Battle Dress (13 page)

Jason’s breathing grew ragged and uneven, and I felt him drop back. “Go on,” he gasped. “Don’t . . . wait for . . . me.”

“No! Come on, Jason!” I waved my hand forward. “You can do it.” I didn’t want to leave him.

“No . . . can’t hang.... Go on . . . just . . . get that . . . guy.”

I thought about those twenty-two push-ups. “Passing’s all that matters, anyway,” Gabrielle had said. I gritted my teeth.
Not for me.
I wasn’t going to lose that guy ahead of us. “Keep it up,” I said to Jason as I pushed ahead.

The sound of his breath at my side disappeared, and then the rhythm of his feet striking the pavement faded. The rest of the run blurred in my memory. I remember running through the one-mile mark I’d passed earlier and, soon after, flying by the squat buildings with their breath-robbing stench. I remember watching the guy ahead of me grow larger with every step—his dark hair, his sweat-soaked shirt, a black thread hanging from his Gym Alpha shorts, the quarter-sized scab on his left elbow, and finally his Army-issue glasses and the look of surprise as I passed him. And then I remember Cadet Daily jumping up and down, red-faced and openmouthed, the veins in his neck bulging, as I sprinted past the clock. 11:21.

I did it!

I slowed to a jog before I stopped completely, doubled over, my lungs clamoring for air.

“Davis!” I heard Cadet Daily yell. “You kicked some serious booty! Way to go! Oh, yeah! You’ve earned some Big Bites at breakfast today, Davis!”

I was too beat to smile. “Yes, sir!” I answered, weakly. I could use some food.

“Just
breakfast
, Daily?” I heard another upperclassman ask. “If she were my smack, she’d get Big Bites all week.”

“Oh, yeah, Aussprung? Well, you deal with your squad your way, and I’ll deal with mine my way. You wonder why you have nothing but lily-livered chuckleheads? It’s ’cause you’re soft, Aussprung. Way too soft.”

But I knew that Cadet Aussprung was anything but soft. His brand of gentleness made every new cadet dart into the nearest latrine whenever he was spotted in the hallway.

“Good job, McGill!” I heard Cadet Daily yell. “All the way in, now!”

I straightened up to watch Jason cross the finish line.

“Eleven fifty-four!” Cadet Daily shouted. “Hu-ah! You see that, Aussprung? Where are
your
smacks? Keep walking, McGill. And take Davis with you. I’d hate to have to haul her carcass back to the barracks.” I saw him smirk at Cadet Aussprung. “Even if she did kick everybody’s butt in the
entire
platoon.”

Was Cadet Daily actually
proud
of me? I didn’t dare hope.

McGill stumbled toward me, and when we both had caught our breath, we walked back to the finish line to watch the rest of Third Squad come in.

“Did you get him?” Jason asked.

“Yeah,” I said. And then I smiled. Big. “Yeah, I did.”

“Good.” He clapped me on the back. “If I’m gonna get smoked by a girl, she’d better be a fast one.”

CHAPTER 8

MONDAY, 12 JULY 1530

There is no substitute for victory!

—GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, WEST POINT CLASS OF 1903

“
S
ICK CALL, FALL OUT!” First Sergeant Stockel kept the scorn out of his voice, but not from his face as he waited for the handful of new cadets to step out of their squads and limp to the rear of the formation. Most of them had crutches, so the going was slow. “TODAY, SICK CALL, TODAY! YOU’RE MOVING LIKE POND WATER!”

Standing in Third Squad, Third Platoon, I watched the new cadets hobble past.

Before the P.T. test this morning only two new cadets had left the sanctuary of their squads for the rear of the formation. Now there were five. Each of them, because of sickness or injury, had been put on a medical profile and was excused from any strenuous training. The two guys and three girls studied the ground as they moved, I suspected, to avoid looking at any of us straight in the eye.

New Cadet Offenbacher lagged behind the other four, wincing with every step. As certain as the cannon fired every morning for Reveille, she was among the “walking wounded.” The joke being whispered in the latrines was that she had been issued crutches instead of running shoes. After all, no one had actually ever seen her run P.T., and she never went anywhere without them.

“MOVE OUT, MISS ‘OFTEN-SLACKER’ WITH THE ‘PAINS IN THE THIGHS!’ WE’RE WAITIN’ ON
YOU
!” First Sergeant Stockel bellowed with irritation.

Stifled laughter erupted out of the upperclassmen, up and down the ranks.

Busting on New Cadet Offenbacher had become a favorite upperclassmen’s pastime lately. Before lunch this morning H Company had toured the Cadet Chapel, yet another huge Gothic structure that looked like it had been plucked out of medieval Europe. The grueling march to get there took us up one of West Point’s steepest hills, but Offenbacher wasn’t with us. She and her crutches arrived . . . in a truck.

“She makes me want to puke,” I overheard one of the upperclassmen whisper to First Sergeant Stockel. “What’s her big medical issue
now
?”

First Sergeant Stockel snorted. “What’s not? Last week it was a strained back. Today it’s ‘pains in the thighs.’ Can you say ‘sore muscles’? But hey, it’s legit—she’s got a doctor’s signature, so she’s got a profile. Miss ‘Often-slacker’ with the ‘pains in the thighs.’”

The upperclassman had gotten a good laugh out of that one. And now, hours later, First Sergeant Stockel decided to share the joke with the rest of the company.

I will
never
go on sick call.
I didn’t want these people to talk about me the way they talked about Offenbacher. I had had enough of that back home—knowing that the kids whispering on the bus or in the halls at school were laughing at me. Laughing about the one thing I had no power over—my family. And it made me mad that Offenbacher would allow herself to be so weak.
I don’t care how bad I’m hurt.
I’d rather put up with any amount of physical discomfort than be the company joke that she was. I almost hated her for it.

“AS YOU WERE, HARDCORE!” yelled First Sergeant Stockel, smirking. “THIS IS A MILITARY FORMATION! All Corps Squad wanna-bes report to Cadet Williams at the entrance of Leyte Sally Port immediately following this formation. All remaining new cadets, fall out into your respective teams for Mass Athletics. . . .”

I sucked in one slow breath.
This is it. By dinner formation, tryouts will be all over. In just a couple of hours I’ll be standing right here, knowing if I’m still a wanna-be . . . or not.

After formation, Gabrielle with her tennis racket, Hickman with his baseball glove, and I with my running shoes hurried over to the other wanna-bes huddling around Cadet Williams in the shade of the sally port.

Not far from us, First Sergeant Stockel was unleashing his wrath on the ragged row of new cadets with crutches. “I will not have a bunch of lame and lazy profile get-overs hiding out in the barracks while the rest of H Company is sweating in the sun!” I heard him yell. “Sick call is not spelled F-U-N. And it is not spelled R-A-C-K. So spread the word, Boneheads. Sick call ain’t what it’s cracked up to be!”

I noticed something familiar about the girl standing nearest me, at the end of the row. She had curly brown hair and freckles across her sunburned nose.
I know her. Didn’t I talk to her once?

“You have ten minutes from right now to get yourselves, your crutches, and a barracks bag containing one each: pair of boots and low quarters—”

I know! She’s the girl Cadet Daily caught me talking to on the first day of Beast!

“—hat brass and belt buckle, shoe polish and Brasso—”

I stared at the girl again. I remembered how she had smiled at me that first day. Her smile was now long gone as she stood kneading the hand grips of her crutches and watching First Sergeant Stockel.
What happened to her?
I wondered if she was a sick call junkie like Offenbacher. I hoped not.

“—to the Orderly Room and report to the Cadet in Charge of Quarters.” First Sergeant Stockel smiled. “And you’re in luck, Sick Call, because today the CCQ just happens to be Cadet Aussprung, and I have the utmost confidence that he will keep you gainfully employed for the next hour and a half polishing brass, shining shoes, and memorizing this week’s knowledge.” First Sergeant Stockel turned to New Cadet Offenbacher. “Like Schofield’s Definition of Discipline.”

Every week we had definitions and West Point trivia to memorize out of our
Bugle Notes
, the tiny book new cadets were required to carry everywhere. Cadet Daily called it the “Plebe Bible”—a perfect name. Not only did it contain everything we’d have to know as West Point cadets, but it also happened to be about the same size as the pocket New Testament that Kit Boguslavsky always carried in his back pocket.

Gabrielle and I tried to memorize the entire week’s knowledge on Sunday nights, quizzing each other while we polished boots and brass, so we wouldn’t be scrambling later in the week. Schofield’s Definition of Discipline was on page 245 of the book. I already knew it. So did Gabrielle.

First Sergeant Stockel’s face had inched closer to Offenbacher’s. “Let’s hear it, Hopalong. You’ve had plenty of time to memorize
your
knowledge, skipping out on all that good Army training!”

“Y-y-yes, sir. Sir, Schofield’s Definition of Discipline: ‘The discipline which makes the soldiers in a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained through harsh treatment. On the contrary—’”

First Sergeant Stockel made a sound like a buzzer. “Cease work, Lamebrain! ‘Harsh
and tyrannical
treatment.’ You may think you’ve received some harsh treatment thus far at West Point, Miss Offenbacher, and if it were just up to me, I’d toss a little more
harsh
treatment in your direction. But harsh
and
tyrannical treatment is something altogether different—something you’ll never know anything about. Try again!”

She is so pathetic!
Her “pains in the thighs” had nothing to do with her brain! The least she could’ve done was put out the extra effort to know her knowledge cold. Any sympathy I might have had for her vanished. I turned my attention back to the huddle and joined the group of wanna-bes who were holding running shoes.

There I waited with the others, blinking sweat and flies out of my eyes and trying hard to keep from thinking about tryouts.

Finally a black upperclass female loped toward us with enough track team wanna-bes to make a platoon jogging in her wake. “Get on the end and follow me,” she called and took off, away from the Plain, down the long hill toward the river, around the grassy field that showcased the track, and into the Field House. Its high ceiling and relative dimness were a haven from the heat. It felt almost like air-conditioning.

“Okay, New Cadets,” she said when we were all inside. “Listen up. I’m Allegra Spence, the captain of the Women’s Cross Country Team. But you can call me ‘Ma’am’ for now, all right? If you make the team, I’ll be more than happy to drop the formalities, but let’s not develop bad habits just yet.”

I looked at the mob of tense faces around me.
So many . . .

She pointed across the track to a medium-height, balding black man wearing civilian clothes—a yellow polo shirt and black warm-up pants—and talking to an Army officer with a mustache. The way he jerked his head back and forth as he talked, I could tell that he was intense. “That’s the man you want to impress, New Cadets. Coach Louis Banks, Head Track and Cross Country Coach. You have one chance to show him your stuff, and that’s today, so give it all you got.”

One chance.
I took a deep breath and looked at the floor.
Give it all you got.
The Big Bites of Eggs MacArthur and cottage fried potatoes I’d gotten at breakfast today hadn’t come close to filling my stomach. And my tight hamstrings and quads reminded me that only a few hours had elapsed since the P.T. test. Fighting to stay awake during classes on the honor code, hiking up to the Cadet Chapel, and lugging my rifle around during drill practice hadn’t helped me get ready for anything but my bed.

“If you were recruited, don’t worry. You’re on the team”—and she smiled for the first time—“for now.” She pointed toward the large group of new cadets sitting apart from everybody else on the far end of the Field House. “Just hang tight over there during tryouts. Afterwards, Coach’ll want to talk to you.”

I stared. The track recruits sat talking and laughing, looking totally unaware of all the jumping, stretching, and running around them. I even spotted a couple of new cadets sprawled across a high jump mat, asleep.

The mob near the door shrank as Cadet Spence sent us wanna-bes to different areas of the Field House, depending on the event, until only the distance runners remained.

“Okay, guys. I saved the best for last—the ones who go the distance.” She paused, taking the thirty or so of us in with one long look. “Wait over there”—she pointed across the length of the track—“and warm up. You’ll be nice and close to the latrines. If you’re anything like me, you’ll need to take care of business before hitting the track.” She checked her watch. “We don’t have a lot of time to knock this out, so it’s going to be ‘boom, boom, boom.’ A quick mile on the track and that’s it. Men under 4:40, women under 5:30. If you can run that, you’re on the team. Plain and simple. Any questions?”

Under 5:30?
I shook out each leg.
I can run that, maybe, when I’m fresh.
I started chewing on my thumbnail.
What was my mile split this morning—5:39? And I still had a mile to go. I don’t know. Maybe . . .
But I knew there were no “maybes” for me. I just
had
to make the team. Running was what had saved me at home, helped me cope. When I was racing on a track or through the woods, I
was
somebody. The medals and trophies I took home told me that, even if no person ever did. Running was the only thing I had. And I felt for a second that if I couldn’t be on Corps Squad, I didn’t want to stay at West Point.