Читать книгу Last in Their Class - James Robbins - Страница 9
ОглавлениеFRANCIS HENNEY SMITH, United States Military Academy Class of 1833 and founder of the Virginia Military Institute, said that his class “always prided themselves in the opinion that this was the golden era of West Point.” Smith was looking back through a tumultuous half century of war and reconstruction at the idealized Academy of his youth. It was a time when the Long Gray Line had not yet grown long, and had only recently turned gray, before the Mexican War made heroes of many West Point graduates and before the Civil War turned them from classmates to enemies. West Point, like the nation it served, was young, growing, and still finding its way. Smith’s classmate Nathaniel Wyche Hunter was perhaps more typical in the perspective he had after his first month at the Academy: “I never hated a place so bad in all my life.”1
Coming to West Point was a culture shock for many cadets, particularly those from the South. Hunter—or “Wyche,” as he was known to the Corps of Cadets—came from a well-to-do family in the town of Powelton, Hancock County, Georgia. He arrived at the West Point public landing in June 1829, to no particular fanfare. He was met by the post porter, a former soldier whose missing right arm had been replaced by a hook. The Corps had entered its summer encampment, and Wyche was immediately assigned a small dirt-floored tent on the Plain, where he would remain until the academic year began in August. Encampment was a rude introduction to life at the Academy. “It is a time of joy and merriment to the old cadets,” Wyche wrote his father, “but a time of trouble and fatigue to the new ones. The new cadets are compelled to clean the parade ground, before the tents, in the tent, make the beds, clean the ditches, bring water, while the old cadets fiddle, dance, sing, get drunk and be merry.”
The daily schedule was punishing: up by four in the morning, if not earlier, with drill until breakfast at seven. Cadets studied until 1 P.M., took an hour for lunch, continued studying until four, and then drilled until seven o’clock and dinner. In addition to the continuous schedule of study and drill, cadets had to stand their daily share of sentry duty. “Our duties while sentinel are enough to kill any man from the South in four years,” Wyche wrote. They stood watch for four hours during the day and another four at night; “It matters not if it is raining fire, we have to stand and carry our guns upon our arms. I’ve nearly worn out my coat sleeve.” When he did have time to study, there was so much noise he found it difficult to concentrate, and nighttime storytelling lubricated by drink was endemic (if against regulations) among the cadets. “Not a day has passed since I’ve been here but someone had been drunk.” They slept on the ground inside their tents, with no mattresses or cushions. “I have slept upon a blanket and covered with my cloak every night since I’ve been here,” Wyche wrote. “What sleeping!”
Albert E. Church, who graduated first in his class in 1828, wrote fifty years later that the food at the time was “excellent plain fare . . . surely we never had on West Point so excellent bread and butter.” It lacked variety, but “everything was neat, wholesome and well cooked.” Wyche had a much different take: “rye bread, rancid butter and oak leaf tea” for breakfast; dinner was “boiled beef (such as you never heard of in your life), Irish potatoes, the meanest I ever saw,” and a pudding made from the leftover breakfast bread.
Encampment lasted from June until the end of August. Cadets who had completed two years at West Point were granted a furlough for the summer, but in those days traveling home was so expensive that many remained at the Academy for the entire four years. At the end of his first encampment, Wyche wrote to his brother (addressed from “West Point—Hog Hole”): “Fatigued and disgusted beyond conception with the noise of camp I can with difficulty compose myself sufficiently to enable me to write. Could you but for one day see with your own eyes the labour and fatigue we have to undergo you would exclaim with me there is no place like home.”
Wyche’s first summer at West Point was difficult, but it was all according to plan. The trials the cadets faced were part of the vision of the Superintendent, Sylvanus Thayer.2 Thayer had been appointed to the Academy as a cadet by its founder, Thomas Jefferson, in 1807, having recently graduated from Dartmouth at the top of his class. He completed his course of studies the next year and returned in 1809 for a brief tour as a junior instructor. Thayer came to the Academy at a time when it was still struggling to establish its identity, and failing badly. There was no set curriculum, no age limits (cadets ranged in age from preteen to forty-one), and few rules, infrequently enforced. “All order and regulation, either moral or religious, gave way to idleness, dissipation and irreligion . . . ,” wrote John Lillie, a cadet who had entered at the age of ten and a half but departed after several years of fruitless effort. “[It was] well that I left that place of ruin.”3 Congress considered reforms in 1812, but with the onset of the war with Britain, its attention was diverted and the Academy almost expired.
Thayer served as a staff officer during the war and witnessed severe deficiencies throughout the military establishment that contributed to the poor performance of American arms. In 1815, then a brevet major, he was chosen to travel to Europe along with Colonel William McRee, a hero of the late war, to study military education in the more advanced nations. The French in particular had a long academic legacy: King Henry IV established a military prep school at La Fleche in 1604, and the Ecole Polytechnique was regarded as the leading center of scientific and military learning in the world. Thayer was an admirer of Napoleon, and given the recent war between the United States and Britain, he and McRee were not disposed to take lessons from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Passage to France was difficult; conflict was winding down on the Continent, and the officers were in port in England when word came of Waterloo. Nevertheless, Thayer and McRee managed to maneuver successfully through the postwar chaos. They learned a great deal about the French system and used this knowledge to devise a plan for reforming West Point.
President James Monroe ordered Thayer to the Academy in 1817 to assume the superintendency from Alden Partridge. Known as “Old Pewt” for the pewter gray uniforms he introduced, which have become emblematic of West Point, Partridge had been a disaster as Superintendent, but he was popular with the cadets because he resisted all attempts at imposing discipline. Partridge had not been informed of the change of command. He countermanded Thayer’s orders, and a controversy erupted that led to Partridge’s court martial. Though acquitted of serious wrongdoing, Partridge resigned his commission and moved to Vermont, where he founded the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, later renamed Norwich University.
Thayer’s mission was to bring order and intellectual rigor to the Academy, and he set about it with enthusiasm. He announced that henceforth cadets would be judged by merit alone, and subordination to the code of discipline was to be a defining value. Thayer devised entrance exams, established age limits and enforced the rules of behavior. Favoritism was dead. The worst disciplinary cases were hauled before courts of inquiry and expelled. Periodic and largely unaccounted-for vacations were replaced by strict leave requirements—no furlough for two years, and none after that until graduation. Recreational reading and board games were banned. Free time vanished. Days were filled with instruction, exercises and drill; evenings were given over to study. Thayer made West Point a difficult school to get into and a tougher place to remain.
Many cadets did not welcome Thayer’s reforms, particularly those who were asked to leave. Those who longed for a return to the laxity of the Partridge years attempted to sidestep the chain of command and brought various complaints against Thayer to higher authorities. However, the new Superintendent had the strong backing of former Superintendent General Joseph G. Swift (one of two USMA graduates in 1802), as well as the president and the secretary of war, and the initial complaints were rebuffed. In November 1818, a petition signed by 180 cadets was brought before Congress in an attempt to implicate Thayer and others on his staff in various forms of malfeasance and abuse.4 Congress, while noting some excesses in the manner the reforms were carried out, reaffirmed the authority of the executive branch to manage the affairs of the Academy and asked the cadets to withdraw their petition.5 Thayer was given full freedom to craft his system. His leadership soon showed its product. Cadet morale began to rise, a spirit born of ability and pride in the effort required to prevail. West Point no longer had a problem attracting talent—young men in the hundreds from all over the country competed to go there.
Thayer required cadets to demonstrate mastery of each lesson every day by “taking boards,” writing answers to problems on chalkboards that ringed the classrooms and briefing the answers to the rest of the class. In the “Thayer System,” every cadet would recite in every subject every day. Since the West Point curriculum was dominated by mathematics and the sciences (history, for example, was first eliminated from study in 1825, as was geography, and both had to stage several comebacks), the system was easily implemented. Sections were kept small, no more than twenty, to facilitate the individual attention required for every cadet. It was not an educational environment that favored slackers, and Cadet Hunter quickly developed the habits necessary to survive. “I have never in my life studied half so attentively (so hard as we would say in Georgia) as I have for the last week. I can hardly see my eyes are so weak and sore. . . . I think very probably I shall hold a very respectable standing in my class if I apply myself as I ought.”
Plebes studied two subjects, French and mathematics. Knowledge of French was critical since many of the most advanced treatises in the sciences and in military thought were written in that language. As one period report noted, it was a “universal opinion” that the French “have been much more successful and happy in their investigations and explanations of the sciences generally, and of that of war in particular, than those of any other nation.”6 Thayer also had assigned some of the same books he had studied in France, such as Devernon’s Treatise on the Science of War, written in 1805. Members of the first class had to buy copies for $20, a huge sum at the time for the cadets, whose monthly pay was $16. By Wyche’s time, the Academy library had over ten thousand volumes, many in French, and was then the finest technical library in the country. Wyche lamented, “Had I studied French and mathematics I should have been enabled to stand near the head but as it is I shall stand near the foot. You have no idea what smart fellows we have here.” The cadets were taught technical, not conversational French, with an emphasis on practicality. Mr. Molinard, one of the instructors, gave a characteristically simple rule for the usage of the articles de and du. “‘Why gentlemen this is very easy. I will give you a rule by which you can always tell when to use de and when to use du.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes we use de and sometimes we use du.’”
In the second or “yearling” year, cadets continued studying math and French and added drawing. It was imperative for officers to be able to draw well in order to make their own maps and tactical plans in the field. Thomas Gimbrede, the professor of drawing, was “an amiable old gentleman” whose “fundamental proposition was in these words: Every one can learn to draw. His proof: there are only two lines in drawing, the straight line and the curve line. Everyone can draw a straight line—and everyone can drawn a curve line—therefore everyone can draw.”7 The third or “cow” year curriculum included experimental philosophy (today called physics), electricity, optics, astronomy, chemistry and topographical drawing. “Firsties” studied engineering, the science of war, rhetoric and grammar, moral philosophy and national law. Throughout their four years, cadets also received instruction in infantry tactics, ordnance and gunnery, cavalry, marksmanship, swordplay, strategy and, of course, drill.
Cadets were ranked in order of merit, and the standings, while not public information, always became known. The section groupings in each class gave much of the list away, and cadet competitiveness filled in the rest. Despite the rivalry implicit in academic ranking, teamwork was an important part of the cadet survival system. Lessons were divided up and answers copied and memorized. Drawings were traced using a system of candles and glass plates, over which the original and a blank sheet were laid. Cadets also came to know the habits of professors, specifically the order in which they would call upon certain cadets to answer questions, and were frequently successful in gaming which problem they might be asked to diagram. If it was generally known that an instructor was tolerably predictable, Thayer might suddenly appear during class and change the sequence of questions, causing a degree of mental panic in the classroom.
The January examination in the plebe year was the first academic winnowing the cadets faced. They were grilled by instructors in front of the faculty, in a process that was intended to intimidate, and did. As he prepared for his first January exam, Wyche wrote: “Should a Professor moved by motive of ill will or any thing of the kind give you the examination such demonstrates as he knows from your former recitations that you have paid no attention to or are too trivial to be noticed, what will hinder you from appearing in the estimation of those who have never heard you before as a numskull?” Those who were deficient (“found,” in cadet parlance) were dismissed. They were loaded into sleighs and taken over the hills away from the Academy, past a point of no return known as Goshen. The June exams were even more rigorous, held before the entire Board of Visitors, the assistant professors and the Superintendent, who scrupulously inspected every cadet. Those who ranked at the head of the class were questioned for ninety minutes or so; those with lower rankings were examined for as long as it took to remove all doubt. Final cadet rankings were the result of long deliberations. The top five in each class were given the honorific “distinguished cadet,” and were frequently called upon to serve as instructors, which, since it was added to their normal cadet duties, was a mixed honor. Those who failed were either turned back to repeat a year, or dismissed. The casualty rates were high. Of the 100 cadets admitted to the Class of 1828, for example, 93 were left to take the January examination; 73 passed, and of them 51 made it through the end of plebe year.
The Academy’s first Goat was John Taylor Pratt of the Class of 1818, which was the first class with academic rankings.8 Pratt came to West Point in 1814, after already achieving distinction with the Kentucky Cavalry at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario, Canada, under William Henry Harrison. He arrived out of the West on horseback with fellow cadets Billy Johnson, who was Harrison’s nephew, and John Payne. The three rustic westerners excited much comment and wonder among the cadets, Kentucky at the time being regarded by most in the East as an untamed wilderness. Johnson later left West Point, and Payne was sent home after a twelve-pounder gun he was manning during a salute went off prematurely, taking his arm in the process. Pratt remained, and became romantically involved with Eliza Kinsley, sister of fellow cadet Zebina J. D. Kinsley, whose family lived on a rocky hill near the Academy still known as “Stoneylonesome.” He had a formidable rival for her affections in Lieutenant George W. Gardiner, the Commandant of Cadets, who for his small stature and martial spirit was known as “the Little God of War.” The competition eventually came to a head when Pratt confronted Gardiner in his office. The infuriated Commandant grabbed a pair of fire tongs, wrapped them around Pratt’s neck and twisted them to the point where he could not remove them. Neither man was punished for the altercation, and in the end Eliza went back to Kentucky with Pratt.
Academic excellence was one pillar of Thayer’s system; discipline was another. Thayer was a strict though not harsh disciplinarian who led by example. He pursued an orderly life and his behavior was impeccable. He was an early riser, and cadets frequently saw him on his morning walk as reveille was blowing, properly attired and soberly comported. He took an active interest in the moral development of every cadet and would occasionally meet with them privately if he felt they needed additional guidance. Though personally warm and engaging, he was very strict in his dealings with cadets and showed no preference. Smith said, “It was useless to attempt to awaken tender emotions in him. He was not without feeling but he never displayed it in his office. . . . No cadet entered without a sentiment of awe, or left without a feeling of relief.”
The practical expression of Thayer’s emphasis on discipline was the famous West Point demerit system. It arose from necessity; before demerits, politically well-connected cadets whom Thayer tried to expel for disciplinary violations were sometimes able to win reinstatement on appeal. The demerit system was instituted to establish a paper trail. Originally, violations did not carry specific penalties, but in September 1825, a point system was devised to reflect the “degree of criminality” of the offense. For example, a disorderly room or oversleeping would be worth one demerit. Visiting after hours carried a three-point penalty. Missing a class or being absent from chapel or reveille rated four to five points. Being discovered absent from the barracks at night was a very serious offense, worth nine points, and the most serious of all, mutinous conduct, carried the maximum ten-point penalty. After 1831, extra points were added to the cadet’s annual total depending on his rank. For example, a firstie would face an additional half-point penalty for having been at the Academy long enough to know better.
Many cadets are listed in the delinquency rolls with no demerits, though most had earned some strikes during the year but had cleansed their record by “walking off” the points on punishment tours. A cadet could erase one demerit for every extra hour marching a post. Robert E. Lee, who graduated second in the Class of 1829, was a rare case of a cadet who was never cited once for a demerit in four years at the Academy. (Half of Lee’s assigned page in the Record of Delinquencies was given to his less-disciplined classmate Pleaides Orion Lumpkin from Georgia, who made good use of the space by amassing an impressive 303 demerits in 1827.9 He left West Point before graduating and served in the revolutionary army of Texas.) Some say that Lee’s achievement has never been equaled, but in fact it has been more than once; for example, Lee’s classmate Charles Mason not only had an equally pristine disciplinary record, but graduated first in their class.10 Despite the examples of cadets like Lee and Mason, academic standing and demerit totals were not necessarily related. Frederick A. Smith, first in the Class of 1833, ranked 138th in the Corps in discipline with 81 demerits in his final year. George Washington Cullum, third in the same class, had no demerits, but likewise George Herbert Pegram, who ranked 31st. Roswell W. Lee had the worst disciplinary record of the class, ranking 195th in the Corps with 172 demerits, but he graduated eighth.
Some demerit totals in this period were extraordinary. In 1827, yearling Albert Gallatin Blanchard piled up 489 points but nevertheless managed to graduate two years later, 26th out of 46 in his class, with a more reasonable 301 demerits. Though hailing from Massachusetts, Blanchard went on to become a Confederate brigadier general. George Washington Patten graduated 36th of 42 in the Class of 1830, and in discipline was fourth from the bottom of the Corps that year with 538 demerits. He was the author of many well-known military manuals and later became a noted San Francisco poet. Charles H. Larnard of Rhode Island compiled a record-setting 729 demerits in his yearling year of 1829, which he brought down to 190 by the time he graduated in 1831, when he ranked 16th of 33 in his class.11 But Larnard’s sudden outbreak of relatively good behavior probably had less to do with his developing maturity than the 200-point limit that was instituted in 1831. Any cadet who ended the year beyond that limit was dismissed. Once the 200-point “line of death” was established, the average total demerits declined radically, and the number of cadets walking post correspondingly increased. Thayer saw to it that there would be no more Larnards.
While the point system appeared objective, it could be arbitrary. Frequently the question was not what one did, but who was watching, whether they wanted to report or not, and how many points would be assessed. Cadet Henry D. Bird of the Class of 1829 was for some reason regularly given higher penalties than other cadets for the same offenses (seven points instead of one for a disorderly room, for example), and he left before graduation. Tactical officers (“Tacs”) were the source of most reports, but worse were the cadets who reported on their classmates. Wyche noted in a letter to his mother, “I do all in my power to keep from getting reported, but it is impossible. . . . There are officers, I mean Cadet officers, who seek to report their fellow Cadets. They are universally despised by the Corps and should be by everybody.”12 Wyche’s relatively modest demerit totals ranged from 106 to 139 over his years at West Point, though they could have been much higher. “It is something very remarkable that I have not been caught yet in my many and flagrant violations of the regulations,” he wrote his sister. “I have been in an ace of it a hundred times. When others in the commission of the same act have been detected and dismissed—without the hope of being reinstated.”
One day in his final year at the Academy it seemed as though Cadet Hunter’s luck had run out. Without warning or explanation, he was ordered to the Superintendent’s office. He feared the worst. He stood at attention while Thayer looked at him impassively.
“I have understood from various sources and know from personal observation that you are guilty of many little irregularities which you should be particularly careful to avoid,” Thayer began. “It becomes you to do so not only as a Cadet disobeying the regulations of the institution but as a gentleman engaged in the ordinary business of life.” Was it significant that Thayer had not mentioned that it was also the duty of an officer? Wyche was sweating at this point, wondering which of his hundreds of overlooked transgressions was about to come back to haunt him.
“Do you chew tobacco Mr. Hunter?” Thayer asked.
Wyche calculated—he did not think the Supe had a right to ask him about his infractions; he could only report them and let the punishment system take it from there. Since Thayer was showing such candor, he probably already knew the answer, and if he had wanted to impose punishment, he would not talk about it, he would just do it. Wyche decided that honesty might be the best approach.
“Yes sir I do,” he replied.
Thayer, who had expected either a negative answer or an evasion, was visibly surprised. His attitude softened slightly, as much as he would allow, and he spent several minutes giving Wyche some almost fatherly advice, encouraging him to improve his behavior and throw off his bad habits, for his own good. Wyche emerged from the meeting shaken, but unscathed. He later wrote that Thayer showed “so much of interest in my welfare and condescension on his part that I came away with a better opinion than I ever had of the old fox.”13
The Corps, which in this era numbered around 215 cadets, was divided into two companies, and cadet officers and NCOs were selected from the top three classes. Cadets were housed in two barracks, with a Tac in each to keep order. Rooms were assigned by lot, meaning every cadet had an equal chance of getting choice quarters or one of the less desirable rooms. Three to five roommates, who might be from any class, shared the space. Each room had a fireplace, and fire prevention was a priority concern. “Neglect of fender” carried a three- to five-point demerit penalty. There were no beds; cadets slept on the floor on bedrolls, or on cots. They drew water from springs or cisterns, and there were no indoor bathrooms until the Civil War period. Despite (or perhaps because of) these hardships, life in the barracks was close and convivial. To supplement their bland diet, cadets would hold secret banquets in their rooms, which required some degree of planning and teamwork, particularly if alcohol was involved. Wyche wrote his sister about an eggnog party he attended:
I assure you the materials for preparing it were procured at the risk of the procuror’s reputation and life. If he had been detected he would certainly been dismissed—in skating on the rotten ice down the river he broke through twice and with great difficulty extricated himself. . . . We enjoyed ourselves heartily regardless of the danger attending it and for some time we thought ourselves elsewhere than W. Point. Last night we had a couple of chickens and a large beefsteak cooked in splendid style before and on the coals. The best Parisian cook could not have prepared them better.
A dozen cadets were allowed to board with Mrs. Thompson, widow of a Revolutionary War officer who lived on the post with her three gregarious daughters. “The places were much sought after,” Church wrote, “a fact due not only to the excellent fare provided, but, doubtless, in a great degree, to the fondness of the young soldier for female society.”14 John De Witt, the post sutler, also had several daughters, two of whom married officers. The post barber, named Spencer, had two young and pretty daughters, “much admired and visited by some of the cadets,” according to Church.15 This perhaps ameliorated the impact of the grooming regulations introduced in the early 1830s. Cadets were required to have their hair cut once a month on a strict alphabetical schedule. When the policy was introduced, some cadets, who had hair down past their shoulders, ruefully joked that it was a signal day for the New York wigmakers. Cadets of this period had few opportunities to fraternize, but they began to increase in the 1830s. Wyche wrote optimistically to his sister in 1832, “Probably when you see me again I may have been married myself—there is some chance of it—who knows? We Cadets are held in high repute by the ladies.”
Cadets looking for recreation could attend meetings of the Dialectic Society, at which the young men would debate important questions of the day, sometimes heatedly, depending on the issue. Hiking and hunting in the surrounding hills were permitted, particularly on weekends. Attendance at Sunday chapel was mandatory. In the early 1820s, cadets were treated to lectures from Reverend Charles P. McIlvaine, who served as chaplain and professor of ethics from 1824 to 1828. His sermons were nationally renowned and they sparked a religious revival on the post. Not everyone was captivated, however. Cadet Church later wrote, “I listened to a dull sermon, one hour and a quarter long, the only lasting effect of which was to lay the foundation of that dislike, which I have ever since entertained, for long sermons.”16 McIlvaine was eventually ordained a bishop and served as chaplain of the United States Senate. He was succeeded at the Academy by the Reverend Thomas Warner, whom Smith said “had a most intellectual face, was a good scholar and a good talker.” Warner was not as inspiring as his predecessor, but his ten-minute sermons met with general approval by the Corps. For Wyche’s part, he was unimpressed. “I do not like the way they preach here at all,” he wrote. “They are all Episcopalians.”
Cadets also enjoyed concerts by the West Point Band, led by its chief bugler, an Irish immigrant named Richard Willis who had been recruited by Thayer in 1817 to help maintain cadet morale. Willis was a celebrated artist of the Kent bugle, and his brass-heavy musical arrangements revolutionized American military bands. “For the first time,” Thayer wrote, “musical affairs took on an increased stature, not only on the post, but for many miles around. Crowded packets from New York to Poughkeepsie used to drop anchor off West Point to give their passengers an opportunity to listen to Willis and his band as they played evening concerts from a prominent position overlooking the river.” Willis died in 1830, but he established the tradition of riverfront public concerts that continue to draw audiences of hundreds. Knowing proper dance steps was a necessary part of the training of officers and gentlemen, and cadets were given lessons by a renowned Bostonian dancing master named Lorenzo Papanti. His wife, a famous singer of the day, performed in the chapel when Lorenzo was on post. Papanti created a sensation when he introduced the waltz to America in 1834; this European import entwined dancers in ways considered highly improper. Perhaps not coincidentally, the first cadet hops began that same year.
In the winter, cadets would ice-skate on a pond in the Superintendent’s yard, and for those wily enough to sneak off post there were other diversions. “I have been sleigh riding this week for the first time in my life,” Wyche wrote home to Georgia in February 1833. “I am very much pleased with that diversion and particularly so on account of my long and constant confinement. I succeeded very fortunately in eluding the vigilance of the Spies and officers though they extend all their endeavors to catch me.”
Hazing was virtually unknown at this time, at least to the degree it would later develop. Church wrote that “such was the ‘esprit de corps’ that an individual treating a fellow cadet as cadets are now treated every year, would have been expelled from the corps without the aid of military authority or presidential orders.”17 Nevertheless, cadets did not lack a sense of humor. Once at the beginning of the school year a firstie, looking very official with sash and sword, stopped by plebe rooms and solemnly informed them that since tobacco was banned, they were required to turn over whatever they had. By the end of the day, he had picked up a year’s supply. But of all the diversions at West Point, none were as valued as letters. They connected the cadets to their loved ones and events back home, and writing and receiving letters reduced the sense of isolation. Wyche wrote his parents, “The pleasure I enjoy in [receiving letters] is the only real pleasure I ever enjoyed at this place.” Of course, he was exaggerating. There were other pleasures to be had. Like scores of West Pointers before and after him, Cadet Hunter found succor at an off-limits tavern called Benny Havens’.
