by Louis Bayard
“Are you feeling poorly, Mr. Landor?”
I brushed a ring of sweat from my temple. I said:
“Gentlemen, if it’s all right, I’d like to beg a favor from you.”
“Name it.”
They were expecting me, probably, to ask for a cool towel or a draft of air. This was what they heard instead: “I’d like to engage one of your cadets as my assistant.”
I knew, as I said it, I was trespassing. Thayer and Hitchcock had been careful, from the start of our relationship, to hold the line between military and civilian. Yet here was I, ready to undo their work, and oh, it roused them. Down went the teacups, up snapped the heads, out came all their calm, good, reasoned reasons. . . . I had to clap my hands over my ears to make them stop.
“Please! You don’t follow me, gentlemen. There’s nothing statutory about this position. I’m looking for someone to be my eyes and ears within the cadet corps. My agent, if you like. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer people know about it, the better.”
Hitchcock’s eyes flared a little as he looked at me. In that gentle voice of his, he asked:
“You’re looking for someone to spy on his fellow cadets?”
“ To be our spy, yes. That won’t do too much violence to the Army’s honor, will it?”
And still they resisted. Hitchcock gave the utmost attention to his teacup. Thayer kept brushing the same speck of lint from his blue sleeve.
I got up from my seat and strode to the far side of the room.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “you’ve tied my hands. I may not go freely among your cadets, I may not speak to them without your leave, I may not do this and this. Even if I could,” I said, raising my hand to Thayer’s objection, “even if I could, where would it get me? If young men can do nothing else, they can keep secrets. With all due respect, Colonel Thayer, your system forces them to keep secrets. Which will only be revealed to one of their own.”
Did I really believe that? I don’t know. I’ve found that saying you believe something can, on occasion, pass for the real thing. At the very least, it silenced Thayer and Hitchcock.
And then—slowly—they came round. I don’t recall who budged first, but one of them did, just a fraction. I assured them their precious cadet could still go to his recitals and drills, meet all his duties, keep his class standing. I told them he would get grand experience in intelligence gathering, which in turn would bode well for his career prospects. Medals, ribbons . . . a whole glorious future. . . .
Yes, they came round. Which is not to say they truly warmed to the idea, but before too long, they were bunting names at each other like croquet balls. What of Clay, Junior? What of Du Pont? Kibby was the soul of discretion, Ridgely had a quiet resourcefulness. . . .
In my seat now, with a corncake in my palm, smiling milkily, I leaned toward them.
“And what would you say to Cadet Poe?” I asked.
Their silence I took at first to mean they did not recognize the name. I was wrong.
“Poe?”
The objections were almost too many to consider. Start with this: Poe was a fourth classman who had not yet sat for examinations. Add this: in his short time at the Academy, he had already become a disciplinary problem. (There was a shock.) He had been marked down for missing evening parade, class parade, and guard mounting. He had betrayed, in several instances, a spirit of mild insolence. Last month, his name had shown up on a list of top cadet offenders. His current ranking was. . . .
“Seventy-first,” said Thayer, promptly. “Among eighty in his class.” That a mere plebe, checkered, untried, should be given preferment over cadets who were his superiors in class, rank, and deportment would set a terrible example . . . a . . . a precedent without precedent. . . .
I heard them out—being military, they rather insisted on that—and then, once they were done, I said, “Gentlemen, let me remind you. This job, by its very nature, cannot go to anyone in the upper ranks. The cadet officers—well, it’s widely known they report to you, is it not? If I had something to hide, believe me, I wouldn’t take it to a cadet officer. I’d take it to a—a Poe.”
Thayer did a strange thing just then: he plied the corners of his eyes— stretched out the skin to reveal the red membrane beneath.
“Mr. Landor,” he said. “This is highly irregular.”
“This whole business is a bit irregular, isn’t it?” With a touch of roughness, I added, “It was Poe put me onto this Loughborough fellow. He has powers of observation. Which, I allow, are buried in a load of cockalorum. But I’m a good sifter, gentlemen.”
To my right, I heard Hitchcock’s voice, hushed with amazement. “Do you honestly believe Poe is suited to this?”
“Well, I don’t know. But he does show signs of it, yes.” Seeing Thayer shake his head, I said: “And if he fails to suit, then I’ll take one of your Clays or Du Ponts and call it a bargain.”
Hitchcock’s hands were tented over his mouth, so that his words, as they came forth, sounded as if they were already being taken back. “Regarded strictly on academic grounds,” he said, “Poe is rather strong. Even Bérard can’t deny he has intellect.”
“Nor can Ross,” said Thayer, dismal.
“One might also argue that, relative to some of the other plebes, he’s not completely immature. His prior service, perhaps, gives him a certain poise.”
And so, for the first time that afternoon, I learned something.
“Poe’s been in the Army?” I asked.
“He was an enlisted man for three years, I believe, before coming here.”
“Well, that takes me aback, gentlemen. He told me he was a poet.”
“Oh, he is,” said Hitchcock, smiling sadly. “I am the beneficiary of two of his volumes.”
“Do they have any merit?”
“Some merit, yes. Very little sense, or at least none that my poor faculties can make out. I believe he drank too much Shelley at a young age.”
“Would that were all he drank,” murmured Thayer.
You’ll excuse me, Reader, if I paled at this last remark. It was less than twenty-four hours since I’d watched Cadet Poe totter away from Benny Havens’, and it would not have shocked me to learn that Thayer had posted eyeballs on every trunk and vine.
“Well,” I said, talking faster, “I’m relieved to know the poet business pans out. He strikes me as the sort who likes making up stories. Just so he may be at the center of something.”
“Intriguing stories, too,” Hitchcock said. “He has told no fewer than three people that he is the grandson of Benedict Arnold.”
I suppose it was the madness of it that caught me in the midsection, sent a laugh spinning through that cool airless sleepy parlor. To make such a claim at West Point—the very place that General Arnold had plotted to hand over to King George—the place he would have handed over if Major André hadn’t gotten himself arrested—oh, that was beyond gumption.
It was certainly not a claim to endear yourself to Sylvanus Thayer. His lips, I noticed, were unusually thin, and his eyes had gone almost blue with cold as he turned to Hitchcock and said, “You’ve forgotten Poe’s most intriguing story. He claims to be a murderer.”
There was a rather long pause after that one. I could see Hitchcock shaking his head and grimacing at the floor.
“Well,” I said, “you can’t believe a tale like that. The young man I met wouldn’t—wouldn’t take a human—”
“If I believed it,” Thayer snapped, “he would no longer be a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy. Of that you may be sure.” He picked up his teacup again, drained away the last bitter remnants. “The question, Mr. Landor, is whether you believe it.” The cup wobbled on his knee and slipped, but Thayer’s hand was already sliding forward to catch it. “I suppose,” he said, half yawning, “if you’re so very keen on using this Poe fellow, you might want to ask him yourself.”
Narrative of Gus Landor
8
October 30th
Once all the
dust had cleared, the only question left was how best to broach this Poe fellow. Hitchcock liked the idea of dragging him into some cockloft for a clandestine encounter. Me, I inclined toward approaching him in plain view, the better to hide what we were doing. Which was why, on Wednesday morning, Hitchcock and I went as unannounced visitors to Poe’s morning sectional, headed by one Claudius Bérard.
Monsieur Bérard was a native Frenchman with a history of evasion. As a young man in the days of Napoleon, he had avoided army duty by the civilized means of hiring a substitute. This had worked out very well until the substitute thoughtlessly took a cannonball in Spain, leaving M. Bérard once again in line for duty. No fool, he picked up and fled overseas, where he made himself into a roving French instructor, first at Dickinson College and then, yes, the United States Military Academy. No matter how far you fly, the army will have you. And if that be the case, M. Bérard must have thought, how much nicer to serve out your time in the Hudson Highlands, listening to American youths grind the French language into meal. And yet had this not proved to be a torment as deep as any he had risked back home? M. Bérard had reason, in short, to question himself, and this skeptical note never left him, it formed a moving black speck in the center of his eye even as he remained utterly still.
Now, though, at the sight of his commandant, he jumped straight to his feet, and the cadets likewise rose from their backless benches. Hitchcock waved them back down and motioned me to a pair of seats just inside the door.
Sinking back into his chair, M. Bérard gazed with blue-veined lids at the fourth classman who stood unguarded in the center of the room, squinting into a red-leather quarto.
“Continue, Mr. Plunkett,” said the Frenchman.
This unfortunate cadet once more clawed his way through the over-brush of prose: “He arrived to an inn and put away his horse. He then ate . . . a hearty dinner on bread and . . . poison.”
“Ah, Mr. Plunkett,” said the instructor. “That would not be a very palatable meal, even to a cadet. Poisson translates as ‘fish’.”
So corrected, the cadet made ready to resume until he was stopped by M. Bérard’s plump white hand.
“Enough. You may be seated. The next time, I entreat you to take greater care with your prepositions. One-point-three is your grade.”
Three more cadets broke themselves on the same book, coming away with grades of 2.5, 1.9, and 2.1, respectively. Another pair labored away at the blackboard, conjugating verbs to similar effect. No one spoke a word of French. Their whole end in learning the tongue was to translate military texts, and many a lad must have asked himself why he was wasting his time with bread and poison when he might instead be taking down Jomini’s theories on terrain. It was left to M. Bérard to make the case for Voltaire and Lesage, and he was too weary. Only once, ten minutes before the end of the recital, did he see fit to rouse himself. Which is to say, he pressed his hands together and inflected his voice ever so slightly upward.
“Mr. Poe, please.”
From the far side of the room, a head jerked to attention; a body sprang forth.
“Mr. Poe. Would you please translate the following passage from Chapter Two of Histoire de Gil Blas?”
Three paces brought the cadet to the center of the room. Fronted by Bérard, flanked by his peers, watched by the commandant: he was on the spot, and he knew it. Opening the book, he cleared his throat—twice— and began.
“While they were preparing my eggs, I joined in conversation with the landlady, whom I had never seen before. She struck me as pretty enough. . . .”
Two things were clear right away. First, he knew more French than the others. And second, he wanted to make this rendition of Gil Blas linger for generations unborn.
“He came up to me with a friendly air: ‘I have just heard that you are’ . . . oh, shall we say, ‘the eminent Gil Blas of Santillane, the ornament of Oviedo and the torch’ —sorry, ‘the leading light of philosophy’.”
I was so caught up in the performance—the jab of the jaw, the slicing motion of the hands—that I was slow to notice the change in Bérard’s face. He was smiling, yes, but his eyes had a feline hardness that made me think a trap had been sprung. And soon I had all the confirmation I needed, as the first titters came leaking from the seated cadets.
“ ‘Is it indeed possible that you’—by which he means the other people in the room, I expect—‘that all of you behold this genius, this master wit whose reputation is so great throughout the land? Don’t you know,’ he went on, addressing himself to the landlord and landlady, ‘don’t you know what you possess here?’ ”
The titters grew in volume. The looks grew bolder.
“ ‘Why, your house harbors a veritable treasure!’ ”
One cadet elbowed his neighbor. Another jammed his forearm into his mouth.
“ ‘ You behold in this gentleman the eighth wonder of the world!’”
Gasps and chortles, and still Poe bore on, his voice rising to match the voices around him.
“Then, turning himself toward me and throwing his arms about me: ‘Pardon these transports,’ added he; ‘I can never hope to master the’—”
And at last he did pause, but only to hurl himself full bore on those final words:
“—‘the absolute joy your presence causes me!’”
Bérard sat there softly smiling as the cadets squealed and howled. They might have torn the Academy’s roof right off had they not been stopped by the clearing of Captain Hitchcock’s throat. One unit of sound, barely loud enough to reach my ears, and the room went quiet.
“Thank you, Mr. Poe,” said Bérard. “As usual, you have gone beyond the demands of literal translation. I suggest in the future you leave the embellishments to Mr. Smollett. However, you have nicely captured the sense of the passage. Two-point-seven is your grade.”
Poe said nothing. Didn’t move. Just stood there, in the center of the room, with his eyes flaming and his jaw angled out.
“You may be seated, Mr. Poe.”
Only then did he return to his seat—slowly, stiffly—without looking at another soul.
A minute later, the drums were beating assembly for dinner formation. Up stood the cadets, pushing away their slates and clapping on their shakos. Hitchcock waited until they were filing through the open doorway before calling out:
“Mr. Poe, if you would.”
Poe stopped so quickly that the cadet behind him had to spin clear to avoid colliding with him.
“Sir?” He squinted us into his sights. His hands, glazed with chalk, danced across his leather visor.
“If we might speak to you, please.”
He set his mouth in a tight line and came toward us, wheeling his head just as the last of his classmates marched out.
“You may sit, Mr. Poe.”
Hitchcock’s voice, I noticed, was even softer than usual as he motioned the cadet to his bench. You can’t be too rough, I guess, on someone who’s given you two editions of his poetry.
“Mr. Landor here would like a few minutes of your time,” said the commandant. “We have already excused you from dinner formation, so you may come to mess when you’re ready. Do you require anything else, Mr. Landor?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then, gentlemen, I will bid you good day.”
This I hadn’t expected: Hitchcock taking himself out of the picture, and Bérard following him, leaving just the two of us in this small, sawdusty room. Sitting on our benches and staring straight ahead, like Quakers at meeting.
“That was a brave performance,” I said at last.
“Brave?” he answered. “I was merely doing as Monsieur Bérard requested.”
“I’d bet good money that you’ve read Gil Blas before.”
It was only from the corner of one eye, but I could see his mouth slowly lengthening.
“You’re amused, Mr. Poe.”
“I’m only thinking of my father.”
“The senior Poe?”
“The seni
or Allan,” he said. “A purely mercantile beast. He came upon me—oh, it was some years ago—reading Gil Blas in his parlor. Demanded to know why I would waste my time on such rubbish. And here we are. . . .” He extended his arm to take in the whole room. “In the land of engineers, where Gil Blas is king.” Smiling briefly, he rattled his thin fingers. “Of course, Smollett’s translation has its charms, but he does gild the lily, doesn’t he? If I have time this winter, I shall write up my own version. The first copy will go to Mr. Allan.”
I pulled out a quid of tobacco and popped it in my mouth. The sweet spicy juice burst off the lining of my cheeks, sent a tingle through my back teeth.
