For three weeks the new cadets are put through this severe course of instruction before they are deemed fit to be put in the ranks of the older cadets without ruining the appearance of the Battalions.
It is astonishing to behold the progress made in elementary training in this short period. It is true that the days are crammed full, and the instruction is of the most intensive kind, but even so the results far exceed what might be expected under the most rigorous of systems.
In the first place, the men lose all appearance of slovenliness and begin to acquire a distinct military bearing. The unevenness of gait is replaced by a measured tread, the hanging of heads and drooping of shoulders gives way to an erect smart carriage, and the excessive swinging of arms disappears. The group of very crude-looking individuals of the first few days has been changed into a harmonious appearing military body. Little by little the new men have begun to adjust themselves to their uniforms.
No less marked is the change of the mental attitude of the new cadet at the end of “Beast Barracks.” All sense of his own importance, if he ever had any, has oozed away rapidly. Like Bob Acres, it sneaked out of the ends of his fingers the first few days, and he realizes what a very small fish he is in this new pond. He rapidly acquires a most receptive mood in which he absorbs the most important lesson that a soldier must learn,—OBEDIENCE. The officers and cadets in charge of him demand unhesitating and instant compliance with their orders. To this end the new cadets are made to execute every order at a run, not to harass them as they sometimes think, but to form the habit of immediate obedience. This trait is the foundation of discipline, toward the inculcation of which in the new cadet, an excellent beginning is made in “Beast Barracks.”
At the end of three weeks the “Beasts” are moved from Barracks to join the rest of the Corps in camp. You ought to see them move. Carrying their Lares and Penates in striped laundry bags, or on canvas stretchers, they come and go all morning across the Plain in parallel rows, resembling for all the world a colony of ants building its new home. Upon arrival in camp, they join the companies to which they have been assigned, and from the state of “Beast” they are raised to the dignity of a plebe, the next lowest grade in the cadet hierarchy.
“Beast Barracks” is over, but its memory remains fresher than any other at West Point. In spite of the new and more interesting training of camp life, Mr. Ducrot is forever haunted by recollections of perspiration and indelible ink.
CHAPTER VI
BENDING THE TWIG
Only when the three hundred odd new cadets have been transferred to camp and joined the Battalion, do they begin to feel that they are members of the Corps. They are, however, ill-formed, crude, ungainly members, and from the moment they pass the hedge that screens the camp from the visitors’ seats, the Tactical gardeners begin the work of bending these natural twigs, so recently transplanted from the individualistic soil of civilian life to the orthodox ground of military training.
Realizing how difficult it is for a young man to adapt himself to the changed conditions that he meets at West Point, the authorities require the new cadet to report in June, just as the academic year has closed, in order that he may receive the benefit of the summer-camp training before taking up his studies. The physical fatigue that the new plebe experiences is really so great, that he would not be able to plunge into the academic course before his body has become accustomed to the demands made upon it. The aching muscles, the drooping eyes, that awful heaviness of fatigue must all be given time to pass away so that the mind may be free to pursue its development. To this end, he goes into camp after his first few weeks in “Beast Barracks.”