by John Jakes
Billy gulped and fought his anger. “No. Sir. He’s an ironmaster.”
“Sir,” roared the other, “I asked you straightforwardly whether your father was or was not a politician, and in reply you regale me with a discourse on manufacturing. Stand in that corner, facing it, for fifteen minutes. I shall be back to check on you. Meantime, ponder this. Continue to be garrulous and headstrong, and your career at this institution will be short and unpleasant. Now, sir. Into the corner!”
Red-faced, Billy obeyed. If he had been like his brother, he would have punched the arrogant cadet and worried about the consequences later. But he was a more deliberate sort, and for that reason George said he would probably make an outstanding engineer. Moreover, his trusting nature made him an easy victim. He stood for nearly an hour before a second classman looked in, took pity on him, and ordered him to stand at ease, because Slocum had no intention of coming back.
Slocum. Billy rubbed his aching leg and noted the name.
“Better get used to that kind of deviling, sir,” said the second classman. “You’re going to be a plebe for a good long time.”
“Yes sir,” Billy muttered as the other left. Some things at West Point didn’t change, and never would.
Still wearing civilian clothes, Billy and the other plebes marched to the Plain for summer camp behind the uniformed battalion, just as George and Orry had. The plebes staggered through the dust carrying the gear of the upperclassmen, and bloodied their knuckles and lost their tempers trying to drive tent pegs into the hard ground.
That first day in camp, Billy was exposed to another change taking place at the Academy. It was a change less marked than many of the others, but no less important. Some said later that it was the most important change of all because it was so destructive.
Each tent held three men, their blankets, a rack for the muskets they would eventually be issued, and a battered, green-painted locker. The locker had three compartments, one for each cadet’s linen. It also served as the tent’s only seat. When Billy walked in, followed by a thin, pale plebe with a bewildered air, the third occupant of the tent was sitting on the locker, polishing his expensive Wellington boots with a kerchief.
He glanced up. “Good evening to you. McAleer’s the name. Dillard McAleer.” He extended his hand.
Billy shook it, trying to identify the boy’s accent. It was Southern, but a little harder and more nasal than the speech of South Carolina.
“I’m Billy Hazard. From Pennsylvania. This is Fred Pratt, from Milwaukee.”
“Frank Pratt,” said the tall boy. He sounded apologetic.
“Well, well. Two Yankees.” Dillard McAleer grinned. McAleer had pale blue eyes and blond curls that fell over his pink forehead. Billy had seen him before, when the newcomers had been sized and divided into four squads, one of which was attached to each cadet company. Billy and McAleer were of medium height, hence had been put in a squad attached to one of the interior companies. Frank Pratt, who remained meekly by the tent entrance, stood almost six feet. He had been assigned to a flank company squad.
“You boys plan to gang up on me?” McAleer asked. Something about him struck faint chords of memory. What was it? McAleer was still smiling, but there was a detectable seriousness in the question. Billy thought it a bad omen.
He heard noises outside—footfalls, and someone whispering. The skulkers were on the side of the tent away from the sun, so no shadows fell across the canvas. Billy countered McAleer’s question with another:
“Why should we do that? We’re all suffering through this together.”
“I don’t aim to suffer,” McAleer declared. “First Yankee son of a bitch that fools with me, I’ll push his nose out the back of his head.”
Billy scratched his chin. “Where are you from, McAleer?”
“Little place in Kentucky, name of Pine Vale. My daddy farms there.” He stared at Billy. “Him and the four niggers he owns.”
The cadet clearly expected a reaction. He remained seated on the locker, his cheerfully truculent expression telling them he could and would deal with any criticisms they might offer. Billy hadn’t expected to confront sectional hostility at West Point. He had been naive, and the realization gave him a jolt. But he certainly didn’t intend to get into any arguments over slavery.
Still, as tent mates, the three of them were equals, and McAleer had to understand that. Billy gestured. “I’d like to stow my linen. Mind moving out of the way?”
“Why, yes, I do.” McAleer stood up slowly, like a snake uncoiling. Though he was stocky, he had a natural grace that heightened his girlish look. But when he brushed the tips of his fingers over his palms, as if preparing for a fight, Billy saw that his hands were callused.
McAleer’s grin widened again. “Reckon that if you want into this here locker, you’ll have to displace me.”
Frank Pratt uttered a small, pathetic groan. Now Billy knew why Dillard McAleer seemed familiar. He acted like some of the young men Billy had met at Mont Royal. Arrogant, almost desperately pugnacious. Maybe it was a standard defense against Yankees.
Billy gave the Kentuckian a level stare. “McAleer, I’ve no quarrel with you. We have to live in this canvas hell hole for sixty days, and we need to get along. As far as I’m concerned, getting along doesn’t depend on who we are or where we hail from, but it surely does depend on how we treat each other. Now I didn’t ask anything unusual, just to get into that locker, which is one-third mine. But if I have to displace you, as you call it, I guess I can.”
The firmness of the statement impressed McAleer. He waved. “Hell, Hazard, I was only having a little fun.” With a deep bow, he stood aside. “All yours. Yours too, Fred.”
“Frank.”
“Oh, sure. Frank.”
Billy relaxed and turned toward the entrance where he had piled his belongings. Suddenly:
“All together, boys—pull!”
Billy recognized Slocum’s voice an instant before the lurkers yanked all the tent pegs out of the ground. Down came the poles and the canvas.
McAleer cursed and thrashed. When the three plebes extricated themselves, Billy had to hold the Kentuckian to prevent him from going after the laughing upperclassmen.
George said that as plebes he and Orry had been plagued by one upperclassman who took a special dislike to them. It was the same with Billy. Caleb Slocum of Arkansas constantly sought him out in order to hive him for real and imaginary infractions. Billy’s nights were soon haunted by dreams of Slocum’s homely, blotchy face—and of triumphant moments in which he saw himself killing Slocum in a variety of ways.
He endured the harassment because he knew he must if he wanted to reach his goal. He liked to think about the future while he was standing guard; the routine consisted of two hours pacing your post, then four hours of rest, then another two hours on duty, for a total of twenty-four hours. To pass the time, Billy sent his imagination shooting ahead to a bright day when he had won his commission in the engineers and could support a wife. There was no longer any doubt in his mind as to who that wife would be. He only hoped Brett would want him as much as he wanted her.
A week before the end of summer camp, Dillard McAleer got into an argument with a couple of Northern plebes. They quarreled over the free-soil question. A fight developed. McAleer held his own until a foulmouthed first classman intervened, a New Yorker named Phil Sheridan who had a reputation as quite a brawler himself. This time he was serving as officer of the day and came down on the side of discipline.
Sheridan tried to stop the fight. His interference only infuriated McAleer all the more. The Kentuckian tore a limb from a nearby tree and ran at Sheridan, ready to club him. Fortunately other cadets leaped in and separated the two, but it took about five minutes to completely subdue McAleer.
Next day, Superintendent Henry Brewerton called McAleer to his office. No one knew what was said behind the superintendent’s closed door, but by late afternoon McAleer was packing.
“Boys,” h
e said with a cocky grin, “I hate to leave you both, but the supe made the choice pretty damn clear. Take the Canterberry road or face formal charges. Well, if I had to get thrown out of this abolitionist hog wallow, I’m glad I went out in style.”
If McAleer had regrets, he hid them well. Billy thought it ironic that the Kentuckian accused the Academy of abolitionist leanings. Most of the country perceived it as tinged with pro-slavery sentiment.
Ever eager to please, Frank Pratt said, “Yes, you surely did that, Dillard.” Billy concealed how he felt; the fury and the senselessness of the fight had disgusted him.
Frank went on in his high-pitched voice, “You tackled those two plebes and Sheridan like they were little boys.”
McAleer shrugged. “’Course. Gentlemen always fight better than rabble, and that’s what Yankees are—rabble. Mongrels. Most Yankees,” he amended hastily for the benefit of his tent mates. Billy had already heard the same opinion expressed by other cadets from the South. Maybe it was a pose to compensate for feelings of inferiority.
Whatever the reason for the attitude, the resulting fights were setting a bad precedent. He vividly recalled McAleer’s savage expression as he ran at Sheridan with the tree limb.
McAleer shook hands. “Been a grand lark, boys.”
“Yes,” Billy said, not really meaning it. “Take care of yourself, Dillard.”
“Sure will. Don’t worry about me.”
With a wave, he left. The memory of the tree limb and his hate-wracked face remained.
Billy continued to find evidence of the schism over slavery. Although cadets were assigned to companies according to height, he observed that a couple of the companies consisted mostly of Southerners or those who sympathized with them, and that in these companies some cadets were noticeably taller than others. Obviously some connivance on the part of the cadet adjutant was involved. What kind, he couldn’t discover.
On the first of September a new superintendent arrived. Like Brewerton, Robert Lee was a member of the engineers, but his reputation was much superior to that of the superintendent he relieved. Lee was generally acknowledged to be America’s finest soldier; it was said that Winfield Scott practically worshiped him. Lee did face one unique problem at the Academy: his oldest son, Custis, was a member of the class of ’54. There were a great many snide jokes about favoritism.
Billy first saw the new superintendent up close at a Sunday chapel, which all cadets were required to attend—something else that hadn’t changed since George’s day. Lee was nearly six feet tall, with brown eyes, heavy brows, and a face that radiated strength of character. Gray streaks showed in his black hair, but there were none in his mustache, whose tips trailed out half an inch on either side of his mouth. Billy guessed him to be in his middle forties.
The chaplain delivered one of his sleep-inducing sermons, this one on a very popular religious topic—the coming of the millennium. He offered a prayer for the new superintendent. Then, at the chaplain’s invitation, Colonel Lee stepped from his pew and delivered a brief exhortation to the assembled cadets and faculty.
Although quarrels might rage outside the confines of the post, he said, those seated before him had a solemn duty to rise above such quarrels. Quoting the young king in Shakespeare’s Henry V, he termed the cadets a band of brothers. He urged each listener to think of the corps in that fashion and to remember that West Point men owed allegiance to no section but only to the nation they had sworn to defend.
“What do you think of him?” Frank Pratt asked in that tentative way of his. Billy had drawn the Wisconsin boy as a roommate. They were hastily straightening their quarters before dinner call.
“He certainly fits the picture of the ideal soldier,” Billy said. “I just hope he can keep peace around here.”
“Band of brothers,” Frank murmured. “I can’t get that phrase out of my head. That’s what we are, isn’t it?”
“What we’re supposed to be anyway.” In Billy’s mind an image flickered—McAleer’s face as he attacked Sheridan.
A peremptory knock at the door was followed by the familiar inquiry, “All right?”
“All right,” Billy replied. Frank repeated the same words, so that the inspecting cadet officer would know he was in the room too.
Rather than continuing on, the inspecting officer stepped in. James E. B. Stuart was a gregarious, immensely popular second classman from Virginia with a reputation for fighting that almost matched Sheridan’s. Someone had nicknamed him Beauty precisely because he wasn’t one.
Affecting sternness, Stuart said, “Sirs, you’d better watch your step now that Virginia has one of her own in charge of this institution.” With a quick glance over his shoulder, he lowered his voice. “Came to warn you. One of the drummer boys smuggled a batch of thirty-rod onto the post. Slocum bought some. He’s drunk and mentioning both of you by name”—Frank Pratt paled—“so avoid him if you can.”
“We will, sir,” Billy said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t want you thinking ill of every Southerner you meet,” Stuart said, and disappeared.
Pensive, Billy stared at the autumn sunlight spilling through the room’s leaded window. Don’t want you thinking ill of every Southerner. Even in small turns of conversation, reminders of the widening chasm were inescapable.
Frank broke the silence. “What did we do to Slocum?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why is he down on us?”
“We’re plebes and he’s a yearling. He’s from a Southern state and we’re Yankees. How should I know why he’s down on us, Frank? I guess there’s always someone in this world who hates you.”
Frank gnawed his lip, speculating on some dour future. He wasn’t a coward, Billy had discovered, just pessimistic and easily startled. Once he got over that skittishness, he might make a good officer.
“Well,” Frank said finally, “I have a feeling that one of these days Slocum’s really going to nail our hides to the doorpost.”
“I agree. Best thing we can do is take Beauty’s advice and avoid him.”
But he felt that an encounter with Slocum was inevitable. So be it. When it happened, he would stand up to the Arkansas cadet, and to hell with the cost.
He wanted to reassure Frank that they could handle Slocum. Before he could, the bugle sounded. Doors crashed open; cadets rushed noisily to the stairs and down to the barracks street, there to fall in for the march to the mess hall. On the stairs Frank stumbled, fell, and tore the left knee of his trousers. Out in the sunshine, Slocum spied the rent and placed Frank on report.
Billy started to say something but checked himself. Slocum smirked and proceeded to place him on report for “insolent bearing and expression.”
No doubt about it, there’d be a reckoning one day.
34
BESET BY SLEEPLESSNESS AND thoughts of Madeline, Orry picked up George’s letter again.
The writing was blurred. He moved the paper a few inches away and the date, December 16, grew legible. So did the rest. He had first noticed the problem with his vision earlier this fall. Like so many other things, it depressed him.
The letter was a mixture of cheer and cynicism. George had visited Billy at West Point earlier in December. Billy was doing well, albeit the same could not be said for the superintendent. Lee disliked the part of his job that required him to discipline the cadets. He wanted them all to behave well out of a desire to do so, without the threat of demerits or dismissal. “Unfortunately,” George wrote, “the world is not peopled with Marble Models—although it would be a distinctly better place if it were.”
Lee had greeted George warmly, as an old war comrade, although in truth they had met only a couple of times in Mexico, George said. The superintendent confided that his biggest problem was the sectionalism threatening to divide the cadet corps.
On a pleasanter note, he had observed that Billy was in the top section in every class and would no doubt pass his January examinations easily. A born engineer, Lee to
ld the visitor. Mahan already had his eye on Billy.
The letter closed with some comments about the President-elect. Quite a few in the North were already accusing Franklin Pierce of being a doughface. Of the many names being mentioned in connection with the Cabinet, one of the most prominent was that of Senator Jefferson Davis.
Davis of the Mississippi Rifles, Orry recalled with a faint smile. Colonel Davis and his red-shirted volunteers had fought valiantly at Buena Vista. If he became secretary of war, the Military Academy would have a true friend in Wash—
The crash downstairs brought him leaping out of bed. Before he was halfway to the bedroom door, his stiff kneecaps were hurting. God, he was falling apart. Age and the dampness of the low-country winter were accelerating the process.
“Orry? What was that noise?” his mother called from behind her door.
“I’m on my way to find out. I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Go back to bed.”
He meant to say it gently, but fear roughened his voice for some reason. At the bottom of the staircase he saw black faces floating in the halos of hand-held candles. He clutched the banister and hurried down. The effort intensified the pain in his joints.
“Let me pass.”
The slaves fell back. Cousin Charles came racing down the stairs behind him. Orry opened the library door.
The first thing he saw, bright on the polished floor, was the river of spilled whiskey. Tillet’s glass lay in pieces. The sound Orry had heard was his father’s chair overturning.
Orry rushed forward, too stunned for grief. Tillet lay on his side in a stiff pose. His eyes and mouth were open, as if something had surprised him.
Seizure, Orry thought. “Papa? Can you hear me?”
He didn’t know why he said that. Shock, he later decided. Even as he heard Clarissa’s fretful voice from the second floor, he knew he had asked the question of a dead man.