Ralph wrote a long letter and poured out his heart to Captain Waddell as he might have to a father. And somehow, when he had posted the letter, he felt easier in mind. Bitter though he was, yet he accepted the inevitable, and that night as he tossed about on his sleepless bed he formed resolutions as to what his future life in Toledo was to be. He felt that as he had done nothing dishonest he would face the people he had known all his life, rather than by going to some other place, tacitly admit he had done something to be ashamed of. “That’s where Uncle George made his great mistake,” he thought. “Uncle George,” he mused; “I wonder if I shall ever see him and know him.” And with this thought in his mind he dropped into uneasy slumber.
CHAPTER XXVI
Ralph is Dismissed by Sentence of General Court Martial
Friday, graduation day, dawned beautifully. The sun’s rays that beamed through the midshipmen’s rooms and that glanced merrily up from the sparkling ripples of the water of Chesapeake Bay seemingly danced their congratulations to the hundreds of happy midshipmen, some of whom were to be graduated that morning; and all of the rest were happy or more correctly, all but one sad hearted young man, because they were to be promoted to a higher class.
At six o’clock the morning gun boomed its reverberating roar, shaking window panes for miles, its echoes dying in the far distance. And immediately in midshipmen quarters were to be heard the hoarse notes of the reveille bugle blasting the last moment of slumber of several hundred midshipmen. And then the Academy awakened from quiet restfulness to uneasy, restless, impatient activity.
“Turn out on this floor, turn out, turn out,” were calls that resounded all over the building, and midshipmen of the day’s duty ran from room to room, shouting their cries of, “Turn out,” and throwing open the doors of rooms to see the occupants therein were out and their bedding thrown back. Half an hour later came the bugle call for breakfast formation, the signal for midshipmen to fall in ranks. Some, waiting for the call, went leisurely to their appointed places. In the last few seconds of the five minutes allowed before the roll-call, scores of midshipmen, anxious to avoid demerits for being “late at morning roll,” ran at breakneck speed trying to beat time, to their respective companies. Then came the final blast of the bugle, and where but a second before noise, confusion and disorder reigned, now a body of several hundred young men, in two unwavering ranks, stood silent, quiet and in complete order. And now came the muster of each company; one heard the stentorian shouts of the cadet lieutenants, the last time each was to officiate as such.
“Third company, left dress! Back in the center, carry it along, up a little on the extreme right! Steady, front!”
Soon the adjutant had reported: “Sir, the battalion is formed.”
“Publish the orders, sir,” directed the cadet lieutenant-commander.
“Attention to orders,” rang out the clear, vibrating voice of the adjutant, and unfolding a paper he carried in his hand, he read as follows: