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“There won’t be any more, sir.”

Ensign Brain withdrew his face to a normal distance. “Wars are fought by the clock, Midshipman Keith. Attacks are made when ordered. Not four minutes late. A four-minute delay can cause ten thousand men to die. A whole fleet can be sunk in four minutes, Midshipman Keith.” Ensign Brain was following the usual pattern, shading his cat-and-mouse delights into lofty morality, though the morality was sound enough. “Dismissed, Midshipman Keith.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Willie saluted, and walked up nine flights of steps in despair. The elevator had stopped at midnight.

CHAPTER 5

Orders for Midshipman Keith

The next day, Sunday, was sunny and clear, and the midshipmen were thankful. A review was scheduled for the pleasure of the commandant of the Third Naval District, a display of the whole military might at Columbia. The other sections of the midshipmen school at Johnson Hall and John Jay Hall were going to merge with the men of Furnald in an array of twenty-five hundred novice naval officers. After breakfast the midshipmen shifted into their dress blues and lined up in front of the hall, with rifles, leggings, and gun belts. They were inspected one by one as minutely as if each midshipman were about to have lunch with the admiral, rather than pass by him in a blur of heads. Demerits flew for a spot on the collar, shoes that failed to reflect the image of the inspector, hair a fraction of an inch too long. A flick of Ensign Brain’s hand on the back of a midshipman’s neck was an announcement of five demerits, duly recorded by the yeoman who walked close behind him. Willie was flicked. In his eminence of twenty-five demerits he floated lonely as a cloud. The closest contender had seven.

A sixty-piece band of midshipmen blasted brassy marches with more lung power than harmony, colors waved bravely on staffs, and fixed bayonets glittered in the morning sun as the ranks of midshipmen marched onto South Field. Behind the wire fences around the field were hundreds of spectators-parents, sweethearts, passers-by, college students, and satiric small boys. The band used up its repertoire, and was beginning again on Anchors Aweigh, when all the cohorts of Johnson, John Jay, and Furnald reached their places. They made a stirring show, the immense ranks and files of white gold-trimmed hats, bristling rifles, squared shoulders in blue, and young stern faces. Individually they were scared youngsters trying to remain inconspicuous, but from their aggregate there rose a subtle promise of unexpected awkward power. A bugle call knifed across the air. “PRESENT ARMS!” blatted the loudspeakers. Twenty-five hundred rifles snapped into position. The admiral strolled onto the field, smoking, followed by a straggle of officers, walking carelessly to symbolize the privileges of rank, but straggling at distances from the admiral strictly regulated by the number of sleeve -stripes on each straggler. Ensign Brain brought up the rear, also smoking. He put out his cigarette at the instant that the admiral did.

The admiral, short, stout and gray-headed, addressed the ranks briefly and politely. Then the performance began. Stepping proudly and confidently to the music after a week of rehearsal, the battalions passed in review, marching, wheeling, countermarching. The spectators clapped and cheered. The small boys marched raggedly outside the fence in imitation of the midshipmen, yelling. And the commandant watched with a smile which infected the usually grim faces of the school staff. Newsreel cameras, mounted on trucks at the edges of the field, recorded the scene for history.

Willie went through his paces in a daze of whirling thoughts about May and demerits. He was not interested in the admiral but he was mightily interested in making no more mistakes. No back was straighter, no rifle at a more correct angle in the whole parade than Willie Keith’s. The martial music and the majestic passing to and fro of the ranks thrilled him, and he was proud to be in this powerful show.