IV

khaki bag of much larger dimensions than our issued bag, but which was still GI, so that I was allowed to have it. By the time I had everything in it, it was loaded to it’s maximum capacity, and the cloth was stretched to its limits, and, boy, was it heavy!

I went to the movies Wednesday night and was paged in the theatre to return at once to my outfit about eight in the evening. When I returned, I found that we were leaving about one in the morning, and, as I was already almost completely packed, I had no worries about being ready to leave. We had our final physical inspection, which was another farce consisting of a “peter” parade and a quick surveillance of our bodies under a dim tent light. Then, we were given sandwiches with the cautioning remark that they might have to last us a long time; then, they were taken away from us, as the powers that be decided that we weren’t to be treated with sandwiches, as we might eat them too soon.  I never saw them again!

We were then given those magazines apiece and instructed to save them, as they might be our only reading matter for a long time. I received a month-old “Time” magazine, “Click,” and an Ellery Queen mystery story.  Our barracks bags were then loaded on trucks and taken to the train, while the men had to march there with everything else that they possessed strapped to their backs. I was put on one of the details to load and unload the bags from the trucks and managed to take all my equipment with me, so that I stayed at the train until our troops arrived.

We were then jammed into day coaches of very ancient and decrepit nature, three men to every four seats along with our barracks bags, musette [?] bags, rifles, gas masks and sundry other pieces

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