Yearling faces in camp were looking very solemn one hot August morning. Cadet Jennings, in arrest, had sought permission to speak to the commandant; had been granted an interview, and had come back with very little of his old confident, even swaggering, manner. He had been in close arrest six days, the object of much sympathy among certain of his class-mates, because it was given out that he was to be made an example of, all on account of suspected participation in the trick that had deprived a plebe, temporarily at least, of his new rifle; which, according to yearling views, he had no business with, anyhow. Several things happened, however, which wiser heads in the corps could not account for at all. First, Jennings had sent for and held some confidential talk with Frazier. Frazier was seen that night in conversation with a drummer-boy in rear of the orderly's tent—"Asking him to get me some cigarettes," explained Benny. Two days later the Honorable Mr. Frazier arrived at the Point, and spent a long afternoon with his son; and saw him again in the visitors' tent that evening. This time Mr. Frazier senior did not favor the officers with accounts of Benny's prowess at the high-school; he even avoided them, especially the superintendent and commandant, both of whom he referred to subsequently as men with very narrow views of life. He spent a day at the Falls below, and took a West Shore train and hurried away.
The last week of August came. The days were hot; the nights so chilly that the guard wore overcoats from the posting of the first relief after tattoo. In the distinguished quartet of occupants of plebe hotel No. 2 of Company B three at least had been marvellously benefited by their experience in camp—"Corporal" Graham, Connell, and Foster. Their clear eyes and brown skin told of the perfection of health and condition; but "Major-General" Frazier looked far from well. He was evidently troubled in mind and body, and utterly out of sorts.
Camp was to be broken on the 29th, and the tents struck, in accordance with the old fashion, at the tap of the drum. The furlough men would return at noon on the 28th. Once more the ranks would be full, and the halls and barracks echoing to the shouts of glad young voices; but meantime a solemn function was going on—a court-martial for the trial of certain members of the corps. Messrs. Ferguson and Folliott of the Third Class had been "hived" absent at inspection after taps. Lieutenant Cross, commander of Company D, who was making a bull's-eye count about 11.30 one moonlit August evening, found these two lambs of his flock astray, and directed Cadet Lieutenant Fish, officer of the day, to inspect for them every half-hour. It was 2 A.M. before they turned up—young idiots—in civil garb and false mustaches. Each had already an overwhelming array of demerit. Each had barely escaped deficiency at the June examination. Each felt confident his cadet days were numbered, and so, courting a little cheap notoriety, they determined to make a name for what used to be termed "recklessness," and "ran it" down to Cranston's Hotel in disguise. Their fate was assured—dismissal—and their trial occupied no time at all. No one recognized them while away from the Point. It was sufficient that they were absent from their tents more than half an hour.
And then Cadet Jennings was called, and, as was the custom in those days, Cadet Jennings had asked a First Class man to act as his counsel, and Cadet Ross was introduced as amicus curiæ. The court sat in a big vacant room in the old Academic that summer, an object of much interest to swarms of visitors impressed by the sight of a dozen officers solemnly assembled at a long table, clad in the full uniform of their rank. It was also a matter of no little wonderment to certain civil lawyers enjoying a vacation, who looked upon the slow, cumbrous proceedings with sentiments of mingled mirth and derision.
Our good Uncle Sam, when first starting his army a century ago, copied the pompous methods of the soldiers of King George as set forth in the Mutiny Act, and there had been hardly any change in all these years. Lieutenant Breeze, a lively young officer, was judge-advocate of the court, and appeared to be the only man who had a word to say in the premises. Counsel, unlike those in civil courts, rarely opened their mouths. Questions they desired to ask were reduced to writing and propounded by the judge-advocate. Answers were similarly taken down. The court had been in session only an hour over the yearlings' cases when they sent for Mr. Jennings. Presently Graham and others, returning to camp from dancing-lesson, were hailed by the officer of the guard.
"You are wanted at once at the court-room; so is that Major-General tent-mate of yours. Get ready as quick as you can, Mr. Graham. Full dress, with side arms."
"'YOU ARE WANTED AT ONCE AT THE COURT-ROOM'"
Hastening to his tent, Graham found Benny already there, and in ten minutes they were on their way. Benny was very white and scared, Geordie silent. Lieutenant Breeze must have been waiting for them. Graham was summoned in at once. Many a time he had seen courts-martial out on the frontier, and so went promptly to the witness seat and pulled off his right-hand glove. Breeze wasted no time in preliminaries. He knew his man.