Ira, I’ve never forgotten Gramp’s words—and don’t you forget ’em.
So David categorized the hazards and prepared his doctrines. One thing that had to be endured was endless questioning, and he learned that a plebe was never permitted to answer, “I don’t know, sir,” to any upperclassman, especially a first classman. But the questions ordinarily fell into categories—history of the school, history of the Navy, famous naval sayings, names of team captains and star players of various athletic sports, how many seconds till graduation, what’s the menu for dinner. These did not bother him; they could be memorized —save the number of seconds remaining till graduation, and he worked out shortcuts for that, ones that stood him in good stead in later years.
“What sort of shortcuts, Lazarus?”
Eh? Nothing fancy. A precalculated figure for reveille each morning, a supplementary figure for each hour thereafter, such as: five hours after six o’clock reveille subtracts eighteen thousand seconds from the base figure, and twelve minutes later than that takes off another seven hundred and twenty seconds. For example at noon formation one hundred days before graduation, say at exactly twelve-oh-one and thirteen seconds, figuring graduation at ten A.M. which was standard, David could answer, “Eight million, six hundred and thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty-seven seconds, sir!” almost as fast as his squad leader could ask him, simply from having precalculated most of it.
At any other time o’ day he would look at his watch and pretend to wait for the second hand to reach a mark while in fact performing subtractions in his head.
But he improved on this; he invented a decimal clock—not the one you use here on Secundus, but a variation on Earth’s clumsy twenty-four-hour day, sixty-minute hour, sixty-second minute system then in vogue. He split the time for reveille to taps into intervals and subintervals of ten thousand seconds, a thousand seconds, a hundred seconds, and memorized a conversion table.
You see the advantage. For anyone but Andy Libby, God rest his innocent soul, subtracting ten thousand, or one thousand, from a long string of digits up in the millions is easier to do in your head, quickly and without error, than it is to subtract seven thousand, two hundred, and seventy-three-the figure to be subtracted in the example I just gave. David’s new method did not involve carrying auxiliary figures in the mind while searching for the ultimate answer.
For example, ten thousand seconds after reveille is eight forty-six forty A.M. Once David worked out his conversion table and memorized it—took him less than a day; just memorizing was easy for him—once he had that down pat, he could convert to the hundred-second interval coming up next almost instantly, then add (not subtract) two digits representing the time still to go to the last two places in his rough answer to get his exact answer. Since the last two places were always zeroes—check it yourself—he could give an answer in millions of seconds as fast as he could speak the figures, and have it right every time.
Since he didn’t explain his method, he got a reputation for being a lightning calculator, an idiot-savant talent, like Libby. He was not; he was simply a country boy who used his head on a simple problem. But his squad leader got so groused at him for being a “smart ass”—meaning that the squad leader couldn’t do it—that he ordered Dave to memorize the logarithm tables. This didn’t faze Dave; he didn’t mind anything but “honest work.” He set out to do so, twenty new ones each day, that being the number this first classman thought would suffice to show up this “smart ass.”
The first classman grew tired of the matter when David had completed only the first six hundred figures—but Dave kept at it another three weeks through the first thousand—which gave him the first ten thousand figures by interpolation and made him independent of log tables, a skill that was of enormous use to him from then on, computers being effectively unknown in those days.
But the unceasing barrage of questions did not bother David save for the possibility of starving to death at meal times—and he learned to shovel it in fast while sitting rigidly at attention and still answer all questions flung at him. Some were trick questions, such as, “Mister, are you a virgin?” Either way a plebe answered he was in trouble—if he gave a straight answer. In those days some importance was placed on virginity or the lack of it; I can’t say why.
But trick questions called for trick answers; Dave found that an acceptable answer to that one was: “Yes, sir!—in my left ear.” Or possibly his belly button.
But most trick questions were intended to trap a plebe into giving a meek answer—and meekness was a mortal sin. Say a first classman said, “Mister, would you say I was handsome?” —an acceptable answer would be, “Perhaps your mother would say so, sir—but not me.” Or “Sir, you are the handsomest man I ever saw who was intended to be an ape.”
Such answers were chancy—they might flick a first classman on the raw—but they were safer than meek answers. But no matter how carefully a plebe tried to meet impossible standards, about once a week some first classman would decide that he needed punishment—arbitrary punishment without trial. This could run from mild, such as exercises repeated to physical collapse—which David disliked as they reminded him of “honest work”—up to paddling on the buttocks. This may strike you as nothing much, Ira, but I’m not speaking of paddling children sometimes receive. These beatings were delivered with the flat of a sword or with a worn-out broom that amounted to a long, heavy club. Three blows delivered by a grown man in perfect health would leave the victim’s bottom a mass of purple bruises and blood blisters, accompanied by excruciating pain.
David tried hard to avoid incidents likely to result in this calculated torture, but there was no way to avoid them entirely, short of quitting, as some first classmen awarded such blows through sheer sadism. David gritted his teeth and accepted them when he had to, judging—correctly—that he would be run out of school if he defied the supreme authority of a first classman. So he thought about the south end of that mule and endured it.
There was a much greater hazard to his personal safety and future prospects of a life free from “honest work.” The mystique of military service included the idea that a prospective officer must excel in athletic sports. Do not ask why; it was no more subject to rational explanation than is any other branch of theology.
Plebes in particular had to—no choice!—go out for “sports.” Two hours each day which were nominally free David could not spend napping or dreaming in the quiet of the school’s library, but must perforce spend in sweaty exercise.
Worse still, some “sports” were not only excessively energetic but also involved hazards to David’s favorite skin. “Boxing” —this is a long forgotten, utterly useless, stylized mock combat in which two men batter each other for a preset period or until one is beaten unconscious. “La Crosse”—this is a mock battle taken over from the savages who had formerly inhabited that continent. In it mobs of men fought with clubs. There was a hard missile with which points were scored—but it was the prospect of being sliced open or having bones broken with these clubs that aroused our hero’s distaste.
There was a thing called “water polo” in which opposing swimmers attempted to drown each other. David avoided that one by not swimming more than well enough to stay in school —a required skill. He was an excellent swimmer, having learned at the age of seven through being chucked into a creek by two older cousins—but he concealed his skill.
The sport with highest prestige was a thing called “foot ball” —and first classmen sized up each new group of victims for candidates who might be expected to excel, or learn to excel, in this organized mayhem. David had never seen it—but now he saw it and it filled his peaceful soul with horror.
As well it might. It involved two gangs of eleven men facing each other on a field and trying to move an ellipsoid bladder down the field against the opposition of the other gang. There were rituals and an esoteric terminology, but that was the idea.
It sounds harmless and rather foolish. Foolish
it was, harmless it was not—as the rituals permitted the opposing gang to attack a man attempting to move the bladder in a variety of violent ways, the least of which was to grab him and cause him to hit the ground like a ton of brick. Often three or four hit him at once, and sometimes inflicted indignities and mayhems not permitted by the rituals but concealed by the pile of bodies.
Death was not supposed to result from this activity but sometimes did. Injuries short of death were commonplace.
Unfortunately David had the ideal physique for success in this “feet ball”—height, weight, eyesight, fleetness of foot, speed of reflex. He was certain to be spotted by the first classmen on their return from mock sea battles and “volunteered” as a sacrificial victim.
It was time for evasive action.
The only possible way to avoid “foot ball” was to be acceptably occupied with some other sport. He found one.
Ira, do you know what “swordsmanship” is? Good—I can speak freely. This was a time in Earth’s history when the sword had ceased to be a weapon—after having been prominent for more than four millennia. But swords still existed in fossil form and retained a shadow of their ancient prestige. A gentleman was presumed to know how to use a sword and—
“Lazarus, what is a ‘gentleman’?”
What? Don’t interrupt, boy; you confuse me. A “gentleman” is, uh—Well, now let me see. A general definition—My, you can think up some hard ones. Some said it was an accident of birth—that being a disparaging way of saying it was a trait genetically inherited. But that doesn’t say what the trait is. A gentleman was supposed to prefer being a dead lion to being a live jackal. Me, I’ve always preferred to be a live lion, so that puts me outside the rules. Mmm . . you could say in all seriousness that the quality tagged by that name represents the slow emergence in human culture of an ethic higher than simple self-interest—damn slow in emerging in my opinion; you still can’t rely on it in a crunch.
As may be, military officers were presumed to be gentlemen and wore swords. Even fliers wore swords, although Allah alone could guess why.
These cadets were not only presumed to be gentlemen; there was a national law which stated that they were gentlemen. So they were taught a bare minimum about how to handle a sword, just enough to keep them from slicing their fingers or stabbing bystanders—not enough to fight with them, just to keep them from looking too silly when protocol required them to wear swords.
But swordsmanship was a recognized sport, called “fencing.” It had none of the prestige of football, or boxing, or even water polo—but it was on the list; a plebe could sign up for it.
David spotted this as a way out. Under a simple physical law, if he was up in the fencing loft, then he was not down on the football field, with sadistic gorillas in hobnailed boots jumping up and down on him. Long before the upper classmen returned to school Plebe Cadet Lamb had established himself as a member of the fencing squad, with a record of never missing a day, and was trying hard to look like a “good prospect” for the team.
At that time and place three forms of fencing were taught: saber, dueling sword, and foil. The first two used full-sized weapons. True, edges were dulled and points were bated; nevertheless a man could get hurt with them—even fatally, though that was very rare. But the foil was a lightweight toy, a fake sword with a limber blade that bent at the slightest pressure. The stylized imitation swordplay that used the foil was about as dangerous as tiddlywinks. This was the “weapon” David selected.
It was made for him. The highly artificial rules of foil fencing gave great advantage to fast reflexes and a sharp brain, both of which he had. Some exertion was necessary—but not much compared with football, lacrosse, or even tennis. Best of all, it required no body-against-body pounding that David found so distasteful in the rough games he was avoiding. David applied himself single-mindedly to acquiring skill so that his haven would be secure.
So diligent was he in protecting his sanctuary that, before his plebe year was over, he was National Novice Foil Champion. This caused his squad leader to smile at him, an expression that hurt his face. His cadet company commander noticed him for the first time and congratulated him.
Success with the foil even got him out of some “punishment” beatings. One Friday evening, when he was about to be beaten for some imaginary dereliction, David said, “Sir, if it’s the same to you, I’d rather have twice as many swats on Sunday—because tomorrow we’re fencing the Princeton plebe team and, if you do the job I know you can do, it might slow me up tomorrow.”
The first classman was impressed by this because having the Navy win, at any time and for any purpose and in anything, took precedence by Sacred Law over anything else, even the righteous pleasure of beating a “smart ass” plebe. He answered, “Tell you what, mister. Report to my room after supper on Sunday. If you lose tomorrow, you get a double dose of the medicine you’ve got coming to you. But if you win, we’ll cancel it.”
David won all three of his matches.
Fencing got him through his perilous plebe year with his precious skin unmarked save for scars on his bottom. He was safe now, with three easy years ahead of him, for only a plebe was subject to physical punishment, only a plebe could be ordered to take part in organized mayhem.
(Omitted)
One body-contact sport David loved, one of ancient popularity, which he had learned back in those hills he had fled from. But it was played with girls and was not officially recognized at this school. There were harsh rules against it, and a cadet caught practicing it was kicked out without mercy.
But David, like all true geniuses, paid only pragmatic attention to rules made by other people—he obeyed the Eleventh Commandment and never got caught. While other cadets sought the empty prestige of sneaking girls into the barracks or went over the wall at night in search of girls, David kept his activities quiet. Only those who knew him well knew how industriously he pursued this one body-contact sport. And no one knew him well.
Eh? Female cadets? Didn’t I make that plain, Ira? Not only were there no girl cadets, there was not one girl in that Navy—except a few nurses. Most particularly there were no girls at that school; there were guards night and day to keep them away from the cadets.
Don’t ask me why. It was Navy policy and therefore did not have a reason. In truth there was no job in that entire Navy which could not have been performed by either sex or even by eunuchs—but by long tradition that Navy was exclusively male.
Come to think about it, a few years later that tradition was questioned—a little at first, then by the end of that century, shortly before the Collapse, that Navy had females at all levels. I am not suggesting that this change was a cause of the Collapse. There were obvious causes of the Collapse, causes I won’t go into now. This change either was a null factor or possibly postponed the inevitable by a minor amount.
Either way, it doesn’t figure into the Tale of the Lazy Man. When David was in school, cadets were supposed to encounter females but seldom, and only under highly stylized circumstances, rigidly bound protocol, and heavily chaperoned.9 Instead of fighting the rules, David looked for loopholes and made use of them—he was never caught.
Every impossible rule has its loopholes; every general prohibition
J.F. 45th
creates its bootleggers. The Navy as a whole created its impossible rules; the Navy as individuals violated them, especially its curious rules about sex—a publicly monastic life on duty, a slightly veiled life of unlimited voluptuousness off duty. At sea, even harmless reliefs from sexual tension were treated most harshly when detected—although such technical violations of the mores were expected and condoned less than a century earlier. But this Navy was only a little more hypocritical in its sexual behavior than was the social matrix in which it was imbedded, more excessive in its outlets only to the degree that its public rules were more sternly impossible than those of that society as a whole. The public sexual code of that time was unbelievable, Ira; the violations
of it simply mirrored in reverse its fantastic requirements. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—if you’ll excuse the obvious.
I did not intend to discuss this other than to say that David found ways to get along with the school’s regulations about sex without going completely off his nut, as too many of his classmates did. I’ll add only this—and this is merely rumor: Through a mischance all too easy then although unheard of today, a young woman became pregnant, presumably by David. In those days—believe me!—this was a major disaster.
Why? Just stipulate that it was a disaster; it would take forever to explain that society and no civilized human would believe it. Cadets were forbidden to marry, the young woman had to get married under the rules current then, intervention to correct this mischance was almost unobtainable and physically very dangerous for her.
What David did about it illustrates his whole approach to life. When faced with a choice of evils, accept the least hazardous and cope with it, unblinkingly. He married her.
How he managed to do this and not get caught, I do not know. I can think of a number of ways, some simple and fairly foolproof, some complex and thereby subject to breakdown; I assume that David selected the simplest.
It changed the situation from impossible to manageable. It converted the girl’s father from an enemy, all too likely to go to the Commandant of the school with the story and thereby force David to resign when he had but a few months more to reach his goal, into an ally and fellow conspirator anxious to keep the marriage secret so that his son-in-law could graduate and take his wayward daughter off his hands.
As a side benefit David no longer needed to give planning to the pursuit of his favorite sport. He spent his time off in unworried domesticity, with perfect chaperonage.10