 Section 11 of Notes of a War Correspondent. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Richard Kilmer. Notes of a War Correspondent by Richard Harding Davis. A War Correspondents Kit. I am going to try to describe some kits and outfits I have seen used in different parts of the world by travelers and explorers and in different campaigns by army officers and war correspondents. Among the articles the reader may learn of some new thing which, when next he goes hunting, fishing or exploring, he can adapt to his own uses. This is my hope, but I am skeptical. I have seldom met the man who would allow anyone else to select his kit or who would admit that any other kit was better than the one he himself had packed. It is a very delicate question. The same article that one declares is the most essential to his comfort is the very first thing that another will throw into the trail. A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor. I have heard veterans sitting around a campfire proclaim the superiority of their kits with a jealousy, loyalty and enthusiasm they would not exhibit for the flesh of their flesh and the bone of their bone. On a campaign you may attack a man's courage. The flag he serves, the newspaper for which he works, his intelligence or his camp manners and he will ignore you. But if you criticize his patent water bottle he will fall upon you with both fists. So in recommending any article for an outfit one needs to be careful. An outfit lends itself to dispute because the selection of its component parts is not an exact science. It should be, but it is not. A doctor on his daily rounds can carry in a compact little satchel almost everything he is liable to need. A carpenter can stow away in one box all the tools of his trade. But an outfit is not selected on any recognized principles. It seems to be a question entirely of temperament. As the man said when his friends asked him how he made his famous cocktail it depends on my mood. The truth is that each man in selecting his outfit generally follows the lines of least resistance. With one the pleasure he derives from his morning bath outweighs the fact that for the rest of the day he must carry a rubber bathtub. Another man is hearty, tough and anewered to an out-of-door life. He can sleep on a pile of coal or standing on his head and he naturally scorns to carry a bed. But another man, should he sleep all night on the ground the next day would be of no use to himself, his regiment or his newspaper. So he carries a folding cot and the more fortunate one of tougher fiber laughs at him. Another man says that the only way to campaign is to travel light and sets forth with a raincoat and field-glass. He honestly thinks that he travels light because his intelligence tells him it is the better way. But as a matter of fact he does so because he is lazy. Throughout the entire campaign he borrows from his friends. And with that camaraderie and unselfishness that never comes to the surface so strongly as when men are thrown together in camp they lend him whatever he needs. When the war is over he is the man who goes about saying some of those fellows carried enough stuff to fill a moving van. Now look what I did. I made the entire campaign on a toothbrush. As a matter of fact I have a sneaking admiration for the man who dares to borrow. His really is the part of wisdom. But at times he may lose himself in places where he can neither a borrower nor a lender be and there are men so tenderly constituted that they cannot keep another man hungry while they use his coffee-pot. So it is well to take a few things with you if only to lend them to the men who travel light. On hunting and campaigning trips the climate, the means of transport and the chance on the road of obtaining food and fodder vary so greatly that it is not possible to map out an outfit which would serve equally well for each of them. What on one journey was your most precious possession on the next is a useless nuisance. On two trips I have packed a tent weighing with stakes fifty pounds which, as we slept in huts, I never once had occasion to open. While on other trips in countries that promise to be more or less settled, I had to always live under canvas and sometimes broke camp twice a day. In one war in which I worked for an English paper we traveled like major generals. When that war started few thought it would last over six weeks and many of the officers regarded it in the light of a picnic. Consequence they mobilized as they never would have done had they foreseen what was to come and the mess contractor grew rich furnishing not only champagne, which in campaigns in fever country has saved the life of many a good man but cases of even port and burgundy which never greatly helped anyone. Later these mess supplies were turned over to the field hospitals but at the start everyone traveled with more than he needed and more than the regulations allowed and each correspondent was advised that if he represented a first class paper and wished to save his face he had better travel in state. Those who did not found the staff and censor less easy of access and the means of obtaining information more difficult but it was a nuisance. If when a man halted at your tent you could not stand in whiskey and sparkled soda Egyptian cigarettes compressed soup, canned meats and marmalade your paper was suspected of trying to do it on the cheap and not only of being mean but as this was a popular war on patriotic when the army stripped down the work all this was discontinued but at the start I believe they were carried with the column as many tins of tan leather dressing as there were rifles. On that march my own outfit was as unwieldy as a gypsy's caravan it consisted of an enormous cart two oxen three bustos ponies one Australian horse three servants and four hundred pounds of supplies and baggage moved across the plane it looked as large as a fall riverboat later when I joined the opposing army and was not expected to maintain the dignity of a great London daily I carried all my belongings strapped to my back or to the back of my one pony and I was quite as comfortable, clean and content as I had been with the private car and the circus tent throughout the Greek war as there were no horses to be had for love or money we walked and I learned then that when one has to carry his own kit the number of things he can do without is extraordinary while I marched with the army offering my kingdom for a horse I carried my outfit in saddle bags thrown over my shoulder and I think it must have been a good outfit for I never bought anything to add to it or threw anything away I submit that as a fair test of a kit further on should any reader care to know how for several months one may keep going with an outfit he can pack in two saddle bags I will give a list of the articles which in three campaigns I carried in mine personally I am for traveling light but at the very start one is confronted with the fact that what one man calls light to another savers of luxury I call 50 pounds light in Japan we were each allowed the officer's allowance of 66 pounds Lord Woolisie in his pocket book cuts down the officer's kit to 40 pounds while Nesmont of the forest and stream claims that for a hunting trip all one wants does not weigh over 26 pounds it is very largely a question of compromise you cannot eat your cake and have it you cannot under a tropical sun throw away your blanket and when the night dew falls wrap it around you and if after a day of hard climbing or riding you want to drop into a folding chair to make room for it in your carry-all you must give up many other lesser things by traveling light I do not mean any lighter than the necessity demands if there is transport at hand a man is foolish not to avail himself of it he is always foolish if he does not make things as easy for himself as possible the tenderfoot will not agree with this with him there is no idea so fixed and no idea so absurd as that to be comfortable is to be effeminate he believes that roughing it is synonymous with hardship and in season and out of season he plays the Spartan any man who suffers discomforts he can avoid because he fears his comrades will think he cannot suffer hardship is an idiot you often hear it said of a man that he can rough it with the best of them anyone can do that the man I want for a bunkie is the one who can be comfortable while the best of them are roughing it the old soldier knows that it is his duty to keep himself fit so that he can perform his work whether his work is scouting for forage or scouting for men but you will often hear the volunteer captains say now boys don't forget we're roughing it and don't expect to be comfortable as a rule the only reason his men are uncomfortable is because he does not know how to make them otherwise or because he thinks on a campaign to endure unnecessary hardship is the mark of a soldier in the Cuban campaign the day the American forces landed at Sibony a major general of volunteers took up his headquarters in the house from which the Spanish commandant had just fled and on the veranda of which Casper Whitney and myself had found two hammocks and made ourselves at home the Spaniard who had been left to guard the house courteously offered the major general his choice of three bedrooms they were all on the first floor and opened upon the veranda and to the general staff the tent could have been no easier of access obviously it was the duty of the general to keep himself in good physical condition to obtain as much sleep as possible and to rest his great brain and his limbs cramped with ten days on shipboard but in a tone of stern reproof he said no I am campaigning now and I have given up all luxuries and with that he stretched the poncho on the hard boards of the veranda where while just a few feet from him three beds and with white mosquito nets gleamed invitingly he tossed and turned besides being a silly spectacle the sight of an old gentleman lying wide awake on his shoulder blades was disturbing and as the hours dragged on we repeatedly offered him our hammocks but he fretfully persisted in his determination to be uncomfortable and he was the feeling of his unhappy staff several of whom were officers of the regular army who had to follow the example of their chief were toward mornings hardly loyal later at the very moment the army moved up to the battle of San Juan the same major general was relieved of his command on account of illness had he sensibly taken care of himself when the moment came when he was needed he would have been able to better serve his brigade and his country in contrast to this pose is the conduct of the veteran hunter or old soldier when he gets in the camp his first thought after he's cared for his horse is for his own comfort he does not wolf down a cold supper and then spread his blanket wherever he happens to be standing he knows that especially at night it is unfair to ask his stomach to digest cold rations he knows that the warmth of his body is needed to help him sleep soundly not to fight chunks of canned meat so no matter how sleepy he may be he takes the time to build a fire and boil a cup of tea or coffee it's warmth aids digestion and saves his stomach from working overtime nor will he act on the theory that he is so tired he can sleep anywhere for a few hours the man who does that may sleep the sleep of exhaustion but before day breaks he will feel under him the roots and stones and when he awakes he is stiff, sore and unrefreshed ten minutes spent in digging holes for hips and shoulder blades in collecting grass and branches to spread beneath his blanket and leaves to stuff in his boots for a pillow will give him a whole night of comfort and start him well and fit on the next day's tramp if you have watched an old sergeant one of the Indian fighters of which there are now too few left in the army when he goes into camp you will see him build a bunk and possibly a shelter of bows just as though for the rest of his life he intended to dwell in that particular spot down in the Garcia campaign along the Rio Grande I said to one of them why do you go to all that trouble we break camp at day break he said do we? well maybe you know that and maybe the captain knows that but I don't know it and so long as I don't know it I am going to be just as snug as though I was halted here for a month in camping that was one of my first and best lessons to make your surroundings healthy and comfortable the temptation always is to say oh, it's for only one night and I am too tired the next day you say the same thing we'll move tomorrow what's the use? but the fishing or shooting around the camp proves good or it comes on to a storm and for maybe a week you do not move and for a week you suffer discomforts an hour of work put in at the beginning would have turned it into a week of ease when there is transport of even one pack horse one of the best helps toward making camp quickly is a combination of panniers and bed used for many years by EF Knight the times work corresponded who lost an arm at Grass Pan it consists of two leather trunks which by day carrier belongings slung on either side of the pack animal and by night act as uprights for your bed the bed is made of canvas stretched on two poles which rests on the two trunks for traveling in Upper India this arrangement is used almost universally Mr Knight obtained his during the Shitrol campaign and since then has used it in every war he had it with Kuroki's army during their last campaign in Manchuria a more compact form of the lease and bed combined is to carry all or any of the many makes of sleeping bags which during the day carry the kit and at night when spread upon the ground serve for a bed the one most used by Englishman was Lord Walsely's the lease and sleeping bag it was complicated by a number of strings and required as much lacing as a dozen pairs of boots it has been greatly improved by a new sleeping bag with straps and flaps that tuck in at the ends but the obvious disadvantage of all sleeping bags is that in rain and mud you are virtually lying on the hard ground at the mercy of tarantula and fever I carry all is nevertheless to my mind the most nearly perfect way in which to pack a kit I have tried the trunk the lease and sleeping bag and vastly prefer it to them all my carry all differs only from the sleeping bag in that instead of lining it is so that it may be used as a bed I carry in its pocket a folding cot by omitting the extra lining for the bed I save almost the weight of the cot the folding cot I pack is the gold metal bed made in this country but which you can purchase almost anywhere I once carried one from Chicago to Cape Town to find on arriving I could buy the bed there at exactly the same price I had paid for it in America I also found them in Tokyo where imitations of them were being made by the ingenious of us Japanese they are light in weight strong and comfortable and are undoubtedly the best camp bed made when at your elevation of 6 inches above the ground you look down from one of them upon a conrad in a sleeping bag with rivulets of rain and a tide of muddy water rising above him your satisfaction as you fall asleep is worth the weight of the bed my carry-all is of canvas with a back of waterproof it is made up of three strips six and a half feet long the two outer strips are each two feet three inches wide the middle strip four feet at one end of the middle strip is a deep pocket of heavy canvas with a flap that can be fastened by two straps when the kit has been packed in this pocket the two side strips hold it over it and the middle strip and the hole is rolled up and buckled by two heavy straps on the waterproof side it is impossible for any article to fall out or for the rain to soak in I have a smaller carry-all made on the same plan but on a tiny scale in which to carry small articles and a change of clothing it goes into the pocket after the bed chair and the heavier articles are packed away when the bag is rolled up they are on the outside of and form a protection to the articles of lighter weight the only objection to the carry-all is that it is an awkward bundle to pack it is difficult to balance on the back of an animal but when you are taking a tent with you or carrying your provisions it can be slung on one side of the pack saddle to offset their weight on the other I use the carry-all when I am traveling heavy by that I mean when it is possible to obtain pack animal or cart when traveling light and bivouacking by night without a pack horse, bed or tent I use the saddle bags already described these can be slung over the back of the horse you ride or if you walk carried over your shoulder I carried them on the outer way in Greece in the transfall and Cuba during the rebellion and later with our own army the list of articles I found most useful when traveling where it is possible to obtain transport or as we may call it traveling heavy are the following a tent seven by ten feet with fly, jointed poles tent pins a heavy mallet I recommend a tent open at both ends with a window cut in one end the window when that end is laced and the other open furnishes a draft of air the window should be covered with a flap which in case of rain can be tied down over it with tapes a great convenience in a tent is a pocket sewn inside of each wall for boots, books and such small articles the pockets should not be filled with anything so heavy as to cause the walls to sag another convenience with a tent is a leather strap stretched from pole to pole upon which to hang clothes and another is a strap to be buckled around the front tent pole and which is studded with projecting hooks for your lantern water bottle and field glasses this ladder can be bought ready made at any military outfitters many men object to the wooden tent pin on account of its tendency to split and carry pins made of iron with these an inch below the head of the pin is a projecting barb which holds the tent rope when the pin is being driven in the barb is out of reach of the mallet any blacksmith can beat out such pins and if you can afford the extra weight there are better than those of ash also if you can afford the weight it is well to carry a strip of waterproof or oil cloth for the floor of the tent to keep out dampness all these things appertaining to the tent should be rolled up in it and the tent itself carried in a lightweight receptacle with a running noose like a sailor's kit bag the carry-all has already been described of its contents consider first an importance a folding bed and second an importance I would place a folding chair many men scoff at a chair as a cumbersome luxury but after a hard day on foot or in the saddle when you sit on the ground with your back to a rock and your hands locked across your knees to keep yourself from sliding or on a box with no rest for your spinal column the chair is not a luxury but a necessity during the Cuban campaign for a time I was a member of General Sumner's mess the general owned a folding chair and whenever his back was turned everyone would make a rush to get into it one time we were discussing what in the light of our experience of that campaign we would take with us on our next and all agreed Colonel Howes Captain Andrews and Major Harmon that if one could only take one article it would be a chair I carried one in Manchuria but it was of no use to me as the other correspondents occupied it relieving each other like sentries on guard duty I had to pin a sign on it reading do not sit on me but no one ever saw the sign once in order to rest on the chair I weakly established a precedent by giving George Lynch a cigar to allow me to sit down on that march there was a mess contractor who supplied us even with cigars and occasionally with food and after that whenever a man wanted to smoke he would commandeer my chair and unless bribed refuse to budge this seems to argue the popularity of the contractor's rather than that of the chair but nevertheless I submit that on campaign the article second in importance for rest, comfort and content is a chair the best I know is one invented by Major Elliott of the British Army I have an Elliott chair that I have used four years not only when camping out but in my writing room at home it is an armchair it is as comfortable as any made the objections to it are its weight that it packs vocally and takes down into too many pieces even with these disadvantages it is the best chair it can be purchased at the Army and Navy and Anglo-Indian stores in London the chair of lighter weight and one fourth the bulk is the Williston chair of green canvas and thin iron supports it breaks into only two pieces and is very comfortable Sir Harry Johnson in his advice to explorers makes a great point of their packing a chair but he recommends one known as the Wellington which is a cane bottomed affair, heavy and cumbersome Dr. Hartford the instructor in outfit for the Royal Geographical Society recommends a steamer chair because it can be used on shipboard and can be easily carried afterward if there is anything less easy to carry than a deck chair, I have not met it one might as soon think of packing a folding stepladder but if he has a transport the man who packs any reasonably light folding chair will not regret it as a rule a cooking kit is built like every other cooking kit in that the utensils for cooking are carried in the same pot that is used for boiling the water and the top of the pot turns itself into a frying pan for eight years I have always used the same kind of cooking kit so I cannot speak of others with knowledge but I have always looked with envious eyes at the Preston cooking kit and water bottle why it has not already been adopted by every army I do not understand for in no army have I seen a kit as compact or as light or one that combines as many useful articles and takes up as little room it is the invention of Captain Guy H. Preston 13th Cavalry and can be purchased at any military outfitters the cooking kit I carry is or was in use in the German army it is made of aluminum weighs about as much as a cigarette case and takes up as little room as would a high hat it is a frying pan and coffee pot combined from the Germans it has been borrowed by the Japanese and one smaller than mine but of the same pattern is part of the equipment of each Japanese soldier on a days march there are three things a man must carry his water bottle his food which with the soldier is generally carried in a haversack and his cooking kit Preston has succeeded most ingeniously in combining the water bottle and the cooking kit and I believe by cutting his water bottle in half he can make room in his coffee pot for the food if he will do this he will solve the problem of carrying water, food and utensils for cooking the food and for boiling the water in one receptacle which can be carried from the shoulder by a single strap the preparation I have made for my own use in Captain Preston's water bottle enables me to carry in the coffee pot one day's rations of bacon coffee and biscuit in Tokyo before leaving for Manchuria General Fukushima asked me to bring my entire outfit to the office of the general staff I spread it out on the floor and with unerring accuracy he selected from it articles of greatest value they were the gold medal cot the Elliott chair and Preston's water bottle he asked if he could borrow these and understanding that he wanted to copy them for his own use and supposing that if he used them he would of course make some restitution to the officers who had invented them I foolishly loaned them to him later he issued them to the general staff as I felt in a manner responsible I wrote to the secretary of war saying I was sure the Japanese army did not wish to benefit by these inventions without making some acknowledgement or return to the inventors but the Japanese war office could not see the point I tried to make and the general staff wrote a letter in reply asking why I had not directed my communication to general Fukushima as it was not the secretary of war but he who had taken the articles the fact that they were being issued without any return being made did not interest them they passed cheerfully over the fact that the articles had been stolen and were indignant not because I accused the Japanese general of pilfering but because I had accused the wrong general the letter was so insolent that I went to the general staff office and explained that the officer who wrote it must withdraw and apologize for it both of which things he did in case the gentlemen whose inventions were borrowed might if they wished take further steps in the matter I sent the documents in the case with the exception of the letter which was withdrawn to the chief of the general staff in the United States and in England in importance after the bed cooking kit and chair I would place these articles two collapsible water buckets of rubber or canvas two collapsible brass lanterns with extra eyes and glass sides two boxes of sick room candles one dozen boxes of safety matches one axe the best I have seen is the marble safety axe made at Gladstone, Michigan you can carry it in your hip pocket and you can cut down a tree with it one medicine case containing quinine kalamel and sun cholera mixture in tablets toilet case for razors toothbrushes and paper folding bathtub of rubber in rubber case these are manufactured to fold into a space a little larger than a cigar box two towels old and soft three cakes of soap one Jagger blanket one mosquito head bag one extra pair of shoes old and comfortable one extra pair of riding breeches one extra pair of gaiters the former regulation army gaiter of canvas laced rolls up in a small compass but little one flannel shirt gray least shows the dust two pairs of drawers for riding the best are those of silk two undershirts, ball-burgan or woollen three pairs of woollen socks two linen handkerchiefs large enough if needed to tie around the throat and protect the back of the neck one pair of pajamas not linen one housewife two briar wood pipes six bags of smoking tobacco Durham or Seal of North Carolina pack easily one pad of writing paper one fountain pen self-filling one bottle of ink with screw top held tight by a spring one dozen linen envelopes stamps wrapped in oil silk mucilage side next to the silk one stick sealing wax in tropical countries mucilage on the flap of envelopes sticks to everything except the envelope one dozen elastic bands of the largest size in packing they help to compress articles like clothing into the smallest possible compass and in many other ways will be found very useful one pack of playing cards books one revolver and six cartridges the reason for most of these articles is obvious some of them may need a word of recommendation I placed the water buckets first in the list for the reason that I have found them one of my most valuable assets with one as soon as you halt instead of waiting for your turn at the well or waterhole you can carry water to your horse and one of them once filled and set in the shelter of the tent later saves you many steps it also can be used as a nose bag and to carry fodder I recommend the brass folding lantern because those I have tried of tin or aluminum have invariably broken a lantern is an absolute necessity when before daylight you break camp or hurry out in a windstorm to struggle with flying tent pegs or when at night you wish to read or play cards a lantern with a stout frame and steady light is indispensable the original cost of the sick room candles is more than that of the ordinary candle but they burn longer are brighter and take up much less room to protect them and the matches from dampness or the sun anyone who has forgotten to pack a towel will not need to be advised to take two an old sergeant of troop G third cavalry once told me that if he had to throw away everything he carried in his roll but one article he would save his towel and he was not a particularly facidious sergeant either but he preferred a damp towel in his roll to damp clothes on his back every man knows a very wholesome camp when the rain pours outside or the regiment is held in reserve for times like these a pack of cards or a book is worth carrying even if it weighs as much as the plates from which it was printed at present it is easy to obtain all the modern classics in volumes small enough to go into the coat pocket in Japan before starting for China my name is Thomas Thomas Nelsen's and double day page in companies pocket editions of Dickens Thackery and lever and as most of our time in Manchuria was spent locked up in compounds they proved a great blessing in the list I have included revolver following the old saying that you may not need it for a long time but when you do need it you want it damned quick press guides and mule-drivers, it is not an essential article. In six campaigns I have carried one and never used it, nor needed it but once, and then, while I was dodging behind the four-mast, it lay under tons of luggage in the hold. The number of cartridges I have limited to six. On the theory that if in six shots you haven't hit the other fellow, he will have hit you and you will not require another six. This, I think, completes the list of articles that, on different expeditions, I either have found of use or have seen rendered good service to someone else. But the really wise man will pack none of the things enumerated in this article. For the larger his kit, the less benefit he will have of it. It will all be taken from him. And accordingly, my final advice is to go forth empty-handed, naked and unashamed, and borrow from your friends. I have never tried that method of collecting an outfit, but I have seen never it fail, and of all travelers the man who borrows is the wisest. Recording by Richard Kilmer, Real Medina, Texas.