Free B004QGYWDA EBOK by Mario Vargas Llosa

first passday was approaching and their navy-blue uniforms were being made. The officers gave them an hour’s lecture each day on the conduct of a uniformed cadet in public.
    “A uniform attracts the girls like honey,” Vallano said, rolling his eyes greedily.
    It wasn’t as bad as they said, it wasn’t even as bad as I thought it was at the time, not counting what happened when Gamboa came into the latrine after taps, you can’t compare that month with the other Sundays without passes. On Sundays, that month, the Third Year took over the Academy. There was a movie in the middle of the day and then their families arrived. The Dogs wandered around the parade ground, the field, the stadium and the patios, surrounded by doting relatives. A week before the first pass, they tried on their wool uniforms: navy-blue trousers, jackets with gilt buttons, white caps. Their hair grew out slowly and they were more and more eager for the pass-day to come. After the meetings of the Circle they talked about their plans for the first pass-day. And how did he know about it, was it just by chance or did somebody squeal, and what if Huarina’d been on duty, or Lt. Cobos? Yes, at least not so fast, it seems to me that if the Circle hadn’t been discovered the section wouldn’t’ve turned into such trash, we’d’ve been sitting pretty, not so fast. The Jaguar was standing up, talking about one of the cadets from the Fourth, a brigadier. The rest of them squatted as usual as they listened to him. They kept passing around their cigarettes. The smoke rose up, bumped against the ceiling, came back down and circulated through the room like an opaque, multiform monster. “But even if he did, Jaguar, it isn’t something to kill a guy for,” Vallano said, “It’s all right to get revenge but not like that,” Urioste said, “What really stinks about all this is he might end up by losing an eye,” Pallasta said, “People get what they’re looking for,” the Jaguar said, but who knows what would’ve happened, and which came first, the bang on the door or the shout? Lt. Gamboa had either pushed open the double door with his hands or kicked it open, but the cadets went on squatting there, not hearing the noise at the door and Arróspide’s shout, but watching the stale smoke flow out into the dark barracks through the open door. It was almost filled by the tall figure of Lt. Gamboa, who was holding the halves open with both hands. The cadets dropped their cigarettes, but since they were all barefoot they could not stamp them out. They all stood at attention in rigid, exaggerated postures. Gamboa stepped on the cigarettes and then counted the cadets. “Thirty-two,” he said. “The whole section. Who’s the brigadier?”
    Arróspide stepped forward.
    “Tell me what’s going on here,” Gamboa said in a quiet voice. “From the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”
    Arróspide glanced at the others out of the corner of his eye while the lieutenant waited as motionless as a tree. What about the way he complained to him? And then we were all his sons after we began complaining, and what a dirty deal, Lieutenant, you don’t know the way they initiated us, don’t men have the right to defend themselves, and what a dirty deal, Lieutenant, they beat us up, they really hurt us, they insulted our mothers, look at what happened to Montesinos, look at his ass from all those right angles, Lieutenant, and he was looking at the ceiling, what a dirty deal, without saying a word to us, except he said, just tell me the facts, never mind your remarks, speak one at a time, don’t make such a racket, you’ll wake up the other sections, and what a dirty deal, the regulations, he began reciting them, I ought to expel the whole bunch of you but the army is tolerant, it understands that you kids still don’t know about military life and respect for your superiors and team spirit, but I don’t want any more of this, Yes, Lieutenant, this time