Cadet Days: A Story of West Point

by Charles King

CHAPTER XVIII

What a wonderful summer was that of Geordie's First Class camp! To begin with, even the graduates had helped shoulder him through the sally-port after the announcement of the new appointments, and then turned out in their civilian dress, with canes and silk umbrellas and all manner of unaccustomed, unmilitary "truck," and cheered him, as for the first time he swung the battalion into column and marched it away to the mess-hall; and the new yearlings sliced up the white belts he wore that day and divided them among their number "for luck," and many an appeal came for the old first-sergeant chevrons; but Pops shook his head at that. They went off by mail far out across the rolling prairies to Fort Reynolds, where, in his letter to mother, a few modest words told of the high honor conferred upon him, and that he "thought it should go to Con." Buddie never waited to hear the end of that letter. He bolted, hatless, out of the house and down the line of officers' quarters to tell McCrea, shouting the tidings to everybody he saw as he ran. And McCrea came over to the doctor's forthwith, and Captain Lane and his charming wife dropped in before the family were half through tea; and the colonel came in later to congratulate Mrs. Graham, and so did many another wife and mother during the evening, and it was a season of joy and gladness not soon to be forgotten, and who shall say what volume of praise and thanksgiving and gratitude went up with the loving woman's prayer when at last she could kneel and pour out her heart all alone. Indeed, it seemed, especially to Buddie, an event of much greater moment to the friends on the frontier than it did to Geordie. His first concern was for Connell. Wright, of course—big, ponderous fellow, moving slowly, as big bodies always do—could not be expected to come at once to congratulate the comrades who had stepped over his head. He was "let down easily," however, and made first lieutenant of the company instead of captain; but he came over to shake hands with Graham and tell him it was "all right," and found that Connell had never left his chum from the moment the battalion was dismissed. Brushing his way through the crowd, the loyal fellow had almost fought a passage to Geordie's side. He could not bear the idea that Graham's triumph should be clouded by fear of Connell's disappointment.

"Why, Pops, honest Injun, I'd hate to leave old D, now that I've got to know them all so well; and I tell you candidly if I expect to land in the Engineers next June I want nothing to interfere with my studies meantime, and first captaincy is a powerful tax on a man's time and thought. But even outside of that, old man, I believe you deserve it more and will honor it more than any fellow in the class."

And with such friends at his back, what young soldier would not feel pride and hope and confidence? Then came the close of the examination, the announcement of class standing; and Geordie had clambered out of the twenties and well up into the teens, standing second in drill regulations (as they are called to-day), third in discipline, well up in drawing, though still in middle sections in the philosophical and chemical courses. Ames was easily head, Benton third, Ross fourth, and Connell fifth. And then came the order to move into camp, and our Geordie found himself, with his second lieutenant for mate, occupying the north end tent of the company officers' row—the tent which, three years before, bucket laden, and with shoulders braced and head erect, he had passed and repassed so many times, never dreaming he should become so thoroughly and easily at home within the white walls, into whose depth it was then profanation to gaze.

Meantime, what of our old acquaintance Benny? All through the months of his sojourn in lovely Nassau the boy had written regularly to the friend of his plebe days, and some of those letters were very characteristic—so much so that Geordie sought to read them to certain of his chums by way of preparing them for Benny's return; but he found all but a very few members of the class utterly intolerant of Frazier. He had "behaved like a cad and a coward," said many of their number, taking their cue from Connell. It was all very well to write and prate about its being the turning-point of his life—starting all wrong—needing all this discipline and distress to set him in the right road. When he had returned and shown by his conduct that there was grit and manliness in him, all right; but the corps never did and never will accept a fellow at his own valuation. He must prove his worth. Benny Frazier might come it over tender-hearted women like Mrs. Doctor Brett and Mrs. Hazzard and Mrs. Other Officials and such dear old dames as Pops himself, but he must "hoe his own row in the corps" was the general saying.

And so even Benny's rush to congratulate Geordie and the impulsive sacrifice of that immaculate tile had softened few hearts. Donning the cadet uniform and silently resuming his place in the ranks of Company B, Frazier strove to ask no favors and resent no coldness. He was not tall enough to join the grenadiers of Company A. There was something pathetic in the big dark eyes as he, a First Class man in years, but a no class man in law, stood irresolute in the company street the day they marched into camp. Yearlings and all had their tents chosen. There was no welcome for him. It was just as well that Mrs. Frazier obeyed her boy's injunctions and kept away until late that summer. For a fortnight or so, until the plebes came into camp, Benny lived all alone. Then, assigned to a tent with Murray and Reed, two cadet privates of the class with whom he had never had dealings and by whom he was treated with cold civility, he made no complaint, nor did he seem to seek their better graces. But Pops never failed to hunt him up if a day went by without Benny's coming to the first captain's tent for a chat. He got Ross to give Frazier a seat at his table in Grant Hall, and would have interceded in other ways, but Frazier himself said no. "I have head enough left to see that I have got to work out my own salvation, Geordie, and you can't make them like me."

And so the humbled fellow kept his own counsel, hearing some pretty hard things occasionally, but saying nothing. The former terror of the plebes in nowise meddled with them now. Mourning for his father was sufficient reason for not attending the hops which, despite his managership, Pops himself very frequently failed to visit. It was lonely work going on guard as the sole representative of an absent class, but Frazier made no remonstrance. There were little points in which he could not overcome the slothful tendencies of his earlier days. He was sometimes late or unprepared, but he took his reports without a murmur and walked post like a man.

The summer wore on. Up with the dawn, out in the sun and the breeze from morn till night, hastening from one brisk martial exercise to another, sometimes in saddle commanding a platoon in the roar and dash of battery drill, sometimes a division in the school of the battalion, sometimes at the great guns of the sea-coast battery, waking the echoes of the Highlands with the thunder of their report and the shriek of the shells towards Target Point, sometimes on the firing-line of the skirmishers, Geordie seemed to broaden with every day, and as first captain he was vigilance itself. "Even in Rand's day you never saw better order or discipline in the hall or in the ranks," said Connell, "and the best of it is, the battalion wants to do as he wishes."

"Coyote & Badger's a close corporation" was yet the saying in the corps, and it was fun to the First Class to hail their senior captains by these Far Western titles. One thing that neither of them would stand, however, was, that any under classman should refer to Geordie as "Pops." That pet name was reserved for the family and very intimate friends.