would race forward like meteors, their fixed bayonets jabbing at the sky and their hearts filled with a tremendous rage as they trampled down the plants in the furrows—if only the plants were the heads of Chileans or Ecuadoreans, if only the blood would spurt out from under their boots, if only their enemies would die—until they came gasping and swearing to the foot of the adobe wall. Then they would sling their rifles, reach up their swollen hands, dig their nails into the cracks, flatten themselves against the wall, and slither up it somehow, keeping their eyes on the top, and then they would jump in a crouch, and land, hearing nothing except their own curses and the excited pounding of the blood in their temples and chests. But Gamboa would already be ahead of them, standing on top of a high rock, with hardly a scratch, sniffing the sea wind and calculating. The cadets, squatting or sprawling, kept their eyes fixed on him: life or death depended on his commands. Suddenly he would glare at them and they were not his birds any more, they were worms. “Spread out! You’re all bunched together like sheep!” So the worms would stand up and move apart, with their old mended fatigues flapping in the wind, with the patches and seams looking like scabs and scars, and then get down in the mud again, hiding in the weeds but still looking at Gamboa with the same docile, pleading eyes they had turned up to him on the night he broke up the Circle.
They formed the Circle only forty-eight hours after they had taken off their civilian clothes and been scalped by the Academy barber and put on their crisp khaki uniforms and fallen in for the first time in the stadium to the commands of whistles and harsh voices. It was the last day of summer, and the sky over Lima, after burning like an ember for three months, was ash gray with clouds, as if this were the beginning of a long dark dream. They came from all parts of Peru. They had never seen each other before but they were all together now, lined up in front of the cement hulks whose insides they had not yet seen. The voice of Capt. Garrido informed them that their civilian lives had ended for three years, that they would all be made into men, that the true military spirit consisted of three simple things: obedience, courage, and hard work. But the Circle came later, after their first meal in the Academy, after they were free at last from the supervision of the officers and noncoms. As they left the mess hall they looked at the cadets of the Fourth and Fifth with suspicion, something less of curiosity, something even less of sympathy.
The Slave was coming down the mess hall stairs, alone, when his arm was gripped tightly and a voice murmured in his ear: “Come with us, Dog.” He smiled and followed them meekly. Around him, a number of the classmates he had met that morning were also seized and hustled across the field to the Fourth Year barracks. There were no classes that day. The Dogs were at the mercy of the Fourth from lunch time until dinner. The Slave was not sure to what section he was taken, nor by whom. But the barracks was full of cigarette smoke and uniforms and he could hear shouts and laughter. He had hardly entered, the smile still on his lips, when he felt a blow on his shoulder. He fell to the floor, rolled over and lay there on his back. A foot was planted on his stomach. Ten faces looked down at him impassively, as if he were an insect, and he could not see the ceiling.
A voice said, “To start off, sing ‘I’m a Dog’ a hundred times in the rhythm of a Mexican ballad.”
It was impossible. He was stunned, his eyes were bulging from their sockets, his throat was burning. The foot pressed a little harder on his stomach.
“He doesn’t want to,” the voice said. “The Dog doesn’t want to sing.”
And they opened their mouths and spit on him, not once but again and again, until he had to close his eyes. When the spitting stopped, the same anonymous
They formed the Circle only forty-eight hours after they had taken off their civilian clothes and been scalped by the Academy barber and put on their crisp khaki uniforms and fallen in for the first time in the stadium to the commands of whistles and harsh voices. It was the last day of summer, and the sky over Lima, after burning like an ember for three months, was ash gray with clouds, as if this were the beginning of a long dark dream. They came from all parts of Peru. They had never seen each other before but they were all together now, lined up in front of the cement hulks whose insides they had not yet seen. The voice of Capt. Garrido informed them that their civilian lives had ended for three years, that they would all be made into men, that the true military spirit consisted of three simple things: obedience, courage, and hard work. But the Circle came later, after their first meal in the Academy, after they were free at last from the supervision of the officers and noncoms. As they left the mess hall they looked at the cadets of the Fourth and Fifth with suspicion, something less of curiosity, something even less of sympathy.
The Slave was coming down the mess hall stairs, alone, when his arm was gripped tightly and a voice murmured in his ear: “Come with us, Dog.” He smiled and followed them meekly. Around him, a number of the classmates he had met that morning were also seized and hustled across the field to the Fourth Year barracks. There were no classes that day. The Dogs were at the mercy of the Fourth from lunch time until dinner. The Slave was not sure to what section he was taken, nor by whom. But the barracks was full of cigarette smoke and uniforms and he could hear shouts and laughter. He had hardly entered, the smile still on his lips, when he felt a blow on his shoulder. He fell to the floor, rolled over and lay there on his back. A foot was planted on his stomach. Ten faces looked down at him impassively, as if he were an insect, and he could not see the ceiling.
A voice said, “To start off, sing ‘I’m a Dog’ a hundred times in the rhythm of a Mexican ballad.”
It was impossible. He was stunned, his eyes were bulging from their sockets, his throat was burning. The foot pressed a little harder on his stomach.
“He doesn’t want to,” the voice said. “The Dog doesn’t want to sing.”
And they opened their mouths and spit on him, not once but again and again, until he had to close his eyes. When the spitting stopped, the same anonymous
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