Cadet Days. A Story of West Point

"Curry – Buttoning coat in ranks at reveille.

"Same – Continuing same after being ordered to fall out.

"Same – Replying to first sergeant from ranks at same."

Before Graham had thrown off his belts Mr. Jennings appeared, and with much majesty of mien proceeded to say:

"Mr. Graham, you have taken advantage of Mr. Curry's size, and in his name and in that of the First Class I am here to demand satisfaction."

"Go for Connell," said Geordie, with a quiet nod to Ames.

Next morning Mr. Jennings did not appear at reveille at all. It seems that the demand was honored at sight. Cadet Captain Bend cut supper and risked his chevrons to see that fight. Connell's heart was up in his mouth just about half the time as he seconded his sergeant comrade. It was a long-fought, longer remembered battle, and ended only within five minutes of call to quarters – Jennings at last, as had been predicted two years before, utterly used up, and Geordie, though bruised and battered, still in the ring.

CHAPTER XVI

Time flies at the Point, even in the hardest year of the four, as McCrea had called that of the Second Class. What with mechanics and chemistry, "tactics" and drawing, riding and drills, winter was upon them before our boys fairly realized it. Every day seemed to make Graham feel more assured in his position, and to strengthen the esteem in which he was held. The cabal of the few First Class men had reacted upon the originators like a boomerang. Jennings was in hospital a full week, and Curry walked punishment tours until January. Now, while Jennings was probably not the best man, pugilistically speaking, whom they could put up against the first sergeants, the better men were as sound morally and mentally as they were physically. Some of them expressed regret that Graham felt it his duty to make such serious reports against their class-mate, but it was conceded by every soldier and gentleman that Curry had brought it all on himself. As for Jennings, he richly deserved the thrashing that he had received, and a more humiliated and astonished fellow there was not in the corps. There was no more trouble in Company B. Geordie ruled it with a hand that never shook, yet without the faintest bluster or show of triumph. The First Class men, as a rule, were a very pleasant set, with a pride in their company, a pride in the corps, and a readiness to sustain Graham; and so he and his fellow-sergeants were spared further complication of that description. "In time of peace prepare for war, however," laughed Connell. "There's no surer way of keeping the peace than being ready for anything that may turn up."

Almost before they knew it the short days and the long, long evenings were upon them again. Mechanics and chemistry seemed to grow harder, but Graham had gained confidence and his instructors wisdom. They found that by digging under the surface there was much more to Geordie's knowledge of a subject than was at first apparent, and his mind as well worth cultivating as many a quicker soil. As for the corps, it is remarkable how many there were who knew all along that Jennings was a vastly overrated, over-confident fellow, whose fame was based on victories over lighter weights, and whose condition had been running down as steadily as Coyote's had been building up. In his own class Geordie was now the object of an almost enthusiastic regard, while the plebes looked upon him with hero-worship most extravagant. He had his enemies, as strong and dutiful men must ever have, but they were of such a class as Curry and Frazier and Jennings. "And what decent man in the corps cares for the ill-will of such as they?" asked Ames. "It's proof of a fellow's superiority."

Midwinter came, and one day Frazier was "wired" for suddenly. "Bad news from home," said Jennings, in explanation, when the battalion was gathering between the first and second drums for dinner. This time the superintendent did not deny a leave, but extended it a few days to enable the boy to remain for his father's funeral. Benny came back looking years older, sallow, and unhealthy. The broad, deep mourning band on his left arm was explanation of his non-appearance at the Thanksgiving hop. Geordie, Ames, and Connell went over to look on and hear the music.

"We'll have to be doing this sort of thing next year, Pops," said Connell, "so we may as well go and pick up pointers." There were not many girl visitors – at least, not enough for the cavaliers of the senior class, so that many of the corps did not dance at all. About ten o'clock Graham decided he had seen enough and would go home to study a while. The wind was blowing hard from the east. There was a mild, pallid moon vainly striving to peep through a swift-sailing fleet of scud, and throwing a faint, ghostly light over the barracks and guard-house. Out from the shadows of the stone-wall back of the mess building suddenly appeared a figure in the cadet overcoat with the cape thrown over his head. Catching sight of Graham, and recognizing apparently his step and form, the figure slipped back again whence it came, but not so quickly that Pops did not know it was Benny Frazier. Half a minute later, as he sprang up the steps of the fourth division, he came upon two cadets standing just within the doorway – plebes.

"Oh, Mr. Graham," said one, "the officer of the day is inspecting for men in confinement, and Mr. Jennings and Mr. Frazier are both out."

Not an instant was to be lost. Pops could hear the clink of the cadet sword and the slam of doors in the second division. In two minutes the officer would be over in the fourth, and "Benny and Jenny," as the pair were occasionally termed, would be "hived" absent. Arrest and heavy punishment must surely follow. Pops never stopped to follow the chain of thought. Back he sped on the wings of the wind. Five seconds and he reached the corner. Not a sign of the recent prowler, yet Geordie felt sure he had seen Frazier dart back behind that wall barely half a minute before – engaged in some clandestine bargaining with one of his messengers from the Falls, probably – and Jennings with him. Not a sign of the party down the dark, narrow lane behind the wall, not a sign of them up the grassy slope to the west back of the area retaining wall.

"Frazier! Jennings! Quick!" he called, loud enough to attract their attention if they were near at hand.

No answer.

It was off limits if he ventured either way, west or south, from the corner where he stood, and "off chevrons" if caught. Why risk his prospects for First Class year to save men who had ever been his enemies, and never would have lifted a hand to save him? Only the swaying of the branches and the sweep of the wind answered his excited hail. Not an instant to lose! Bounding up the westward path he ran until beyond the guard-house, and there came suddenly upon a shadowy group of four.

"Back to your room, Frazier! Inspection!" he gasped, halting short.

Two cadets rushed at the word. The two other forms slunk away, as though seeking to hide themselves among the trees up the hill-side. One was a civilian, a stranger to him; the other the drummer with whom Frazier had had the altercation more than a year previous. What were they doing now? Graham never stopped to have a word with them. Quickly he retraced his steps, and succeeded in regaining the area unnoticed. The officer of the day was just coming out of the fourth division as Geordie went in.

"Hello, Coyote! Tired of the light fantastic? or didn't you hop to-night?" he jovially asked.

"Had to come back to bone," was the reply.

It was evident from the cheery manner that nothing had been found amiss. The pair had managed to reach their den in safety, then; yet only in the nick of time. Geordie went to his room and to work, yet the thought of that unseemly stolen interview between Frazier and Jennings, the drummer and the stranger, kept intruding itself upon his mind. Presently a stealthy step came down the stair and to his door. Enter Frazier, still pale, still nervous and palpitating.

"Graham, you did me a great service – me and Jennings – to-night. I – I know – we haven't got along as well as we should, and I suppose I am partially to blame; but I don't want you to think I can't appreciate the risk you ran to save us, though either of us, of course, would have done as much for you – any time. You know that, I hope. We had some business out there, and d-did you see the others – so as to know them?"

"I knew the drummer well enough," said Graham, his blue eyes full on Benny's nervous face.

"Well, the other one's a cit. who's doing something for us. Say, one good turn deserves another. Don't tell anybody about where you saw us, or who were with us, will you? I wouldn't like it to get out on Jennings's account. He's got to work like a dog to graduate, as it is."

And before Graham could answer, in came Ames, astonished at sight of Frazier, and to him Benny began a hurried explanation of how Pops had heard of the inspection, and had rushed down to warn him. Then saying "Remember what I asked you" to Graham, he awkwardly let himself out.

"How are the mighty fallen!" soliloquized Ames, as Benny disappeared. "They say he's going 'way down in both Phil. and Chem. in January. He has no French to help him now. Benton thinks he'll tumble into the low thirties. What did he want of you?"

"Nothing to speak of," answered Pops, with that quiet grin of his. "He-e – said he came to thank me for giving that warning."

"Oh, thanks be blowed! He never came to thank you, Pops. That was only a pretext. He came to ask you to do or not to do something on his account, and I know it."

So did Geordie, by this time, but could not say so.

Four days after this episode leave of absence from 9.30 A.M. until 11 P.M. was granted Cadet Frazier on urgent personal business. A letter from an executor of the Frazier estate was the means of getting the order. It was known in the corps that, being now twenty-one, Benny was master of some little property, though nowhere near what he had expected would be his own. Making all allowances for the sadness and depression naturally following the loss of a loved parent, it was remarked that every day seemed to add to the trouble and dejection in Frazier's sallow face. He took little exercise, except the enforced tramp in the area on Saturday afternoons. He smoked incessantly. He seemed petulant and miserable in Jennings's society, yet Jennings was his inseparable companion. Wherever he went, there was Jennings. "What in the world is the tie that binds those two?" was the question often asked. They were utterly unlike. Their antecedents were widely opposed. Frazier had been reared in luxury and refinement; Jennings in nobody knew just what. He was the representative of one of the "toughest" congressional districts, originally known as the Sanguinary Second, in a crowded metropolis. He was smart in a certain way that spoke of long association with the street Arab and saloon sports. He was useful in plebe days when his class was standing up for what few rights a plebe is conceded to have, but lost caste as rapidly as his comrades gained wisdom. Only among the few weaklings of the Curry stamp had he a vestige of influence left before the long-expected fight with Graham, and after that and his utter and unlooked-for defeat his name seemed held only in derision. Yet he lorded it over Frazier. "You can hear them snapping and snarling at one another at any hour of the day or night," said their near neighbors. "If Frazier hates him so, why on earth doesn't he 'shake' him? They're getting enough demerit between them to swamp half a dozen men." These comments were almost universal.

By this time Frazier's downward course had brought him, both in philosophy and chemistry, into Geordie's sections. Once in a while he would rouse himself and make a brilliant recitation, but as a rule he seemed apathetic, even reckless. Time and again the young fellow's dark-rimmed eyes were fixed upon his old plebe room-mate's face with such a hungry, wistful, woful look that it haunted Geordie for days. Every time the latter surprised him in the act, however, Benny would turn quickly and dejectedly away. But more than once Graham almost made up his mind to go and beg the boy to say what was his trouble, and let him help him out.

At last the opportunity came. It was just before the January examination. Going one night to Frazier's room to notify him of a change in the guard detail, he found Benny alone at the table, his head buried in his arms, his attitude one of hopelessness and despair. He sprang up the instant he heard Geordie's voice.

"I – I – thought it was Jennings," he stammered, all confusion. "What's wanted?"

"I came to tell you Ewen would go on sick report, and you'd have to march on guard in his place."

This was said at the door. Then, impulsively stepping forward, Graham laid a hand on his shoulder.

"But, Frazier, I hate to see you looking so miserable. If you're in trouble, can't you let us help you out? There are plenty of fellows left to be your friends. It doesn't become me to say anything against your room-mate, but lots of us think you would do well to cut loose from him."

"Cut loose – from him?" wailed Benny, wringing his hands, and turning to Geordie with a look in his dark eyes Pops can never forget. "Oh, if I only – " But there he stopped abruptly, and turned quickly away. Jennings came frowning in, his angry eyes full of suspicion as they glowered at Pops.

"To what circumstance do we owe the honor of this visit?" asked he, in attempted imitation of the theatrical heroes of his acquaintance.

Geordie calmly looked him over a moment, but never deigned reply. Then turned to Benny. "Frazier," said he, as he moved quietly to the door, "any time you feel like dropping in on Ames and me, come, and be sure of a welcome." Then, with another cool glance at Jennings, but without speaking one word to him, he left the room.

That night – a bitter cold December night it was – Pops had just finished telling Ames of the strange state of things as he found them on his visit to Frazier; the tattoo drums were hammering through the area and drowning other sounds; the inspector of the upper subdivision had come down into Bend's room to have a chat with his fellow-officer, when the drums stopped with one abrupt and unanimous slam, and as they did so Graham's eyes dilated, and he sprang to his feet.

A gasping, half-articulate cry and the sound of scuffling feet came from the third floor. Geordie could have sworn he heard his name. Out he went, up the iron stairs he flew, and into utter darkness. The hall light was doused as his foot spurned the lowermost step. Whirling at the head of the stairs, he sped to Frazier's door, other cadets rushing at his heels. There was Benny, with livid face, struggling in the grasp of his burly room-mate, whose muscular hands were choking, strangling at poor Frazier's throat. One blow from Graham's fist sent the big bully reeling across the room; while Benny, suddenly released, fell all of a heap on the floor.

"You brute! How dare you grapple a little fellow like that?" was all Pops had time to say before Bend and his lieutenant came bounding in behind him.

"Back, Jennings! Down with him!" ordered Bend, as the maddened "tough" sprang to the arm-rack and seized his rifle. Half a dozen hands collared him before he could draw the bayonet. He backed into a corner, his young captain facing him.

"Stand where you are, sir," was the stern order. "What does all this mean? What has he done to you, Frazier?"

Geordie and Ames were raising Benny by this time. He was faint, bleeding at the mouth and ears, speechless, and out of breath.

"Give him some water and lay him down on the bed. Don't crowd around him. He needs air. Get out, all of you!" and Bend turned on the rapidly increasing crowd. "Back to your quarters!" And then the rattle of cadet swords could be heard against the iron stairway – the sergeant of the guard racing to the scene, followed by the officer of the day.

"He insulted and defied me," growled Jennings, glowering about on the circle of hostile faces. "He insulted my people, my kith and kin. I dare him to deny it, or to tell what led to this. Take your hands off of me, you fellows; I'm no criminal. If you're laying for a thief, there's your game yonder," he said, indicating his prostrate room-mate.

"Shut up, Jennings," ordered Bend; "that's cowardly."

"Cowardly, is it? You'll rue those words, my fine fellow. I thrashed you well once, and I've just been praying for another chance, and now I've got it. Cowardly, is it? By Heaven, you'll smart for that!"

And then, calm and dignified, appeared the officer in charge, Lieutenant Allen. A glance at Benny, still livid and gasping, was sufficient. "Go for Dr. Brett," he said to Ames. Then he turned on Jennings, still backed into the corner, and confronted there by his cool young captain. "There seems to be no reasonable doubt that you are your room-mate's assailant, Mr. Jennings. You are placed in close arrest, sir."

Another night, hours later, the wires flashed a message to the widowed mother, bidding her come to the bedside of her only son.

CHAPTER XVII

January examinations passed by without material change in the standing of those in whom we are most interested, except in the case of Benny Frazier – too ill to appear before the Board. For weeks he had been "running down," and the assault at the hands of Jennings proved but the climax that brought on a violent and dangerous siege of fever. For days the devoted mother, aided by skilled nurses, was ever at the side of her stricken boy. Volunteers from his class, too, were always in readiness as night-watchers; but almost from the first the one for whom he called and of whom he moaned in his delirium was Geordie Graham. No one saw the meeting between the heart-sick, almost hopeless woman and her son's earliest friend and room-mate, but that she had been deeply agitated was plain. From their interview she came forth clinging to his arm, leaning on his strength, and from that time she was never content to have him far away. Each day, between retreat parade and evening call to quarters, there were hours he could spend at Frazier's bedside, and they were the only hours in all the twenty-four that the feeble, childlike patient looked forward to with anything but apathy. For days his life hung in the balance; but when at last the crisis came and went and left him pitiably weak in body and spirit, the one thing he seemed to cling to in life was Graham's brown and muscular hand.

"I wonder I am not jealous," said Mrs. Frazier to the doctor's kindly wife; "but I thank God my poor boy has such a friend left to him, after all his trouble – all the misery into which that – that awful person has led and held him."

And the awful person was Jennings, who, shunned like a pariah by the corps, was again awaiting trial by court-martial as soon as Frazier should be able to testify. For days it looked as though Benny never could appear before an earthly court, and that this case, like the other, must go by default. So long as it appeared that the fever would prove fatal, Jennings kept up his air of bravado and confidence. The evidence of Graham and Ames, the first to reach the scene of the assault, would be sufficient to convict him of that offence, but even they could prove nothing beyond a personal row, said he. It was fully understood, however, that back of all this trouble was the old case of Benny's plebe camp, and that the assault on Graham when a sentry, the stealing of Graham's rifle, and the desertion of Musician Doyle were all matters in which Jennings was a prime mover; and though now "outlawed by the statute" – more than two years having passed since the occurrence of these offences, during which time the alleged offender had in no wise sought to secrete himself from military justice, and therefore a case no longer triable by court-martial – there is no two-year limit to the contempt of the corps of cadets. They could send him to Coventry at any time, and even though he were graduated it might be impossible to obtain a commission.

But when it was noised about the battalion that Benny was on the mend, and that, day after day, he looked forward to nothing as he did to Geordie's visit, it became known that he had made a full and frank confession, and that Jennings was deeply implicated. Interviewed on this subject, Graham refused to say a word; but Mrs. Frazier had been less cautious. It seemed as though she could not do enough to undo her coldness and injustice to Geordie in the past, or to express her affection and regard for him now. In the overflow of her gratitude and joy, when at last her son was declared out of danger, she told the story to sympathetic lady friends, wives of officers stationed at the post, almost as it had been told to her by Benny, and it was not long in leaking through to the corps. The pent-up wrath of the battalion is not a thing to see and forget. The story flew from lip to lip. "Tar-and-feather him!" "Kick him out!" "Turn him loose and let him run the gantlet!" were some of the mad suggestions, but Bend and cooler counsels prevailed. Realizing his peril, Jennings implored the protection of the commandant, and was given a room in the officers' angle. Then the commandant and adjutant went with Dr. Brett to the convalescent's bedside, and Benny's statement was reduced to writing.

A few days later the police of Jersey City laid hands on a precious pair. One of them bore the name of Peter Peterson, the other was Doyle, ex-drummer, both wanted for blackmail and other offences, and Doyle for desertion. The news of this capture reached the corps late in the afternoon, and was the talk of the whole mess-hall at supper. Next morning at breakfast came sensation still bigger:

Jennings had fled.

Some time during the night he had packed up such things as he could carry and stolen quietly away. A sentry said he saw a young man in civilian dress, with a bag in his hand, going down towards the south dock about 11 o'clock. He boarded a night train at Cranston's Station, and that was all. It proved the easiest settlement of a vexed case. The court-martial turned its attention to Doyle, the deserter, and Doyle pleaded guilty, for his was a case that was still triable because he had absented himself ever since the desertion occurred. Throwing himself upon the mercy of the court, the boy made his statement. He said that one evening in camp, three summers back, Mr. Jennings was sentry on Number Three, and told him he wanted him, Doyle, to do an errand. Cadets often employed him, and paid him money to carry notes, or to buy cigars, or the like. It was arranged that he was to be there, back of Company A, about ten minutes before tattoo, and, going there, he found a rifle leaning against a tree, and this Mr. Jennings bade him carry out to a point near the east edge of the dump hollow, and look there in the weeds, where he would find, half hidden, another one. The drummers were allowed to cross the post of Number Three without question. He had no difficulty in finding and fetching in the rusty rifle, and left the new rifle in its place, as he had been told, supposing that it was only some trick they were playing. Mr. Frazier was there, inside the sentry's post, on his return, and received from him the rusty gun. That night, later, when he heard the adjutant and the cadet captains talking, he saw the matter was serious and got scared, and went out next day and "found," as he expressed it, what he had left there, and carried it to the adjutant. He was closely questioned, got more frightened, and wanted to tell all he knew; but Jennings swore he would be tried and sent to jail as a thief, and warned him the only safety lay in secrecy. Mr. Frazier gave him ten dollars then to buy his silence, and promised him more; but when Jennings was put in arrest and court was ordered to convene, both Jennings and Frazier were badly scared, and told him there was no hope for him at all if it came to trial, as they'd have to testify to his part in the thing, and that meant penitentiary. Then old Mr. Frazier came and had a talk with him down at the Falls: told him he must get away to save himself, gave him fifty dollars, and promised him employment and immunity from arrest if he would go at once. Doyle told Reilly, another of the boys, of his trouble, and Reilly said he'd better go. He got away all right, but the place Mr. Frazier gave him in Pennsylvania among the miners was too hard work; he couldn't stand it, and asked for more money, and until Frazier died he paid him. Then there was no way but to turn to the cadet, through Reilly, saying he was starving, and would have to come and give himself up and tell all about how the old man had bribed him to desert. Then all of a sudden he was nabbed, and that ended it. No! Cadet Frazier had never suggested desertion. It was all Mr. Jennings and the father.