to instill into Eric some of his own enthusiasm.
This friendship was an added joy to Eric's delight in the Academy. He
had never been more happy than during his first year as a cadet.

Eric was fortunate in having the right angle to life on entering the
Academy, so that he did not have any difficulty in understanding the
character of the discipline. A number of his classmates, conscious that
they were training for commissions, considered themselves as junior
officers. They were quickly set right on this mistaken idea, but the
process of disabusing some of them was a sharp one. One member of the
class, in particular, had the notion that the Academy was a matter of
books, smart uniforms, and a preparation for epaulets. When he found
that he had to drill as a private, toil as a member of a gun crew,
handle heavy work, use his delicate fingers in knotting and splicing and
so forth, he entered a mild protest. He was set right by a homely rebuke
from one of the instructors, an old sea-dog who knew everything about
seamanship from the log of Noah's Ark to the rigging of a modern
sea-plane.

[Illustration: BREECHES-BUOY DRILL.

Firing Lyle gun in corner; shot seen carrying line to mast to right of
flagpole; rest of crew preparing to erect tripod.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

[Illustration: BREECHES-BUOY DRILL. RESCUING SURVIVORS.

Line has been carried to mast, and made fast; hawser pulled out; shore
end carried over tripod; third line run out with block carrying
breeches-buoy line; crew is seen hauling on line which brings in the
survivor.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

"You, Mr. Van Sluyd," he said bluntly, "if you haven't the nerve to do
an enlisted man's work, nor the brains to do it better'n he can, what
use'll you be as an officer?"

To do Van Sluyd justice, however, he took the call-down in good part and
knuckled to at the practical end of his training. Eric soon found that
this rather drastic phrase was a very fair presentation of the point of
view of the Academy. The several instructors absolutely demanded a
greater efficiency from the cadets than from the enlisted men. They had
to receive instruction from the non-commissioned officers, just like the
men did. This was no joke, either, for a warrant officer in the Coast
Guard, especially a boatswain, has a knowledge of his craft far beyond a
landsman's imaginings.

"Homer," said Eric to his friend one day, after a particularly stiff
bout of gun