Getting supplied was bewildering as we tried to keep up with soldiers who were pulling items from bins and flinging them onto counters. I was given a roomy canvas bag that was supposed to hold everything: blue jeans and denim shirts, wool pants and wool shirts, underwear, socks, heavy shoes and overshoes, boots, work gloves, cap, heavy jacket. And then a razor, soap, metal soap box, metal mirror, toothbrush, toothpaste, and mess kit.

Nate, having as much trouble as I was fitting it all in, asked, “Why the mess kit? The mess hall had dishes.”

“Son,” one of the supply soldiers said, “I just give what the army says to give.”

Another soldier added, “Because your next post might not have dishes, and maybe not a mess hall, either.”

Loaded down, bumping each other with our armloads of new belongings, we finally returned to our barracks building, where someone had put sheets, two brown blankets, and a pillow beside each rolled-up mattress.

“Okay,” Reese said. “Get your beds made and then put away your clothes and gear in the footlockers. Check mine over there in the corner to see how. Sarge’ll be in at 2030 to look things over, and then 2130 is lights out. Questions?”

“What’s 2030?” someone asked.

“Eight thirty,” Reese answered. “You start counting hours at midnight and don’t stop until you hit twenty-four. Other questions?”

“With all this we’ve done today, what’s left for tomorrow?” someone else asked.

Reese grinned. “Sunday. A day of rest, which you’ll be starting at 0545.”

There was pause while that got processed, and then a disbelieving voice said, “That would be . . . 5:45 A.M.? In the morning, 5:45 A.M.?”

A guy with slick-backed hair snickered. “We got us a genius.”

The fellow who Reese had called Apple Pie flushed with embarrassment.

“All right, now. That’s enough,” Reese said. “Pick out bunks and get ’em made.”

Nate, Sam, and I took our stuff to some beds in the middle, and I got to work trying to match the squared-off, tight blanket on Reese’s cot. Nate, making lumpy bulges of his corners, complained, “I didn’t plan on this. At home Maggie does all the bed making.”

A boy across the aisle unfolded a sheet uncertainly, as though he was trying to figure out just what he held. It occurred to me that maybe the kid had never seen a bed made up with sheets before.

Sam, though, got his done perfectly in no time.

“Pretty good,” I said. “Where’d you learn how?”

“Summer camp,” he answered. “A long time ago. Back in Massachusetts.” He flushed. “Guess that’s more than you asked.”

Others gave their names. The freckle-faced guy was Eddie Durgan, from Tennessee.

“And I thought your name was Apple!” Nate said.

The barracks door opened, and Reese called, “Hey, everybody! Here’s your other junior leader. Anybody having bed-making troubles, just take them to Bill Compton.”