When the line out there in the training camp has gone to its
objective, which usually is the third or fourth enemy trench, the
men begin digging in. Then they go back to the sergeant major for
more instructions. The digging in is usually done under a curtain
of fire to protect them. It is a great picture.

In another part of the field we saw the engineers learning to
make tunnels under the enemy; saw the engineers blowing up enemy
trenches--a pleasant and exciting spectacle; saw the engineers
making camouflage, and it may interest the gentle reader to know
that one of the niftiest bits of camouflage we saw was over a French
seventy-five gun. It was set in the field. A rail-road siding ran
to it. On a canvas over the gun two rails and the usual number of
ties were painted, and the track ran on beyond. Fifty feet in the
air one could not tell that the gun was there.

The liveliest part of this martial cloister was the section devoted
to the bayonet practice. And as we watched the men trying to rip
the vest buttons off a dummy and expose its gastric arrangements
with a bayonet, while loping along at full speed, we recalled a
Civil War story which may well be revived here. A Down-easter from
Vermont and a Southerner were going around and around one day at
Shiloh, each trying to get the other with the bayonet, but both
were good dodgers. Finally as the Yankee was getting winded he
cried between puffs:

"Watch aout--! Mind what yer dewin'! Ye dern smart aleck! Haint yew
got no sense! You'll stick the pint of thet thing in my boawels,
if you ain't keerful!"