Cadet Days. A Story of West Point. King Charles
ten seconds to transfer any lingering resentment for the cadet corporals to the avuncular M. C., whom with boyish inconsistency he now berated for being such a fool as to make a fuss about a little thing like that. Among the new cadets were a very few who, as sons of army officers, knew perfectly well what they had to expect. These and a number of young fellows who, like Graham, had come on months or weeks beforehand and placed themselves under tuition, were well prepared for the ordeal of the entrance examinations as well as for other ordeals which followed.
Even among them, however, were many who looked upon life with eyes of gloom. The ceaseless routine of drill, drill, of sharp reprimand, of stern, unbending discipline, wofully preyed upon their spirits. Their hearts were as sore as their unaccustomed muscles. But with Pops all was different. He had reached at last the goal of his ambition. He had won his way through many a discouragement to the prize of a cadetship. Now he was ready, even eager, to be tried and tested in every way, to show his grit, and to prove his fitness for the four years' race for the highest prize of all, the diploma and commission. The drill that made his comrades' muscles ache was a bagatelle to him. From earliest boyhood he had watched the recruits at setting-up, and not only learned and practised all, but with Bud and Dick for his squad would often convulse the officers at Verde and Supply by his imitation of Sergeant Feeny's savage Hibernian manner. The cadet yearling who was drill-master of the four to which Pops was assigned saw at once that he had a "plebe corporal" – a young fellow who had been pretty well drilled – and all the more did he rasp him when anything went amiss. Many of the new-comers had been through squad-drill at military schools or in cadet companies, but never under such rigid, relentless discipline as this. Every cadet drill-master carried the steel rammer of his rifle as a drill-stick, and was just about as unbending as his rod of office. Poor Frazier was in hot-water all the time – as well as in the sulks.
"I belonged to the high-school cadets for two years, and everybody that ever saw us drill said we could lay over anything in the whole country," he protested, "and now here's this measly little stuck-up prig, that probably never knew anything about drill until he entered here last year, correcting and finding fault with everything I do. I ain't going to stand it, by thunder! I've written to my father to come on again, and just have this thing attended to right off." And Frazier's handsome boyish face was flushed with wrath, and clouded with a sense of wrong and indignity. "It seems to me if I were in your place I wouldn't stand being abused either, Graham. I heard Mr. Flint snapping at you again this morning."
Pops was busily engaged dusting for the tenth time the iron mantel-shelf and the little looking-glass. He half turned. "Wa-e-l," he said, while a grin of amusement hovered about the corners of his mouth, "Flint was all right, I guess. Your squad was just in front of us, and when I saw Connell stumble over your heels and try to climb up your back, I laughed out loud. He caught me chuckling."
"Yes, and abused you like a pick-pocket, by jingo! If my father were an officer in the regular army, as yours is, it wouldn't happen twice to me."
"No, nor to me either," chimed in Connell. "I'll bet you he'd sing a mighty different tune if he knew you were the son of a Major."
"Well, there's just where you're 'way off," answered Geordie, after the manner of the frontier. "Of all places in creation this is the one where one's dad cuts no figure whatever. I've often heard old officers say that the boys who got plagued and tormented most in their time were the fellows whose fathers were generals or cabinet ministers. Fred Grant wouldn't have had half as hard a time if his father hadn't been President. Frazier's whole trouble comes from letting on that he knew all about drill before he got here; that's the truth of it. I get along smoothly by pretending never to have known anything."
"Oh, a lot you have! If that snob Loring ever speaks to me as he spoke to you this morning about laughing in the ranks, I'll – I'll just let him have my fist between the eyes, and he'll see more stars than he ever saw before, if he is a color corporal. What'll your father say when he hears that he threatened to put you in a cell just for laughing when that Pike County fellow knocked his hat off trying to salute?"
"Well, he didn't say cell, in the first place, and father wouldn't hear it from me, at least, if he had. It's an understood thing at home that they're to ask no questions, and I'm to tell no tales until plebe camp is over and done with. Plebes don't begin to have the hard times now that they had thirty years ago, and if they could stand it then, I can now. All you've got to do is simply make up your mind to grin and bear it; do just as you're told, and say nothing about it. If this thing worries you now, when only our drill-masters and instructors get at us, what are you going to do, Frazier, when you're marched over there into camp next week and turned over to the tender mercies of the whole corps?"
"I'm going to fight the first man that offers me an indignity of any kind, by thunder!"
Geordie burst into one of his merry laughs, just as a light foot came bounding up the iron stairway. Bang! A single knock at the door. Up sprang the four boys, heels and knees together, heads up, eyes straight to the front, arms and hands braced against the sides, the palms of the latter turned outward as far as the youngsters could force them and thereby work their shoulders back, each young fellow facing the centre of the bare and cheerless room. Enter Cadet Corporal Loring, his jaunty gray coat fitting like wax, not a crease nor a wrinkle anywhere, every one of his three rows of bell buttons glistening, his gold chevrons gleaming, his white collar, cuffs, gloves, and trousers simply immaculate, everything so trig and military, all in such wondrous contrast to the sombre garb of the four plebes. His clear-cut face is stern and dignified.
"What is the meaning of all this noise?" he asks. "Who was laughing as I came in?"
"I was, sir," promptly answers Graham.
"You again, Mr. Graham? This is the third time since reveille I've had to reprimand you for chuckling like a school-boy – twice in ranks, and now again at inspection. What were you laughing at this time, sir?" inquired Mr. Loring, majestically.
"At something Frazier said, sir."
"Mr. Frazier, sir. Never omit the handle to a gentleman's name on duty or in official intercourse. Only among yourselves and off duty can you indulge in familiarity; never, sir, in conversation with superior officers." (Oh, the immensity of distance between the plebe and the yearling corporal!) "And you are room orderly, too, Mr. Graham, and responsible for the appearance of things. Where should the broom be, sir?"
"Behind the door, sir."
"Then where is it, sir?"
And for the first time poor Pops sees that in the heat of argument, Frazier, dusting off his shoes with that implement, had left it across the room in the alcove. Still, it was his own business to see that it was in place, so he had nothing to say beyond, "I didn't notice it until just now, sir."
"Exactly, Mr. Graham; if you had been attending to your duty instead of giggling over Mr. Frazier's witticisms you would have escaped punishment. Report at my office immediately after supper this evening, sir." And then, after finding perhaps a pin-head of dust behind the looking-glass, and further rebuking Mr. Graham for unmilitary carelessness, the young gentleman proceeds to carry dismay into the next room.
And that evening, after supper, as ordered, Pops tapped at the awful door, was bidden to enter and listen to his doom. Cadet Lieutenant Merrick sat in judgment. For levity in ranks, dust on mantel, broom out of place at inspection, new Cadet Graham was directed to walk post in the hall until drum-beat at tattoo.
Outside the door, standing meekly in the hallway, awaiting summons to enter, were half a dozen of his comrades, about to be sentenced to similar punishment for blunders of greater or less magnitude. Some looked woe-begone, some foolish, some were laughing, but all assumed the required expression of gravity as Mr. Loring came forth with his victim. In two minutes our Geordie found himself slowly pacing the hallway on the second floor, with strict orders to keep his little fingers on the seams of his trousers, the palms of his hands to the front, and to hold conversation with nobody except in the line of duty. For a moment he could not but feel a little wrathful and disheartened, but again McCrea's words came to his aid: "Remember that the first thing that will be sorely tested is your sense of subordination – your readiness to obey without question. No soldier is considered fit to command others until he can command himself. They purposely put a fellow through all manner of