bunks met our eye.

Embarkation is for every one concerned the most tedious, red-tapeyist
incident in a soldier's career. For fear of spies the exact day had
been kept secret, and although we had expected to leave weeks
previously, and had, at least, twenty times said our tearful farewells,
when the actual day arrived there was no expectation of it and no
farewells. The night previously men had said to their wives, "See you
to-morrow, dear!"--meetings were arranged with best girls, for the
movies--in fact, not the faintest rumor had spread through the camp
that there was any likelihood of our sailing for weeks, and here in the
early dawn we were lined up on the wharf, being counted off like sheep,
and allotted our quarter cubic foot of ship's space; preparing for our
adventure overseas without the slightest chance of letting any one I
know what had happened to us. We could sympathize with the feelings of
our folks as they would journey out to camp with the usual good things
to eat only to find we had gone. By this time we would be well out at
sea, en route for the Great Adventure, but it was hard luck for mothers
and wives suddenly to find us gone without warning, and having to wait
many weeks for the first letter.

It was wet, it was cold, it was dark on that wharf. If we were counted
once, we were counted fifty times, and for hours we stood in the rain
because there were two men too many. No, not men, for they were found
to be boys of fifteen who had stolen uniforms and had hidden near the
wharf for days to get away with the troops, but they were discovered,
as every man had his name called and was identified by his officer as
he passed up the gangway. One of them was not to be kept off, however:
he slipped round the stern and climbed up the mooring cables like a
monkey, and as no one gave him away he was undiscovered until rations