“Sir, I fear you have been misinformed about what happened last night. I did not take Young Caulder to Dark Evening. I did not even know he was there until I saw him in the company of some other cadets. I did not give him drink. All I did was to go to him after he had drunk a full bottle of liquor and passed out, and see that he got safely home. I swear to you, sir, on my honor, that I had nothing to do with your son’s downfall.”
I felt as if my body were literally burning with my fervor. I know I swayed on my feet and prayed I would not disgrace myself by falling. Colonel Stiet looked at me in disbelief. “Must you compound your failures by lying about them? Do you think my son is unconscious still? Do you think I don’t know everything? He has confessed all to me, Burvelle. All. You were the one who bought the liquor and put it in his hands. You and your friends urged him to drink, even when he told you he had had enough. The others will be discharged as well; they were to be culled anyway.” He looked down at the paper he still gripped in his hand. “I only wish there were something more severe than a dishonorable discharge that I could inflict on you. I will be notifying your uncle. By this afternoon’s mail, he will know of how you have shamed his name.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said, but my words sounded feeble and uncertain. My guts seemed to squirm inside me and I felt a tearing cramp in my side. I could not help myself. I clutched at my belly. “Sir, I’m feeling ill. Permission to leave, sir.”
“You have it. Take your papers with you. I never want to see you in this office again.”
He thrust the paper into my slackened hands. I held it against my complaining stomach as I staggered from the room. In the outer office, the colonel’s secretary stared at me as I passed him by without a word. I hastened out the door and down the steps. Sergeant Rufet was waiting for me, his face impassive. I began a quick march back to the dormitory, but after a few steps I faltered. A wave of vertigo swept over me and I halted, swaying on my feet.
Sergeant Rufet spoke in a low voice. “That must have been some dressing-down. Taking it hard, I see. Buck up, Cadet. Be a man.”
Be a man. Stupid, useless advice. “Yes, Sergeant.” I kept walking. Blackness kept trying to close in from the edges of my vision. I would not faint. Never before had foul news had such a profound physical effect on me. My belly boiled with acid and my head spun. I focused my eyes on the path and staggered on.
“So. How many demerits will you be marching off?” he asked. His tone was genial, as if to make light of whatever had befallen me, but I thought there was an edge of concern in it, too.
I could scarcely find breath to answer. “I won’t be marching at all,” I managed, ashamed of how my voice hitched on the words. “I’ve been dishonorably discharged. They’re sending me home in disgrace. I’ll never be a soldier, let alone an officer.”
The sergeant halted in surprise. I think he thought I would stop too, but I kept on walking. I feared I would collapse if I did not. One foot in front of the other. He caught up with me and asked me in a toneless voice, “What did you do, Cadet, to merit that?”
“Nothing. It’s what Caulder accused me of doing. He said I’m the one who got him drunk at Dark Evening. I didn’t. I was just the one who dragged him home.” When the sergeant said nothing, I added bitterly, “His old noble friends are the ones who took him to town and got him drunk. They wanted him to pass out so they could get into a whorehouse without him. I heard them talking about it. Those old noble bastards left him to freeze on the ground. I picked him up, I obeyed the doctor’s order, I dragged him home, and I’m the one to be kicked out. All because I’m anew noble’s son.”
“Caulder.” The sergeant growled the word like it was a curse. Then he added, in a low, vicious voice, “New noble, old noble, that’s all I hear, and not a damn bit of difference do I see between the lot of you. Any noble’s son is the same to me, born to lord it over me. Damn lot of you wet behind the ears still, but in three years you’ll be polishing your lieutenant’s bars while I’m still riding a damn desk and babysitting youngsters.”
A fresh wave of misery washed over me. In all the times I’d walked past the sergeant’s desk, I’d never stopped to wonder what he thought of us. I glanced over at him. There he was, a man grown, years of service behind him, and in two years at the Academy, I’d outrank him. That injustice suddenly seemed as great as what had just befallen me. I drew a breath against the misery that had swollen my throat shut and tried to speak.