Immediately the sentry cried, "Corporal of the guard, number seven."
I said, "Mr. Crosman, you are not going to report me for smoking, are you?"
"Well," said he, "if I should, are you going to deny it? What's the use? Didn't that sentry see you with a pipe in your hand and this tent full of smoke? How could you deny it?"
I moved, my impulse being to return to my tent. "But," said he, "don't be a coward, plebe, face the music. Don't run away."
So I sat still waiting results. Shortly I saw a corporal with two men armed with muskets approaching. They marched up facing me, one on each side. Then the corporal sternly ordered me to take my place between them.
When I refused to move each member of the patrol placed an arm under mine, lifting me from my seat. They dragged me along, the corporal placing his bayonet against my back. I was placed in the prisoners' tent. This was in June and the weather was very warm. The walls of the tent were lowered and a sentinel placed over me and I was ordered to take what was then known as the Shanghai step. The tactics had just been changed from Scott's to Hardie's, Hardie's step being quicker and longer than the step formerly used. The exercise I was ordered to take was marking time by raising the feet as high as possible, bringing the knee up against the stomach.
I did this until wet with perspiration and so exhausted that I almost fell. Presently the sentinel called, "Turn out the guard, Officer of the Day," when they hustled me with other prisoners to form on the left of the guard.
The officer of the day was Cadet Lieutenant Porter, whom I had met. My hopes brightened, thinking I would be released as soon as the circumstances became known. When he came to me, he remarked, "Why, plebe, what are you confined for?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Well," said he, "if you don't know, I think I will keep you in confinement until you find out."