by John Jakes
“Old Jongie calls for his laundry every Wednesday night at ten. They say it takes him at least an hour to complete the transaction. I’ll wager he’s going to Alice for more than clean shirts and small clothes.”
By now Orry was completely in favor of reprisals against the Ohioan. “Then I would say Jongie’s habits dictate our strategy. We should maneuver Bent into the embrace of fair Alice around nine-thirty some Wednesday evening.”
George grinned. “I can see you have a brilliant future on the battlefield. However, you should always know your ally as well as you know your enemy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Fair Alice may be an agreeable sort, but she’s also a camp follower. A mercenary. She won’t entertain Bent gratis. Especially not after she gets a look at his belly.”
The reality couldn’t be escaped. The plot went into suspension for three weeks while various cadet conspirators obtained blankets and cooking utensils. No questions were asked about the way they got them, or where. The contraband went to the river man in exchange for cash.
On the night before the election, George visited Alice with money in hand. Following supper the next evening, the engine of Bent’s hoped-for destruction began to roll.
George and Pickett staged an argument in front of witnesses. They quarreled over Polk’s support of annexation, George stating the familiar proposition that it had nothing to do with embracing fellow Americans and everything to do with adding more slave territory to the Union.
Pickett turned red. His replies were loud and contentious. Chance witnesses, and even a few who were in on the plot, were convinced he was furious.
Over the next few days it became common knowledge that the two Georges had fallen out. This gave Pickett a chance to cozy up to Bent, a deception his wit and Virginia charm helped him carry off convincingly. The following Wednesday night, as a light snow began to fall, Pickett invited the Ohioan to Benny Haven’s for a touch of ardent spirits. Then, en route, Pickett suggested that a visit to Alice Peet would be more stimulating.
George and Orry, the official observers for the corps, trailed the pair through the snow. Shivering at Alice’s window, they watched her swing into action. Her theatrical ability couldn’t match Pickett’s, but that made no difference. By the time she approached Bent, he had hung his cap on the back of his chair, unbuttoned his collar, and downed three drinks. His eyes were already glassy.
Bending close to him, Alice whispered into his ear. The Ohioan wiped a drop of saliva from his lips. Outside the partially opened window, the two friends heard him ask Alice her price. George clutched Orry’s forearm; this was the crisis. The plot depended on Bent’s believing Alice’s statement that she would charge him nothing because she had taken a fancy to him. “That,” Pickett had remarked during the formulation of the plan, “is like asking someone to believe the falls of Niagara flow upward.”
But Bent was drunk, and far back in the Ohioan’s bleary eyes Orry thought he detected the presence of a cringing fat boy wanting to be liked. Bent winked at Pickett across the table. The Virginian rose, grinned, and waved good night.
Pickett came out and closed the door behind him. As he passed the other conspirators, he whispered without turning his head, “I’m relying on you to report everything that happens.” Without breaking stride, he went away across the crunchy snow. Through the window George and Orry saw Alice reach for Bent’s hand and lead him to the open door to the sleeping area. The bait was taken, the trap ready to close.
At precisely ten, Lieutenant Casimir de Jong came tramping out of the snow, muffled to the eyes and merrily humming “Chester.” He went straight to the door of Alice’s shack and, after a quick knock, walked in.
The observers heard Alice let out a patently false squeal of fright. She rushed into the main room, smoothing her shift down with one hand and patting her disarrayed hair with the other. From the darkness beyond the doorway came snorting and the sound of rustling bedclothes.
Old Jongie plucked the cadet cap from the back of the chair and studied it a moment. Then he crushed it in his hand and planted himself in front of the doorway. Like all good tactical officers he had long ago learned the technique of the intimidating bellow. He used it now.
“Who is in there? Come out immediately, sir!”
Snuffling and blinking, Bent appeared a moment later. Old Jongie’s jaw dropped. “Good God, sir—I cannot believe what I see.”
“It isn’t what you think,” Bent cried. “I came—I only came for my laundry.”
“With your pants at half mast and your long underwear gapping? In the name of decency, sir—cover yourself.”
Still crouched, Orry and George waddled toward the half-open door of the shack. George was almost unable to contain his laughter. By the light of an oil lamp, Orry saw Bent frantically jerk up his trousers. Alice wrung her hands.
“Oh, Mr. Bent, sir, I got so carried away, I clean forgot the lieutenant calls for his laundry every week at this time. That’s the bundle over th—”
She dodged to avoid Bent’s fist. “You slut, be quiet.”
“That’s enough, sir!” de Jong shouted. “Comport yourself like a gentleman while you may.”
Bent’s face shone as if greased. In the stillness of the nearby woods, a nocturnal animal cracked a twig. The sound was loud as a shot.
“While you may?” Bent whispered. “What do you mean by that?”
“Isn’t it obvious, sir? You are on report—for more offenses than I care to enumerate at this moment. But be assured that I will enumerate them. Especially those that are punishable by dismissal.”
Bent looked ill. “Sir, this is all a misunderstanding. If you’ll give me a chance to explain—”
“The same kind of explanation you provided for Isham’s injuries? Lies?” De Jong was a splendid instrument of official wrath; Orry almost felt sorry for the fat first classman.
De Jong spun toward the door. Bent saw his whole career about to vanish with the tactical officer. He grabbed de Jong’s shoulder.
“Take your hands off me, you drunken sot,” de Jong said in a chillingly quiet voice. “I shall expect you in my office the moment you arrive back on post—and that arrival had better not take any longer than ten minutes, or the view halloo will be heard all the way to New York City.”
Grand in his contempt, Lieutenant de Jong marched down the steps and into the falling snow. He never saw the two cadets crouched in the shadows.
Inside the shack, Bent turned on Alice. “You stupid, bungling whore—”
He shoved the rickety table aside. She ran to the stove and snatched a butcher knife from a rack hanging next to it.
“Get out of here. Stump told me you were crazy, but I didn’t put stock in that. What an idiot I was—get out. Get out!”
The brandished knife flashed. George and Orry exchanged quick, worried looks as Bent stood swaying, stunned.
“Stump? Do you mean Hazard had something to do with this? It was Pickett’s idea to come here, and your idea for me to—that is—”
He was unable to continue. His anger was replaced by an expression of such blinding fury, Orry thought he would never again see its like on a human face.
Alice compounded the hurt with a shrill laugh. “My idea? I wouldn’t let a pig like you touch me unless I got paid, and paid plenty. Even so, I nearly couldn’t do it.”
Bent trembled. “I should have seen it. A trick. A plot. All of them against me—that’s it, isn’t it?”
Alice realized her blunder and tried to rectify it. “No. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t lie to me,” Bent said. The two cadets outside couldn’t see what happened next. Apparently Bent made another threatening move toward the laundress because she began to scream. This time she wasn’t playacting.
“Quiet, or you’ll wake the whole village!”
That was exactly what Alice intended; she screamed all the louder. Bent came lunging out the door, his hair flying, his eyes full of fright.
He ran off with one hand holding up his pants.
George and Orry stared at each other. Neither felt the elation they had anticipated for so long.
Within three days Bent took the Canterberry road.
Most of the cadets said they were happy he had been dismissed. Orry was, certainly. And George. Yet both of them admitted to some feelings of guilt over the way the Ohioan had been entrapped. Gradually the friends put the guilt out of mind. Orry knew his crisis of conscience was at an end when he began to have sensual dreams about Madeline again.
At Christmas everyone was still discussing Polk’s victory. Since the President-elect continued to proclaim his intention to annex Texas, Orry wondered whether he would go directly from his graduation, a year from June, to combat against a Mexican army. And would there be a second front in the Northwest as a result of the current dispute with the British over the location of the Oregon border? Thrilling possibilities, but frightening, too.
On the last Saturday night in December, another hash was in progress in Pickett’s room when there was a furtive knock. Orry opened the door to find Tom Jackson standing there. Jackson had turned into a superior student, largely through determined effort. If he wasn’t exactly likable because of his odd personality, there was yet something about him—a strength, an unspoken ferocity—that inspired respect. He was welcome in the more tolerant cadet groups, such as this one.
“Greetings, General,” George called out as Jackson shut the door. “Care for a bite?”
“No, thank you.” Jackson tapped his stomach to indicate his concern with his digestion. The lanky Virginian looked even more serious than usual; positively mournful, in fact.
“What’s wrong?” Orry asked.
“I am the bearer of unhappy news. Especially for you two,” Jackson said with glances at Orry and George. “Apparently Cadet Bent’s connections in Washington were not mere products of a boastful imagination. I am reliably informed by the adjutant that Secretary of War Wilkins, as one of his last acts of office, has intervened in the case.”
George wiped the edge of his index finger across his upper lip. “Intervened how, Tom?”
“The dismissal was overturned. Mr. Bent will be back among us within a fortnight.”
The countermanding of dismissals was nothing new at the Academy. Thanks to the political ties of the families of cadets, it happened often enough to be a major cause of the institution’s unpopularity. It was an abuse that even the most conscientious superintendent was powerless to stop, since final authority for West Point rested in Washington.
It took only six days for Bent to reappear, stripped of his former rank. George and Orry expected that revenge of some kind would be forthcoming, but it was not. The two friends avoided Bent as much as they could, but it was impossible to avoid him entirely. When either of them did encounter the Ohioan, his reaction was the same. His jowly face remained composed, stony. George and Orry might have been utter strangers.
“That scares me a devil of a lot more than ranting and raving would,” Orry said. “What’s he up to?”
“I hear he’s boning pretty hard,” George said. “Wasted effort, if you ask me. After what he did, he’ll be lucky to make the infantry, even with top marks.”
As June drew closer, and Bent continued to keep to himself, the overturned dismissal was discussed less frequently, and finally not at all. There were more important things to talk about; it had been a momentous springtime for the nation.
On the first of March, three days before Polk’s inauguration, outgoing President Tyler had signed the joint congressional resolution calling for Texas to join the Union as a state. Polk inherited the consequences of that act, the first of them being the reaction of the Mexican government. At the end of the month, the U.S. minister in Mexico City was informed that diplomatic relations were severed.
War fever gripped some sections of the country, notably the South. Orry broke the wafer on a letter from home and found Cooper complaining about Tillet’s zeal for a military crusade to protect the new slave state if the Texas legislature approved annexation, as it surely would. Northerners were divided on the question of war. Opposition was strongest around Boston, long the seedbed of abolitionist activity.
Bent and the other first classmen were busy preparing for their final examinations and conferring with the trunk makers and military tailors who always arrived at this time of year. Bent’s class, typical of most, would graduate about half of those who had appeared for the first summer encampment. Each departing cadet would become a brevet second lieutenant in his respective branch. A brevet officer didn’t receive the full pay to which his rank would otherwise entitle him, so it was the goal of most graduates to escape this provisional status and win promotion to full second during the first year of active duty. George’s prediction about Bent came true. The Ohioan was able to do no better than a brevet in the infantry.
Bent finally spoke to George and Orry after the year’s final parade. It was sunset, a cool June evening. The softly rounded peaks rose half scarlet, half blue above the Plain where many of the new graduates were receiving the congratulations of beaming mothers, quietly proud fathers, exuberant little brothers and sisters, and feminine admirers not connected with the family. George had noticed that Bent was one of the very few with no relatives present.
The Ohioan looked spruce in the cadet uniform he was wearing for the last time. He had grown generous whiskers, as the first classmen were permitted to do. In an hour or so he would be down on the boat landing, bound for New York and, presumably, the class supper, which was always held in some posh hotel the day after graduation. Leave for Bent and all the other graduates would end on the last day of September.
Orry was puzzled by Bent’s smile. Then the Ohioan turned slightly, and fading daylight lit his eyes. Orry saw the hatred then.
“What I have to say to you two gentlemen is brief and to the point.” Bent spoke in short, breathy bursts, as if struggling to contain powerful emotion. “You almost kept me from an Army career. That fact will never be far from the center of my thoughts. I will be highly placed one of these days—very highly placed—mark that and count on it. And I will not forget the names of those who put a permanent stain on my record.”
He pivoted away so abruptly that George sidestepped, a nervous reaction. Sunset light reddened Bent’s eyes. He lumbered away toward his barracks. His weight made it hard for him to maintain a military bearing.
George was darting stunned looks at his friend, as if to say he couldn’t believe the melodramatic recitation he had just heard. Orry hoped to God that his friend wouldn’t take it lightly and laugh, because you had to believe the declarations of a madman.
Believe, and be warned.
8
IN SUMMER ENCAMPMENT GEORGE advanced to cadet lieutenant. Among the first classmen, Orry was the only one not given a rank.
He remained, as an old joke put it, a high private, which was discouraging because it showed how little his superiors thought of him. Oh, they liked him well enough personally. But as for believing he had any military ability, no.
The first-class courses seemed designed to validate that opinion. While George continued to sail through effortlessly, Orry struggled with the ethics course, which included principles of constitutional law as well as the practice of court-martial. He had an even harder time with the courses in civil and military engineering, which brought him into regular contact with the feared and legendary Professor Mahan.
In his dark blue dress coat, blue trousers, and buff vest, Mahan looked every inch the Academy professor. When a cadet demonstrated before him, he permitted no variance from what he had taught or the way he had taught it. The foolish cadet who dared to disagree, however timidly, was soon humbled by Mahan’s celebrated sarcasm—and mentally downgraded to boot. Every cadet was ranked in Mahan’s mind. From that judgment, whether it was just or not, there was no appeal.
Yet the cadets liked, even worshiped Mahan. If that hadn’t been the ca
se, they would have made fun of his slight speech impediment, which made him sound as if he always had a cold. Instead, the cadets affectionately acknowledged the problem with a nickname—Old Cobben Sense; Mahan was constantly lecturing about the virtues of “cobben sense.”
In addition to engineering, Mahan taught military science. In this course he awed his pupils with predictions of a new, apocalyptic kind of war that would be born of the current industrial age. They would all be called on to command in that new kind of war, he said. And perhaps it would take place sooner than any of them anticipated. In July, General Zachary Taylor and fifteen hundred men had been ordered to the Nueces River, which Mexico still insisted was its northern boundary. At Corpus Christi on the Nueces, Taylor took up a position to guard against a possible Mexican attack.
By late autumn Taylor’s force had grown to forty-five hundred. On December 29 Texas joined the Union as the twenty-eighth state, still standing by its claim that the peace treaty at the end of its war for independence had established its southern border at the Rio Grande.
Mexico’s protests grew increasingly belligerent. The treaty was worthless, and the Republic of Texas was a fraud—nonexistent. How could an illegal political entity annex itself to the United States? The answer was obvious. It could not. If it thought otherwise, there would be dire consequences.
The threatening talk pleased those Americans who believed the nation had an almost divine right to expand its borders. Robert Winthrop, a representative from Massachusetts, encountered a phrase in an obscure journal that seemed to sum up this right in a memorable way. Early in January, Winthrop spoke on the floor of Congress about “manifest destiny,” and America had a new rallying cry.
During the winter, attempts at peace negotiations conducted by Minister to Mexico John Slidell failed. Under orders from his superiors in Washington, General Taylor again advanced, this time proceeding south, through the sparsely populated wilderness both Mexico and Texas were claiming, all the way to the Rio Grande. People began to talk of war as a real possibility. “Mr. Polk’s war,” the President’s opponents called it.
