Cadet Days: A Story of West Point

by Charles King

"There's no reason that I can see," said Connell, "why First Class men shouldn't be just as soldierly in ranks as other cadets, and every reason why they should."

Then a B Company committee of two informally dropped in on Pops with a similar query, and got almost the same answer. Whereupon the committee said that the class had taken counsel together on the subject. They courted no trouble whatever, but simply gave Graham to understand that it wasn't "customary" to hold a First Class man in the ranks to the same rigid performance of the manual and the same precise carriage that would be exacted of a plebe. Neither could they be held to strict account in such trivial affairs as falling in for roll-call with coats unbuttoned or collars awry or belts twisted, or for other little matters of the kind, and any reports given them for such would be "regarded as personal." Whereupon they took their leave, and Geordie met Con with a broad Scotch grin on his face.

"Jennings is at the bottom of it all," said Connell. "He wants them, however, to start the move over in D Company, because he can't initiate anything of the kind under Bend. You understand."

"Well, to my thinking, and according to the way I was brought up," said Geordie, "such specimens should be court-martialled and dismissed the service. Men who have no higher idea of duty than that are not fit to be officers in the army."

"We-el," said philosopher Con, "they are boys only a little older than plebes, so far as knowledge of the world is concerned. The more I look at it the more I see just how comically juvenile we are in a way. When we were plebes, dozens of our class were never going to speak to those fellows of the yearlings, and never, never going to devil plebes. Within a year most of us were hobnobbing with the class above and lording it over the class below. As yearlings, lots of our fellows hated the first sergeants, who made us stand round, and we weren't going to have anything to do with them. Now we who are sergeants not only mean to make the yearlings toe the mark, but the First Class men as well, and they are going to force a fight on us for doing the very thing that in three or four years from now any one of their number who happens to be on duty here as an instructor will report a first sergeant for not doing. The whole corps says that when 'it' comes back here as an officer it won't forget it ever was a cadet, as every officer seems to do the moment he gets here, and you can bet your sash and chevrons it will do just exactly as the officers seem to do to-day. Now these fellows have an overweening idea of their importance because they are so soon to be graduates. That seems something very big from our point of view, and yet about the first thing a second lieutenant has to learn when he gets to his regiment is that he doesn't amount to a hill of beans. He's nothing but a plebe all over again. There's Jim Forester; when he was cadet officer of the day and we were plebes, didn't we think him just a little tin god on wheels? Recollect what a bully voice he had, and how he used to swing old D Company? But what did he amount to at Fort Reynolds last summer? Nothing but a low-down second lieutenant going on as officer of the guard, drilling squads, and—do you remember how the colonel jumped him that morning for some error in the guard list? Why, Geordie, you and I were of much more account at the fort than he was. And now here are these fellows kicking against the pricks. They don't want to be soldierly, because it's too plebelike in view of their coming shoulder-straps. We-el, they've just got to, that's all there is about it. Where are the gloves?"

And with that the two Westerners doffed their coats, donned the "mittens," and hammered away at each other as they were in daily habit of doing, and had been doing more or less for many a month of their Third Class year, Sayers and other experts coaching and occasionally taking hold for a brisk round or two on their own account. It was well understood that both Badger and Coyote were in tip-top trim and training. Meanwhile no trouble occurred in Connell's company worth speaking of, and little of consequence in B, but it was brewing. Three or four seniors had been deservedly reported for minor offences exactly as Geordie said they should be, but they were gentlemen who took it without audible comment and as a matter of course. Then came an experiment. Mr. Curry, a First Class man of rather slender build and reputation, one of the Jennings set, backed deliberately into ranks one morning at reveille, and stood there leisurely buttoning his coat, glancing at Graham out of the corner of his eye. Geordie had just about reached the B's in his roll, and stopped short.

"Curry, fall out and button that coat."

Curry reddened, but did not budge.

Pops budged, but did not redden. If anything he was a trifle paler as he stepped quickly over opposite the left of the company. His voice was low and firm:

"Curry, fall out at once and button that coat."