There are a lot of things calculated to stir a chap’s sentimental streak about this camp, particularly the nights; moonlight nights like to-night for instance. Every hard outline of the huge place is softened under the blue-black mantle of night, and the disagreeable things are lost in the heavy shadows and the moonlight floods the open places, and glistens on the rows upon rows of tin roofs and tall, gaunt-looking tin smoke-stacks. Watch-fires (a sanitary precaution) blaze in their deep holes in the rear of each barracks building, and the lonesome fire-guard, bundled in his overcoat and with rifle over his shoulder, stands silhouetted against the night sky beside each flaring pit.

Out on the main streets of the camp are thousands of fellows in khaki, walking aimlessly up and down, while in the by-streets between the barracks buildings one sees shadowy figures and glowing cigarette ends moving about in the darkness. Through the tiny panes of each barracks window, partly obscured by overcoats and sweaters which dangle from pegs inside, filters a warm yellow light, and as one moves down the row, one hears from one building the music of an accordion and the rhythmic shuffle of feet which tells of a “stag” dance being held in the mess hall; while from another comes the soft plunk-plunking of a banjo and the occasional drone of a mouth organ that seeks after harmony, but only succeeds with an effort.

Off to the right toward the parade grounds some fellows are singing and their songs sound mighty good in the moonlight. And from far beyond where the thick pine woods stand out black against the sky comes faintly the hooting of a distant owl.

On the main streets that skirt the outer edge of the cantonment on three sides, the arc lights glisten, like rows of far off diamonds against the velvet of a jewel box, and here and there, where two twinkle, like low-hung stars, stand out the Y.M. shacks where the men are gathering for an evening’s recreation.

It is wonderful to wander out such nights as these. Bundled in a sweater to keep out the chill of evening, and with only my pipe for company, I often go tramping off through the by-streets of the camp. The smoke of the hundreds of watch-fires is wafted to me on every breeze and in wood smoke there is a charm; the charm of camping out. Never in my life will I smell the smoke of burning pine wood, but that these nights will come trooping through my memory, and I’m certain that I will be homesick then and want to come back and live them all over again.

And the things I often see:—the fire-guard for instance, who alone out there behind the barracks was trying hard to read a letter by the light of his flickering watch-fire. Was it a letter he had just received and could not wait to open, or was it a letter that he had read many, many times before and was rereading once again? Then the lonesome dog who sat out in the company street and stared up solemnly at the moon, like a lone wolf on the prairie. What instincts were being waked within him by the moonlight? And the silhouette through the window of the chap sitting on his cot patiently plying needle and thread and the two fellows who leaned against the jacketed field piece in front of an artillery barracks and talked in whispers, while through the opened door of the buildings on either hand came the noise of a rousing good time within.

Then the tramp up Tower Hill, where the headquarters building with its darkened windows like sightless eyes stands out from the sparse remains of the pine woods, flecked here and there with patches of moonlight.

Far off across the great camp, and across the tops of the pines one can dimly see from the top of the hill the ocean with the moonlight flashing on its surface, and occasionally comes a breath of chilled salt air that stirs a longing, vague and fleeting, as the ocean has always stirred a longing in the soul of the adventurer. From here one can look down upon the great camp. Thousands and thousands of roofs stand out in the moonlight, and the watch-fires twinkle in orderly rows up and down each camp street. Far off to the left are the big machine shops and forges of the construction company, the forge fires glowing red against the night, while faintly comes the far-off ring of anvils. Those forge fires, like the bakery fires, never die.

To the eastward is the railroad terminal with its panting engines and its medley of noises, while nearer at hand but in the same direction is the transport headquarters with its ceaselessly moving caravan of rumbling, grumbling army trucks. All combines to make a picture that holds one spell-bound.

The days here are pleasant indeed, but the nights are almost intoxicating. They cast a spell upon me and leave a memory that can never fade.