and found to my relief that he didn’t know.

“Back to your manual,” said I gloomily, “I fear you will never be a sailor.”

Having thus made heavy the heart of another, I continued on my way feeling somehow greatly cheered only to find upon entering my barracks that my blankets were in the lucky bag.  How did I ever forget to place them in my hammock?  It was a natural omission though, I fancy, for the master-at-arms so terrifies me in the morning with his great shouts of “Hit the deck, sailor!  Shake a leg—­rise an’ shine” that I am unnerved for the remainder of the day.

April 29th. Life seems to be composed of just one parade after another.  I am weary of the plaudits and acclamation of the multitude and long for some sequestered spot on a mountain peak in Thibet.  Every time I see a street I instinctively start to walk down the middle of it.  Last week I was one of the many thousands of Pelham men who marched along Fifth Avenue in the Liberty Loan parade.  I thought I was doing particularly well and would have made a perfect score if one of my leggins hadn’t come off right in front of the reviewing stand much to the annoyance of the guy behind me because he tripped on it and almost dropped his gun.  For the remainder of the parade I was subjected to a running fire of abuse that fairly made my flesh crawl.

At the end of the march I ran into a rather nebulous, middle-aged sort of a gentleman soldier who was sitting on the curb looking moodily at a manhole as if he would like to jump in it.

“Hello, stranger,” says I in a blustery, seafaring voice, “you look as if you’d been cursed at about as much as I have.  What sort of an outfit do you belong to?”

He scrutinized one of his buttons with great care and then told me all about himself.

“I’m a home guard, you know,” he added bitterly, “all we do is to escort people.  I’ve escorted the Blue Devils, the Poilus, the Australians, mothers of enlisted men, mothers of men who would have enlisted if they could, Boy Scouts and loan workers until my dogs are jolly well near broken down on me.  Golly, I wish I was young enough to enjoy a quiet night’s sleep in the trenches for a change.”

Later I saw him gloomily surveying the world from the window of a passing cab.  He was evidently through for the time being at least.