On the dock the soldiers are quiet. There is
little talking, no singing, and as dusk settles to dark you cannot tell one man
from another. The heads bend forward with weariness. Some of these men have
been all day, some many days, getting to this starting point.
There are several ways of wearing a hat or a cap.
A man may express himself in the pitch or tilt of his hat, but not with a
helmet. There is only one way to wear a helmet. It won’t go on any other way.
It sits level on the head, low over eyes and ears, low on the back of the neck.
With your helmet on you are a mushroom in a bed of mushrooms.
Four gangways are open now and the units get
wearily to their feet and shuffle along in line. The men lean forward against
the weight of their equipment. Feet drag against the incline of the gangways.
The soldiers disappear one by one into the great doors in the side of the troopship.
Inside the checkers tabulate them. The numbers
chalked on the helmets are checked again against a list. Places have been
assigned. Half of the men will sleep on the decks and the other half inside in
ballrooms, in dining rooms where once a very different kind of people sat and
found very important things that have disappeared. Some of the men will sleep
in bunks, in hammocks, on the decks, in passages. Tomorrow they will shift. The
men from the deck will come in to sleep and those from inside will go out. They
will change every night until they land. They will not take off their clothes
until they land. This is no cruise ship.
On the decks, dimmed to a faint blue dusk by
the blackout lights, the men sink down and fall asleep. They are asleep almost
as soon as they are settled. Many of them do not even take off their helmets.
It has been a weary day. The rifles are beside them, held in their hands.
On the gangways the lines still feed into the
troopship—a regiment of colored troops, a hundred Army nurses, neat in their
helmets and field packs. The nurses at least will have staterooms, however
crowded they may be in them. Up No. 1 Gangway comes the headquarters complement
of a bombardment wing and a company of military police. All are equally tired.
They find their places and go to sleep.
Embarkation is in progress. No smoking is
allowed anywhere. Everyone entering the ship is triply checked, to make sure
he belongs there, and the loading is very quiet. There is only the shuffle of
tired feet on the stairways and quiet orders. The permanent crew of military
police know every move. They have handled this problem of traffic before.
