irritated with the captain’s theatrics.
“Christmas is a major, major holiday. It’s a rare pledge who doesn’t get home for Christmas.”
“I explained that,” I said. “My folks invited me to go to Barbados with them, but I wanted to spend the vacation studying for the finals.”
He grinned like a wolf. “Should we go down the hall and call your parents, ask them a few questions?”
Again, he already knew the truth. Squadron had checked on my story. “Okay,” I said, cursing myself for having succumbed to the temptation of a colorful lie. “If I got along with my family, would I be here in the first place? It isn’t easy to say that your parents hate you so much they won’t even let you come for Christmas!”
“Why would they hate their own kid like that?”
“We had misunderstandings,” I said.
He looked up at the ceiling. “I was so impressed by your conduct that I started to wonder why a young man like yourself had been asked to leave all those boarding schools. Five of them, to be exact. Didn’t mesh with what I was seeing. So I looked into your files.” He smiled at me with his smug challenge. “Damned if I could find anything there but smoke.”
“Smoke, sir?”
“Evasions. ‘Bad influence on the school.’ ‘Antagonistic behavior.’ ‘Considered threatening.’ None of these dildos was willing to get down to the nitty-gritty. You know what that told me?”
“I’m sorry to admit it, but I probably acted like a bully,” I said.
He pretended not to have heard. “Two things. Put on record, your infractions would bar you from admission anywhere except the state pen. But they couldn’t pin anything on you, so they took the easy way out and passed you along.”
“I don’t think—”
He held up a hand like a stop sign. “So far this year, six pledges in Infantry have washed out voluntarily. Normally, it’d be two at most. Over at the infirmary? A rash of broken bones. Once or twice in a normal year, a pledge breaks an arm. Now, they’re coming in once a week with broken fingers, broken wrists, broken arms. Concussion. One boy turned out to have internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen. How’d he get it? ‘I twisted my ankle and fell down the stairs.’ And then there’s the case of Artillery Pledge Fletcher. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“After a fashion,” I said, meaning that I had known Artillery Pledge Fletcher in a most specific fashion. This was the serious matter I had hoped Captain Squadron would not bring up. Anunassuming, scholarly-looking boy with round, horn-rimmed glasses and a rosebud face, Fletcher had forever enriched my life through an ultimately fatal act of courtesy.
On the Thursday of the week given over to the examinations before the Christmas break, I had seen him immersed in a book at a long table in the library. The pledges on both sides were also reading books from stacks piled in front of them, and it was not until the second time I looked at them that I noticed what was different about Fletcher. The others were taking notes on the contents of volumes of military history, but Fletcher was perusing, apparently for his own entertainment, a brightly jacketed work of fiction. Moved by an instinct I did not as yet comprehend, I walked past the table and saw that the title of the book was
The Dunwich Horror
. The combination of the title and the lurid cover illustration instantly struck me with a lesser version of that force which had first drawn me into Johnson’s Woods. I had to have that book. That book was
mine
. For an hour, I twitched in my seat, taking desultory notes and keeping an eye on Fletcher.
When he stood up, I collected my things and rushed alongside him. Yes, he said, he would be happy to loan me the book after he had finished reading it. He surrendered it for inspection with the comment that it was “really spooky.” Fletcher had no idea of the accuracy of his description. Emitting a series of pulsations, the little tract
“Christmas is a major, major holiday. It’s a rare pledge who doesn’t get home for Christmas.”
“I explained that,” I said. “My folks invited me to go to Barbados with them, but I wanted to spend the vacation studying for the finals.”
He grinned like a wolf. “Should we go down the hall and call your parents, ask them a few questions?”
Again, he already knew the truth. Squadron had checked on my story. “Okay,” I said, cursing myself for having succumbed to the temptation of a colorful lie. “If I got along with my family, would I be here in the first place? It isn’t easy to say that your parents hate you so much they won’t even let you come for Christmas!”
“Why would they hate their own kid like that?”
“We had misunderstandings,” I said.
He looked up at the ceiling. “I was so impressed by your conduct that I started to wonder why a young man like yourself had been asked to leave all those boarding schools. Five of them, to be exact. Didn’t mesh with what I was seeing. So I looked into your files.” He smiled at me with his smug challenge. “Damned if I could find anything there but smoke.”
“Smoke, sir?”
“Evasions. ‘Bad influence on the school.’ ‘Antagonistic behavior.’ ‘Considered threatening.’ None of these dildos was willing to get down to the nitty-gritty. You know what that told me?”
“I’m sorry to admit it, but I probably acted like a bully,” I said.
He pretended not to have heard. “Two things. Put on record, your infractions would bar you from admission anywhere except the state pen. But they couldn’t pin anything on you, so they took the easy way out and passed you along.”
“I don’t think—”
He held up a hand like a stop sign. “So far this year, six pledges in Infantry have washed out voluntarily. Normally, it’d be two at most. Over at the infirmary? A rash of broken bones. Once or twice in a normal year, a pledge breaks an arm. Now, they’re coming in once a week with broken fingers, broken wrists, broken arms. Concussion. One boy turned out to have internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen. How’d he get it? ‘I twisted my ankle and fell down the stairs.’ And then there’s the case of Artillery Pledge Fletcher. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“After a fashion,” I said, meaning that I had known Artillery Pledge Fletcher in a most specific fashion. This was the serious matter I had hoped Captain Squadron would not bring up. Anunassuming, scholarly-looking boy with round, horn-rimmed glasses and a rosebud face, Fletcher had forever enriched my life through an ultimately fatal act of courtesy.
On the Thursday of the week given over to the examinations before the Christmas break, I had seen him immersed in a book at a long table in the library. The pledges on both sides were also reading books from stacks piled in front of them, and it was not until the second time I looked at them that I noticed what was different about Fletcher. The others were taking notes on the contents of volumes of military history, but Fletcher was perusing, apparently for his own entertainment, a brightly jacketed work of fiction. Moved by an instinct I did not as yet comprehend, I walked past the table and saw that the title of the book was
The Dunwich Horror
. The combination of the title and the lurid cover illustration instantly struck me with a lesser version of that force which had first drawn me into Johnson’s Woods. I had to have that book. That book was
mine
. For an hour, I twitched in my seat, taking desultory notes and keeping an eye on Fletcher.
When he stood up, I collected my things and rushed alongside him. Yes, he said, he would be happy to loan me the book after he had finished reading it. He surrendered it for inspection with the comment that it was “really spooky.” Fletcher had no idea of the accuracy of his description. Emitting a series of pulsations, the little tract
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