Ord said, “I am saddened to announce that Drill Sergeant Brock has been transferred. He is as fine a noncommissioned officer as you will find in this army. It would have been your great privilege to be trained by him. However, I am pleased to announce that I will assume his responsibilities for this training cycle in addition to mine as senior drill sergeant. Therefore, I will bunk in the NCO’s office at the end of mis barracks. I will have the pleasure of getting to know each of you in Third Platoon, twenty-four hours each day.”
Lucky us.
“Your questions?”
Someone, not me thank God, spoke. “Where’s the thermostat, Drill Sergeant?”
Ord stood at the end of the aisle and clasped hands behind his back. “Heat for these barracks is generated by coal-fired boilers. As you know, coal-fuel burning and mining was discontinued in this country before some of you were born. Supplies are being imported from Russia. We expect them momentarily.”
Momentarily turned out to mean sometime after 10:00 p.m. lights-out.
Before bed, Parker had shown me how to shine my boots and arrange my locker and stretch the sheets over my mattress. The one thing I’d done right all day was choosing a bunkie who knew the ropes. Meanwhile, some people even found time to write letters home on their Chipboards, like Ord suggested. There was an old machine at the end of the barracks where you plugged in your Chipboard and actually printed a paper letter and put it in an envelope to be carried by mail. Ord thought up some bullshit about how we should soften up our new boots, as if he hadn’t invented enough chores already. Walking around tomorrow would be soon enough to break them in.
We all bunked under coarse blankets, in field jackets, long Johns, and three pairs of wool socks, towels around our necks like scarves.
In my pocket burned two forgotten Prozac II tabs. I was terrified either to take them or to get caught flushing mem. I hadn’t had a ‘Zac in a day.
I stared at the mattress above me, sagging under Parker’s weight while fifty strangers snored, scratched, and farted.
It was the first time since Mom died that I’d really thought about her without the warm fuzz of drugs. She was gone. Not for the weekend or to the movies. Forever. In a roomful of people I was completely alone for the first time in my life. I sobbed until the bunk frame shook.
Finally, I closed my eyes.
“Zero four hundred hours! Fall out, gentlemen!”
It couldn’t be 4:00 a.m. I’d just closed my eyes. Overhead lights seared my eye sockets. Metallic thunder rattled the barracks. Ord stood in the center aisle, stirring a stick around the walls of a galvanized trash can. His uniform was perfect, his face glowing. Feet and bodies thumped floor tile. I sat up.
“Hunnh!” Above me, Parker woke in his new upper bunk. The mattress bulged as he rolled off the bunk edge, didn’t find the floor, and crashed. He screamed and clutched his leg. I looked, then looked away and gagged. Under his long Johns, Druwan’s lower leg bent at the knee where no knee was supposed to be.
Parker was our first training casualty. If he had been our last, human history would have been different.
Chapter Five
Ord showed two guys how to lace their arms to make a basket Parker could sit on, an arm around each of their necks. They shuffled him off to the infirmary while his complexion turned from ebony to putty. He clenched his teeth but never said a word while the platoon stood at attention on the company street’s frozen, floodlit dirt. Ord faced us. “Good morning, Third Platoon!”
“Good morning, Drill Sergeant!” Forty-nine voices feigned enthusiasm. “Would you enjoy a tour of the post?” Like a needle in the eye. “Yes, Drill Sergeant!”
“Physical training is normally conducted in sweat suits and running shoes. Those are expected to arrive momentarily.”
No doubt being imported from Russia on the coal boat. “We will therefore conduct PT in fatigue uniform. I am certain you all heeded the advice to soften and break in your combat boots last night.”
Oboy. Ord faced us right, converting our four squads from four rows to four columns, marched us forward, then brought us to a double-time jog. He jogged alongside calling cadence without breathing hard. You’d have thought the bastard would have said something nice about Parker. He would either be offered a discharge or be recycled and start training over again when his leg healed. I had no bunkmate.
After four hundred yards I broke a sweat and friction from the stiff boots warmed my heels. We’d have to stop soon.
By the time we reached the edge of the board-building cluster that was the post, sweat stung my eyes, and I panted. My heels burned. I glanced at Ord. His boots skimmed the ground as he sang cadence. We would be turning back any second.
“Anyone who doesn’t care to extend our tour to the pistol range?”
Maybe they were all out of breath like me. Maybe they were chicken. Nobody spoke.
“ Out-standing ! Marvelous day for a run!”
We labored on.
By the time we turned around at the pistol range, which was somewhere near Los Angeles, I hobbled fifty yards behind the pack. The problem had to be the high-topped boots and the jacket. I was a gazelle during soccer season. Okay, maybe I should have spent some time getting in shape like everybody had warned me.
Deathlike wheezing sounded at my left shoulder. I glanced back. The guy flailed along, head peeking out of his field jacket’s neck like a spectacled turtle’s from its shell. At least I wasn’t last. His glasses bounced on his nose, and he sobbed and stared ahead of us. “Oh dear God.”
I saved my breath. I figured he wept from blisters or exhaustion until I looked where he was looking. Ord drifted back from the pack toward us like a vulture. I almost sobbed myself.
“Difficulty, trainees?”
The Turtle shook his head on a scrawny neck.
Ord smiled. “That’s the spirit, Lorenzen. Trainee Wander is seeking a new bunkmate. I believe you two are a perfect match.”
Ord was saddling me with this geek! I wasn’t some nerd. I was just a tiny bit out of top condition. Not only had I lost Parker, who knew his way around, now I had to babysit this dork instead.
Ord sped up and circled the platoon’s main body like a great white as they tromped along.
The geek panted. “Sounds. Like the sergeant. Wants us to get To know each other. Walter Lorenzen.” He tried to hold out his hand as we stumbled along side by side but it flopped like windblown Kleenex.
“Jason Wander, Walter.” I clenched my teeth as much at the prospective relationship as at my blisters.
When we struggled back to the company street, Ord made us police the barracks to cool down before breakfast. If the blister-footed march to the mess hall cooled us down any more, we’d be ice sculptures. A white plume curled from the stovepipe that poked through the hall’s green-shingled roof. My heart leapt. Where there’s smoke…
Side-by-side horizontal ladders stood basketball-rim tall between us, heat, and food. The first two guys in line peeled off gloves, climbed onto wooden steps at one end, and swung monkey bar-style across the ladders to cheers, then dashed up the mess hall steps to warmth and sustenance. The pair behind them followed.
Lorenzen and I stepped up. Icy steel stung my palms as I rocked across the ladder. I’ve always had good upper-body strength. Halfway across I glanced back. Lorenzen dangled one-handed like an olive drab booger stuck on his ladder’s second rung.
“Pair drop and go back to the end of the line!” We dropped as Ord motioned the pair behind us up onto the steps.
Lorenzen whispered as we hopped up and down at the line’s ass end. “I’m sorry, Jason.”
“No big deal.” I blew into my fists.
At the building’s rear, next to us because of our preferred position at the line’s end, some idiot had planted a six-foot-tall twig of a sapling. A squared-off rock border made it into a scruffy garden centerpiece, awaiting
