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Image provided by: New York State Military History Museum
IO GAS ATTACK More About Finding Officers in the Ranks Private Davenport Writes the Second of His Series of Articles on the Oe T. S. Personally, we have never smoked opium. It has never been our experience to have indulged in hop nor hootch of any sort. All we know about those delicacies comes second-hand—from reading De Quincey’s stuff, looking at “M adame X” and “The Man W ho Came B ack” plays, and snooping around W ard 30 in Bellevue H o spital trying to pry hum an interest stories out of Dr. Minas Gregory. The latter activity, by the way, is not the least of our reasons for neglecting to cul tivate the dope habit. However, we are w illing to go to the theoretical m a t w ith any enthusiastic addict who contends th a t drugs have anything on the aw a k e n ing of Spring in South Carolina. U n d e rstand us! H aving been a resident of these parts for slightly more than five m o n ths we are jum p ing a t no conclusions regarding the stability of the w e a ther hereabout. W e are quite prepared for snow at any moment. W e are willing to bet th a t the w a ter in our canteen will freeze at least four tim es betw e e n this m o m ent and the hour this is sue of The Gas Attack appears on the coun ters of the post exchanges. T h a t W onderful Sunday. B u t this was w ritten on Sunday, F e b ru ary 10. You may rem e m b e r the day—full of Spring breezes and fever. Every m an in Company B, Officers’ T raining School, carted his equipm ent down to the show ers and scrubbed as though there was no h e reafter for the soiled soldiers. A story about the Officers’ T raining School had to be w ritten. And it was w rit ten. This is it. T h e re m ight be m o re of the O. T. S. about it but here’s the explana tion. On one side of the w riter sits E thel- bu rt Jellyback w riting a stern m a d rigal about the pink, pink passions of the Poilu. The Spring Song of the Bayonet, he called it. E thelburt is for substituting Bliss Car man for M ajor Jam e s A. Moss in the sol dier library and is w riting S e c retary B a k e r about it. On the other side sits Bill, w riting his w eekly letter to Mabel. Bill was full of syrupy sentim e n t. He is assuring Mabel th a t he is really quite fond of her but hoped she’d understand th a t anything he m ight say th a t sounded as though he w ere more than m e rely fond of her, was due entirely to Spring-horn sentim e n t. The Story is Interrupted. This story about the O. T. S. sped along briskly until E thelburt suggested th a t we all romp over to the H o s tess’ H o u se th a t the Y. W. C. A. is conducting. Bill refreshed his chew and I interpolated a few neat sug gestions apropos soldier efficiency, and we w ent over to the H o stess House. On the way over we thought of several other things about the school and resolved to come back and incorporate them into this yarn. But Elliott, the advertising m a n a g e r of The Gas Attack, suggested th a t we eat at Tommy H a rrison’s. Betw een H a rrison’s and The Gas Attack office we forgot those sev eral other things. Therefore, you can readily appreciate just why this story lacks a num b e r of in terest ing things about the school. W e w ere for chucking the whole thing and w riting som e thing about prem a ture Spring Sundays in New York—you know about the m o rning parade on F ifth Avenue and the afternoon prom enade on R iverside Drive; the little squadrilla of m o tor boats on the H u d son and the long lines of m o tor cars speeding out Long Island; the cozy teas th a t w ere in progress in W a shington Mews and the sam o v a r affairs over on Macdougal street! Inclinations. We were rath e r strong for telling how, of just such a Sunday back home, we would saunter forth w ithout our overcoat and drop in on one of those teas down near W a shing ton Square and sim u late an air of complete com p rehension w h ilst some Class Z im itator of Padrac Cullum or Lord D unsany or R. Tagore or Amy Lowell held forth about the new R e n a issance or som ething. And we had excellent m a terial for some sort of yarn about w alks we used to take along the Palisades w ith Marie, back in the days before P resident W ilson laid hold upon the K a is e r’s A d am ’s apple. As a m a tter of fact we had half a dozen ideas for very good stories. They were all about Spring and its corollaries, but they w ere tim e ly and we w ere in excellent mood for w riting them . But they insisted th a t we w rite som ething about the O. T. S. and here you have it. Chick Divine, who rath e r sided with me about it, suggested th a t I w rite som ething about the Spring nights we used to walk down F ifth Avenue after midnight. Did you ever do it? Do you rem e m b e r the queer people you used to m e e t—little, oldish per sons who seem ed to be going now h ere at all, and who never did even that, until after everybody else in New York had gone home. Some Editors Object. Inasm u c h as the other editors wouldn’t stand for th a t story and insisted th a t we continue w riting about the O. T. S., we made an agreem e n t w ith Chick th a t the first Sun day night we w e re together in New York, we’d hire one of those wide-open baruches and drive up and down the Avenue looking for the queer little folks we used to encoun te r in our anthropological strolls betw een GEN. BANDHOLTZ GOES TO THE TWENTY-NINTH. Has Been Assigned to Camp McClel lan at Anniston, Alabama. Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz has been as signed to the command of the 28th In f a n tr y Brigade, in the 29th Division, Camp Mc Clellan, at Anniston, Ala. The 29th Divi sion is m ade up of volunteer troops from New Jersey, M aryland, V irginia and the Dis trict of Columbia. Gen. Bandholtz asked the W ar D e p a rtm e n t to havo Lieut. M. M. Munsill, of the am m u n i tion train, detailed as his aide, and has been notified th a t his request has been granted. The news th a t Gen. Bandholtz would be- sent to another division was received with regret in Camp W adsworth, where it was. hoped he could rem ain. SEVIER TROOPS GETTING READY. The T h irtieth Division at Camp Sevier,. Greenville, is getting ready to move, accord ing to recent news dispatches. Following the receipt several days ago of a memo randum list of articles w ith which each sol dier selected for overseas duty should be equipped at his camp before leaving for the port of em b arkation, a divisional order was issued here directing th a t such articles- should be issued im m ediately to all troops of the division. Now another order has ap peared, directing th a t stock of heavy and light woolen underw ear, called for in the table, be kept in stock at all times. W a shington Square and F’orty-Second S treet —alw ays after a bit of refreshm e n t in the Brevoort. Then we hit upon som e thing really clever. To our cynical associates we pointed out that the very subject—O. T. S.—gave us the literary latitude for which we longed. “See,” we cried, “is it not odd th a t th is subject, O. T. S., m ay be taken to mean, 4Ode To Spring?’ W hy can’t—” “Oh, hell!” they cried, “Cut out this non sense and go ahead w ith th a t story about the Officers’ T raining School.” So we prom ised to quit dream ing of those wholly inefficient days and buckle down to work. You may notice th a t we m e rely gave passing m ention to several of the more im portant phases of the work over in the school. Space m akes more com plete expo sition of those topics quite out of the ques tion this week. But next week we shaR hold forth in greater detail on just those questions.
