LIEUTENANT DENTON'S STRAIGHT TALK
"Let me have that paper!" demanded Greg, darting forward.
There was fire in Cadet Holmes's eyes and purpose in his heart
as he reached forward to snatch the sheet from the desk.
Yet Dick Prescott stepped before him, thrusting him quietly aside
with a manner that was not to be overridden.
"Don't touch it, Greg!" he ordered in a low voice that was none
the less compelling.
"But you shan't send that resignation in!" quivered Greg.
"My dear boy, you know very well that I shall!"
"Have you no thought for me?" Cadet Holmes demanded.
"My going may put you in a blue streak for a week, old fellow,
but it will put me in a blue streak for a lifetime. Yet there's
no other way for me. What's the use of being an ostracized officer
in the service? With you, Greg, old chum, it is different. You
will, after a little, be very happy in the Army."
"Happy in the---nothing!" exploded Greg. "I told you, weeks ago,
that if you quit the service, I would do the same thing."
"But you won't," urged Dick. "In these weeks you have had time
to reflect and turn sensible."
"Do you suppose I care to go on, old chum, if you don't?"
"Yes," answered Dick quietly. "And if the case were reversed,
and you were resigning, I should go on just the same and stick
in the service. Why, Greg, if we both went on into the Army,
and under the happiest conditions, we wouldn't be together, anyway.
You might be in one regiment, down in Florida, and I in another
out in the Philippines. When I was serving in Cuba, you'd be
in Alaska. Don't be foolish, Greg. I've got to leave, but there's
no earthly reason why you should. Your resigning would be mistaken
loyalty to me, and would cast no rebuke or regret over the cadet
corps or the Army. The fellows who are going to stick would simply
feel that one weak-kneed chap had dropped by the wayside. They'd
merely march on and forget you."
"There goes the first call for dinner formation," cried Holmes,
wheeling and beginning his hasty preparations.
"That's better," laughed Dick, as he shoved his resignation into
the drawer of the table.
Then Dick, too, made his hurried preparations. Second call found
them ready to watch the forming of A company. At the command
Dick gave his own company order:
"Fours right! Forward---march!"
Away went A company, at the head of the corps, the whole long line
giving forth the rhythmic sound of marching feet.
No outsider could have guessed that the young senior cadet captain
was utterly discredited by the majority of his class, and that he
was about to drop hopelessly out of this stirring life.
On the return from dinner Dick went at once to his room.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Greg impatiently, as Prescott
seated himself at the study table.
"I am going to address an envelope to hold the sheet of paper
of which you so much disapprove."
Greg knew it was useless to expostulate. Instead, he hurried
out, found Anstey, and called the Virginian so that both could
stand in the place where they would be sure to see Prescott if
he attempted to come out.
Feverishly, in undertones, Greg confided the news to Anstey.
"I don't just see what we can do, suh," answered the southerner
with a puzzled look.
"Prescott is doing, suh, just what I reckon I'd do myself, suh, if
I were in his place."
"But we can't lose him," urged Greg.
"I know we'll hate like thunder to, suh. But what can we do?
Can we beg Prescott to stay, and face the cold shoulder, suh,
all the time he is here, and in the Army afterwards?"
"I'm not getting much comfort out of you, Anstey," muttered Greg
grimly.
"And that, suh, is because I don't see where the comfort comes
in. Holmesy, don't think I'm not suffering, suh. It'll break
my heart to see old ramrod drop out of the corps."
"Then you don't think we can stop Prescott?"
"I reckon I don't Holmesy. This is the kind of matter, suh, that
every man must settle for himself. If I were a much older man,
Holmesy, with much more experience in the Army, I reckon I might
be able to give him some very sound advice. But as it is, suh,
I know I can't."
When Greg returned to the room he found Dick preparing books and
papers to march to the next section recitation.
"What have you done with that resignation of yours?" growled Greg.
"It's in that drawer," replied Dick, with a weary smile, "and
I rely on you, old fellow, not to do anything to it. It would
only give me all the pain over again if I had to rewrite it."
"Dick, can nothing change your mind?"
"I have thought it all over, old friend."
The call for section formation sounded, and both hurried away.
Later, Dick's section returned a full minute and a half ahead
of the one to which Holmes belonged.
"Now's the time!" muttered Dick, opening the drawer and slipping
the envelope into the breast of his blouse.
Then he hurried out, crossing the quadrangle to the cadet guard
house. Cadet Holmes, in section ranks, marched into the quadrangle
in time just to catch a glimpse of Prescott's disappearing back.
Going up the stairs, Dick knocked on the door of the office of
the O.C.
"Come in!" called the officer in charge, who proved to be none
other than Lieutenant Denton again.
"What is it, Mr. Prescott?" inquired the Army officer, as Prescott,
saluting, advanced to the officer's desk, then halted, standing
at attention.
"Sir, I have come to ask for some information."
"What is it, Mr. Prescott?"
"Sir, I have a paper, addressed to the superintendent. I do not
know whether I should take it to the adjutant's office, or whether
I should forward it through this office."
"I thought you understood your company paper work, Mr. Prescott,"
smiled Lieutenant Denton.
"I think I do, sir; but this kind of paper I have never had to put
in before."
"What kind of paper is it?"
"My resignation, sir," replied Dick quietly. Lieutenant Denton
looked almost as much astonished as he felt.
"What?" he choked. Then a slight smile came into his face.
"Oh, I think I begin to understand, Mr. Prescott. You wish more
time for your studies, and so you are resigning your post as captain
of A company."
"This is my resignation, sir, from the corps of cadets."
Lieutenant Denton looked utterly nonplussed.
"Oh, very good, Mr. Prescott. If you are bent on leaving the
Military Academy, I presume I have no right to demand your reasons.
But---won't you sit down?"
The lieutenant pointed to a chair near his own.
"Thank you, sir," nodded Prescott. Taking off his fatigue cap,
he dropped into the chair, though he sat very erect.
"Now," smiled Mr. Denton, "perhaps we can drop, briefly, some
of the relation between officer and cadet. We may be able to
talk as friends---real friends. I trust so. May I feel at liberty
to ask you, Mr. Prescott, whether there are any urgent family
reasons behind this sudden move of yours?"
"None, sir."
"Then is it---but I don't wish to be intrusive."
"I certainly don't consider you intrusive, Mr. Denton, and I
appreciate your sympathy and friendship. But I am resigning from
the corps for the best of good reasons."
"May I question you, Mr. Prescott?"
"If you care to, sir."
"I do wish it, very much," rejoined Lieutenant Denton, "though
I have asked your consent because, in what I am now seeking to
do, I am going rather beyond my place as a tactical officer of
the Military Academy. If you are sure, however, that you do not
find me intrusive, and if you would like to talk this matter
over---not as officer and cadet, but as between a young man and a
somewhat older one, and as friends above all, then I am going to
ask you a few questions."
"Although I am certain that you cannot help me, Mr. Denton, I
am very grateful for every sign of interest that you may show
in me. It is something of balm to me to feel that I shall leave
behind some who will regret my going."
"Prescott," asked the officer abruptly, "you have been sent to
Coventry, haven't you? You needn't answer unless you wish."
"I have, sir," Dick assented.
"Twice it has happened, when I have been on duty, that you have
had to report classmates to me. Now, I'm not going to step over
the line by asking you whether those reports were the basis of
your being sent to Coventry. But, to please myself, I'm going
to assume that such is the case."
To this Dick made no reply. It was an instance in which a cadet
could not, with propriety, discuss class action with an officer
on duty at the Military Academy.
"Now, Prescott, I'm not going to ask you whether my surmise is
a correct one, but I'm going to ask you another question, as a
friend only, and in no official way. Of course, in a friendly
matter you may suit yourself about answering it. Have you done
anything else that could excuse the class in punishing you?"
"Nothing whatever, sir."
"Mr. Prescott, aren't you wholly satisfied with your conduct?"
"I don't quite know how to answer that, Mr. Denton,"
"Have you done anything that you wouldn't repeat if the need arose?"
"I have not, sir," replied Dick with great earnestness.
"Do you feel, in your own soul, that you have done anything to
discredit the splendid old gray uniform that you wear?"
"I do not, sir."
"Answer this, or not, as you please. Don't you feel wholly convinced
that your class has done you an injustice which it would reverse
instantly if it knew all the circumstances?"
"I feel certain that my classmates would restore me at once to their
favor, if they knew the full circumstances."
"Have you felt obliged to refuse them any information for which a
class committee had asked, Prescott?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me do some hard thinking, my lad. Ah, now, as I look back
to the night when you were obliged to report Mr. Jordan for being
outside the guard lines, I had myself that night assigned you
to official duty near the guard lines. You were to intercept
plebes who might try to run the guard, and to send them back to
their tents."
"Yes, sir."
"That was special duty," resumed Lieutenant Denton. "Now, if you
had been asked, by a class committee, to explain how you happened
to be out there at the right time to catch Mr. Jordan, you would
have felt bound to refuse to reveal your orders from me?"
"I certainly would have felt so bound, Mr. Denton."
"Ah! Now I think I understand a good deal, Prescott. Then, at
another time, very recently, you forgot, until late, to turn in
an official report to me. You started to hurry over here, and,
in so doing, you must have accidentally encountered a certain
cadet returning in "cit." clothes. As his company commander,
you surely felt bound to report him for so flagrant a breach of
discipline. Yet, if your class did not fully understand or credit
the fact that only an oversight of yours had thrown you in that
cadet's way, it would make the class feel that you had deliberately
trapped the man, after having spied on his actions earlier in
the evening."
Dick remained silent, but Lieutenant Denton was a clear headed
and logical guesser.
"In my cadet days," smiled the lieutenant, "such a suspicion against
a cadet officer would certainly have resulted in ostracism for him."
"Now, Prescott," asked the officer in charge, leaning over and
resting a friendly hand on the cadet's arm, "you feel that you
have been, throughout, a gentleman and a good soldier, and that
you have not done anything sneaky?"
"That is my opinion of myself, Mr. Denton."
"And yet, feeling that your course has been wholly honorable,
you are going to throw up your career in the Army, and waste some
twenty thousand dollars of the nation's money that has been expended
in giving you your training here?"
"It sounds like a fearful thing to do, Mr. Denton, but I can see
no way out of it, sir. If I am to go on into the Army, and be
an ostracized officer, I should be of no value to myself or to
the service. Wherever I should go, my usefulness would be gone
and my presence demoralizing."
"Now, if that ostracism continued, your usefulness would be gone,
Prescott, beyond a doubt, and the Army would be better off without
you. But if justice should triumph, later, you would be restored
to your full usefulness, and to the full enjoyment of your career.
Now, Prescott, my boy"---here the officer's voice became tender,
friendly, earnest---"you have been attending chapel every Sunday?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have listened to the chaplain's discourses, and I take it
that you have had earlier religious instruction, also. Prescott,
do you or do you not believe that there is a God above who sees
all, loves all and rights all injustice in His own good time?"
"Assuredly I believe it, sir."
"And yet, in your own case, you have so little faith in that justice
that, though you feel your course has been honorable, you cannot
wait for justice to be done. Prescott, isn't that kind of faith
almost blasphemy?"
Dick felt staggered. Although his lot had been cast with Army
officers for more than three years, he had never heard any of
them, save the chaplain, discuss matters of Christian faith.
Yet he knew that Denton, who sat beside him, smiling with friendly
eyes, was talking from full conviction.
"You've made me see my present predicament in a somewhat different
light, sir," Dick stammered.
"Prescott, I have knocked about in a good deal of rough life since
I was graduated from here, but I have full faith that every upright
and honorable man is ultimately safe under Heaven's justice.
So have you, or I am mistaken in you. Why not buck up, and make
up your mind to go through your hard rub here firm in the conviction
that this is only a passing cloud that is certain to be dispelled?
Why not stick, like a man of faith and honor? Now, as officer
in charge, I will inform you that you should take a letter of
resignation to the adjutant's office, and hand it to that officer
in person."
As your friend, I suggest that you give me your letter, with your
permission to destroy it."
"Here is the letter, Mr. Denton."
"Thank you, my boy. You may see what I do with it."
Rising, Lieutenant Denton crossed to an open fire that was burning
low. He laid the envelope across the embers.
Prescott, too, rose, feeling that the interview was at an end.
"Just a moment more of friendly conversation, Prescott," continued
the lieutenant, coming forward and taking the cadet's hand. "I
want you to remember that you are not to write or send in any
other letter of resignation until you have first talked it over
with me. And I want you to remember that a soldier should be
a man of faith as well as of honor. Further, Prescott, you may
feel yourself wholly at liberty to explain, at any time, what
your orders from me were that led to your catching and reporting
Mr. Jordan."
"Thank you, sir; but I'm afraid I shan't be asked for any further
explanations."
"Seek me, at any time, if there is anything you wish to ask me,
or anything that puzzles you."
"Yes, sir; thank you."
Dick had again placed his fatigue cap on his head, and was standing
rigidly at attention. They were once more tactical officer and cadet.
"That is all, Mr. Prescott, and I am very glad that you came to
see me," continued the officer in charge.
Prescott saluted, received the officer's acknowledging salute,
turned and left the office.
A minute later he was allowing good old Greg to pump the details
of that interview out of him.
"Say," muttered Cadet Holmes, staring soberly at his chum, "an
officer like Lieutenant Denton can put a different look on things,
can't be?"
"He certainly can, Greg."
"I'm not going to be fresh, while I'm a cadet," continued Holmes.
"But when I'm an officer I'm going to seek Mr. Denton and ask him
to be my friend, too!"