CAPTAIN HAWKESBURY
Tom managed to stand up, though he felt weak and dizzy. He saw rather
sheepish looks on the faces of the two yearlings who had begun to haze
him. Behind them stood one of the older cadets.
“You’d better go,” he said to the two hazers. Then of Tom he asked in
not unkindly tone: “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Tom answered, saluting, though had it not been for the pain
of bruises he would have felt like laughing, standing at attention as
he was, ready for his bath.
The older cadet said nothing more. Doubtless he understood. For hazing
at West Point is severely prohibited now, though doubtless a mild form
goes on more or less surreptitiously.
Tom took a hot bath, which made him feel better, and when he had gone
under the stinging shower he was braced up sufficiently to make him
almost forget his painful bruises, for they did hurt.
Our hero did not feel any resentment against the lads who had started
him on the “slide for life,” as it used to be called. It was part of
the game, though a forbidden part. And Tom knew better than to make a
fuss about it. His life would have been miserable from then on had he
done so.
After all, hazing, if not too severe and if it is unaccompanied by
indignities that lower one’s self-respect, has its use in the world. It
teaches a young man certain lessons that are hard to drill into him in
other ways. But hazing, as it is often done in schools and colleges,
is sometimes a silly performance, and sometimes a positively harmful
proceeding.
“What’s the matter, Tom?” asked Harry Houston, a little later, as the
three new chums were in their barrack room. “You walk lame.”
“Oh, I got a little bump in the bathroom,” Tom answered, evasively.
“Huh! I think I can guess how,” said Sam. “I didn’t have it so easy
yesterday, myself. But it’s all in the day’s work.”
The next day was the last of the examinations, and there were evidences
of relief on all sides. But still there was the haunting fear in the
heart of every candidate that he had not passed. It would be about two
days before the results would be announced, and those two days are,
perhaps, filled with more agony than any others in the life of a West
Pointer, except, it may be, when the final examinations come.
During the two days of waiting there had been little to occupy the
attention of the candidates. They were obliged to keep to their rooms
most of the time, and dismal enough it was, too. But there was no help
for it.
“I do wish they’d hurry up and end the suspense,” cried Harry one
day when it was rumored that the results were to be made known that
afternoon.
“Yes, it’s like keeping a fellow on pins and needles all the while,”
agreed Sam.
“Hark!” exclaimed Tom, rising to his feet. “I think--”
“Candidates turn out promptly!” came an order, interrupting him. “Turn
out!”
“They’re going to make the announcements,” Sam said, and his hands
trembled as he reached for his cap.
Tom said nothing, but gritted his teeth. If he had failed--well, he had
made a brave attempt.
Downstairs went the candidates, all of them eagerly anxious, and
perhaps not one but was nervously anxious. Their faces showed the
strain they were under.
In the area they were formed in a single rank, while in front of them
stood the adjutant of the Academy--the same one to whom Tom and the
others had reported the first day of their arrival.
He announced that those whose names he called were to step two paces
to the front, the others were to maintain their place in the ranks.
The name-calling followed immediately, in alphabetical order, and,
one after another, certain lads stepped out. Tom’s name would come
far down on the list. He listened when the “H” division was reached,
but Houston’s was not called. Nor was Leland’s. And the adjutant went
through the “T” column without mentioning Tom.
Our hero was puzzled. Had he failed? Why had his name not been called
if he passed? No one seemed to understand what it was all about or what
system was being followed.
Finally the reading was over. In front, two paces in advance of one
line, stood another row of cadets. The front rank was the smaller in
number.
Then, with wildly-beating hearts, Tom and the others listened to the
words of the adjutant. Those whose names had been called, he stated,
had failed in their examinations, and could not continue at the
Academy. They would turn in their equipment and withdraw. The others
would remain, and start on their four years’ training to become army
officers.
“Then I’ve passed!” Tom said, exultantly to himself. “I’ve passed and
Clarence hasn’t!”
He wanted to laugh, to shout and yell at his good fortune. Not that he
wanted to gloat over the failure of young Hawkesbury. It was just that
Tom was fully alive to what it meant to him to have succeeded.
There was a deep silence following the announcement of the adjutant.
Doubtless others of the successful ones than Tom wanted to laugh and
shout, but they had to refrain. And probably those who had failed had
hard work to keep back the tears of disappointment. For after all, they
were only boys around seventeen years of age, and disappointment is
keener than later, just as success is more sweet.
But it was all very cold and impartial at the West Point Academy. No
one congratulated the successful ones, though when ranks were broken
they did exult among themselves. And there was small comfort for the
losers, most of whom, however, accepted it gamely.
“I’m glad I don’t have to go through the four years’ grind,” said one
lad, who, it was rumored, was quite wealthy. “I’m going out West on a
ranch now, and do some real living.”
Later on, when hard work came, Tom often envied him. But Tom was not
going to turn back now.
“Well, old man, we made it!” said Harry, as he shook Tom’s hand, once
they were in their room again.
“That’s what we did!” declared Sam. “Oh, but I was shaky!”
“So was I,” Tom admitted, with a laugh.
Those who had been “found”--which means they had lost the
examination--lost little time in turning in their belongings, and
taking the train back to their homes. Some declared they would make
another attempt next year, while others went off, sullenly angry.
“And now for uniforms!” exclaimed Harry, a little later. “No more
‘cits,’ for at least two years, when we get our first furlough.” The
clothes Tom and his chums had worn up to this time had been those they
brought from home. They were the attire of civilians, or citizens,
which last word has been abbreviated to “cits” by the cadets.
“We’ll get any old sort of a uniform now,” said Sam, who had been
forewarned. “Later on we’ll be measured for one that fits, and then
melted and poured into it.”
Indeed so well did the clothes of the cadets fit them that the simile
of Sam was not inappropriate.
Each of the successful candidates received two pairs of uniform shoes,
two pairs of gray flannel trousers, a gray blouse and a cap.
“Now we really are somebody!” exclaimed Tom, with a sigh of content as
he surveyed himself in the small mirror allowed in their room.
“Well, yes, it’s a beginning,” said Sam.
The next day they were marched to headquarters, to take the oath of
allegiance to the United States, to serve for eight years, unless
sooner discharged. Each lad had to pay a twenty-five cent fee to an old
clerk, who acted as notary public in administering the oath.
It was when Tom and the others were coming from drill, a few days
later, with aching shoulders and legs--for the ordeal had been
severe--that our hero received a surprise.
With his chums he was passing along the parade ground, when he saw
approaching an officer whose figure seemed vaguely familiar. The
“plebes” saluted as they passed him. Tom had a look at his face.
“Captain Hawkesbury!” murmured Tom, under his breath. “What can he be
doing here?” he asked Sam, as he passed on, getting a sharp look from
the glittering eyes of Clarence’s uncle.
“Who?” asked Sam.
“That officer--Captain Hawkesbury,” Tom went on, indicating the man
they had just passed.
“Oh, him. Why he’s been assigned here from the regular army, I heard,
to give special instruction. Why, do you know him?”
“Yes, and I--I wish I didn’t,” murmured Tom. He felt a vague sense of
foreboding. What would the presence of Captain Hawkesbury mean to our
hero at West Point, when Tom had been successful over the officer’s
favorite nephew? Tom was apprehensive.