The Lords of Discipline

Early in the autumn of 1966, Will McLean arrives back at the campus of the Institute to begin his senior year. The Vietnam War is raging, and Will—despite his lack of interest in actual military service—has been chosen for new campus responsibilities. He serves on the school’s honor court and, to even his surprise, has been selected to address the incoming class of cadets (or first-year “plebes”) on the honor system. While Will is settling back in at campus, the Commandant of Cadets, Colonel Thomas “the Bear” Berrineau, pays him a visit. This good-natured school official has a further, important duty to assign to Will, but does not reveal it right away, opting instead to meet again a day later.

In the evening of the day he returns, Will makes his way to the house of his roommate Tradd St. Croix. The St. Croix family is part of Charleston’s wealthy and cultured elite, and Will, despite his more humble upbringing, is on excellent terms with Tradd’s appealing mother, Abigail, and reclusive sea captain father, Commerce. In that evening’s conversation, Abigail worries that Tradd, who is delicate in manner and may strike some of his acquaintances as effeminate, still does not fit in at the Institute. Tradd soon appears, and Will is delighted to see his roommate and closest friend, who has recently returned from a tour of Europe.

The next day, the Bear and Will meet at a local restaurant. Now, the Bear reveals Will’s mission: the Institute has just enrolled its first African-American student, and it is going to be up to Will to make sure that this young man is not persecuted and forced out. In particular, a secret society known as The Ten may pose a threat to Pearce. It will be up to Will to stay vigilant and to contact the Bear if the situation ever gets out of hand.

Soon enough, Will is joined on campus by his two other roommates: Mark Santoro and Dante “Pig” Pignetti, two physically imposing yet mostly good-natured students who both hail from Northern states and Italian-American families. Will is also called in to see the President of the Institute, the heroic World War II commander General Bentley Durrell. The General follows Will’s performance as a varsity basketball player, but has more serious matters to attend to, since two of Will’s military-minded classmates—John Alexander and Wayne Braselton—have questioned the appropriateness of having Will address the plebes. Alexander and Braselton confront Will in the General’s office, but Will holds his own in defending his position, and wins the General’s approval. Despite his low rank (senior private), Will will still address the plebes.

Will later drives over to the St. Croix mansion for an evening get-together. When he returns to his car to head back to the barracks, he discovers a note on his windshield. The message was left by a young woman who has stayed around to see Will’s reaction; she wears a scarf, sunglasses, and raincoat, and reveals that her name is Annie Kate Gervais. Though apparently enrolled at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Annie Kate is hiding out in Charleston. She and Will strike up a lively, jesting, and somewhat tense conversation, and Annie Kate laughingly calls Will on an Institute phone soon after Will arrives back at the campus.

On the day after Will makes Annie Kate’s acquaintance, the plebes begin to arrive. The General delivers a speech to the gathered parents of these new students, exhorting the mothers and fathers of the plebes to press their sons to succeed even when Institute life becomes harsh and demanding. Will waits a few days before seeking out Pearce. He finds the younger student settling into a life of drills and routines, and devises a secretive system of communication that will keep the two of them from attracting attention: should he ever need to contact Will, Pearce will leave a note in a library book that is never checked out, Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West.

Later in the day, Will addresses the assembled plebes on the nature of the Institute honor system. He feels insecure about his speech, seeing it as a collection of platitudes, yet he delivers a dramatic conclusion by citing the case of Kitty Genovese, a woman who was assaulted, raped, and killed in New York. While the pedestrians of that city did nothing to help her, Will declares that Institute men would not have been afraid to get involved or to dispense justice.

In retrospective narration, Will then reflects on how the Vietnam War shaped life at the Institute. Will himself was exempted from service due to his colorblindness; he is immensely skeptical of the value of fighting such an intense war in such a faraway country, and expresses such sentiments to his roommates. However, Mark, Pig, and Tradd are all much more favorably inclined towards the war effort. Will’s words temporarily ignite the wrath of Pig, who had lost a friend from the Institute wrestling team in combat. After a physical altercation, the four young men make up. Will, as narrator, recalls that Pig was bound for a fate that even worse than dying in Vietnam.

One night, Will enters the shower room and finds two members of his division of the Institute, R Company, shouting at a tearful and overweight plebe named Poteete. After driving off Poteete’s harassers, Will invites Poteete for a chat. The upperclassman learns that Poteete’s father had attended the Institute and that Poteete, despite his horror at the Institute’s methods, is determined to graduate.

Will has also made a Sunday appointment to meet Annie Kate in the garden behind her house. He arrives there and learns that Annie Kate’s father is now deceased. Annie Kate’s mother, however, arrives on the scene and confronts Will, demanding that he keep his contact with Annie Kate a secret. Will tells Annie Kate that he will be her friend and Annie Kate, flinging her signature raincoat open, reveals to Will that she is pregnant.

Just before classes are set to begin, Will is having a debate about Vietnam with an upperclassman friend, Cain Gilbreath, when the campus faces a crisis: Poteete has become suicidal, and is on the verge of throwing himself off one of the Institute buildings. Will tries to talk sense into Poteete, attempting to reassure the younger man that it will be possible to leave the Institute without disgrace. In the meantime, Mark and Pig sneak up behind Poteete and pull him to safety. Poteete is taken to the Institute’s infirmary; here, he hangs himself using his belt. Even after these disturbing events, Will begins the year secure in the friendship and affection of his three roommates—yet haunted by Poteete’s mention of a mysterious house to which he had been taken.