* * * * *

Because we had no Volunteers with us, we were not granted even one little word-spattering newspaper scribe, and so relinquished at the outset any fugitive hopes of glory that otherwise might have been entertained.  We were out for business,—­hard marching, hard living, hard fighting,—­and the opening vista was fringed with gore.  We were none of us the darlings of any particular State, nor the precious offspring of a peripatetic statesman with a practised pull.  We were at no time decimated by disease through ignorant or insubordinate disregard of the primary principles of hygiene.  We didn’t write long wailing letters home because we were obliged to sleep on the damp ground, and had neither hot rolls, chocolate, nor marmalade for breakfast.  We were ragged, hungry, tough, and faithful.  In other words, we were regular army men, and, most distinctly, not Volunteers.

[Illustration:  Statue of Columbus, Mayaguez.]

There is a personality peculiar to the professional soldier, even though he be but a half-fledged recruit, that defies analysis and baffles description.  He is of course built from the same clay as his brother of the Volunteers; but the latter is a tin god, and the former is a devil.  Yet the difference does not spring from anything more fundamental than environment, and therein lies the solace of the other fellow.  Putting aside all odious comparisons and limiting myself to a view of the regular army man as I know him, I can simply say that in the eight months during which I underwent in his company hard knocks and privations without number I could not have found a more truly satisfactory comrade and friend.  He doesn’t, on the average, know much about books; nor did he ever hear of the Etruscan Inscriptions or the Pyramidal Policy of the Ancient Egyptians.  He takes a grim delight in smashing the English language into microscopic atoms at a single blow.  He is more fond of women, horses, and prize-fighting than is good for him.  He will steal when he is hungry, lie to save his skin, curse most terribly on trifling provocation, and spend, to his last sou markee, his hard-won wage on adulterated drink.

  “He’s a devil an’ a ostrich
  an’ a orphan-child in one.”

But he will stand his ground in action while there is ground to stand on; he will throw his life away at a moment’s notice for the flag, or a chosen comrade, or a worthless girl; he will march and starve and thirst world without end if he has a leader who holds his confidence; and he is, on the whole, a rather fine specimen of the true American—­being usually Irish or German.

[Illustration:  American Cavalry entering Mayaguez on the 11th of August.]