James Salter - Burning the Days

In the winter there were parades within the barracks area rather than on the Plain — the band, the slap of hands on rifles, the glint of steel, the first companies sailing past. One of the earliest, in the rain, was for the graduation of the January class. They were walking along the stoops afterwards in the brilliance of their army uniforms, Roberts, Jarrell, Mills, all of them. The wooden packing boxes stenciled with their names and new rank were waiting to be shipped off, the sinks strewn with things they had no use for, that in the space of a single day had lost their value, cadet things they had not given away or sold, textbooks, papers. The next morning they, the boxes, everything was gone. It was like a divorced household; with them somehow went a sense of legitimacy and order. The new first class seemed unfledged — it would always exist in the shadow of the one gone on.

—

One afternoon near the end of winter we ordered class rings. The ring was a potent object, an insignia and reward. Heavy and gold, it was worn on the third finger of the left hand, the wedding finger, with the class crest inwards until graduation. After, it was turned around so the academy crest would be closest to the heart. Engraved within was one’s name and “United States Army.” I had decided I wanted something more, perhaps not the Non serviam of Lucifer, but a coda. Someone, I knew, somewhere would take this ring from my lifeless finger and within find the words which would sanctify me. The line moved steadily forward, the salesman filling out order blanks and explaining the merits of various stones. Could I have something else engraved in my ring, I asked? What did I mean, something else? I wasn’t sure; I hadn’t decided, and I had the feeling I was taking up too much time. Finally he wrote “To follow” in the space for what was to be engraved.

Unknown to me, all this was overheard. That evening in the mess hall before “Take seats,” a cadet captain was ferreting his way between the tables, here and there whispering a question. I had never seen him before. He was looking for me. I saw him come around the table and the next moment he stood beside me. Was I the one who didn’t want “United States Army” in his ring, he asked in a low voice? I didn’t have a chance to reply before he continued icily, “If you don’t think the U.S. Army is good enough for you, did you ever stop to think that you might not be good enough for the U.S. Army?” On the other side of me another face had appeared. They were converging from far off. “Did you ever make a statement that you would resign just before graduation?” someone said. It was true that I had. “Only facetiously, sir.” I could feel the sweat on my forehead. “Did you ever say you came here only for the education?” “No, sir!”

Their voices were scornful. They wanted to get a look at me, they said, they wanted to remember my face, “Mister, the Corps will see to it that you earn your ring.” It was useless to try to explain. Who informed them, I never knew. Later I realized it had been a classmate, of course. The worst part was that it all took place in front of my own company. I was confirmed as a rebel, a misfit.

Incidents form you, events that are unexpected, unseen trials. I defied this school. I took its punishment and its hatred. I dreamed of telling the story, of making that my triumph. There was a legendary book in the library said to have been written by a cadet, to contain damning description, and to have been suppressed, all copies except one destroyed. It was called The Tin Soldier and was not in the card file, nor did anyone I asked admit to having heard of it. It was a kind of literary mirage, though the title seemed real.

If there was no such book, then I would write it. I thought of its power all that spring during endless hours of walking back and forth on the Area at shoulder arms. Pitiless and spare, it would be published in secret and read by all. Apart from that, I was indifferent and tried to get by doing as little as possible since whatever I did would not be enough.

At the same time, kindled in me was another urge, the urge to manhood. I did not recognize it as such because I had rejected its form. Try to be one of us, they had said, and I had not been able to. It was this that was haunting me, though I would not admit it. I struggled against everything, it now seems clear, because I wanted to belong.

Then in sunlight the music floated over us and when it ended — the inachievable last parade as plebes — we turned and in a soaring moment, having forgotten everything, shook hands with the tormentors. They came along the ranks at ease, seeking us out, and with self-loathing I found myself shaking hands with men I had sworn not to.

So the year ended. I have returned to it many times since. The river is smooth and ice clings to its banks. The trees are bare. Through the open window from the far shore comes the sound of a train, the faint, distinct clicking of wheels on the rail joints, the Albany or Montreal train with its lighted cars and white tablecloths, the blur of luxury from which we are ever barred.

At night the barracks, seen from the Plain, look like a city. All of us are within, unseen, studying determinants, general orders, law. I had walked the pavement of the interior quadrangles interminably, burning with anger against what I was required to be. In the darkness the uniform flags hung limply. In a few minutes it would be taps, then quickly the next day. Ten minutes to formation. What are we wearing, I ask, where are we going? Bells begin to ring. People are vanishing. The room, the hallways, are empty. Dressing, I run down the stairs.

II

That summer, after leave, we went into the field and to a camp by a lake, wooden barracks, firing ranges, and maneuver grounds of all kinds. Yearling summer. In the new and sunny freedom, weedy friendships grew. We fired machine guns and learned to roll cigarettes by hand. In off-hours I lay on my bed, reading. I knew lines of Powys’s Love and Death by heart and reserved them for a slim, witty girl who came up from New York on several weekends. She was the daughter of a famous newspaperman. We danced, swam, and went for walks in permitted areas, where the sensuous phrases fell to the ground, useless against her. I was disappointed. The words had been written by someone else but I had assumed them, they were my own. I was posing as part of a doomed generation. They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old … She did not take it seriously. “Kiss the back of your letters, will you?” I asked her. Such things were noticed by the mail orderly.

There is a final week of maneuvers before we return to the post, of digging until exhausted and then being told abruptly that we are moving to different positions; and deeper, they say, dig deeper. There is the new, energetic company commander with wens on his face who seems to like me and for whom, exhilarated, I would do anything. His affection for me was probably imagined, but mine for him was not. He was someone for whom I had waited impatiently, intelligent, patrician, and governed by a sense of duty — this became a significant word, something valuable, like a dense metal buried in the earth that could guide one’s actions. There were things that must be done; there were faces that would be turned towards yours and rely on you.

That year we studied Napoleon and obscure campaigns around Lake Garda. There were arrows of red and blue printed on the map but little in the way of thrilling detail, the distant ranks at Eylau, the fires, the snow, the wan-faced emperor wearing sable, the obscure horizon and arms reaching out. We studied movement and numbers. We studied the Civil War and sometimes in the mess hall it was reenacted, as on the birthday of Robert E. Lee, with the plebes of one table singing “Dixie” and others a few feet away “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” louder and louder, veins swelling in their necks and the table commandants urging them on, red with fury. We analyzed the battles of the First World War and what was accurately known of the Second. We studied leadership, in part from German texts, given to us not so much to know the enemy but because of their quality, with nothing in them of politics or race.