Cadet Days. A Story of West Point

Two days more, and George, standing on the rear platform of the Pullman, looking down with no little awe upon the swollen, turbid, ice-whirling waters of the Missouri, far beneath the splendid spans of the great railway bridge. Another day, and his train seemed to be rolling through miles of city streets and squares before it was finally brought to a stand under the grimy roof of the station at Chicago. Here from the windows of the rattling omnibus that bore him across the town to the depot of the Michigan Central he gazed in wonderment at the height of the buildings on every side. Early the next morning he was up and dressed, and just before sunrise stepped out on the wooden staging at Falls View, listening to the voice and seeing for the first time the beauty and grandeur of Niagara. A few minutes later, looking from the car window, he seemed to be sailing in mid-air over some tremendous gorge, in whose depths a broad torrent of deep green water, flecked with foam and tossing huge crunching masses of ice, went roaring away beneath him. Such a letter as he wrote to mother that morning, as hour after hour he sped along eastward over bands of glistening steel, flying like the wind, yet so smoothly that his pen hardly shook. Think what a revelation it must have been to that frontier-bred boy, whose whole life had been spent among the mountains or prairies of the Far West, to ride all the morning long through one great city after another, through the heart of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. The Mohawk Valley seemed one long village to him, so unaccustomed were his eyes to country thickly settled. The Hudson, still fettered with ice above the railway bridge and just opening below, set his heart to beating, for now West Point lay but a hundred miles away. How the train seemed to whiz along those bold, beautiful shores, undulating at first, but soon becoming precipitous and rocky! Many people gazed from the westward windows at the snow-covered Catskills as the afternoon began to wane; but Geordie had seen mountains beside which these were but hillocks. The clustering towns, the frequent rush of engines and cars, the ever-increasing bustle, however, impressed him greatly. Every now and then his train fairly shot past stations where crowds of people stood waiting.

"Didn't they want to get on?" he asked the Pullman porter.

"Oh yes, sir, wanted to bad 'nough; but, Lord bless you, dis train don't stop for them: they has to wait for the locals. We runs a hundred trains a day along here. Dis train don't even stop where you gets off, sir; that's why you have to change at Poughkeepsie, the only place we stop between Albany and New York."

Surely enough, they rolled in presently under lofty bluffs under a bridge so high in the air that its trusses looked like a spider-web, and then stopped at a station thronged with people; and Pops, feeling not a little bewildered, found himself standing with his hand luggage, looking blankly after the car that had borne him so comfortably all the way from Chicago, and now disappeared in the black depths of the stone-faced tunnel to the south, seeming to contract like a leaking balloon as it sped away. Hardly was it out of sight when another train slid in to replace it, and everybody began tumbling aboard.

"This for Garrisons?" he asked a bearded official in blue and brass buttons.

A nod was the answer. Railway men are too busy to speak; and Pops followed the crowd, and took a seat on the river-side. The sun was well down to the westward now; the Hudson grew broader, blacker, and deeper at every turn; the opposite shores cast longer shadows; the electric lights were beginning to twinkle across the wide reach at Newburg; then a rocky islet stood sentinel half-way across to a huge rounded rock-ribbed height. The train rushed madly into another black tunnel, and came tearing forth at the southern end, and Pops's heart fairly bounded in his breast. Lo! there across the deep narrow channel towered Crow's Nest and Storm King. This was the heart of the Highlands. Never before had he seen them, yet knew them at a glance. What hours had he not spent over the photograph albums of the young graduates? Another rush through rocky cuts, and then a smooth, swift spin around a long, gradual curve, lapped by the waters of the Hudson, and there, right before his eyes, still streaked with snow, was West Point, the flag just fluttering from its lofty staff at the summons of the sunset gun.

Ten minutes later and the ferry-boat was paddling him across the river, almost the only passenger. The hush of twilight had fallen. The Highlands looked bare and brown and cheerless in their wintry guise. Far away to the south the crags of Dunderberg were reverberating with the roar of the train as it shot through Anthony's Nose. The stars were just beginning to peep out here and there in the eastern sky, and a pallid crescent moon hung over against them in the west. All else was dark and bleak. The spell of the saddest hour of the day seemed to chill the boy's brave heart, and for the first time a homesick longing crept over him. This was the cheery hour at the army fireside, far out among the Rockies – the hour when they gathered about the open hearth and heaped on the logs, and mother played soft, sweet melodies at the piano, often the songs of Scotland, so dear to them all. Pops couldn't help it; he was beginning to feel a little blue and cold and hungry. One or two passengers scurried ashore and clambered into the yellow omnibus, waiting there at the dock as the boat was made fast in her slip.

"Where do you go?" asked the driver of the boy.

"Send my trunk up to the hotel," said Geordie, briefly. "I'm going to walk."

They had figured it all out together before he started from home, he and Mr. McCrea. "The battalion will be coming in from parade as you reach the Point, Geordie, if your train's on time." And the boy had determined to test his knowledge of topography as learned from the maps he had so faithfully studied. Slinging his bag into the 'bus, he strode briskly away, crossed the tracks of the West Shore Road, turned abruptly to his right, and breasted the long ascent, the stage toiling behind him. A few minutes' uphill walk, and the road turned to the left near the top of the bluff. Before him, on the north, was the long gray massive façade of the riding-hall; before him, westward, another climb, where, quitting the road, he followed a foot-path up the steep and smoothly rounded terrace, and found himself suddenly within stone's-throw of the very buildings he sought. At the crest of the gentle slope to the north, the library with its triple towers; to its left, the solid little chapel; close at hand to his right front, the fine headquarters' building; beyond that, dim and indistinct, the huge bulk of the old academic building; and directly ahead of him, its great windows brilliantly lighted, a handsome gray stone edifice, with its arched doorway and broad flight of steps in the centre – the cadet mess-hall, as it used to be termed, the Grant Hall of to-day. His pulses throbbed as he stepped across the road and stood on the flag-stones beneath the trees. A sentry sauntering along the walk glanced at him keenly, but passed him by without a word.

Suddenly there rose on the still evening air the tramp of coming soldiery, quick and alert, louder and louder, swifter than the bounding of his heart and far more regular. Suddenly through the broad space between the academic and the north end of the mess-hall, straight as a ruler, came the foremost subdivision, the first platoon of Company A, and instantly in response to the ringing order, "Column right," from some deep manly voice farther towards the rear, the young cadet officer in front whirled about and ordered "Right wheel." Another second and around swept the perfect line in the heavy gray overcoats, the little blue forage-caps pulled well down over the smooth-shaved, grave, yet youthful faces dimly seen under the gaslight. Then on they swept, platoon after platoon, in strong double rank, each in succession wheeling again steadily to the right as it reached the broad flight of steps, then breaking and bounding lightly to the top, every man for himself, until, one after the other, each of the eight subdivisions was swallowed up in the great hall, echoing for a moment with chat and laughter, the rattle of chairs, the clatter of knife and fork and spoon, and then the big doors swung to, and Pops, for the first time in his life, had seen the famous battalion which it was his most ardent wish to join. For a moment he stood there silent, his heart still beating high, then with one long sigh of mingled envy and gratification he turned away.

That same evening, wasting no time after he had eaten a hearty supper at Craney's, Geordie sought and found Lieutenant B – . Everything had been arranged by letter; his coming was expected, and in a few moments the boy and his instructor were seated in a quiet room, and Pops's preliminary examination was really begun. In less than an hour Mr. B – had decided pretty thoroughly where his instruction was already satisfactory and where it was incomplete.

"There's no question as to your physique, Mr. Graham," said the Lieutenant, smiling to see the blush of shy delight with which the boy welcomed the first use of the "handle" to his name. Hitherto he had been Geordie or Pops to everybody. "I fancy it won't take long to make you more at home in mathematics. To-morrow we'll move you into your temporary quarters down at the Falls, and next day begin studies. There are several candidates on the ground already."

And so within the week our young plainsman was practically in harness, and with a dozen other aspirants trudging twice a day over the mile of road connecting the Point and the village below; studying hard, writing home regularly, hearing a great deal of information as to the antecedents and expectations of most of his new associates, but partly from native reticence and partly from due regard of McCrea's cautions, saying little as to his past experiences, and nothing at all as to his hopes for the future. "No matter what you do know of actual service, Pops – and you have had more experience of army life than ninety-nine per cent. of the corps – it is best not to 'let on' that you know anything until you are an old cadet, even among your class-mates."

Some of his new associates Pops found congenial, some antagonistic; but the one thing he kept in mind was that all were merely conditional. Not until after the June examination would they really know who were and who were not to be of "the elect." "Those who are most volubly confident to-day," wrote McCrea, "are the ones who will be most apt to fail. Keep your own counsel, 'give every man thine ear and few thy voice' – and that's all."

George had some novel experiences in those days of preparation, and met some odd characters among the boys, but as few of these had any bearing on his subsequent history they need not be dwelt upon. With only one did he strike up anything approximating an intimacy, and that was after the first of May and was unavoidable, because the young fellow became his room-mate, for one thing, and was so jolly, cheery, confident, and enthusiastic, for another, that Graham simply couldn't help it.

Along in May his letters had a good deal to say about Mr. Frazier, and by June the Falls began to fill up with young fellows from all over the country. By this time the daily sight of the battalion at its drills and parades was perfectly familiar to those on the ground, and yet the gulf between cadets and candidates seemed utterly unbridgable. Dr. Graham had thought it a good thing for Geordie to go with letters of introduction from Colonel Fellows, of Fort Union, to his son, a Second Class man, or from Major Freeland, of Bridger, whose boy was in the Third, but McCrea said: "No; there is just one way to win the respect and good-will of the corps of cadets," he declared, "and all the letters and all the fathers and uncles and even pretty sisters combined can't win it any other way. The boy must earn it himself, and it isn't to be earned in a month, either. Every tub stands on its own bottom there, doctor. The higher a fellow's connections, the more he has to be taken down. Leastwise, it was so in my time, and West Point is deteriorating if it is any different now."

Strange, therefore, as it may seem, though he knew many a cadet by sight and name, not one had George Graham become acquainted with until the momentous 15th of June, when, with a number of other young civilians, he reported himself in a room in the eighth division of barracks to Cadet Lieutenant Merrick; was turned over to Cadet Corporal Stone to be taken to the hospital for physical examination, and in one of the surgeons recognized an old friend of his father's whom he knew in Arizona, but who apparently didn't know Geordie from Adam. One hundred and forty-seven young fellows entered the hospital hopefully that day, and among these over twenty-five were rejected. Among those who passed was Breifogle. The old gentleman himself was on hand in front of the mess-hall, when next morning those who had passed the scrutiny of the surgeons were marshalled thither to undergo the written examination in arithmetic.

Promptly, under the eye of the Professor of Mathematics, a number of young officers assigned the candidates to seats and set them at their tasks. Geordie felt that his face was very white, but he strove to think of nothing but the work in hand. Slowly he read over the twelve problems on the printed page, then, carefully and methodically, began their solution. Long, long before he was through he saw Frazier rise and, with confident, almost careless mien, hand his complete work to the secretary, and saunter out into the sunshine. Long before he had finished he saw many another go, less jauntily, perhaps, but with quiet confidence.

One by one most of Mr. B – 's pupils finished inside the allotted two hours and a half; but Geordie, with the thoroughness of his race, again and again went over his work before he was satisfied he, at least, could not improve it. Then he arose, and trembling a bit despite himself, handed his paper to the silent officer. A number, fully twenty, were still seated, some of them helplessly biting their pencils and looking furtively and hopelessly about them. One of these was Fritz Breifogle, for whom the old gentleman was still waiting on the walk outside. Some officers, noticing the father's anxiety, had kindly invited him into the mess-parlor, and had striven to comfort him with cooling drink and a cigar. He was grateful, but unhappy. Already it had begun to dawn upon him that what he had been told of West Point was actually true: neither money nor influence could avail, and Fritz was still at his fruitless task when "the hammer fell."

Another day and the suspense was over. A score more of the young fellows, who were still faintly hopeful at dinner-time, were missing at the next muster of the candidates at retreat. Breifogle was gone without a word to his alternate. The way was clear at last, and, more madly than ever, Pops's heart bounded in his breast as in stern official tone Cadet Corporal Loring read rapidly the alphabetical list of the successful candidates – George Montrose Graham among them.

CHAPTER III

And now, with examinations over, and no remaining doubts or fears, there was probably no happier boy in all the "menagerie" than Geordie Graham. As for the hundred young fellows in civilian dress, "herded" three and four in each room, and wrestling with their first experiences of cadet life, it is safe to say most of the number were either homesick or in some way forlorn. Nothing so utterly destroys the glamour that hovers over one's ideas of West Point as the realities of the first fortnight. Of his three room-mates pro tempore, Bennie Frazier had already announced time and again that if a beneficent Creator would forgive him the blunder of coming here at all, he'd square accounts by quitting as quick as he possibly could. Winn, a tall Kentuckian, wanted to resign, but was too plucky. Connell, a bulky young Badger, had written two terrific screeds to his uncle, the member from Pecatonica, denouncing the cadet officials as brutes, bullies, and tyrants, which documents were duly forwarded with appropriate complaint to the War Department, and formed the text for a furious leader in the Pecatonica Pilot, clamoring for the abolition of West Point. The letters were duly referred to the Superintendent United States Military Academy for remark, and by him to the commandant of cadets, by which time Mr. Connell was a duly accredited high private in the rear rank of Company B, and had almost forgotten the woes of early barrack days, and was not a little abashed and dismayed when summoned before the grave, dignified Colonel to make good his allegations. It took him just ten seconds to transfer any lingering resentment for the cadet corporals to the avuncular M. C., whom with boyish inconsistency he now berated for being such a fool as to make a fuss about a little thing like that. Among the new cadets were a very few who, as sons of army officers, knew perfectly well what they had to expect. These and a number of young fellows who, like Graham, had come on months or weeks beforehand and placed themselves under tuition, were well prepared for the ordeal of the entrance examinations as well as for other ordeals which followed.

Even among them, however, were many who looked upon life with eyes of gloom. The ceaseless routine of drill, drill, of sharp reprimand, of stern, unbending discipline, wofully preyed upon their spirits. Their hearts were as sore as their unaccustomed muscles. But with Pops all was different. He had reached at last the goal of his ambition. He had won his way through many a discouragement to the prize of a cadetship. Now he was ready, even eager, to be tried and tested in every way, to show his grit, and to prove his fitness for the four years' race for the highest prize of all, the diploma and commission. The drill that made his comrades' muscles ache was a bagatelle to him. From earliest boyhood he had watched the recruits at setting-up, and not only learned and practised all, but with Bud and Dick for his squad would often convulse the officers at Verde and Supply by his imitation of Sergeant Feeny's savage Hibernian manner. The cadet yearling who was drill-master of the four to which Pops was assigned saw at once that he had a "plebe corporal" – a young fellow who had been pretty well drilled – and all the more did he rasp him when anything went amiss. Many of the new-comers had been through squad-drill at military schools or in cadet companies, but never under such rigid, relentless discipline as this. Every cadet drill-master carried the steel rammer of his rifle as a drill-stick, and was just about as unbending as his rod of office. Poor Frazier was in hot-water all the time – as well as in the sulks.

"I belonged to the high-school cadets for two years, and everybody that ever saw us drill said we could lay over anything in the whole country," he protested, "and now here's this measly little stuck-up prig, that probably never knew anything about drill until he entered here last year, correcting and finding fault with everything I do. I ain't going to stand it, by thunder! I've written to my father to come on again, and just have this thing attended to right off." And Frazier's handsome boyish face was flushed with wrath, and clouded with a sense of wrong and indignity. "It seems to me if I were in your place I wouldn't stand being abused either, Graham. I heard Mr. Flint snapping at you again this morning."

Pops was busily engaged dusting for the tenth time the iron mantel-shelf and the little looking-glass. He half turned. "Wa-e-l," he said, while a grin of amusement hovered about the corners of his mouth, "Flint was all right, I guess. Your squad was just in front of us, and when I saw Connell stumble over your heels and try to climb up your back, I laughed out loud. He caught me chuckling."

"Yes, and abused you like a pick-pocket, by jingo! If my father were an officer in the regular army, as yours is, it wouldn't happen twice to me."

"No, nor to me either," chimed in Connell. "I'll bet you he'd sing a mighty different tune if he knew you were the son of a Major."

"Well, there's just where you're 'way off," answered Geordie, after the manner of the frontier. "Of all places in creation this is the one where one's dad cuts no figure whatever. I've often heard old officers say that the boys who got plagued and tormented most in their time were the fellows whose fathers were generals or cabinet ministers. Fred Grant wouldn't have had half as hard a time if his father hadn't been President. Frazier's whole trouble comes from letting on that he knew all about drill before he got here; that's the truth of it. I get along smoothly by pretending never to have known anything."

"Oh, a lot you have! If that snob Loring ever speaks to me as he spoke to you this morning about laughing in the ranks, I'll – I'll just let him have my fist between the eyes, and he'll see more stars than he ever saw before, if he is a color corporal. What'll your father say when he hears that he threatened to put you in a cell just for laughing when that Pike County fellow knocked his hat off trying to salute?"

"Well, he didn't say cell, in the first place, and father wouldn't hear it from me, at least, if he had. It's an understood thing at home that they're to ask no questions, and I'm to tell no tales until plebe camp is over and done with. Plebes don't begin to have the hard times now that they had thirty years ago, and if they could stand it then, I can now. All you've got to do is simply make up your mind to grin and bear it; do just as you're told, and say nothing about it. If this thing worries you now, when only our drill-masters and instructors get at us, what are you going to do, Frazier, when you're marched over there into camp next week and turned over to the tender mercies of the whole corps?"

"I'm going to fight the first man that offers me an indignity of any kind, by thunder!"

Geordie burst into one of his merry laughs, just as a light foot came bounding up the iron stairway. Bang! A single knock at the door. Up sprang the four boys, heels and knees together, heads up, eyes straight to the front, arms and hands braced against the sides, the palms of the latter turned outward as far as the youngsters could force them and thereby work their shoulders back, each young fellow facing the centre of the bare and cheerless room. Enter Cadet Corporal Loring, his jaunty gray coat fitting like wax, not a crease nor a wrinkle anywhere, every one of his three rows of bell buttons glistening, his gold chevrons gleaming, his white collar, cuffs, gloves, and trousers simply immaculate, everything so trig and military, all in such wondrous contrast to the sombre garb of the four plebes. His clear-cut face is stern and dignified.

"What is the meaning of all this noise?" he asks. "Who was laughing as I came in?"

"I was, sir," promptly answers Graham.

"You again, Mr. Graham? This is the third time since reveille I've had to reprimand you for chuckling like a school-boy – twice in ranks, and now again at inspection. What were you laughing at this time, sir?" inquired Mr. Loring, majestically.

"At something Frazier said, sir."

"Mr. Frazier, sir. Never omit the handle to a gentleman's name on duty or in official intercourse. Only among yourselves and off duty can you indulge in familiarity; never, sir, in conversation with superior officers." (Oh, the immensity of distance between the plebe and the yearling corporal!) "And you are room orderly, too, Mr. Graham, and responsible for the appearance of things. Where should the broom be, sir?"

"Behind the door, sir."

"Then where is it, sir?"

And for the first time poor Pops sees that in the heat of argument, Frazier, dusting off his shoes with that implement, had left it across the room in the alcove. Still, it was his own business to see that it was in place, so he had nothing to say beyond, "I didn't notice it until just now, sir."

"Exactly, Mr. Graham; if you had been attending to your duty instead of giggling over Mr. Frazier's witticisms you would have escaped punishment. Report at my office immediately after supper this evening, sir." And then, after finding perhaps a pin-head of dust behind the looking-glass, and further rebuking Mr. Graham for unmilitary carelessness, the young gentleman proceeds to carry dismay into the next room.

And that evening, after supper, as ordered, Pops tapped at the awful door, was bidden to enter and listen to his doom. Cadet Lieutenant Merrick sat in judgment. For levity in ranks, dust on mantel, broom out of place at inspection, new Cadet Graham was directed to walk post in the hall until drum-beat at tattoo.

Outside the door, standing meekly in the hallway, awaiting summons to enter, were half a dozen of his comrades, about to be sentenced to similar punishment for blunders of greater or less magnitude. Some looked woe-begone, some foolish, some were laughing, but all assumed the required expression of gravity as Mr. Loring came forth with his victim. In two minutes our Geordie found himself slowly pacing the hallway on the second floor, with strict orders to keep his little fingers on the seams of his trousers, the palms of his hands to the front, and to hold conversation with nobody except in the line of duty. For a moment he could not but feel a little wrathful and disheartened, but again McCrea's words came to his aid: "Remember that the first thing that will be sorely tested is your sense of subordination – your readiness to obey without question. No soldier is considered fit to command others until he can command himself. They purposely put a fellow through all manner of predicament just to test his grit. Don't let anything ruffle your temper, and they will soon find you need no lessons." And so, like a sentry, he patiently tramped his post, listening to the music of the band at an evening concert out on the Plain, and keeping watchful eye for the coming of cadet officials. Along towards nine o'clock up came Cadet Lieutenant Merrick, commanding the plebes; and "Pops," as he had been taught, halted, faced him, and stood attention.

"Why are you on punishment to-night, sir?" was the question.

Pops colored, but answered promptly, "Laughing in ranks, broom out of place, and some other things, sir."

"Yes, I remember. Go to your quarters now, and keep your face straight on duty hereafter."

Involuntarily Geordie raised his hand in salute, as for years he had seen the soldiers do after receiving orders from an officer, then turned to go.

"One moment, Mr. Graham. Whose squad are you in?"

"Mr. Flint's, sir."