Thai Horse by William Diehl Page B

Boston. That correct?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Cody looked him over. ‘Middleweight?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘You don’t look like you could break wind, maggot,’ Cody said and walked out of the room.
    Thanksgiving, 1963. A cold, hars h -wind day. ‘Hit the wall, maggot,’ Snyder bellowed as Hatcher was leaving the mess hail and the underclassman assumed the position.
    A dozen frogs had already fallen before the relentless hazing of Snyder, Cody and other midshipmen. Yet Hatcher felt that in a funny way Cody was watching out for him. Hatcher had surprised them all. While other freshmen broke under the rigorous schedule and hazing, Hatcher seemed to get stronger as the months went by. By winter he knew he would get by that crucial first year if Snyder didn’t force a confrontation.
    Snyder had other plans.
    ‘Hatcher’s mine,’ Snyder bragged openly. ‘I’ll break him. He’ll be gone before Christmas.’
    He braced Hatcher constantly, in the lower classman’s shower, in the yard, in the halls, his comments always insulting and humiliating. Eventually it started to get to Hatcher.
    Now he was at it again.
    ‘The academy is for men, maggot,’ Snyder snarled. ‘You’re not a man, you’re what we u sed to call a J.D. back where I come from. You know what a J.D. is, maggot?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I’m going to make it my business to run you off. You’re history. You don’t deserve to be an officer in this man’s Navy.’
    Hatcher didn’t say anything.
    ‘You want to be an officer, maggot?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Well, that’s a joke. You don’t even have a mother and a father, isn’t that a fact?’
    Hatcher didn’t answer. He could feel the blood rising to his face.
    ‘I asked you a question, maggot.’
    Still no answer.
    Snyder moved so close his breath was hot against Hatcher’s face.
    ‘You know what they call someone who doesn’t have a mother and a father, maggot?’
    Hatcher stared straight ahead. H e fought to keep himself from trembling with rage.
    ‘Say the word,’ Snyder demanded.
    ‘Maybe he doesn’t know the word, Snyder,’ Cody’s voice said. Hatcher was staring straight ahead; and Snyder moved out of the way and sudde n ly Cody was staring at him.
    ‘Maybe he never got that far in school,’ Cody said. ‘Is that right, maggot?’ Snyder snapped.
    ‘Well, maggot, is that right?’ C o dy repeated.
    ‘Yes, sir,’ Hatcher said.
    Snyder leaned over to Cody and said softly, ‘He’s mine, Cody. He’ll be Boston dog meat by Christmas.’ He chuckled and moved on.
    ‘You almost lost it there, maggot,’ Cody said sharply. ‘I was watching you. Now, you listen up. Everybody figured you’d be history by now, but you fooled us all. So don’t lose it now. Snyder’s trying to provoke you, and if he does, you’re gone. You took it this long, just keep taking it. Couple more months and you’re a second-year man and nobody can mess with you anymore.’
    ‘What’s he got against me, sir?’
    ‘He’s an elitist. He doesn’t think you fit the profile.’
    ‘Do you, sir?’
    ‘It doesn’t make any damn difference what anybody thinks, it’s what you think. And we never had this talk,’ Cody snapped and walked away.
    ‘You and Murph Cody were pretty close for a time, weren’t you?’
    Hatcher was drawn back to the present by Sloan’s question. He stared at him for several seconds and then said, ‘Yes . . . we were at Annapolis t o gether. I didn’t see much of him after we graduated. He went in the air service and I went into intelligence. Why? Why the interest in Cody?’
    ‘You know how it is. The general never has gotten over his death. I guess he just wants to put it all in perspective.’
    Hatcher’s eyes narrowed. Sloan was lying to him and he knew it. But it wasn’t Sloan’s tone of voice or expression that gave him away.
    ‘Don’t bul l shit me, Harry. You didn’t track me down and then come all the way here to chat about Murph Cody. You think I got stupid since