by Tom Kratman
Maria’s tits hurt like the devil from being pounded on sharp rocks. The scabbed sores on her elbows—which she’d gotten from holding up her rifle and herself on the firing range for endless hours—had torn open. Her knees were bleeding, too.
She nearly cried but did blurt out, “Sergeant Castro, why do all of you treat us so badly?”
Castro didn’t answer immediately. He thought for a few moments then blew his whistle to call a halt. “Gather ’round, girls,” he ordered. “And sit down.”
When the entire squad had gathered at his feet, he said, “Fuentes here doesn’t understand. She probably isn’t the only one. So listen: Once upon a time a bird way down south in Secordia procrastinated about flying north for the winter. By the time it got off of its fluffy little ass the weather had already turned. It made it about halfway across the Federated States before its wings froze up. It was also starving because it hadn’t been able to find anything to eat. The bird fell to the ground, shivering and expecting to die soon.
“A cow came along and dropped a load right on our little friend’s head. Soon it was warm and happy, well fed, too. It stuck its head up and began to sing. A cat heard the singing, raced over, dug the little bird out of the cow flop, and ate it. Do you know the moral of the story, chica?”
Maria said she didn’t.
“Just this: Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy. Not everyone who digs you out of the shit is your friend. And when you’re warm and well fed, don’t make a ruckus about a little bit of shit.
“Now back to work.”
* * *
“I wish there were some cheap way to chill that creek.”
Franco smiled. “Ice is rationed, Balthazar, as you know very well.”
“Mmmm. Yeah. But this is a special circumstance. Why, these women might get to like it out here in the jungle, if they don’t have to freeze just to be clean.”
Realizing that his partner was, in his own way, merely joking, Franco added his own sally. “They do seem to be having a pretty good time, don’t they? Are you sure you weren’t being over-generous what with giving them each a whole ounce of shampoo?”
“Maybe…but they did shoot well on the qualification range.”
“Well, yes, but a whole one-ounce bottle? Each? Are you sure you’re not getting soft?”
Garcia shook his head, as if uncertain. “No…I don’t think so. It seems fair enough.”
Below the bank on which the centurions stood, their students joked and played and gamboled. Cat, a country girl originally, showed her squad how to wash their clothes on the plentiful rocks.
“When’s the chow due?” Garcia asked.
“About an hour, Balthazar.”
“Did you arrange for chaplain services?
“Of course. Even though it isn’t even Sunday. By the way…?”
“Don’t eat when you’re hungry, eat when you can. Don’t sleep when you’re tired, sleep when you can. Pray always.”
Franco couldn’t argue with those sentiments.
* * *
After washing their clothes, Inez, Cat, Marta and Maria took turns washing each other’s stubble. Of course, with so little hair, they really didn’t need help. It was a social thing, not a practical one.
Sitting on a stump, Maria spent her meager free time writing a letter for Porras to read to Alma. Even if the baby couldn’t contact her, she could at least let her know that Mama hadn’t abandoned her. Every few lines Maria would turn her eyes to her open wallet, just to stare at her baby’s photo. It was better than nothing.
Marta sat down besides the stump. “Do you miss her?”
“More than anything,” Maria answered. “She’s the only reason I’m here.”
Marta sighed wistfully “She’s beautiful. I can’t have babies,” she added, sadly. “Do you think, maybe, when this is over I could watch her for you? Sometimes? Or maybe take her to the park…or something?”
Maria thought, Is this Marta I’m hearing with the fear of rejection in her voice? “Anytime,” she answered. “But why can’t you have a baby of your own?”
“I just can’t!” Marta stood quickly and walked away.
* * *
The sun was setting as an outraged shout rang through the camp. Franco trotted over to investigate.
When he returned, he told Garcia, “Someone’s stolen another woman’s shampoo.”
“You know the drill. Do it.”
Faster than one can imagine, the women were hustled out from their tents and into formation. Then Franco called the roll to determine they were all present. One by one they went back, with an instructor in attendance, and dumped out their rucks.
One girl, by the name of Rossini, was found with an extra bottle. The rest of the women were sent back to bed. Rossini spent most of the night tied to a tree.
The next morning the formed platoon was called to attention by Centurion Franco, who then reported and turned the formation over to Garcia. Garcia ordered, “Stand at…Ease.
“A soldier is first and foremost a selfless individual. He, or she, cannot be anything but that and still be worth much as a soldier. Recruit Private Rossini has failed to meet even the most minimal standards of selflessness. She is, in fact, a thief who stole something of considerable subjective value from someone who had no more than herself. For this, Rossini has been tried by court-martial, the centurions’ council sitting en banc, and found guilty. She is to be dishonorably discharged and her name struck from the rolls of your regiment. There is one little thing to attend to first, however.”
Garcia gave a command. The platoon formed in two lines, facing each other. At Garcia’s nod two corporals half dragged, half carried Rossini to one end of the double line. She stood, quivering, hands still tied behind her back. Her eyes were an eloquent—but useless—plea. She was clad only in T-shirt and shorts. Most of her skin was exposed.
“Remove your belts,” Garcia ordered. “As Rossini attempts to move between your lines you will strike her. I do not care whether you use the tip end or the buckle, but you WILL strike her…or join her.”
Most of the women held the metal buckle in their hands. A few—whether they were the meaner ones or the ones most offended by theft was not obvious—took the other end, swinging the metal buckles freely. The corporals and sergeants went to stand behind the women to make sure they didn’t slack off.
Garcia ordered “Begin.” Rossini was pushed—well, kicked, actually—into the gauntlet.
The details would be offensive. Some hit Rossini hard, some held back as much as they could while being watched. Most hit no more or harder than they had to. Still, a few women went out of their way to kick the culprit.
Rossini tried to protect her face, shielding it with her shoulder, but that only made her stumble and left her in the line of blows longer. Welts and cuts appeared on her face, neck, arms and legs. It was only luck that saved her eyes.
A belt tangled in her legs, causing her to fall on her face. She crawled with her knees alone those last ten meters, her face plowing the ground, just like the animal Garcia wanted the others to see her as. Finally, bleeding from multiple cuts, at the end of the line and of her strength, Rossini collapsed.
Garcia ordered the platoon to “Attention,” “Left and right…Face,” then gave the command, “Forward…March.” A sobbing Rossini, her head sideways on the ground, was left for some of the maniple’s headquarters people to kick off the island.
Garcia didn’t even order that she be given the rest of her uniform. She’d never wear those particular clothes again.
Four more women, including the one whose shampoo had been stolen, resigned that night.
* * *
Maria wanted to resign. She didn’t because, while she found the whole thing sickening (and back then she wouldn’t even have even hit Rossini were she not being watched herself), Marta and the others made her see the point.
“Look, Mari, Rossini was obviously untrustworthy,” Marta said. “I certainly don’t ev
er want to have to fight with her or anybody like her at my side. So she’s useless. And so the legion booted her out.”
“Yes, sure, throw her out,” Maria answered. “But beat her? Like an animal? Worse, because we would never beat an animal like that.”
Inez added, “The gauntlet? Well, my brother taught me this about the legion. The legal code is damned draconian, in theory. In practice, however, they only use formal corporal punishment on people they’re going to dump anyway—a cherry on the ice cream, because that kind of humiliation tends to make someone useless as a soldier even if they weren’t already useless. And using a deadbeat like Rossini states a myth that is very important to the military. ‘Soldiers and veterans are real people. Everybody else is essentially subhuman. See for yourself how this thing was just beaten like a dog, if you don’t believe us.’ It is difficult to see someone beaten like a dog and still think of that person as a human being.
“Besides, they were actually merciful with Rossini. A man who’d been caught stealing from comrades would have had the same punishment, in theory. But a man would have run between two lines of men; heavier, stronger, quite possibly meaner.”
“I doubt that Rossini was offended by the extra mercy,” said Cat.
Marta, who had been beaten more than once in her life by various utter bastards who had derived some considerable sexual pleasure from the beating, said, “It wasn’t a sexual thing. Our instructors are gay. They don’t see Rossini as a sexual toy. They barely saw her as a human being. They just wanted us to do and see the damage. And see her humiliation.”
Inez nodded. “My brother said that after an incident like this, you will never see another incident of theft reported the whole time of basic training.”
* * *
The sixty-six women remaining in the platoon trained next on special weapons: Machine guns, submachine guns, flamethrowers, grenades, demolitions. Of those weapons, most would, in latter days, remember the grenade range best. This was not because they liked it the best or because the grenades were the hardest things to learn to use. The engineering things, the flamethrowers and demolitions, were much harder physically. Only a very few women, it was found, could even carry and use a flamethrower with any effect. But learning to use the grenades properly made a certain impact on the mind.
It was a blessedly cool, rainy morning when Garcia led the platoon from Camp Botchkareva to the engineering and grenade ranges. The dirt firebreak that paralleled the paved road to the range area and the ground on the ranges stayed muddy, even though the sun had broken out when they were about halfway there. Still, it wasn’t all that bad. And, despite the rain, their uniforms were mostly dry by the time they started to train. Smelly, but dry.
* * *
The women sat in a semi-circle around a low platform on which stood Centurion Garcia. While he addressed them, they wolfed down their breakfast from sundry cans and pouches. Between the platform and the women was a hole dug into the ground, perhaps two feet by two, three deep, and almost entirely hidden by grass.
“Grenades are made for a man to throw,” Garcia said, tossing a grenade up and down, one-handed, as he did. “Oh, we could make them smaller and lighter for a woman but then they’d also be less powerful, so less effective. Besides which, it would be a lot more expensive to make them especially for women as the cost of a piece of military hardware goes up as the number purchased goes down. And, as anyone who has ever been around the military knows, if there were two models of grenade serving the same purpose, offensive, defensive, or screening, the supply system would deliver the women’s to the men and theirs to the women. That’s just how it works.”
He flipped a little wire tab off the thing, then nonchalantly pulled a pin. He lifted his thumb and a flat metal thing—a “spoon,” it was called—sprang into the air. Equally calmly, Garcia tossed the now fully armed and slightly smoking grenade into the hole a few feet in front of the platform, between it and the girls. He did it so calmly and nonchalantly, in fact, that the resulting explosion took the women completely by surprise, raising a chorus of frightened cries.
Totally unfazed, Garcia picked up another one, began tossing it up and down, too, and continued, “On the other hand, it is also damned rare for a soldier to actually have to throw a grenade all that far. If she’s in a hole and the enemy is attacking she can throw it about five feet outside and it won’t hurt her much beyond making her ears ring a bit. And if she’s the one attacking, ‘Get closer.’ That’s how you will be trained.”
Quicker than he had the first one, Garcia thumbed off the safety clip, pulled the pin, released the spoon, and then tossed the apparently live grenade into the midst of the women of his platoon. Screaming, they scattered in all directions. The practice grenade, painted up to look like the real thing, went off with a mild pop.
Garcia chuckled. “Gets ’em every time.”
* * *
The women practiced for hours with blue-painted steel dummies. Then they practiced some more using the same dummies but with low powered fuses inserted that functioned like real grenade fuses. Finally, they were called forward one at a time to any of a half dozen circular sandbagged bunkers to use the real thing.
Garcia wore the nearest thing to a smile any of the women had ever seen on him as Catarina Gonzalez entered the pit. It wasn’t a frown, anyway, and that was something.
There were six grenades sitting on a table to one side. Garcia told her to take one. She did, and inspected it as she’d just been trained to do.
“How long is the delay on that grenade?” he asked.
“It will explode four to five seconds after I release the spoon, Centurion.”
“Plenty of time, don’t you agree, Gonzalez?”
Yes, she thought, except that quality control at the factory being what it is, the delay might be anywhere from three to seven seconds. Still, she wasn’t going to argue with him.
He continued, conversationally, “You know, Private Gonzalez, any fool can throw a grenade.”
“Yes, Centurion.”
“We, however, wish you bitches to become very special fools. Prepare to pull, Private.”
She did, both hands in front of her, one clutching the pull ring, the other on the grenade body.
“Remove the safety clip.”
Cat flipped it away with a thumb.
“Pull, Private.”
She pulled the ring away, still holding the spoon, the safety handle, down with the fingers of her other hand. She then went into the position to throw, one arm and hand stretched forward, the other—the one holding the bomb—cocked by the side of her head. She was already scared out of her mind by that little hand-held monstrosity. She was, however, rather more frightened of Garcia.
Garcia reached out with a beefy arm, lightning fast, and grabbed the wrist attached to the hand with the grenade. Then he said, “Gonzalez, when I give the command, ‘throw,’ you are going to release the spoon. That will release the striker to start the fuse burning. You and I will then count together to two…slowly. Then I will release your hand to throw the grenade…Ready? Throw.”
She froze. She would not, could not, release the spoon if she also couldn’t immediately get rid of the damned thing.
“Private, that grenade can only kill you. I won’t tell you again. Throw.”
Cat’s bladder let go, liquid running down her legs. But she also let go the spoon and, as soon as Garcia had counted to two and released her wrist, threw the grenade as far as she could. Along with Garcia, she fell to one knee and ducked her head to shelter from the blast. It rattled her, even so.
After the last bits of mud and rock had pattered down, Garcia pretended to notice neither Cat’s dripping trousers nor her quivering hands. He just said, “Good,” with his customary lack of enthusiasm.
The next two grenades she also “cooked off,” though on the last one Garcia did not hold her wrist. (Nor did she wet herself again.) Then the pair went forward and Cat threw two more around the corner of a trench
. The little metal fragments made a pattering sound as they hit the wall of the trench opposite her.
“Okay, Gonzalez,” Garcia admitted, “You’ve done well so far. For this next one, the last one, I want you to crawl forward to that little bunker and put it through the firing port. But Private, this time, hold the grenade for a count of three after releasing the spoon. Got it?”
“Yes, Centurion.” Grenade in hand, Cat slithered forward, rolling to her back just as she reached the bunker. She flicked away the safety clip, pulled the pin, released the spoon and counted slowly and deliberately, “One thousand…two thousand…”
On three, no longer shaking, Cat calmly placed the grenade into the bunker, withdrawing her hand just as the explosion burst out of the narrow firing port.
Wet pants or not, she was damned proud of herself.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t embarrassed too. When Garcia told her to go back to the rest of the platoon she hesitated, looking down at her trousers. His gaze followed hers.
“Oh…I see,” he said. Then, not unkindly, “Gonzalez, do you think you are the first one to ever wet themselves doing something terrifying?” A sigh. “You are probably a little young to be learning this lesson. Let’s hope it takes. Anyway, start back to the platoon.”
She had just turned and started to reluctantly, shamefully slink away when Garcia bellowed. “You. Gonzalez. Halt, bitch. Drop! That’s right, down on your belly like a snake. You stinking reptile, you move like pond scum. You know how pond scum moves? I didn’t think so. It doesn’t. If you can’t walk like a soldier then get down there with the pond scum. Crawl, bitch!”
Garcia directed her into one of the little natural run offs that led from the pit to the waiting area, following her, insulting and cursing her, the entire time. Then he had her do short three-to-five second rushes from one scummy little hole to another. Some of the other girls watched with wide eyes. By the time he let her go, she may have been covered with mud and slime, but no one could tell if she was also covered with urine.
The last thing he said, before letting her go was, “And wipe that goddamned happy smile off your face, you stupid twat.”