This period of training of the new cadet is familiarly called “Beast Barracks.” It lasts for about three weeks, at the end of which these new men are sent to camp to join the Battalions. It is necessary to segregate them for at least this length of time: otherwise they would be so wooden that they would be sticking their front rank files in the head with a bayonet.
It is not difficult to discern the origin of the name “Beast Barracks.” In the cadets’ mind, their breaking in is only comparable to the taming of some wild animals. The training is undeniably severe for a tenderfoot, but its “beastly” character is an imaginary creation. To the new man, however, it seems awfully real. I well remember my own feelings. When I was standing in the fierce sun, “bracing” in ranks along the cement walk of the Area, occasionally a white dog upon the hill opposite would come lazily snooping around the ash cans: I envied him his freedom. It seemed to me that I envied everyone except my classmates in misery. In my imagination I saw in flaming letters above every door I entered: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
As I was re-christened Mr. Ducrot, I began to think I was someone else, I felt as if I must have died and that this was my second tour on earth, a punishment for a wicked first life.
“There must be some way of getting out of this,” I reflected, but then, I thought that if the officers and cadets in charge of me had gone through with this training I could also. And I did,—Alleluiah!
Moving from Barracks to Camp
It was a long time, too, before I found out how all of us came to be addressed as Mr. Ducrot. During the academic year when I began to study French I made his acquaintance. He appeared in Keetel’s French Grammar, in the exercises of which the older cadets had uncovered a mysterious scandal concerning his private life. All plebes were at once required to relate to the upper-classmen the following bit of gossip, known as the famous Ducrot scandal. 1. Monsieur Ducrot a un fils et une fille. 2. Madame Ducrot a un fils et deux filles. Scandal. The name became traditional in the Corps and was, with many others, applied indiscriminately to all plebes.
Early the next morning, Mr. Ducrot, whom we left sleeping, attends his first reveille. Although the drums do not begin to play until five-twenty, he steals out of bed long before and conscientiously sweeps, dusts, shaves, and dresses, for fear of not being on time for the formation. Boom! sounds the morning gun! Down the iron steps all the Mr. Ducrots noisily clatter, bolt out to the cement walk where they remain rigidly at attention for ten minutes until the cadet officers emerge half awake and disagreeable. Woe unto the sleepy-headed plebe who is late! As he peeks his head out of the Division door a couple of the Wrathful meet him and convoy him at top speed to his place in ranks. I was once late: I shall never forget the experience. When my “Boer War Generals” were chasing me I was seized with the same terror that a child has in dreaming of being pursued by a burly policeman and unable to run.
At 5:50 the cadet instructors make a cursory inspection of the rooms to see that they are in order before breakfast. Before entering they knock sharply on the door, an authoritative knock, but one flavored with a little bravado. Two immovable, gray-clad figures, with eyes glassily fixed on the wall in front of them, chins caressing their Adam’s apple, shoulders way back, stand near the fireplace, looking for all the world like a couple of spoiled children about to cry, while the inspector rubs his white gloves over the tables and chairs.
Upon the second day commences the instruction of the new cadet in the elementary drills.