Kitabı oku: «Cadet Days. A Story of West Point», sayfa 11

For the first three or four nights such was the vigilance of the officers that little active disturbance of the plebes occurred; but at all hours of the day and evening, when the boys were not in ranks or on duty, hazing in some form or other was going on. The hops had begun. The post was filling up with visitors. Many of the corps had friends and relatives at the hotels or among the families on the post. Benny, a beautiful dancer, and bright, chatty fellow, was basking in the sunshine of his social triumphs outside of camp and revelling in mischief within. By the 8th of July Graham had a squad of thirty plebes to drill and perfect in the manual, and keen was the rivalry between his boys and Crandal's. Geordie had won the respect and was rapidly winning the enthusiastic regard of his recruits. Crandal, far sharper in his manner, was "much more military," as most of the yearlings said, but the officers held different views. Both Winn and Crandal ranked Geordie, as has been stated; yet the Kentuckian, after watching Pops's methods while his own squad was resting, did not hesitate to say, "He holds right over us; we're not in it with him as a drill-master" – a statement which Crandal, however, could not for a moment indorse.

On the 10th of July every man of Geordie's squad was in the battalion, yet forty remained who were declared not yet proficient. Some were Winn's, some Crandal's, some were the backsliders from smaller squads, but Winn was relieved, and sent back to the battalion to act as color-bearer, and only Crandal and Pops were left. Four days later Mr. Crandal was returned to his company. "Made too much noise," said Lieutenant Allen, in explaining it afterwards, and Pops was left in sole charge of the backward plebes. Within the week Colonel Hazzard, after critical watching for a day or two, said to Geordie, in the hearing of the sentry on Number Five: "That is excellent work, Mr. Graham. You deserve great credit, sir." And the sentry on Number Five was Benny Frazier, who listened with jealous and angry heart.

Two days later, all plebes being now regularly in the battalion, Geordie was returned to duty with Company B, and the next day marched on guard as junior corporal. He had heard of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Frazier with their girl friends the previous evening; and just before parade, among the throng of arriving guests, as Geordie was returning from the post of the sentry on Number Two, he came suddenly upon the party close to the visitors' tent. Throwing his rifle into the other hand, Geordie lifted his shako in courteous salutation. Mr. Frazier senior, walking with Cadet Warren, made a flourishing bow, and in stately dignity said:

"Good-evening, Mr. Graham: I hope you are well, sir," but passed quickly on. Mrs. Frazier's bow and the bows of the younger ladies were cold and formal. A lump rose in Geordie's throat. He hated to be misjudged.

"It's all Benny boy's doings," said Connell, angrily, when he learned of the occurrence that night. "That young prodigy is a well-bred, sweet-mannered cad."

It seems, too, that the Honorable Mr. Frazier adopted the same magnificent manner to the senior officers whom he chanced to meet. To them, to whom he could not say too much of Benny's gifts a year gone by, he now spoke only in the most formal and ceremonious way. To certain of the younger graduates, however, he confided his sense of the affront put upon him personally by the omission of the name of his son and heir ("The finest soldier of the lot, sir, as any competent and unprejudiced officer will tell you") from the list of corporals.

But if the disappointed old gentleman would no longer recognize the superintendent and commandant as men worthy his esteem, he was showing odd interest in the humbler grades. Lieutenant Allen, trotting in one evening from a ride through the mountains, came suddenly upon two dim figures just outside the north gate. One, a drummer-boy, darted down the hill towards the engineer barracks; the other, tall and portly, turned his back and walked with much dignity away.

"What's old man Frazier hobnobbing with drum-boys for?" said he to Lieutenant Breeze at the mess that evening, at which query the bright eyes of Lieutenant Breeze blazed with added interest.

"I wish I could find out," said he.

CHAPTER XIV

August came, and the Fraziers went, promising: to return for the 28th. Once more all the influences that a mother's love can devise had been brought to bear on those members of Benny's class whose friendship he either claimed or desired. Connell had been besieged with smiles, and would have been overwhelmed with attentions but for his sturdy determination "not to be bought." Then came open rupture. As first sergeant he had rebuked Frazier for falling in with belts disarranged at parade, and attempting to adjust them in ranks. Benny was piling up demerit, and yet taking every possible liberty, and doing a good deal of angry talking behind Connell's back when reported. This time Connell left his place in front of the centre and walked down opposite his class-mate.

"Fall out, Frazier. You know perfectly well you have no business in ranks in that shape. Fall out, and fix your belts." And Frazier, scowling and muttering sulkily, obeyed. Connell overheard something that sounded very like "putting on too many airs; boning military at a class-mate's expense," as he started back to his post, and whirled about, quick as a cat.

"Class-mate or no class-mate, you cannot appear in ranks of this company in that shape, and I want no words about it," he said. Then as Benny, hanging his head and refusing to meet his eyes, bunglingly fastened his belt, Connell went on to the right of the company. They were standing at ease by this time, and as soon as Connell was well out of hearing, Frazier again began:

"You're taking advantage of your size, that's what you're doing, Mr. Connell; and you wouldn't dare to speak to me in that tone if you weren't altogether too big for me to tackle."

Geordie heard this. He could not help hearing it, but before he could warn Benny to say no more of that, the cadet captain called the company to attention, and began his inspection. That night, after tattoo, Connell said to Geordie:

"I hear that Frazier declared I was taking advantage of my size. Did you hear it?" And Pops refused to answer.

"I don't mean to see any more trouble between you and Benny if I can help it, Con," said he. "He's making an ass of himself, but there sha'n't be any row if I can prevent it."

But Pops couldn't prevent it. Connell went wrathfully in search of Benny, charged him with what had been said, and demanded that he either affirm or deny it, and Benny could not deny; there were altogether too many witnesses.

"I am too heavy to take advantage of you in any way," said Connell, as soon as he could control his temper sufficiently, "but in the whole class or the whole corps I challenge you to find one man who will say I have imposed in the faintest degree upon you. If you can, I'll beg your pardon; if not, by Jupiter, you must beg mine!"

So far from finding any one to agree with him, for even his tent-mates had to admit they thought he deserved all he got, and was lucky in not being reported for muttering when spoken to on duty – a report which carried heavy punishment – Benny ran foul of a Tartar. Little Brooks, who was slighter and shorter than himself, fired up when Frazier appealed to him, and said: "Connell was perfectly right, and you were utterly wrong. You've been wrong all along ever since we came in camp. You've imposed on him in every way you dared, and simply forced him to 'skin' you, or else stand convicted of showing you partiality. That's my opinion, since you ask it; and if I were in Connell's place you'd eat your words or fight – one of the two."

This was a stunner, as Winn put it. Benny now had no recourse but to challenge Brooks, as, indeed, Benny himself well knew. It was either that or a case of being "sent to Coventry."

"My parents are here, as you very probably considered when you made your remarks, Mr. Brooks," said he, magnificently. "I do not wish to fight while they're here. They go on Saturday, and then we can settle this."

"Any time you please, only don't wait too long," was Brooks's reply.

But they didn't go Saturday. They stayed several days longer. Meantime Frazier accused Geordie of having reported his language to Connell. He also told his mother of this new act of meanness on Graham's part. Mrs. Frazier could not understand such base ingratitude. If that was the result of being brought up in the army, she hoped her boy would quit the service as soon as possible after graduation. Frazier apologized to Connell with very bad grace. But while that ended hostilities, so far as they were concerned, Connell told him in plain words that he owed still another apology. "You have given your relations to understand," he said, "that it was Graham who reported your language to me. It was Graham who refused to do it." All the same, Benny did not take the trouble to undo the wrong he had done, and set Geordie right with his mother and friends.

The Fraziers were gone by the first week in August, however, and then Benny had a disordered stomach of some kind, and Dr. Brett excused him two days, but sent him about his business on the third, saying there was nothing on earth the matter with him but eating too much pastry and smoking cigarettes. Then Benny had several confinements to serve, and sent word to Mr. Brooks, who was waxing impatient, that there'd be time enough after he got out of confinement and could go to Fort Clinton. Brooks replied that if it would be any accommodation he'd cut supper that evening, and they could "have it out" in the company street when camp was deserted, but Frazier declined. By the second week in August the boy found he was considered a shirk, and in order to prove his willingness to fight he carried his bullying of a shy, silent, lanky plebe to a point the poor fellow couldn't stand. He was taller than Frazier, but had not the advantage of the year's gymnastic training, and Benny won an easy victory, but only over the plebe. It was evident his class-mates were still shy of him.

Then he came to Geordie and asked him to be his second, and carry his challenge to Brooks. He wanted the indorsement that such seconding would carry, but Geordie refused.

"Why not?" asked Benny, hotly.

"For two reasons. First, because I agree with Brooks; and second, because you have no right whatever to ask me to second you."

Benny went off, aflame with indignation, to report Graham's monstrous conduct. Some of the class said Geordie was entirely right; others replied that there were plenty to second him even if Pops wouldn't, and at last poor Benny found there was no help for it. He had to meet that fierce little C Company bantam, and he did; but the fight wasn't worth telling about. Benny couldn't be coaxed to get up after the second knock-down. He was scientifically hammered for about thirty seconds, and that was quite enough. He was so meek for a few days thereafter that even the plebes laughed.

And now the foolish boy decided it due to his dignity to "cut Graham cold," which means to refuse to speak to or recognize a fellow-cadet at all – a matter that hardly helped him in his class, and this was the state of affairs between them until the end of camp.

Geordie really felt it more than he showed. He hated to be misjudged, yet was too proud to require any further words. Between him and Connell, Ames, Winn, Benton, Rogers, and men of that stamp in the class the bonds of friendship were constantly strengthening. B Company kept up a good name for discipline during camp, thanks to Connell's thoroughly soldierly work as first sergeant, and the cadet captain's even-tempered methods. Geordie, as third sergeant, had few occasions to assert his authority or come in unpleasant contact with upper-class men serving as privates. He was content, hopeful, happy. He spent one or two evenings looking on at the hops, but the more he looked the more boyish his class-mates appeared as contrasted with the cavaliers he had been accustomed to watch at Fort Reynolds; so he and Connell preferred listening to the music from a distance. On Saturdays they clambered over the glorious heights that surrounded them, made long explorations among the mountains, and had many a splendid swim in the Hudson. They kept up their dancing-lessons "for First Class camp," as they said, and to that they were already looking forward.

At last came the rush of visitors for the closing week in camp, the return of the pallid-faced furlough-men, the surrender of their offices to the bona fide sergeants, and Geordie and Connell found themselves shoulder to shoulder in the front rank on the right of Company B. Three days later, and with the September sunshine pouring in their window on the south side of barracks, the two corporals were room-mates at last. Connell being already hailed among his class-mates as "Badger," in honor of his State, the next thing Geordie knew some fellow suggested that there was no use calling him "corporal" when he really was a corporal and would be a sergeant in less than a year, and so, Connell being "Badger," why not find a characteristic name for Pops. "Call him Kiote," suggested Fowler, who came from far Nebraska, and gave the frontiersman's pronunciation to the Spanish coyote– the prairie wolf. And so it happened that the two Western chums started their house-keeping for the Third Class year under the firm name of "Badger & Coyote."

Meantime Benny Frazier, staggering under a heavy weight of demerit and the ill-concealed distrust of a number of his class, had moved into the room across the hall. Connell and Geordie had hoped they would not find themselves in the same division, but the matter seemed unavoidable. Benny's chum was a college-bred young fellow of some twenty years of age, with a love for slang, cigarettes, and fast society. His name was Cullen. No steadiness could be expected there. Extremes met in the two cadet households at the south end of the third division "cock-loft" that beautiful autumn, and, except as extremes, they hardly met at all. There was little intercourse between the rooms. Cullen sometimes came into borrow matches, soap, postage-stamps, or something or other of that ilk; Benny never.

Studies began at once as they did the previous year, and Geordie started about the middle of the fourth section in mathematics and in the fifth in French. In determining his general standing this year he would have no English study to aid him. He must do his best with analytical and calculus, with French and drawing, and for drawing he had little or no taste. It was with gloomy foreboding, therefore, that the boy began his work, for there was every prospect of his standing lower in January than at the beginning of the term. Frankly he wrote home his fears, and his eyes filled when he read the loving, confident replies. Both father and mother were well content with his record, and bade him borrow no trouble. Even if French and drawing should pull him down a few files, what mattered it?

Buddie was enthusiastically happy, however, for when the revision of the cadet appointments was announced very few changes were made except among the corporals. Benton held his place as first, Connell rose from fourth to third, Ames, more studious than military, dropped a few files, and Geordie made the biggest rise of anybody. From fourteenth he climbed to eighth, jumping among others Crandal, and this in Buddie's eyes was better than standing high in scholarship.

With all his earnest nature Geordie threw himself into the work before him. Connell, with his clear, logical head and steady application, speedily proved of the utmost service to his less brilliant chum, for, so far from resenting request for explanation, he was perpetually inquiring if Geordie saw through this, that, and the other thing, and resenting, if anything, the reluctance of his room-mate to ask for aid instead of wasting time groping in the dark.

"Well," said Pops, "I don't want to give up until certain I can't do it myself, and it takes time."

This in itself was a far better condition of things than existed the previous year. Then there was another. Connell was every bit as orderly and careful as Pops. He held that it was unsoldierly to be indifferent to regulations. From first to last of September neither received a single demerit, and Connell was winning high and Graham good marks in every academic duty.

The autumn weather was gorgeous. The afternoon battalion and skirmish drills were full of spirit and interest. Then came early October, early frosts, gorgeous foliage all over the heights, and, above all, their first lessons in the riding-hall. The year of gymnastic training had measurably prepared them, and Frazier had ridden, so he informed his cronies, ever since he was big enough to straddle a Shetland; he therefore was all impatience to show the class how perfectly he was at home à cheval. 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."

When December came Geordie's patient, steadfast work had begun to tell. Drawing proved no such stumbling-block as he expected. He found himself clumsy at first in topographical work, yet gradually becoming interested and skilful. His score was the exact reverse of Frazier's. Starting with his usual easy dash and confidence, Benny's performances the first few weeks won high marks, while Geordie's "goose-tracks" were rewarded with nothing above 2. As weeks wore on the steadfast workers began to challenge Frazier for place. One after another Benton, Ames, and certain lesser lights climbed above him. Then he grew reckless, and the week before the Christmas holidays Graham's mark was better than that of the quondam head of the class. So, too, in French. Geordie never could succeed in reading or speaking the language in which Frazier was idiomatic fluency itself, but he knew more about its grammatical structure, and his translations were accurate, and even at times scholarly. The January examination, to which Graham had looked forward with such dread, because he believed he must go down, passed off with very different results. He had gained two files in mathematics, ten in languages, and twelve in drawing. As for discipline, he and Connell stood among the very leaders.

"Stick to it, Geordie boy," wrote Lieutenant McCrea, "we're proud of you. I have bet Lane you will be one of the four first sergeants in June and up among the twenties in class rank." As for his mother's letter, Geordie read it with eyes that grew so wet the loving words began to swim and dance, and soon were blotted out entirely.

Then came the long uphill pull to furlough June – that blessed, blissful, half-way resting-place so eagerly looked forward to. If it meant joy to fourscore stalwart young fellows, who for two years had been living a life of absolute routine and discipline, what did it not promise to fond, yearning mother hearts at home – to mother eyes pining for the sight of the brave boy faces so long denied them? To Pops and Connell the days sped swiftly by, because they wasted no hours in idle dreaming. With them the watchword was ever, "Act, act in the living present."

April artillery drills, the dash and whirl and thunder of light battery work, were upon them before they realized it, and away before they thought it possible. But there was drag and trouble and tribulation in the room across the hall.

Narrowly escaping discharge on account of demerit in January, both Frazier and his room-mate began the new year with a whole volume of punishments and confinements. "Extras breed extras" used to be the saying in the corps. There was a time during Christmas holidays when Benny's room was a sort of "open day and night" restaurant, where all the reckless spirits in the battalion were assembled, where demerit seemed to live in the air and be carried like microbes of disease all over the barracks. On May 1st it was known that Frazier had hardly three demerit to run on until the 1st of June, and that calculus had tripped and thrown him as predicted. Down to the second section went the proud head of the year before, and then in the midst of trials at the Point came tidings of tribulation at home. Mr. Frazier senior had been taken strangely and suddenly ill; had suffered from a partial stroke of paralysis. Benny applied for leave for two days. The superintendent telegraphed for particulars, and on reply refused the application. There was no immediate danger, said the physician. There had been business worries and losses, but the stroke was not fatal.

Then Pops and Connell noticed that Mr. Jennings, who still hung on near the foot of his class, was paying frequent visits to Frazier when the latter, being in confinement, could not get out. Twice they heard high words, but in all the excitement of the coming of June and the examinations, the delirious joy of trying on the civilian dress they were now as eager to appear in as they were to get out of it and into "cadets" two years before, Benny's affairs attracted little attention.

At last came graduating day of the First Class, the announcements of the new officers in the battalion, and Pops and Connell, whose chevrons as corporals rubbed one against the other for the last time in the ranks of the color guard that morning, shook hands the instant "rest" was ordered, the centre of a fire of chaff and congratulation.

"The firm of 'Badger & Coyote' is dissolved," laughed Harry Winn, for Connell was promoted first sergeant of Company D, and Geordie, who called the roll of old K Troop in Arizona when he was but a four-year-old, was destined for a year to do similar service as cadet first sergeant of Company B; "and I'd rather have you than any man I know," said his new captain, Bend, the first sergeant of their company in their plebe camp, that very night.

And then came the result of the examination. Rising to thirty-first in mathematics, thirtieth in French, and twenty-second in drawing, standing among the first in discipline, Geordie was out of the thirties and into the twenties at last; and two days later he and Connell – the happiest boys in all America – were speeding westward together. "First sergeants and furlough-men, Pops," said Con; "who'd 'a' thought it two years ago? Certainly not Frazier."

Alas, poor Benny! Loaded down with demerit, he was held at the Point when his class-mates scattered for home.