by John Jakes
The Louisiana cadet was holding a third young man face down in an empty tub. The youth peered at Charles, his dark eyes big and moist and scared. Charles recognized him as a newcomer who had arrived only today.
“Get out, sir,” Slocum said to Charles. “This disciplinary matter is none of your affair.”
“Disciplinary matter? Come on, boys. That fellow just got here this afternoon. He’s entitled to one or two mistakes.”
“This Yankee insulted us,” the Louisiana cadet snarled.
“I did not,” the youth in the tub protested. “They grabbed hold of me and dragged me down here and—”
“You shut up,” Louisiana said, seizing the newcomer’s neck and squeezing until he winced.
Slocum stepped forward to block Charles’s view. His blotchy face darkened as he said: “I’ll tell you just once more, sir. Leave.”
Slowly Charles shook his head. The water pipes running to the tubs radiated heat. He wiped his sweating palm on his shirt bosom and said, “Not till I see what you’re fixing to do to him.” He suspected he knew.
Quickly he stepped to one side, then darted forward before Slocum could react. The victim was naked. He looked scrawny and pathetic with his bare buttocks elevated slightly. Between his legs Charles saw the cord around his testicles. It was tied so tightly his balls were already swollen.
Charles licked the roof of his mouth, which was dry all at once. This was one of the little stunts tried a few times in the past and abandoned. Charles had walked in just before the conclusion—the pouring of turpentine into the victim’s anus.
Bile and anger thickened his voice. “That isn’t fit treatment for a dog. Let him up.”
Slocum couldn’t permit a plebe to bully him. “Main, I’m warning you—”
The door opened. Charles spun, saw Frank Pratt with a towel draped over his arm. Frank registered surprise as he took in the scene. He gulped and looked bilious. Charles spoke softly but with authority.
“Get Old Bunk. I want him to see what Slocum’s up to this time.”
Frank ran out and slammed the door. Slocum deposited the turpentine jar on the slippery floor, then began to massage his knuckles with the palm of his left hand. “Apparently there’s just one kind of order you understand, sir. Very well, I shall provide it.”
Charles almost snickered at the posturing. He didn’t because these two were upperclassmen, and cornered to boot. That made them dangerous.
The Louisiana cadet released the youth in the tub, who flopped on his chest and uttered a feeble cry. Slocum continued the melodramatic massaging of his hand. His companion grabbed his arm.
“Don’t fool with him, Slocum. You know his reputation. He’s within ten skins of dismissal—if we put him on report, we can get rid of him.”
The idea appealed to the Arkansas cadet, who really didn’t want to fight anyone as big and as formidable as Charles. Slocum continued to rub his hand, saying to no one in particular, “Damn fool ought to be on our side anyway. We’re all from the same part of the—”
The door opened. Frank and Billy walked in. Billy slammed the door. His opinion of what he saw was expressed in an explosive, “Jesus Christ! You”—he pointed to the cowering boy—“put your clothes on and get to your room.”
“Y-yes, sir.” The newcomer groped over the side of the tub but couldn’t reach his clothes. Charles kicked them closer. Slocum was glaring at Billy.
“Don’t come in here issuing orders, sir. Remember that I’m your superior—”
Billy cut him off. “The hell you are; You think West Point’s your plantation and every plebe a nigger you can mistreat. You’re nothing but Southern shit.”
“Come on, Bunk,” Charles exclaimed. “There’s no call for that kind of talk.”
But his friend was furious. “If you’re on his side, say so.”
“Goddamn you—”
Charles’s shout reverberated in the damp room. His fist was raised and shooting forward before he realized it. He just managed to pull the punch,
Billy had already retreated a step and was raising his hands to block the blow. He looked almost as astonished as Charles felt.
What Charles had done, or almost done, was profoundly upsetting to him. He had been ready to brawl over a few words that he had interpreted not as an individual but as a Southerner. He had behaved exactly like Whitney Smith and his crowd. He was stunned to discover that the vein of pride existed within him and ran deep.
He wiped his palm across his mouth. “Bunk, I’m sorry.”
“All right.” Billy sounded none too friendly.
“Slocum is the one we should—”
“I said all right.”
Billy’s furious gaze locked with his friend’s for a second. Then his anger cooled. He tilted his head toward the door.
“Everybody out—except you, Slocum. Your brand of discipline isn’t popular around here. It’s time someone demonstrated that.”
Worried, Frank Pratt said, “Billy, you’ll have half the corps down on you if you do this.”
“I don’t think so. But I’ll take that chance. Out.”
“I’ll stand watch outside,” Charles said. “Nobody will bother you.”
Charles had made a gesture the corps would understand. A Northerner dealing with Slocum while a Southerner acted as lookout would establish that Slocum’s behavior, and not his birthplace was the cause of the fight.
“Hurry,” Charles said to the newcomer, who was struggling into his ruffled shirt. “Put your shoes on outside.”
The youth left, followed by Frank Pratt. Charles looked at the Louisiana cadet. “Guess I’ll have to drag you out.”
“No—no!” Louisiana fled, moving sideways like a crab until he was in the hall. There, he turned and ran.
Charles gazed down the gloomy, lamp-lit corridor, empty save for Frank Pratt crouching by the stairs and staring upward apprehensively. The pensioner who operated the refreshment shop came out, locked the door, noticed Charles and Frank, then walked upstairs without a word.
Charles leaned back against the double door, still shaken by what had happened. Far away the bugler sounded the first notes of taps. He heard a weak cry of fright in the washroom just before the first sound of a fist striking.
Billy came out ten minutes later. Blood spattered his blouse, and bruises showed on the backs of his hands. Otherwise he was unmarked.
No, that wasn’t entirely correct, Charles realized. A certain uneasiness showed in Billy’s eyes. Charles asked, “Can he walk?”
“Yes, but he won’t feel like it for a little while.” Again his eyes met those of his friend and slid away. “I enjoyed that too much.”
From the stairs Frank Pratt motioned for them to hurry. They would all be given demerits if the inspecting officer called “All right?” outside their doors and received no reply.
Well, Charles didn’t care. He was thinking of Billy’s remark a moment ago. Was Billy concerned that he had enjoyed mistreating Slocum because Slocum was a Southerner?
They reached Frank, who asked anxiously, “What’s going to happen when Slocum talks about this?”
As they started climbing the stairway, Billy said, “I tried to impress on him that he’d better not. I think he understands that if our little session gets on the record in any official way, the one thing I’ll do before I’m dismissed is visit him again—and his Louisiana chum, too.”
“Of course,” Frank went on, “you could take the offense and formally charge him with mistreating that new fellow—”
Billy shook his head. “If I did that, Slocum would be a hero, and I’d be just another vindictive Yankee. There’s friction enough in this place already. I think we should let matters stand.”
He sounded less than happy, though, and that finally prompted Charles to offer his friend the assurance that, by tone of voice, he had asked for some moments ago:
“You said you enjoyed it too much, but I don’t believe you. Whatever you did, Slocum had it coming.”<
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Billy gave Charles’ a grateful glance. Neither said anything more as they trudged up the shadowy staircase. Charles began to feel despondent about himself, and about Billy too. It couldn’t be denied that both of them had caught the infection from which the whole country was suffering. Then and there, he made up his mind that it mustn’t get any worse.
Slocum explained his injuries as the results of a fall down the stairs. The Louisiana cadet didn’t dispute him. The vicious hazing stopped.
Despite this, the incident quickly became known and thought of as a sectional fight. Hearing only that one cadet had thrashed another, some Northerners and Westerners took Billy’s side and cut Slocum. Some Southerners cut Billy. Charles drew the silent treatment from both camps, a response so insulting, yet at the same time so ludicrous, all he could do was laugh.
A week later Fitz Lee informed Charles that the Louisiana cadet was spreading his own version of the incident. He was telling friends that casual criticism of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Slocum, and his statement that a code of Southern rights must be written in Congress to protect property in the new territories, had provoked Billy’s brutal attack.
And why had the Louisiana cadet kept this from his friends until now? To prevent the officers from hearing of the incident, he said. He had been thinking solely of the welfare of the corps, and the truth of the matter had just slipped out.
“Oh, it just slipped out, did it?” Charles growled. “It just slipped out on two or three different occasions?”
“Or more,” Fitz replied with a sour smile.
Charles lost his temper. He said he was going to pull Louisiana out of formation at evening parade and pound his lies down his throat. Billy and Fitz talked him out of it.
Gradually, interest in the fight waned. The cadets began speaking to Billy and Charles again, while generally ignoring Slocum—exactly the state of affairs that had existed before the trouble.
But the quarrel had left some bad memories, and they piled up with others like them.
Soon the first classmen left. The graduates included Stuart, the superintendent’s son, and a Maine boy named Ollie O. Howard from whom Charles bought a good used blanket. Billy, meantime, was packing to go home on leave.
Everyone at the Academy was talking about the changes to be instituted in the fall. For almost a decade the Academic Board had been recommending a five-year curriculum, and Secretary Davis had finally secured its adoption. Half of the incoming plebes would be put into the new program, while the other half would follow the old four-year course—the last class to do so. The plebes were being divided in this fashion so that there would never be a year without a graduating class.
The five-year curriculum was designed to correct what many considered an overemphasis on mathematics, science, and engineering. New course work in English, history, elocution, and Spanish was to be introduced.
“Why the devil do I need another language?” Charles complained. “I have enough trouble with French.”
“The war added a lot of new territory—in which there are a lot of people who speak Spanish. That’s the excuse I heard, anyway.” Billy shut his valise, stretched, and walked to the window.
“In the dragoons,” Charles said, “they don’t converse with greasers, they just shoot ’em.”
Billy gave him a wry look. “I don’t think Mexicans would find that very funny.” Charles’s shrug acknowledged that his friend was right, but Billy didn’t see it; he had put both hands on the sill and was gazing at a familiar figure limping across the Plain. By chance the cadet noticed Billy in the window and looked away.
“Slocum,” Billy said soberly.
Charles joined him. “He’s walking better.”
The Arkansas cadet limped out of sight. Charles turned from the window. For days he had been tormented by guilt. Until September this would be his last chance to say something about it.
“I feel rotten about that night. Not over Slocum. Over what I almost did to you.”
Billy’s deprecating wave gave Charles a feeling of immense relief. “I was just as much to blame,” Billy said. “I think it was a fortunate lesson for both of us. Let the rest of the corps shout epithets and brawl if they want. We shouldn’t, and we won’t.”
“Right you are.” Charles was glad to have Billy’s assurance, but he felt it was more hope than certainty.
Silence for a moment. Charles plucked a piece of stable straw off his trousers. The urge to confide was powerful.
“Let me tell you something else. Most of the time I hate being a Southerner around here. It means being second-rate in academic work—no, don’t deny it. You Yankee boys always outshine us. We get by on toughness and nerve.”
“Even if that were true, which I don’t believe, those aren’t bad qualities for a soldier.”
Charles ignored the compliment. “Being a Southerner here means feeling inferior. Ashamed of where you come from. Mad because the rest of the corps acts so righteous”—his chin lifted—“which of course it damn well isn’t.”
“I guess smugness is a Yankee disease, Bison.”
A smile softened the defiance in Charles’s eyes. “I reckon no one except another Southerner could understand what I just said. Really understand it. But I thank you for listening.” He held out his hand. “Friends?”
“Absolutely. Always.” Their handclasp was firm, strong.
A whistle sounded from the North Dock. Billy grabbed his valise and bolted for the door. “When you write Brett, tell her I miss her.”
“Tell her yourself.” Charles’s eyes sparkled. “I believe she’ll be up here to visit soon after you get back.”
Billy’s mouth dropped open. “If you’re joking—”
“I wouldn’t joke with you. Not after the way you made hog slops out of Slocum.” From the shelf Charles took his copy of Lévizac’s French grammar. He opened it and removed a folded letter. “I got this from Brett only this morning. She said to surprise you at a”—he located the word in the letter—“propitious moment. Do you understand that?”
“You bet I do.” Billy did a jig with his valise. Two cadets passing outside laughed. “Who’s to chaperone her while she’s here?”
“Orry. He’s bringing Ashton, too. If he didn’t, she’d throw a fit.”
Even that news couldn’t mar Billy’s happiness. He sang and whooped all the way down the stairs, and Charles watched him race across the Plain in a most unsoldierly manner, throwing giddy salutes at a couple of professors.
Charles felt fine for all of half an hour. Then he heard four cadets in the next room arguing loudly about Kansas. An explanation, a handshake—such things might alleviate tensions between friends, but they’d never solve the problems plaguing the land. Not when some Southerners wouldn’t even admit problems existed.
Hell, he thought. What an infernal mess.
Superintendent Lee and the younger officer strolled along the west edge of the Plain in leisurely fashion. A large crowd of hotel guests, including some children, had turned out to watch the exhibition of horsemanship, which the younger officer had ordered moved outdoors because of the intense heat in the riding hall. It was a Saturday afternoon in July; the surrounding hillsides shimmered in haze.
The heat didn’t seem to inhibit the applause of the audience, or the enthusiasm with which the cadets performed. Some demonstrated the correct way to saddle and bridle a horse, and to mount and dismount. Others rode at different gaits or jumped their horses over a series of hay bales. A select group of first classmen charged straw dummies at the gallop. They thrust at the dummies with regulation dragoon sabers, curved swords over a yard long, as they rode by.
All this was watched critically by the younger officer, whose dress cap bore an orange pom-pom as well as an emblem—sheathed crossed sabers with the number 2 in the upper angle. Lieutenant Hawes of the Second Dragoons taught equitation. A year ago he had voluntarily begun a needed course of instruction in cavalry tactics—something the Academy had never befo
re provided.
Because of the presence of spectators, Hawes had ordered his pupils to don their gray merino firemen’s shirts, which were worn outside regulation gray kersey trousers but looked neat since the shirttails were trimmed square.
“Impressive,” Lee said above the sound of thudding hoofs. “You have done a fine job, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir.” Hawes pointed out a dark-haired, good-looking rider who handled his sorrel mare skillfully, almost appearing to float her over the hay bales. “There’s the best horseman in the cadet corps. He shouldn’t even be demonstrating with the others. He’s only in the third class. But all this year he’s been coming to the riding hall every free hour. When he starts equitation work in the fall, there isn’t much I’ll be able to teach him. I like to let him ride with the older boys because he keeps them on their mettle.”
The cadet under discussion jumped another bale, coming down on his regulation Grimsley saddle with a natural grace. Lee watched the cadet’s dark hair streaming behind him, studied his profile, thought a moment.
“South Carolina boy, isn’t he?”
“That’s right, sir. His name’s Main.”
“Ah, yes. Had a cousin here about ten years ago. The boy cuts a fine figure.”
Lieutenant Hawes nodded enthusiastically. “He’s the same sort as Stuart—only better-looking.”
They both laughed. Then Hawes added, “I don’t doubt he’ll be posted to the dragoons or mounted rifles after graduation.”
“Or perhaps to one of those new regiments of cavalry the secretary wants.”
“Main’s marks won’t permit him a choice of branches,” Hawes observed. “But in military studies he’s exceptional. He seems delighted by the idea that a man can fight and be paid for it.”
“That delight will pass when he sees his first battlefield.”
“Yes, sir. In any case, I hope he manages to graduate. He’s a scrapper. Again like Stuart.”
“Then he’ll be an asset wherever he goes.”
