by John Jakes
She was Miss Draper of Albany. His inability to keep thinking of intelligent remarks—or indeed any at all—drove him at last to dance with her. He trampled her feet. His conversation on the floor consisted of apologies. When he asked whether she’d care to stroll outside, she was almost breathlessly eager.
He had a pass permitting him to be on Flirtation Walk, so he took her there. But the leafy darkness, alive with the sounds of branches rustling—or were they the sounds of silks and satins being disturbed?—only heightened his embarrassment. They sat on a bench in awkward silence.
Unexpectedly, Miss Draper opened her large reticule and brought out a present of some little sugar cakes she had brought from the hotel dining room. Orry tried to nibble one and dropped it. He put the other inside his coat and promptly crushed it. Miss Draper gazed at him with an expectant look for about a minute, then jumped up from the bench.
“Please take me back, sir. It’s too chilly out here.”
It was, in fact, an exceptionally warm night. Orry escorted Miss Draper back to the dance in agonized silence. In less than thirty seconds she was dancing with another cadet. The evening was a failure and so was he.
“I’ll never go to one of those damn things again,” he said to George in their room after lights out. “I like being around girls, but I don’t know what to do. I especially don’t know how to flirt. Miss Draper said good night as if I had some contagious disease.”
“My boy, you neglected the quid pro quo.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t Miss Draper offer you a little gift? Some cakes, perhaps?”
“How the devil do you know that?”
“Because I’ve gotten them too.”
“From her?”
“Of course not. Other girls.”
“How many other girls?”
“Several. It’s part of the game, Orry. In return for the gift, the girl expects a souvenir and a gentleman always obliges. Why do you think I’m constantly cadging spare buttons and sewing them on my coat?”
“I have noticed that you lose a lot of buttons. Do you mean to say Miss Draper wanted me to—?”
“The brave may deserve the fair,” George broke in, “but the fair in turn demand West Point buttons. Especially before they give you a squeeze or a kiss. My boy, a button from a cadet uniform is the most sought-after romantic souvenir in the nation.”
“My Lord,” Orry breathed softly. “I never suspected. No wonder she was looking daggers. Oh, well, I reckon I’m one of those men the Almighty intended for just one woman.”
“The same way He intended you for just one career? Orry, you’re too serious.”
In the dark George’s iron bed squeaked as he rolled over to face his roommate. “As long as we’re being candid, there’s a question that’s been bothering me. I must say I think I know the answer.”
“Well?”
“Have you ever been with a woman?”
“See here, that’s a personal, not to say ungentlemanly—”
“Confound it, don’t give me any of your damned Southern rhetoric. Have you or haven’t you?”
Orry very nearly swallowed the answer. “I haven’t.”
“We’re going to do something about that.”
“Do something? How?”
“You sound as if we’re discussing cholera, for God’s sake!”
Orry realized his friend’s anger was feigned. He chuckled in a nervous way and muttered, “Sorry. Go on.”
“A couple of very accommodating ladies live in the village. A visit to one of them might banish some of your sentimental notions about females. It would certainly help convince you that women won’t shatter the first time you glance crookedly—or lustfully—in their direction.”
Through this Orry had been trying to break in, but George refused to permit it:
“No arguments. It won’t cost you much, and you’ll find the whole thing vastly educational. If you value our friendship, you have to go.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
Orry hoped his voice didn’t reveal his sudden excitement.
Orry expected his initiation into sex to be a private matter, with only George and the woman in question knowing about it. Instead, a few nights later, George rounded up four other cadets and all six of them ran it to Buttermilk Falls. The initiation would be about as private as a convention.
The lady they visited seemed ancient to him, though in fact she was not quite thirty-three. She was a buxom brunette, Alice Peet by name. She had gentle eyes, a hard smile, and a face from which work and worry had scrubbed much of the prettiness. George said she was a widow who took in laundry “and other things” to support herself, three youngsters, and a cat. Her husband, a deck hand on a river steamer, had fallen overboard and drowned during a thunderstorm two summers ago.
Alice Peet had sent her children to stay with a friend, so she and the visitors had the house to themselves. House was hardly the word, though; shack would have been more fitting. The place consisted of one large room and a second smaller addition, presumably to be used for the evening’s business. A flimsy door divided the two areas.
Orry swallowed a burning mouthful of whiskey Alice Peet had poured. All at once shame and shyness gripped him. He knew he couldn’t step beyond that door. Without saying anything, he took himself out to the porch.
Alice Peet’s shack was located at the south end of the village, well away from the nearest neighbor. If the place had nothing else, it had a splendid view of the starlit Hudson. Orry sat down and relaxed.
Alice didn’t seem to miss her husband much. She laughed and drank and enjoyed herself with the other cadets. The party grew cheerfully rowdy. After an hour or so, Orry figured they had forgotten him, for which he was thankful. Then the front door opened with a bang.
Cadet Stribling lurched out. He had become a good friend now that George and Orry were yearlings.
“Main? Where are you, sir? Madame Pompadour-Peet awaits. And, believe me, I use the word advisedly.”
At that point Stribling almost fell off the porch. He caught himself and belched. “My Lord, the creature’s insatiable. We’ll be here all night. But as long as she doesn’t raise the price, who cares? Go on, now. It’s your turn.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay right—”
“Cadet Orry Main sir?” That was George, shouting. “Get in here and do your duty, sir.”
After a few more minutes of badgering, he reluctantly went in. The leering cadets rousted him through the main room to the other one and shut the door behind him. He was terrified. Yet to his surprise, he was also living up to his nickname: stiff as a stick against the fly front of his trousers. The fly was a recent innovation in West Point uniforms. It had been introduced despite the opposition of, among others, Old Dickey’s wife, who had railed against the moral decay signified by pants with buttons down the front. Lust had been publicly acknowledged. And by the government, too.
Orry had wild fantasies of pressure causing those buttons to burst loose. In the dark the laundress had a pleasantly musky smell, a blend of toilet water, whiskey, and warm flesh. “Over here,” she murmured.
He stumbled against the end of the bed, elaborately excused himself. Alice Peet didn’t make fun of him. Perhaps she was drunk, but she sounded kind.
“Come, dear. You’re Orry, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. Orry.”
“Nice name. Your friend says this is all new to you.”
“Well—”
“You don’t have to answer. Sit down.”
Afire—did he have a fever?—he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “We’ll make it easy and enjoyable for you, dear,” the woman said, and touched him in a way so shocking it might have given an older man a fatal seizure.
She was expert. Ten minutes later, Orry gasped involuntarily and no mystery remained.
On the way back to the post he tried to assure George that he’d had a fine time. Secretly, ho
wever, Alice Peet’s embraces had left him unfulfilled and curiously sad. He might be out of step with the rest of the world, but couplings with near strangers were not for him. The visit to the shack had convinced him again that there would be but one woman in his life. One and only one. He was sure he would know her the instant he met her.
If that made him a romantic fool, so be it.
On a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1844, George and Orry found themselves with a free hour and no demerits to work off with extra guard tours. They went hiking in the hills above the Academy. That day Orry learned something about the Hazard family’s involvement with the iron trade. It was not only deep but, in its own way, mystical. And George shared that involvement—a fact he had concealed until now.
As they were walking, the two cadets happened on a round, shallow crater in the hillside. The crater’s diameter was something over two feet. Dirt had run down into the bottom, and the rim was pierced by new shoots of wild grass, suggesting the crater had been hollowed out months or even years before.
Unexpectedly, George looked excited. He knelt by the crater and, with no explanation, dug in the bottom with both hands.
“George, what the devil are you—?”
“Wait! I found something.”
From under the loose dirt he produced his discovery—some kind of cinder, conical in shape and measuring about six inches from point to base. But Orry had never seen a cinder that exact shade of dark brown.
“What on earth is that?”
“Nothing earthly,” George replied with an odd, almost humorless smile. When Orry’s frown signified annoyance with the cryptic answer, George pointed at the cloud-dotted sky. “It came from out there. It’s a meteorite. The color shows there’s a great deal of iron in it. Star iron, the old-timers at the factory call it.” He turned the rough object over and over, studying it with an expression so close to reverence Orry was thunderstruck.
“The ancient Egyptians knew about star iron,” George went on softly. “This piece may have traveled millions and millions of miles before it crashed here. My father says the iron trade has had more influence on the course of history than all the politicians and generals since the beginning of time”—he held up the meteorite—“and this is the reason. Iron can destroy anything: families, fortunes, governments, whole countries. It’s the most powerful stuff in the universe.”
“Oh?” Orry’s skeptical glance fell on the Plain below. “You really think it’s more powerful than a big army?”
“Without weapons—without this—there are no big armies.”
He said it with such intensity that Orry shivered. A few moments later they moved on. Soon George was his old self again, chatting and joking. But he still had the meteorite in his hand. Back in barracks, he wrapped it and stored it away like a treasured possession.
One night near the end of May, George ran it for cigars. He pulled up short outside the door of Benny Haven’s. Inside, a boisterous crowd was serenading the proprietor with an old and familiar song. Each West Point class tried to add a memorable verse to the song, one that would be passed down to others. Most of the verses were bawdy, but just now the revelers were bellowing a polite one:
“Come, tune your voices, comrades,
And stand up in a row.
For singing sentimentally
we’re going for to go.
In the Army there’s sobriety,
Promotion’s very slow,
So we’ll sing our reminiscences of
Benny Haven’s, oh!”
George peeked through the window and frowned. Too many first and second classmen in there, including that damn Bent. He thought about turning around and leaving, but he had been without cigars for several days.
A second peek showed him a couple of yearlings in the group. Most of the cadets were drunk. Spring had that effect. Quickly he planned his tactics. He’d give the upperclassmen no excuse to think he felt guilty. It was mostly a matter of deportment. He put his shoulders back, fixed a cocky smile in place, and went in.
“Benny Haven’s, oh!
Benny Haven’s, oh!
We’ll sing our reminiscences of
Benny Haven’s, oh!”
The upperclassmen turned on him, but their shouted threats were perfunctory and brief. George bought his cigars and was on his way out when Bent lurched to his side and threw an arm across his shoulders.
George’s stomach tightened. So did his right hand. But fists weren’t necessary. Bent’s eyes had a vague, bleary look. He asked George to join him for beer, muttering something about all of them forgetting the past. That didn’t lull George for one second, though he agreed to have a drink because it was free and he was thirsty.
Elkanah Bent was tipsy and hence not as pompous as usual. He babbled excitedly about a piece of recent news from Washington. The inventor Morse had sent a message over a wire all the way to Baltimore.
“Don’t you understand the significance, Hazard? It’s the dawn of the age of improved military information. Exactly what old Mahan predicted! In the next war—”
“What next war?” George interrupted.
“How should I know?” Bent spilled beer over his chin and uniform as he drank. “But it will come, sure as the seasons.” Some of the dullness left his eyes. “Human beings can’t settle their differences any other way. It’s the nature of the animal. For the sake of our careers, I say thank God.”
Some of the other cadets were listening. One stared at Bent with a disbelieving expression much like that on George’s face. The Ohioan paid no attention. His voice took on an unexpected intensity. “When this country fights again, she’ll be looking for new leadership.” He leaned forward, cheeks glistening, lips moist. “The Army will be seeking an American Bonaparte.”
George uttered a nervous laugh. “Well, Mr. Bent, you see a larger canvas than I do. I hope I’m out of the Army before this gigantic war of yours. But if not, I’ll have just three objectives. Carry out orders. Do so with reasonable effectiveness. And dodge the bullets.”
“Quite right,” Bent said with a wave. “A prudent general never exposes himself to fire. The individual soldier is nothing more or less than one of Mr. Whitney’s interchangeable parts. Better that fifty thousand such parts should be lost than a brilliant leader.”
“Interesting theory,” George muttered, rising abruptly. He offered a word of thanks for the drink, but Bent didn’t hear. He was too busy snatching at George’s sleeve in an attempt to keep his audience.
George pulled away. He was disgusted by the sodden creature and what he had said. He needed fresh air and the sight of something besides Bent’s small, crazed eyes.
That same week, Pickett invited George, Orry, and several other friends to a hash. Such affairs were a tradition at West Point. For three days preceding the event, the invited guests filched leftover meat, potatoes, butter and bread from the mess hall. They carried off the food in the traditional way—concealed in forage caps from which the rattan hoop stiffeners had been removed.
On Saturday night, after inspection of quarters, the guests gathered in Pickett’s room. Using the donated ingredients, the Virginian prepared the hash in stolen utensils that were the common property of all the cadets in the barracks. A serving of hot hash was given to the nearest sentinel, thus ensuring that the party would be ignored until taps.
It was a happy, carefree occasion. Conversation was lively and wide-ranging. They talked about the Oregon problem; the April treaty providing for the annexation of Texas; the Democratic nominating convention that only the day before had turned from the favorite, Van Buren, and chosen a border man, Polk, who was an avowed expansionist.
Those looking forward to summer leave discussed their plans. Orry was among them. Then George brought up his most recent encounter with Bent.
“When he spoke about an American Bonaparte, I swear he was referring to himself. What’s worse, I got a clear impression that he’d cheerfully send a regiment to be butchered if it se
rved his purpose. He wouldn’t think twice about it, either. He called soldiers ‘interchangeable parts.’”
Pickett reached into the fireplace for the skillet in which he was reheating the last of the hash. “If you’ll pardon an execrable pun, gentlemen, the cadet under discussion is hell-bent for glory. God pity anyone who obstructs that advance, intentionally or otherwise.”
A slender cadet from Missouri said, “I think you’re all taking him too seriously. He’s a jackass. A clown.”
“If you dismiss him that easily, you’re the jackass,” George countered.
“Amen,” Orry said. “He’s dangerous. Maybe even crazy. Stay out of his way.”
“And finish the hash,” Pickett added.
6
ORRY TRAVELED SOUTH BY coastal steamer. At his first meal in the dining saloon, he felt self-conscious in his furlough uniform. The coat’s long, narrow swallowtails carried an extravagant number of stamped gilt buttons, as did each cuff. The uniform certainly drew attention. All of it was favorable and friendly, except for that of a Connecticut merchant who grumbled about a pampered military aristocracy. The merchant thought a civilian board should be appointed to oversee the Academy.
At Charleston, Orry hired a horse so as to have a slower trip upriver than a boat would provide. He wanted to savor the sights of his homecoming. He’d been away two years and somewhat to his amazement, he had survived an astonishing number of tests of character and intellect. The realization brought a good feeling. This leave would be perfect if only a girl were waiting for him, a special girl to whom he could give the cadet’s traditional gift of love—the gold embroidery wreath decorating the black velvet band of his furlough cap. The wreath contained the letters U.S.M.A. embroidered in the Old English style.
But there was no such girl. He had begun to resign himself to living his entire life without finding her.
Heavy rain started to fall as he rode out of the city. He stopped to put on his blue furlough coat and pull his cap lower so the bill would keep the water out of his eyes. Even so, he knew he’d be soaked when he reached Mont Royal, where he planned to meet Cooper. From the plantation the two of them would travel on to the family’s summer residence.