The Chaplain's War (18 page)

I found myself quickly emulating Secce and the other cadre, who demonstrated what they called a practical carry, with the rifle’s single shoulder strap hooked over my elbow while I held the rifle’s handle—located behind the trigger and trigger guard—in my right hand, barrel towards the ground, the straight forward grip in my left.

The platoon was also trained in integrating the rifle into the drill and ceremony movements we’d learned the previous week, with additional movements performed strictly from the position of attention, such as order-arms, right- and left-shoulder arms, and so forth. I managed to stay fairly well away from Thukhan through most of it, and actually enjoyed the instruction and training—which was given while out from under the baleful eye of the DSs, who had quietly been banished during armory cadre instruction.

But the joy did not last. As chow time approached, the drill sergeants reappeared, and the platoon was hustled back into platoon formation for several minutes of hard marching around the PT field before being marched back up to the Charlie Company common area, in prep for chow.

While we waited, huffing and puffing, to take our turn rotating through the limited space of the chow hall, Drill Sergeant Malvino taught us the meaning of “stack arms”—all the rifles being quickly and uniformly pitched into cones, or “teepees,” which would remain outside with a watch detail, rather than be carried into the chow hall, which was verboten. He also spent a significant amount of time warning us about the dire consequences of losing or misplacing our rifles. If losing an e-pad was bad, losing a rifle was about a thousand times worse.

“That weapon is a part of you now,” Malvino said, walking up and down the ranks. “Treat it as such. You don’t forget your feet or your hands or your mouth when you go somewhere or wake up in the morning, so you shouldn’t forget your weapon either. Unless your weapon has been secured and is under guard—during chow and a few select other times—your weapon will be on you at all times. Is that understood?”

Second platoon, “YES, DRILL SERGEANT!”

“Have you been told what will happen if you are caught flagging?”

“YES, DRILL SERGEANT!”

“Good, ’cause let me remind you again. We will smoke you so hard you will throw up. You haven’t seen the kind of smoking we’ll give you if you’re stupid enough to leave that weapon, or flag another troop, or an NCO. We’ll smoke you up one side of the bay, and back down the other side. We’ll smoke you clear across the PT field and back, then do it again just to see you cry. We’ll smoke you until you literally don’t have a damn piece of yourself left for us to smoke, and then we’ll smoke you some more.

“And then,” Malvino said, not smiling at all, “we’ll take your pay, we’ll take your privileges, and if necessary we’ll take you all the way back to square one. And that means recycle, or Alcatraz. And you all know and we all know that nobody wants that to happen. Do you want that to happen, recruits?”

“NO, DRILL SERGEANT!”

“Do any of you want to recycle or be sent to Alcatraz, recruits?”

“NO, DRILL SERGEANT!!”

“Good. See that it doesn’t.”

After chow and after training, when we males and the fewer-in-number females had been sent to our respective bays, maneuvering with the R77A5 proved a challenge. With the full stock and standard barrel, the rifle wasn’t exactly friendly in close quarters. There was also the issue of taking the weapon into the head—which, like taking the weapon into the chow hall—was a no-no. Weapons had to be left in the care of other recruits—volunteers, or those unfortunate enough to be pressed into the job—while people bathed and used the toilet.

I waited until the very end of the hour to nab a shower. With so much reading to do, and not wanting to endure the ass-tastic, full-court-press of bodies that queued up at the beginning of the hour, a last-minute rinse would have to suffice.

By the time I was in my flip-flop slippers and PT shorts and T-shirt, there was only five minutes to spare before the DSs came in for the final accountability check of the day, followed by lights out.

I found the latest rifle-guard-slash-victim standing dumbly by a bunk piled with several weapons. I thanked the poor soul for helping out, he grunted at me, and I added my rifle to the pile, and went to do my business.

Thankfully the barracks had a near-endless supply of hot water from the high-efficiency all-points heating system. I momentarily luxuriated in the feel of the near-scalding fluid as it flowed over my skin, washing away that day’s layer of grit and filth. Soap, suds, rinse, and I was padding back into the bay with ninety seconds to spare—pure eternity.

The recruit watching the rifles was not the same recruit I had seen when I’d gone into the head.

I checked the bunk for my weapon—each of them having been stickered on the shoulder stock with a number and barcode identical to that which had been stamped on our hands in Reception, and printed onto our duffels—and could not find it.

Sudden, cold panic overtook me.

“Where’s my rifle?” I asked.

The male recruit just shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Weren’t you
watching
while you stood here?”

“Look, people come and go, taking and leaving weapons, I don’t know whose is whose.”

I rechecked the pile. And rechecked again. The last people exited the head and collected their weapons from the bunk, leaving it empty.

The recruit guarding them just shrugged at me, and walked away, his own weapon in his hands.

The cold panic had become a maw of icelike fangs, closing on my heart.

The bay had begun to line up around the edge of the Dead Zone, each man in his flip-flop slippers, PT shorts, and PT shirt tucked in, rifle butt on the ground at the order-arms position.

I frantically ran up one side of the bay and down the other, praying that someone happened to have two rifles. I scanned the bunks, and the lockers, and the spaces between the bunks and lockers, and saw nothing. My eyes darted from face to face, finding indifference—or occasional sympathy.

“Has anyone seen my effing rifle??” I finally begged, to which the other men just shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

Nearly-blinded by desperation, I ran into the head and banged open all the toilet stalls and went through all the shower stalls, madly hoping that somehow I’d forgotten to put the weapon on the bed, but had instead left it hanging on a hook or leaning up in a corner.

Suddenly, the communal cry of “DRILL SERGEANT ON THE FLOOR!” went up from the bay—somewhat muffled by the head doors—and I knew I was doomed.

Going out there to toe the line—more naked without my rifle than I would have been if I’d actually
been
naked but
had
my rifle—was a thought almost too horrible to bear. I remained frozen at the threshold of the head, my mind and heart spinning wildly. Then I dumbly pushed open the door and walked out into the suddenly harsh and unyielding light of the bay.

“Nice of you to join us, Recruit Barlow,” said Drill Sergeant Davis. “You’ve still got ten seconds left to find you a spot on the line.”

I walked to the nearest spot and pushed between two men, not bothering to say excuse me or look at their faces.

Davis pulled out his e-pad from under his arm and began to tap a few items on its screen, then suddenly froze, his head coming back up slowly until he was staring straight at me.

The DS placed his e-pad back under an arm and walked slowly and deliberately across the Dead Zone until he was standing directly in front of me, so close that I could feel and smell his breath beating hotly down on me.

“Where is your weapon, Recruit Barlow?”

He’d said it at almost a whisper, calmly and slowly.

I felt my lip begin to quiver.

“I asked you a question, Recruit. Where is your R77A5 rifle?”

I willed my lip under control, only to feel my stomach rebel. If the man hadn’t been standing directly in front of me, I’m sure I’d have thrown up.

“Drill Sergeant, I don’t know, Drill Sergeant.” I said, croaking the words.

“I’m sorry, Recruit?” Davis said, still speaking in a low whisper. “I want to make sure I heard that correctly. Did you say that you
don’t know
where your weapon is?”

“Drill Sergeant,” I said, still croaking, “that is correct, Drill Sergeant.”

Davis’s breathing seemed to halt for a moment, his eyes like hot drills on my head as I couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze, lest I lose it completely.

Then Drill Sergeant Davis drew a deep, long breath, and clenching the e-pad in his hand so tightly the tendons stood out, screamed, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU
DON’T KNOW
WHERE YOUR WEAPON IS?”

My legs and arms began to physically shake.

Davis continued, at full blast.

“SENIOR DRILL SERGEANT TOLD YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU LOST YOUR WEAPON, DID HE NOT? YOU’RE AWARE, IN FACT, THAT THERE IS PRACTICALLY NO WORSE THING YOU CAN DO IN THIS BATTALION THAN LOSE YOUR WEAPON.”

Davis didn’t even wait for me to stutter replies.

“RECRUIT BARLOW, YOUR FILE FROM RECEPTION WAS A RATHER GOOD ONE. THEY SAID YOU DID WELL AS BAY SERGEANT. THAT YOU WERE DETAIL-ORIENTED AND COULD GET THINGS DONE. WELL, I GUESS RECEPTION LIED. YOU’RE A MISERABLE PIECE OF FORGETFUL GARBAGE, BARLOW, AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU COULD POSSIBLY LOSE YOUR WEAPON IN THE FEW HOURS SINCE IT WAS GIVEN TO YOU?”

“Drill Sergeant, I—”

“EFF THE FORMALITIES, JUST TALK!”

“I had it with me right up until I took a shower,” I said, my voice wavering.

“And what happened then?”

“I gave it to the weapons guard at the head door.”

“And what happened after that?”

“I came out, and none of the rifles left was mine.”

“So you’re the only one in the whole gawtdamned bay without a weapon?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“And who is this person that was guarding the weapons?”

I pointed at the recruit I’d seen guarding the pile when I exited the shower. The recruit’s face lit up with fear, and his mouth hung open as if to plead innocence.

Davis spun on the open-mouthed man. “WHERE IS RECRUIT BARLOW’S RIFLE?”

“Drill Sergeant, I don’t know, I . . . I was just covering for someone else.”

Davis grabbed me by the bicep and dragged me across the Dead Zone to stand in front of the hapless recruit that I had fingered.

“Recruit Barlow, is this the troop you surrendered your weapon to upon entering the head?”

“No,” I said. “When I came out, this is the recruit who had taken over.”

“Then who is the one you gave your weapon to?”

I turned and scanned, then pointed. “Him. Recruit Webber.”

Now it was Webber’s turn to protest his innocence.

“Drill Sergeant, I just had to take a quick—”

But Webber’s plea fell on deaf ears.

Davis dragged me, Webber, and the second guard—Recruit Ajala—into the center of the Dead Zone.

“I want to know one good reason why I shouldn’t send all three of you to effing Alcatraz for this. One good gawtdamned reason.”

I stared dumbly into space, unable to come up with a sufficient response.

“Do you know how much that rifle costs? Do you? Well, guess what happens now, recruits. I have to call Drill Sergeant Malvino, and tell him a weapon is missing. And then he has to inform the first sergeant, who then informs the captain, who then informs the colonel, and then the colonel is going to put the entire gawtdamned effing
battalion
on lockdown until that weapon is recovered. We will go through every locker, every bunk, look in every closet, every stall, crawl up every last asshole, until we find it. We’ll be up all night doing it, if necessary. All of us. You, me, and every other living soul in the battalion.”

Ajala and Webber appeared nearly as ill as I felt.

Someone suddenly shouted, “Drill Sergeant, what’s that over there under that bunk?”

Davis spun and marched across the Dead Zone—recruits making a hole for him without being asked—and got down on his hands and knees, coming back up with an R77A5 in his hands. He flipped it over and examined the sticker on the stock.

“Recruit Barlow, did you memorize your serial number as instructed?”

“Drill Sergeant, yes, Drill Sergeant,” I said, amazed and immediately angry to see the rifle—which had been under all their noses the whole time, yet nobody had had the effing decency to help me check for it. They’d just stood on the line and waited for the shit to come down.

“What is it?” Davis asked.

“Seven zero delta zero zero niner foxtrot one eight one zero,” I said.

Davis marched back into the Dead Zone and thrust the weapon into my hands.

“Here’s your effing rifle, Recruit. All three of you, get back on the line.
Now.
”

The three of us scattered, taking up spaces where we could find them at the edge of the Dead Zone.

Davis glared around the entire bay, making eye contact with each of us as he went.

“All of you, get in the front-leaning rest,” he said. His voice not even raised. But it was as loud as a firecracker in my ears. I dropped where I was, my palms out to either side of my shoulders and my back straight, toes on the tile below. My rifle balanced across the tops of my hands.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Drill Sergeant Davis said, his voice made sandpapery from his previous hyperbolic outburst. “You aren’t individuals anymore. You’re a
team.
A team that’s expected to work together. You’re only as strong or as weak as you make yourselves. You’re going to learn that it’s not enough to just keep your own ass clean. If you think your shit is straight, and you’re just standing there thinking that’s enough, you are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Recruit Barlow trusted Recruit Webber to watch the weapons, and Recruit Webber trusted Recruit Ajala to watch the weapons, but in the process, all three of them forgot the purpose of that exercise.

“It’s not just because these rifles are expensive and we don’t want to lose an expensive item. It’s because in garrison and in combat you will only have each other to stand by. And if you’re all wandering through this thing like it’s just you by yourselves and you don’t really have to give an eff about someone else when the fuel hits the afterburner, then none of you is going to make it until graduation. You will all wash out. The Fleet doesn’t tolerate individuals who think like individuals. The Fleet is a team that thinks like a team. Works like a team. And tonight this bay showed absolutely no teamwork. None.