“That’s his job,” the Captain said coldly. “Do you deny the two charges against you?”
“No, but — He didn’t tell you I was lying on an anthill!”
Frankel looked disgusted. “Oh. So you would get yourself killed and perhaps your teammates as well because of a few little ants?”
“Not ‘just a few’ — there were hundreds of ‘em. Stingers.”
“So? Young man, let me put you straight. Had it been a nest of rattlesnakes you would still have been expected — and required — to freeze.” Frankel paused. “Have you anything at all to say in your own defense?”
Hendrick’s mouth was open. “I certainly do! He hit me! He laid hands on me! The whole bunch of ‘em are always strutting around with those silly batons, whackin’ you across the fanny, punchin’ you between the shoulders and tellin’ you to brace up and I put up with it. But he hit me with his hands — he knocked me down to the ground and yelled, ‘Freeze! you stupid jackass!’ How about that?”
Captain Frankel looked down at his hands, looked up again at Hendrick. “Young man, you are under a misapprehension very common among civilians. You think that your superior officers are not permitted to ‘lay hands on you,’ as you put it. Under purely social conditions, that is true — say if we happened to run across each other in a theater or a shop, I would have no more right, as long as you treated me with the respect due my rank, to slap your face than you have to slap mine. But in line of duty the rule is entirely different — “
The Captain swung around in his chair and pointed at some loose-leaf books. “There are the laws under which you live. You can search every article in those books, every court-martial case which has arisen under them, and you will not find one word which says, or implies, that your superior officer may not ‘lay hands on you’ or strike you in any other manner in line of duty. Hendrick, I could break your jawand I simply would be responsible to my own superior officers as to the appropriate necessity of the act. But I would not be responsible to you. I could do more than that. There are circumstances under which a superior officer, commissioned or not, is not only permitted but required to kill an officer or a man under him, without delay and perhaps without warning — and, far from being punished, be commended. To put a stop to pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy, for example.”
The Captain tapped on his desk. “Now about those batons — They have two uses. First, they mark the men in authority. Second, we expect them to be used on you, to touch you up and keep you on the bounce. You can’t possibly be hurt with one, not the way they are used; at most they sting a little. But they save thousands of words. Say you don’t turn out on the bounce at reveille. No doubt the duty corporal could wheedle you, say ‘pretty please with sugar on it,’ inquire if you’d like breakfast in bed this morning — if we could spare one career corporal just to nursemaid you. We can’t, so he gives your bedroll a whack and trots on down the line, applying the spur where needed. Of course he could simply kick you, which would be just as legal and nearly as effective. But the general in charge of training and discipline thinks that it is more dignified, both for the duty corporal and for you, to snap a late sleeper out of his fog with the impersonal rod of authority. And so do I. Not that it matters what you or I think about it; this is the way we do it.”
Captain Frankel sighed. “Hendrick, I have explained these matters to you because it is useless to punish a man unless he knows why he is being punished. You’ve been a bad boy — I say ‘boy’ because you quite evidently aren’t a man yet, although we’ll keep trying — a surprisingly bad boy in view of the stage of your training. Nothing you have said is any defense, nor even any mitigation; you don’t seem to know the score nor have any idea of your duty as a soldier. So tell me in your own words why you feel mistreated; I want to get you straightened out. There might even be something in your favor, though I confess that I cannot imagine what it could be.”