Battle Dress (26 page)

“Yeah, Gab,” Kit said. “It’s not much different than going down a slide. Just like doing the jungle gym when you were a kid.”

“I didn’t do jungle gyms, Kit,” Gabrielle said, her voice shaking. She squirmed over the top of the wall, looking down at the sawdust below. “The only experimenting I ever did with gravity was jump rope!”

“Okay, Andi,” Ping said. “Show Gab how it’s done. All you’ve got to do—”

“—is slide down and push off the wall before I hit the mines.” I looked at Ping. “Right? And hope I make it over the sawdust.”

“Excuse me, Andi,” Gabrielle said, swinging her legs over the top and elbowing me out of her way. Without another word she pushed herself over the edge, slid down the wall, and landed safely on her hands and knees in the dirt outside the red piping.

“Hu-ah!” Kit and Jason yelled, slapping hands.

Gabrielle got to her feet, picked her TEDs out of the dirt, shoved them on her face, and brushed herself off. “Piece of cake.
Now
it’s your turn, Andi.”

CHAPTER 14

SATURDAY, 7 AUGUST 1520

I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
Be thou my guide until I find,
Led by a tender hand,
Thy happy kingdom in
myself
And dare to take command.

—LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, “MY KINGDOM”

“
D
AVIS, IT’S YOUR TURN.” Cadet Daily stopped pacing and stood in front of me. My eyes jerked to his face, my heart shifting into high gear. This was our fifth obstacle. Half of Third Squad had already led. The inevitable had come. “Yes, sir.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “This is your chance to excel.”

“Yes, sir.” I thought about that word.
Excel.
Just this morning I had excelled, qualifying Expert on the Hand Grenade Assault Course by throwing bull’s-eyes on all five targets despite long charges uphill, smoke burning my eyes, and simulated bombs thundering from every direction. Earlier in the week I had excelled, running through the muddy Bayonet Assault Course, stabbing straw-filled dummies, low crawling under barbed wire, and jumping over log barricades. All summer I had excelled, dogging the guys during P.T., memorizing knowledge, drilling on the Plain, rappelling and ruck marching and withstanding the hazing.
But that was different. That was you against yourself. You weren’t
leading
anyone.

I hadn’t been afraid to hold a live grenade and pull the pin, then lob it over the top of a concrete bunker. And I hadn’t been afraid to load forty rounds of live ammunition into my M-16, then fire them into a target downrange. But I was afraid now.

“Okay, Cadet Tooley,” Cadet Daily said, stepping away from me and turning to the fidgeting upperclassman behind him. “They’re all yours.”

“Right-o.” Cadet Tooley gave Cadet Daily a thumbs-up and marched over to us like someone had just wound him up and let him go. He quickly scanned our group, his eyes darting from one face to the next. “All right, New Cadets. As your squad leader has already informed you, my name is Cadet Tooley, and I will be the Safety for this obstacle.” He snapped his head into a nod. Actually, everything about him was snappy—his movements, his quick speech, his high-pitched nasal voice, his darting eyes.

That guy must’ve been a squirrel in a prior life. I’ll never relax with him around.

His eyes flicked around our group again. “Cadet Daily has informed me of your outstanding effort on the LRC thus far, New Cadets. According to
him
you are in the running for taking H Company’s squad competition.”

“HU-AH!” We all knew that was an exaggeration, but we liked hearing it, anyway.

Cadet Tooley clasped his hands behind his back and nodded again. “That’s all well and good. But if you’re not safe while you’re at my obstacle, you’ll be sorry. ‘Blood makes the grass grow’ might be a catchy phrase, New Cadets. But I’ve never cared much for grass. Especially when it grows in my sawdust pit.” He thrust an arm toward the obstacle behind him. “Take a minute to view the obstacle to my rear, your front.” Then he waited, whistling tunelessly.

Okay. Concentrate. You’ve got to take everything in.
I stared down the length of what looked like ten feet of waist-high monkey bars, painted red. Except instead of actual bars it had slack chains that were partially covered with gray padding. Where the monkey bars ended, a wooden wall towered about ten feet high.

“Time’s up, New Cadets. Now listen carefully. This is the scenario. Exactly two hours ago your team received an urgent radio call from forward elements of your battalion, operating twelve kilometers from your position.”

I leaned forward, my mind struggling to keep pace with his speech.

“The enemy has conducted biological warfare in this forward element’s area of operations, contaminating their water supply with an extremely aggressive strain of cholera, known to kill the average human within two hours after initial symptoms are evident. For your professional development, New Cadets, these symptoms are debilitating abdominal cramps, massive diarrhea, and violent vomiting, leading to dehydration, shock, and finally death. Not a pleasant way to go.”

“Nothing like leaking out of both ends,” I heard Jason whisper to Kit. “That’s got to suck.”

“Leaking out of both ends?” Kit whispered back. “More like
blasting
. Ol’ Faithful strikes again.”

I rolled my eyes at them while they snorted to keep from laughing.
Guys
! They could be so immature sometimes! I had to take this seriously even if they weren’t.

But unlike me, Cadet Tooley was oblivious to Kit and Jason. “Your mission, New Cadets,” he continued, “is to get the newly developed—and only existing—cure for cholera to the affected personnel before they die. For the past one hour and forty-seven minutes your team has been hacking its way through dense jungle when you come upon a terrain feature not indicated on your map.” He flicked his hand toward the sawdust pit. “This ravine. A very deep ravine.” He executed a crisp about-face and marched away from us, into the pit. “Spanning this very deep ravine is a rather deteriorated, heavily booby-trapped suspension bridge.”

You mean
completely
booby-trapped.
The gray padding encasing each chain was the only exception. And even then, about six inches of red chain stuck out of the padding on either side.

“This bridge is your only way across the ravine.” Cadet Tooley walked along the length of the red monkey bars, making each padded chain swing as he passed, until he reached the wall. “As you can plainly see, the suspension bridge is anchored, on this end,
nine feet
below the top of the ravine. Therefore, if you make it across the bridge, you must scale this nine-foot cliff to complete the mission.” He patted the wood wall.

Okay. The wall’s nine feet taller than the bridge. Remember that—nine feet.

“According to the latest intelligence reports, the cliff is not believed to be booby-trapped.” He spun around and flashed us a crooked smile. “But . . .”

Great—that means it probably
is
booby-trapped.
But the side of the wall that I could see was free of any red paint.
So maybe the top is mined?

“Finally, the enemy has laid a narrow minefield along the edge of the ravine on your side; hence the red piping encircling the pit. And located directly to your rear are your supplies.” He paused for us to look. “Two ammo crates, representing two cartons of glass vials that contain the rare cholera cure; one fuel barrel, containing an isotonic replacement solution to slow the effects of dehydration; one twenty-one-foot rope; and one six-foot-by-two-foot board.”

A board? Maybe we could lay it over the chains, then crawl across it to the other side!
I squinted at the obstacle, my mind working fast.
No, six feet won’t be long enough . . . but we’ll need something stable . . .

“Remember, to successfully accomplish the mission, you must get all the equipment and all personnel across the bridge . . .”

Personnel across the bridge
. . . I had a sudden vision of BDU-clad bodies forming a bridge over the chains, and the rest of Third Squad crawling over them.
Yes! That’s it! A human bridge!

“. . . and over the cliff within thirteen minutes, no exceptions. Are there any questions?” He waited, his eyes traveling around our group. “No? Okay, then. Who’s the leader? Front and center!”

I took a step forward. “Sir, Cadet Daily assigned me as the leader for this obstacle.” My voice sounded distant, as if it were coming from outside myself. I hoped it didn’t sound odd to everyone else.

He nodded. “Well, I hope you were listening to my safety speech, Miss . . .” He jerked his eyes to my name tag. “. . . Miss Davis.”

I swallowed. “Yes, sir. I was listening, sir.”
I may not have a clue about what I’m doing, but I can listen.

“Good. That’s exactly what I want to hear.” He checked his watch. “You have thirteen minutes. Starting
now!
” And Cadet Tooley marched out of the pit.

Well, here goes.
I wiped my hands on my pants and turned to face my squadmates. Seven pairs of eyes stared back at me, waiting.
I don’t know—what if they think my human bridge idea is completely messed up?
I took a deep breath, trying to conjure up the confident, almost indifferent, façade I wore at the starting line of every race.
Come on. You’ve got to at least make these guys
think
you’ve got it together.

But Third Squad took my hesitation as uncertainty and clamored to fill the silence with advice:

“How abouts we see how heavy those supplies are?”

“No, the first thing we’ve gotta do is send someone up the wall to recon what’s on the other side.”

“Sure,
after
we stabilize the chains. We can’t just let someone go across.”

“What about using that board over there?”

You’re supposed to be the leader, right? Come on—you’re losing them.

I knew if I stood back just a little longer, someone would jump in and take over. But I couldn’t let that happen.
I
had to do the leading, and that’s all there was to it.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think the board’s long enough. But what about this? I was thinking: We could use a couple of us to make a sort of human bridge across the chains. And then, you know, have the rest of us crawl over them?”

So much for coming across confident.
I hadn’t dictated a plan, I had tossed out a suggestion. Why couldn’t I just tell them what to do like Ping and Kit and the rest had done when they were in charge?

I saw Jason and Kit look from me to the obstacle. Cero had his hands on his hips, kicking a stone between his feet. Hickman shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms. Gabrielle and Bonanno hovered behind the others, watching everyone’s reactions. Only Ping held my gaze, nodding slightly.

Encouraged by the lack of dissent, I turned back to the obstacle and talked faster. “Two people should be enough, don’t you think? If they’re tall? Like . . . maybe Cero and Kit, if they want to. Or Bonanno.” I pointed at the chains. “The first guy could lie down on the chains and cover the first half of them. You following me? And then the second guy could crawl over him and cover the rest.” I looked over my shoulder. “They’d have to be really careful and only lie on the gray padding part because of the mines . . .”

Kit clapped his hands. “I’m in, Andi. I’ll even volunteer to be one of your bridge guys.”

“Me, too.” Cero jabbed himself in the chest with his thumb. “But I’m going to be the first guy on. No guts, no glory. Right?” He looked at me. “You think you can arrange that, Boss?”

I smiled. “I think I can arrange that, Cero.”
This isn’t so bad. Acting confident, that’s the key.
I looked at the rest of Third Squad. “Then after those guys are set, someone will have to crawl over them and climb up the wall to see what’s on the other side.” I raised an eyebrow. “Anybody really good at climbing?”

“And what if the top of the wall’s booby-trapped?” Hickman asked, squinting at me out of one eye. “That ‘someone’ just might get wasted.”

“Well . . .” I started picking the dirt out from under my fingernails. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

But . . . how could that be? Clearing the obstacle would be impossible then, wouldn’t it? But then again, hadn’t Cadet Tooley hinted that the top might be mined?

I knew I had to say something; the entire squad was waiting.

I shook my head. “I don’t think we really need to worry about that. I mean, we’ve got to get
over
the wall, right? There’s no way around that. Maybe in a real-life situation it would be mined. But”—I shrugged—“unless we’re supposed to lose one guy right off the bat—and who knows? That may be the case—I still think mining the top of the wall just doesn’t pass the common-sense test.” I quickly checked the faces in the group; I was babbling, but they were still with me.

“So I guess we’ll just have to take that chance. Of losing someone, I mean.” I cleared my throat. “Any volunteers?” I waited as my squadmates exchanged glances.
Why did I
ask
for volunteers? What will I do if nobody says anything?

“Yeah, sure,” Hickman finally mumbled, looking at the ground. “I’ll do it.”

Kit thumped Hickman across the back. “Like Cero was saying, ‘No guts, no glory.’ Ain’t that right, Tommy old boy?”

When I turned back to Cero, he was already leaning over the sawdust that lay between the red piping and the booby-trapped bridge. With his toes as close as possible to the red piping, he dove for the chains. Flopping on top of the first two, he wiggled forward, his body bucking as he wormed his way over the chains. Finally, after a lot of gasping and cursing, he reached the halfway point.