I don't want to say anything that sounds like boasting, but the Marine Corps is the finest branch of service in the world. No exceptions. I guess you know that marines date back to days of ancient Greece. They had them then. They were the landing party on shipboard—the fighting force. They were right there with their bows and arrows and javelins and spears, and they carried out their contract as well as the men who rowed the ship. Each one had his own particular duties. It's the same today, but somehow the nation has got into the habit of saying, "Leave it to the Marines"—and we've tried to prove that we are worthy of the trust.

In the old days there used to be a bit of feeling between the sailor and the marine. You'll find the reason for it in English history. About 1803 there was a mutiny in the British navy, and the marines helped put it down. After that they were called the Royal Marines, but the sailors got an idea that they were on board a ship to prevent mutiny and they did not like them any too well. But they soon found that the marine had his own field—and that he had just one motto—"There's nothing I can't do."

It's funny the way our men tackle everything, particularly as they have never been specialized like other branches. For instance, there is no bridge-building company, yet over and over again when there has been need of bridges the marines have just gone out and made them.

There's nothing you can think of that you won't find some of them can do, from getting up a dance to rounding up a bandit. I was in Santo Domingo with my company. Most of the men were recruits, pretty soft from life in the barracks. We were ordered to a nearby post on the trail of a desperado. Before us lay a march of about four or five days. A hike is all right over level country that is fairly dry, but ours lay through a series of marshes winding upward over a mountain.

We started off at a brisk pace and we didn't let up. There were patches of land which sent us through mud up to our knees—our feet were never dry day or night—but there was no kick coming about that. We were going to reach our base at the time planned—no later.

The last day was the worst. We were on a level stretch at last, but there was no shade, and the sun beat down like a ball of fire. Our wet shoes dried and cracked on our feet—and we were blistered from heel to toe. But that didn't prevent our making thirty miles that day or doing the last four miles in forty-five minutes.

We were tired to death when we reached our destination. It was ten o'clock at night. The men dropped where they halted, just about all in. We hadn't been there fifteen minutes when word came to us of the bandit we were rounding up. It seems he was in hiding in the hills about twenty miles north of us. A woman brought us the tip. He had thrown her down and she was taking her revenge in the usual way.

There was no mistaking her earnestness. There was just one thing to do—go out after that rebel. I sent over to the men and asked for seven volunteers. When the boys heard what was wanted, sixty per cent of the whole company offered to go. They forgot they were tired, stiff, sore—you couldn't hold them back!

I had the horses saddled and every one who could commandeer an animal mounted one. Some of them had never been on a horse's back before, but that did not stop them. They were off like a shot, the whole crowd of them—thundering up that dark road in search of the outlaw.

They caught him, too, after an all-night ride, and they brought him back with them. I tell you a good rest was coming to them after that. They certainly needed it!

The men have a great pride in our service. They show it outwardly by keeping themselves trim as a whistle. On shipboard each man is allowed a bucket of water a day for his ablutions—no more. Well, a marine makes that bucket go a long way; with it he washes himself, brushes his teeth, cleans his clothes, and scrubs the deck—anyone who claims he can do more than that with a bucket of water will have to show me!

And a marine takes his job seriously, whatever it is—yes, indeed. In the little French towns in which they have been landed they have become the traffic cops of the place. All the duties of a gendarme have been assumed by them with neatness and despatch.

The marines decided that no bluejacket was to hold conversation with a French girl. Once that was definitely passed upon they began enforcing the law. A particularly happy young bluejacket had received a flower from the hands of a little French maiden. She had pinned it to his coat. Along came the marine while Jack Tar was trying to thank her in his very best and limited French.

"Cut it out!" growled the marine.

"You beat it!" said the bluejacket.

In reply the marine quietly but quickly plucked off the flower to emphasize his command. There was nothing else to do but to fight, and the marine managed to beat up Jack mildly. Jack went to the ship's doctor to have a stitch or two taken in his ear. He was still raging, and vowed he'd get that marine as soon as he was out. The doctor stopped stitching long enough to look up over his glasses.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," he said, "that marine was very gentle with you. Next time he might do some real damage."

Yes, the sailor respects the marine as a majesty of the law. One slim, young marine is enough to make a gay and irresponsible party of bluejackets along the docks sit up and take notice.

There was a young sergeant by the name of Watson. He was a particularly efficient chap. Seats were hard to get on the train going up to Paris, and, when a party of army, navy and marine officers arrived at the little station, we found that Watson had reserved seats for all of us. On our return trip we were surprised to meet him at a station some distance from the little town that he was policing. We asked him if he, too, had been up to Paris.

"Yes, sir," he said. We asked him how it happened he was so far away from his post.

"I went up on my own, sir," he told us calmly enough. "I got to thinking that, perhaps, the bluejackets were starting something in Paris, and I thought I'd take a run up just to see they weren't putting anything over on the marine corps."

Evidently he found everything O. K. or he would have remained to adjust it.

It was Watson who had such trouble making the French peasants clean up their huts. Now, as everyone knows, the French peasant is an individual who wishes to be left alone to tend his little patch of ground. It is his own business if he has the cow beneath the same roof that covers him, and if the chickens have the freedom of the house it is, after all, an affair between himself and his poultry, so to speak. But not in Watson's eyes. He had orders to clean up that town, and there were no exceptions. Protests were in vain. He saw that sanitary conditions for the first time prevailed, and not until the houses fairly shone, and the streets resembled Spotless Town, did he relax and express himself.

"I see their point of view, of course, sir," he[113]
[114] told me, "but if it happens to be the wrong point of view there's nothing to do but to right it."

The marines aren't beaten often at any sport, but when they are they take it as a tragedy. A ship's crew had been trained to shoot. They knew they could shoot, and, on landing, they challenged the marines to a contest. The marines, under a grizzled old sergeant, long in the service, were immensely proud of their skill on the range. They accepted the challenge. They were dead sure of the outcome. There wasn't a nickel within hailing distance that wasn't wagered!

The marines got on the range before the bluejackets. No advantage was taken. Well, the bluejackets beat them at slow fire. They beat them at rapid fire. They beat them on skirmish, which the marines had boasted most about. Altogether, it was an unhappy day for the marines.

Next day the commander of the ship, rising very early, saw a sight which fascinated him beyond words. On the range were the crack shots of the Marine Corps. Glowering above them stood the sergeant, his beard fairly bristling with anger, his back ram-rod straight. He had the men all out, and he was teaching them, with a thoroughness incomparable, the rudiments of rifle practice.

With stony faces the men submitted to the insult of being returned to the kindergarten of shooting. Again and again they went through the manual. It was a just punishment for permitting bluejackets to defeat them!

"Join the Marines—and see the world"—and to do that our boys pride themselves on extra quick obedience to orders, for there is no telling when an expedition will be pulled up in a hurry and sent to the other end of the globe. But whether they go or whether they stay, they accept it all calmly. The words of the little marine, who was plying his shovel one hot day, seem to sum up their contentment. He had been shoveling dirt since early morning. The sun was warm, and he paused in his task to mop his face. He looked up with a grin.

"I enlisted to see the earth," he said; "and here I am, digging it up, turning it over, and looking at it!..."

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