Trooper Tales — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 15 shot toward every suspicious gleam or shadow on the tropic sea, and tried to darken the moon with its search- light. The great dark transport steamed southward through the gloom, secure in the protection of her baby consort’s big guns. Indeed, she could have steamed southward just as steadily if the gunboat had perched itself upon her hurricane deck. And Sadie, the black re- cruit, lounged in the moonlight with the other cavalry- men, and crooned soft melodies about dusky maidens back in the summer States. As arule, American soldiers, white and black, eat three times a day. Once in a while, however, in the stress of international war, or an indisposed second cook, it be- comes necessary to forego government straights. A box of hard tack is then placed in a convenient place and the men receive orders to “bust” themselves. When the sun is pouring down yellow volleys which make you limp and vicious ; when your tongue shrivels up like a boiled clam at the mere sight of salt water; when the fresh water is warm as a flask of spirits kept in a laborer’s hip pocket, and smells as if it had been filtered through all the blankets in the forecastle; when you are unloading petu- lant and plunging cavalry horses, and your feet are blis- tered from the hot decks, and your blue army shirt steams and suffocates—weli, no matter if you are fond of hard tack, you can’t choke it down. The black. troops landed, while the little gunboat watched and pointed its guns toward the great, brown, treeless hills. Somewhere back of those sun-burned, de- Eomichbooks (CO)