"FIRST NIGHT."
Dress parade leaves but a few moments for supper, with no chance for
"deviling." But when the battalion marched back from that meal and broke
ranks, when the dusk of evening was coming on to make an effective
screen, then was the time, thought the cadets. And so thought the
plebes, too, as they came up the road a few minutes later, trembling
with anticipation, most of them, and looking very solemn and somber in
their dusky fatigue uniforms.
"First night of plebe camp," says a well-known military writer, "is a
thing not soon to be forgotten, even in these days when pitchy darkness
no longer surrounds the pranks of the yearlings, and when official
vigilance and protection have replaced what seemed to be tacit
encouragement and consent.
"Then--some years ago--it was no uncommon thing for a new cadet to be
dragged out--'yanked'--and slid around camp on his dust-covered blanket
twenty times a night, dumped into Fort Clinton ditch, tossed in a tent
fly, half smothered in the folds of his canvas home, ridden on a tent
pole or in a rickety wheelbarrow, smoked out by some vile, slow-burning
pyrotechnic compound, robbed of rest and sleep at the very least after
he had been alternately drilled and worked all the livelong day."
In Mark's time the effort to put a stop to the abuses mentioned had just
been begun. Army officers had been put on duty at night; gas lamps had
been placed along the sentry posts--precautions which are doubled
nowadays, and with the risk of expulsion added besides. They have done
away with the worst forms of hazing if not with the spirit.
The yearlings "had it in" for our four friends of company A that
evening. In fact, scarcely had the plebes scattered to their tents when
that particular plebe hotel was surrounded. The cadets had it all
arranged beforehand, just what was to happen, and they expected to have
no end of fun about it.
"Parson Stanard" was to be serenaded first; the crowd meant to surround
him and "invite" him to read some learned extracts from his beloved
"Dana." The Parson was to recount some of the nobler deeds of Boston's
heroes, including himself; he was to display his learning by answering
questions on every conceivable subject; he was to define and spell a
list of the most outlandish words in every language known to the angels.
Texas was to show his skill and technique in hurling an imaginary lasso
and firing an imaginary revolver from an imaginary galloping horse. He
was to tell of the geography, topography, climate and resources of the
Lone Star State; he was to recount the exploits of his "dad," "the Hon.
Scrap Powers, sah, o' Hurricane Co.," and his uncle, the new
Senator-elect. Mark was to give rules for rescuing damsels, saving
expresses and ferryboats, etc. And Mr. Methusalem Zebediah Chilvers of
Kansas was to state his favorite method of raising three-legged chickens
and three-foot whiskers.
That was the delicious programme as finally agreed upon by the
yearlings. And there was only one drawback met in the execution of it.
The four plebes could not be found!
They weren't in their tent; they weren't in camp! Preposterous! The
yearlings hunted, scarcely able to believe their eyes. The plebes, of
course, had a perfect right to take a walk after supper if they chose.
But the very idea of daring to do it on the first night in camp, when
they knew that the yearlings would visit them and expect to be
entertained! It was an unheard-of thing to do; but it was just what one
would have expected of those B. J. beasts, so the yearlings grumbled, as
they went off to other tents to engage other plebes in conversation and
controversy.
But where were the four? No place in particular. They had simply joined
the other three and had the impudence to disappear in the woods for a
stroll until tattoo. They had come to the conclusion that it was better
to do that than to stay and be "guyed," as they most certainly would be
if they refused their tormentors' requests. And Mark had overruled
Texas' vehement offer to stay and "do up the hull crowd," deciding that
the cover of the night would be favorable to the sevens' hazing, and
that until then they should make themselves scarce.
In the meantime there was high old sport in Camp McPherson. In response
to the requests of the merry yearlings, some plebes were sitting out on
the company streets and rowing desperate races at a 34-to-the-minute
stroke with brooms for oars and air for water; some were playing
imaginary hand-organs, while others sang songs to the tunes; some
"beasts" were imitating every imaginable animal in a real "menagerie,"
and some were relating their personal history while trying to stand on
their heads.
All this kind of hazing is good-natured and hurts no one physically,
however much the loss of dignity may torment some sensitive souls. It is
the only kind of hazing that remains to any great extent nowadays.
In the midst of such hilarity time passes very rapidly--to the
yearlings, anyway. In almost no time tattoo had sounded; and then the
companies lined up for the evening roll call, the seven dropping into
line as silently as they had stolen off, deigning a word to no one in
explanation of their strange conduct.
"That's what I call a pretty B. J. trick!" growled Cadet Harris. Bull
had been looking forward with great glee to that evening's chance to
ridicule Mark, with all his classmates to back him; it was a lost chance
now, and Bull was angry in consequence.
Bull's cronies agreed with him as to the "B. J.-ness" of that trick. And
they, along with a good many others, too, agreed that the trick ought
not be allowed to succeed.
"We ought to haze him ten times as hard to-night to make up for it!" was
the verdict.
And so it happened that the seven, by their action, brought down upon
their heads all the hazing that was done after taps. This hazing, too,
was by far the least pleasant, for it was attended to only by the more
reckless members of the class, members who could not satisfy their taste
for torture by making a helpless plebe sing songs, but must needs tumble
him out of bed and ride him on a rail at midnight besides.
The fact, however, that all such members of the yearling class had
decided to concentrate their torments upon him did not worry Mark in the
least. In fact, that was just what Mark had expected and prepared for.
And so there was destined to be fun that night.
"Now go to your tents, make down your bedding just as you were taught at
barracks; do not remove your underclothing; hang up your uniforms where
each man can get his own in an instant; put your shoes and caps where
you can get them in the dark if need be; turn in and blow your candle
out, before the drum strikes 'taps,' at ten. After that, not a sound!
Get to sleep as soon as you can and be ready to form here at reveille."
So spoke Cadet Corporal Jasper; and then at the added command, "Break
ranks, march!" the plebe company scattered, and with many a sigh of
relief vanished as individuals in the various tents.
The corporal's last order, "be ready to form here at reveille," is a
source of much worriment to the plebe. But the one before it, "get to
sleep as soon as you can," is obeyed with the alacrity born of hours of
drill and marching. Long before tattoo, which is the signal for "lights
out," the majority of the members of the class were already dreaming.
Perhaps they were not resting very easily, for most of them had a vague
idea that there might be trouble that night; but they knew that lying
awake would not stop it, and they were all too sleepy anyway.
The last closing ceremony of a West Point day in camp is the watchful
"tac's" inspection. One of these officers goes the rounds with a dark
lantern, flashing it into every tent and making sure that the four
occupants are really in bed. (The "bed" consists of a board floor, and
blankets.) Having attended to this duty, the tac likewise retires and
Camp McPherson sinks into the slumbers of the night.
After that until five the next morning there is no one awake but the
tireless sentries. A word about these. The camp is a military one and is
never without guard from the moment the tents are stretched until the
29th of August, when the snowy canvas comes to the ground once more. The
"guard tent" is at the western end of the camp, and is under the charge
of the "corporal of the guard," a cadet. The sentries are cadets, too,
and there are five of them, numbered--sentry No. 1 and so on. The
ceremony each morning at which these sentries go on duty is called
"guard-mounting." And during the next twenty-four hours these sentries
are on duty two hours in every six--two hours on and then four off,
making eight in the twenty-four.
These sentries being cadets themselves--and yearlings at present--hazing
is not so difficult as it might seem. A sentry can easily arrange to
have parties cross his beat without his seeing them; it is only when the
sentry is not in the plot that the thing is dangerous.
The "tac"--Lieutenant Allen was his name--had made his rounds for the
night, finding plebes and yearlings, too, all sleeping soundly, or
apparently so. And after that there was nothing moving but the tramping
sentinels, and the shadows of the trees in the moonlight as they fell
on the shining tents--that is, there was nothing moving that was
visible. The yearlings, plenty of them, were wide awake in their tents
and preparing for their onslaught upon the sleeping plebes.
Sleeping? Perhaps, but certainly not all of them. Some of those plebes
were as wide awake as the yearlings, and they were engaged in an
occupation that would have taken the yearlings considerably by surprise
if they had known it. There were seven of them in two tents, tents that
were back to back and close together, one being in Company A and one in
B.
They were very quiet about their work; for it was a risky business.
Discovery would have meant the sentry's yelling for the corporal of the
guard; meant that Lieutenant Allen would have leaped into his trousers
and been out of his tent at the corporal's heels; meant a strict
investigation, discovery, court-martial and dismissal. It was all right
for yearlings to be out at night; but plebes--never!
It grew riskier still as a few minutes passed, for one of the B. J.
beasts had the temerity to come out of his tent. He came very
cautiously, it was true, worming his way along the ground silently, in
true Indian--or Texas style. For Texas it was, that adventurous youth
having vowed and declared that if he were not allowed to attend to this
particular piece of mischief he would go out and hold up a sentry
instead; the other three occupants were peering under the tent folds
watching him anxiously as he crawled along.
As a fact, Texas' peril was not as great as was supposed, for the
sentries had no means of telling if he was a yearling or not. The idea
of a plebe's daring to break rules would not have occurred to them
anyhow. Be that as it may, at any rate nobody interrupted the Seven
Devils' plans. Cadet Powers made his way across the "street," deposited
his burden, a glistening steel revolver some two feet long. And then he
stole back and the crowd lay still in their tents and watched and
waited.
They had not long to do that. Texas barely had time to crawl under the
canvas and to mutter to his friends--for the hundredth time:
"Didn't I tell ye them air guns 'ud come in handy?"
At that very moment a sound of muffled laughter warned them that the
moment had arrived.
"Just in time!" whispered Mark, seizing his friend by the hand and at
the same time giving vent to a subdued chuckle. "Just in time. S-sh!"
The four, who lay side by side under the tent, could hear each other's
hearts thumping then.
"Will it work? Will it work?" was the thought in the mind of every one
of them.