Charles King

“ There was no more trouble in Company B. Geordie ruled it with a hand that never shook, yet without the faintest bluster or show of triumph. The First Class men, as a rule, were a very pleasant set, with a pride in their company, a pride in the corps, and a readiness to sustain Graham; and so he and his fellow-sergeants were spared further complication of that description. "In time of peace prepare for war, however," laughed Connell. "There's no surer way of keeping the peace than being ready for anything that may turn up." ”

“ But like many and many another youth, poor Benny found there was a vast difference between sitting a natty English pigskin on a bridlewise and gaited steed, and riding a rough, hard-mouthed cavalry "plug," whose jaws and temper had been wrenched by his abnormal employment as a draught-horse at battery drill. Three days' chafing sent Frazier to hospital, while Pops rode higher into popular favor.
"Coyote may be no mathematician," said Winn, who, as a Kentuckian, was authority on horse matters, "but he can outride any man in this class, by jinks! and give points to many a fellow in the others." ”

“ Drums and fifes burst instantly into the liveliest quickstep. Eight beautiful fronts, each pivoting on its left, accurate and steady as sections of some perfect machine, came swinging around into column. "Forward, march! Guide right!" and then, "Column half right!" as the leading subdivision completed the wheel. And now away they go over the level Plain, heading for the leaf-embowered gap between the chapel and the old Academic, each subdivision led by its lieutenant commanding, Connell, Ross, and Winn marching as field officers on the guiding flank, Geordie commanding all. ”

“ And now, with examinations over, and no remaining doubts or fears, there was probably no happier boy in all the "menagerie" than Geordie Graham. As for the hundred young fellows in civilian dress, "herded" three and four in each room, and wrestling with their first experiences of cadet life, it is safe to say most of the number were either homesick or in some way forlorn. Nothing so utterly destroys the glamour that hovers over one's ideas of West Point as the realities of the first fortnight. ”

“ He was as full of excuse as an Irish laundress.
"He's got more reports on the delinquency books than any one in the class," said Pops, reproachfully.
"Yes," said Connell, whimsically, "and more of 'em off."
And thereby hangs a tale.
No cadet can expect to get along without ever receiving reports. Any boy who so desires can readily obtain reports aggregating one hundred demerit in a single day; yet if he receive that many in six months, out he goes into the world again, discharged for failure in discipline. The breaches of regulation in the power of a boy to commit are simply myriad. ”

“ No time could be lost this evening. It was that of the final hop. Ten minutes later, rifles, shakoes, and equipments laid aside, the battalion reformed on the color-line, the officers sprang to their posts, the field-music, still in full parade-dress and white trousers, took station at the left of the long gray line. Geordie whipped the light cadet sword from its scabbard, and his voice, deep and powerful, rang out the commands.
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"Continue the march. Companies left wheel, march!" ”

“ All over that springy sward, up and down, over and across, bounding, dancing, darting, dodging, Woods active and wary, Graham charging and forcing the fight, despite heavy blows planted thick and fast.
"Isn't he a young mountain-lion?" muttered Glenn, below his breath.
"He'll be worse than a grizzly if he gets Woods in a hug," was the reply. "Look! he's grappled!"
Reckless of punishment as was ever stalwart Roderick, Geordie had backed his lighter foe up the slope, then
"Locked his arms the foeman round." ”

“ Only by determination to conform to rules in the first place and eternal vigilance in the second can he live without demerit. Even then the faintest slip—a loose button, shoestring, drawer-string, a speck of dust, a tarnished belt-plate, an instant's mooning on drill or parade—renders him liable. To utterly avoid report one has to be all eyes, ears, and attention. ”

“ In less than twenty minutes poor confident Benny, who had guard duty at his tongue's end and wasn't going to be fooled with, had made every blunder a sentry could possibly make, had lost every item of arms and equipments, nerve and temper, and had been bawling for the corporal of the guard, Post Number Six, in accordance with the methods of the Beanton camp, and in defiance of the laws and customs of the regular service, all to the mischievous delight of the entire corps, until finally he could bawl no longer. ”

“ The end and aim of West Point existence is the winning of a commission that opens the way to a series, perhaps, of military titles; yet let a plebe be saddled with some such appendage to his name, and all the explanations in the world cannot save him from misconception and annoyance.
From the time a new cadet is fairly in uniform and a member of the battalion, he has perhaps no higher ambition than that of being made a corporal at the end of his year of probation. ”

“ No soldier is considered fit to command others until he can command himself. They purposely put a fellow through all manner of predicament just to test his grit. Don't let anything ruffle your temper, and they will soon find you need no lessons." And so, like a sentry, he patiently tramped his post, listening to the music of the band at an evening concert out on the Plain, and keeping watchful eye for the coming of cadet officials. Along towards nine o'clock up came Cadet Lieutenant Merrick, commanding the plebes; and "Pops," as he had been taught, halted, faced him, and stood attention. ”

“ That night—a bitter cold December night it was—Pops had just finished telling Ames of the strange state of things as he found them on his visit to Frazier; the tattoo drums were hammering through the area and drowning other sounds; the inspector of the upper subdivision had come down into Bend's room to have a chat with his fellow-officer, when the drums stopped with one abrupt and unanimous slam, and as they did so Graham's eyes dilated, and he sprang to his feet. ”

“ In the twinkling of an eye in silence the mass began to move, Benny and Connell borne helplessly along. Resistance was useless. Not a hand was laid upon them, but not a gap was seen through which they could escape. In another moment all B Company, except its plebe contingent, reinforced by detachments of Third Class men from all over camp, was crowded into A Company's street, and gravely presenting Major-General Frazier to the officials of the right flank company, and demanding the third reading of The Examiner's clipping. ”

“ The cabal of the few First Class men had reacted upon the originators like a boomerang. Jennings was in hospital a full week, and Curry walked punishment tours until January. Now, while Jennings was probably not the best man, pugilistically speaking, whom they could put up against the first sergeants, the better men were as sound morally and mentally as they were physically. Some of them expressed regret that Graham felt it his duty to make such serious reports against their class-mate, but it was conceded by every soldier and gentleman that Curry had brought it all on himself. ”

“ But there was no room for doubt in Benton's case, said the corps. He was soldier in every word and action; stood one of the five—sure; had a rich resonant voice, that was good to hear [271] in the cadet choir and a delight at the entertainment given the fag-end of February—"one hundred days to June." No doubt, the plume and chevrons and sword-knot of the adjutancy would be his; "and no one," said Badger and Coyote, "would better grace or deserve it." On the score of the first captaincy they had less to say, but the battalion said a good deal. ”

“ Few of his class-mates had expressed regret at his having fallen from the head of the class, and fewer still at his failure to win chevrons. No boy at the Point marched into camp that lovely June morning with such a jealous demon of disappointment gnawing at his heart as did Benny Frazier. It boded ill for himself, for his friends, and for any new cadets who fell into his clutches; for the boy who so loudly and persistently announced the year before that nothing on earth could induce him to say or do a thing to worry a Fourth [204] Class man was become the very terror of the plebes. ”

“ Geordie took his regular exercise, and was beginning to be looked upon as one of the likeliest athletes in the class. The gymnasium of those days was a primitive affair, but the instructor knew his business, and taught it. All the plebes began to look forward with eagerness or apprehension to the midwinter turning-point—the January examination. Once more, finding himself losing ground with his class, Benny was devoting himself to Pops. There is nothing more ephemeral than popularity, and no place were it counts for so little as West Point. ”

“ Only among the few weaklings of the Curry stamp had he a vestige of influence left before the long-expected fight with Graham, and after that and his utter and unlooked-for defeat his name seemed held only in derision. Yet he lorded it over Frazier. "You can hear them snapping and snarling at one another at any hour of the day or night," said their near neighbors. "If Frazier hates him so, why on earth doesn't he 'shake' him? They're getting enough demerit between them to swamp half a dozen men." ”

“ Geordie did not tell what he might have told, that on the evening of the 27th, after a long talk with his father, who came at noon and left before parade, Frazier had almost pleadingly said to him: "They're all down on me now, Graham, and if you turn from me I won't have a friend left in the class. If you and I room together, they'll know you don't believe me mean enough to take your gun. Appearances are all against me simply because I can't tell without involving some poor fellows whom dismissal would ruin for life just because they'd taken part in what they meant to be only a joke." ”

“ Suddenly there rose on the still evening air the tramp of coming soldiery, quick and alert, louder and louder, swifter than the bounding of his heart and far more regular. Suddenly through the broad space between the academic and the north end of the mess-hall, straight as a ruler, came the foremost subdivision, the first platoon [31] of Company A, and instantly in response to the ringing order, "Column right," from some deep manly voice farther towards the rear, the young cadet officer in front whirled about and ordered "Right wheel." ”

“ Glenn, the adjutant, had returned from the commandant's tent and gone straight to his own. Presently he emerged, girt with sash and sword-belt, and that meant business. No use for any one to run and hide; that merely deferred matters.
"Mr. Ross, you are hereby placed in close arrest, and confined to your tent. Charge—promoting a fight. By order of Lieutenant-Colonel Hazzard," was the pithy address he delivered to his class-mate, with precisely the same amount of emotion which he might have displayed had he informed him he was detailed for guard duty on the morrow. ”

“ A yearling will not even have fun at the expense of a plebe whose conduct is considered shady, and the belief in the Third Class was general that Frazier, through motives of jealousy, had connived at the "hiving" of his tent-mate's rifle.
And yet when Connell said to Graham, "I was going to room with Foster, but I'd far rather live with you. Do you think we can fix it now? Foster is willing to live with Clawson," he could hardly believe it when Geordie answered:
"I've promised to live with Frazier, and though I'd rather live with you than any man I know, I won't go back on my promise." ”

“ Now we who are sergeants not only mean to make the yearlings toe the mark, but the First Class men as well, and they are going to force a fight on us for doing the very thing that in three or four years from now any one of their number who happens to be on duty here as an instructor will report a first sergeant for not doing. The whole corps says that when 'it' comes back here as an officer it won't forget it ever was a cadet, as every officer seems to do the moment he gets here, and you can bet your sash and chevrons it will do just exactly as the officers seem to do to-day. ”

“ Breifogle did not withdraw his son from a race in which he had no chance, the master laughed.
"Breifogle is like a great many of our people who have become suddenly rich," said he. "He thinks money and a political pull will do anything. He refuses to believe that West Point is governed by rules that even the President cannot violate. He is confident that all that is necessary is for him to go on with Fritz in June, and the examiners will not dare reject him, especially if Congressman Pierce is there, too." ”

“ That night Glenn read the list of sections to which the classes were assigned. Great was the importance of certain Fourth Class men designated in orders as section marchers, and by no means [167] inconsiderable was the jealousy among their class-mates inspired by this purely accidental and temporary gift of authority. The Fourth Class for instruction in mathematics was divided in alphabetical order into eight sections, Cadet Abbott being detailed as marcher of the first, Dillon of the second, Griggs of the third, Kenney of the fourth, and so on down the list. ”

“ First to arrive, with a single orderly in attendance, was the regimental quartermaster, Lieutenant Ralph McCrea, and to him said the quartermaster whom McCrea was to relieve:
"Mac, this young gentleman is Dr. Graham's son George, our candidate for West Point. He knows plainscraft, woodcraft, and mountain scouting as well as you do mathematics. He can ride as well as any man in my troop. Give him a lift in algebra and 'math.,' and he'll teach you all there is worth knowing about this part of the country." ”

“ Howsoever excellent he may have appeared on parade in command of the High-school Cadets, Benny was no model on drill as a high private. His wits, too, had a way of going wool-gathering, and while young men like Geordie and Connell paid strict attention to business and rarely received reports of any kind, the "Major-General" was in perpetual hot-water, and ever ready to lay the blame on somebody else. ”