The Amazon Legion-ARC

by Tom Kratman

  Was the school trying to be harder on them? No, though that knowledge may have surprised the women. But if they had not added a matching hardship to offset every item, event or phenomenon that had been made easier, then to men who had graduated their version of the course, the women would have been second class citizens, so to speak. Not quite good enough; not quite equal…inferior.

  No doubt many thought it unfair. Others understood.

  “If a woman, or a man, ever graduates from a Cazador course that wasn’t as hard as mine, I’m going to think that he or she is a wimp,” said Inez. “Tough.”

  * * *

  “Come on, you miserable, quadruped son of a bitch,” Marta cursed, trying to drag a mule over a log fallen across the trail. The mule was having none of it.

  “No good, worthless, shit-eating motherfucker,” Marta said, giving the bridle another yank. “Not only don’t they feed us shit, but we have to carry food for you! When we get a chance to fucking sleep, do we sleep? No, we have to make sure you’re all nice and comfy first.”

  She stopped tugging for the nonce, then looked at the mule contemplatively. Marta leaned over and whispered something in the mule’s ear. Its long ears jerked up. With a loud bray, it bounded over the fallen log, then stopped, trembling, on the far side.

  “What did you say to it?” Inez asked.

  “Mules are smart animals, the instructors said. Well…I told it that if it didn’t get its furry ass over the log, we’d eat it.”

  * * *

  Because the female squads were slightly larger than the men’s they didn’t have to be in charge of a mission—a “leadership phase”—quite as frequently. So another reason the course was made somewhat longer was to give the women even more stress from being in charge more often than the men had to be.

  Some time later, in Officer Candidate School, Trujillo was told by a man that she could never have made it through “real” Cazador School. She was able to answer, “That may be true. It is also true that you could never have lived through Cazadora School. You’d have died of starvation, or folded up and collapsed two weeks before graduation from lack of sleep.”

  He could not dispute that.

  * * *

  Men lose the ability to have an erection for the duration of the school. With the women, they didn’t have their periods. This created quite a panic among the few who had “celebrated” their graduation from Basic in a particularly enthusiastic way. When they talked among themselves about it, a wave of relief washed over those women’s faces as they realized that they were not pregnant. Yes, they had contraceptive implants. No contraceptive is one hundred percent reliable.

  After losing their menses, their breasts were the next things to go. Marta’s became two flopping obscenities. Halfway through the course even the less well-breasted girls had nothing but lumpy bags of skin sagging lifelessly against slack chests. Then their posteriors shriveled away. Marta’s hip bones were laid nearly bare by the loss of her arse. Those bones then rubbed the skin over them against her rucksack frame until she had two weeping sores just above where her buttocks had been.

  An additionally unpleasant side effect of this semi-starvation was that minor wounds, scrapes and cuts would not heal. Marta had those two sores over her arse for the last two months of the course. She would carry the marks there to her grave.

  Some had it worse than others. Marta kept plugging away, but it was easy to see that it bothered her.

  * * *

  Soldiers at war dream of peace, home, comfort, safety…family…sex, too. Cazadores dream of sleep and food. Even Alma, disturbingly, didn’t enter Maria’s thoughts quite so often as the thought of a well-fed rest.

  Maria announced to Marta one day, “I have discovered a funny thing. Dreaming about unlimited food is very unsatisfying.”

  Marta, larger and more starved than Maria, answered, “I don’t know. Dreaming about some goddamned fucking food is about the only satisfaction I have here.”

  “Try this instead,” Maria said. “Give yourself an imaginary twenty drachma and go shopping in your mind. Buy no more than that twenty drachma will buy.”

  Marta looked skeptical but agreed to try. After a period of eyes closed, daydreaming, her face took on a smile. Will I get the half gallon of ice cream or the whole roasted chicken? Hmmm…that bottle of rum will have maybe seven thousand calories. That, or the box of chocolates? Little by little her mental shopping cart filled up. Sometimes she put things away in order to buy something better. But I simply must save out five drachma for a couple of burgers with fries…greasy, wonderful, fries…

  When she opened her eyes she agreed, “You’re right, Maria. It is better that way.”

  “Better,” Maria said, “than hallucinating that a piece of tree bark is a hamburger like that one girl did.”

  “Well it did look like a juicy piece of bark.”

  * * *

  Occasionally the women were well fed. They ate a real meal, an amazing three or four thousand calories’ worth, in a real mess about every seven or eight days, which was slightly less often then the men did. Part of this was because of the mules. The decent feeds tended to coincide with returns to base camp from the field. The mules let them stay out longer. It was planned that way.

  But when they were fed out of a real mess?

  Ecstasy! Marta swallowed, looked at the remains of food on her tray and moved her fork to pick up just one more mouthful of mashed potatoes. She lifted the lump halfway to her mouth, then realized, One more bite and I’ll puke. And they won’t give me another meal to make up for the lost one.

  Reluctantly…regretfully…she lowered her fork and took the tray to the turn-in window.

  As she walked back to the little hut she shared with a dozen other women—they were allowed to walk after eating in the mess, though that was the only time in camp that they were—Marta mused on the sheer idiocy of the thing. Whatever she’d been told in explanation, it just made no sense to her, the starvation and lack of sleep.

  I just don’t get it.

  We’re disoriented most of the time. We make the most appalling tactical mistakes over and over and over.

  It’s the same with the lack of sleep. We’re so tired we’re outright silly most of the time. We’re slow, stupid, and dull. When we’ve got a leadership phase, like as not we’ll lose control.

  Nope, I just don’t get the reason.

  * * *

  The small airplane circled twice overhead, then flew on, With it, it took seventy rations, enough for the thirty-five women remaining to survive, if that was quite the word, for another two days.

  Trujillo was in charge of the supply mission. She looked at the departing plane, and said, “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

  The Cazador instructor, a Centurion Ramirez, seconded from Third Infantry Tercio, looked on, apparently without sympathy, and said, “You never specified an air drop, Cazadora. The plane came by, saw no landing strip, was not equipped to drop the supplies you requested, and continued on its way.”

  “But…but.”

  “No ‘buts’; you fucked up, girl.”

  * * *

  Inez rocked back and forth, arms about herself, eyes closed, repeating over and over, “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  The others tried to comfort her, though after more than two days with exactly nothing to eat, they had a hard time of it sounding sincere.

  It was a trick, of course. All the times before when the Cazadoras had to request supply, a parachute drop had been presumed; their leader of the day hadn’t needed to ask. The purpose of this exercise in pain was simple.

  Inez learnt it well. I will never, never, never again fail to tell the deliverer of supply how to deliver the beans and bullets. I will never again assume it is taken care of.

  * * *

  After two starving days, their missions brought each squad to the shores of a very lovely lake. The cadre called it a secure area and let the women sleep for an entire four h
ours. Still they were not fed. Going to sleep hungry is better than staying awake hungry. They slept like the dead.

  Marta dreamt of nothing.

  When she and the others awoke, each pair of them was issued a snow white bunny, an adorable thing.

  Remembering Maria’s daughter, and her own de facto niece, Marta thought, Alma would love to have this bunny as a pet.

  There was also a large pot of black, bitter coffee for them—no sugar, of course, that would have meant giving them calories. The instructors wanted the girls absolutely ravenous.

  Not mentioning the rabbits, one of the instructors began a lengthy lecture on how to prepare a meal for themselves under adverse conditions. He said, “Now, remember, Cazadoras, with small animals in particular, it’s a good idea to cuddle it, pet it, and generally calm it down before breaking its cute little neck. Scared meat is tough meat.”

  Getting the message before most of the others, Marta had blanched and clutched her rabbit protectively to the remains of her breasts.

  While the instructor was speaking, a lamb on a leash placidly munched grass a few feet from where he stood. It was so simply lovely that, bad as their condition was, all the girls smiled at seeing it.

  About halfway through the lecture, the instructor pulled out a pistol and shot the lamb dead, right in front of them. It collapsed in a spray of blood.

  “See?” said the speaker. “That animal never knew what hit it. You’ll find the meat’s fairly tender.

  “Now remember, when you cook it up in an ammunition can, make sure you remove the rubber grommet that seals the can…”

  It didn’t matter what he said. The women could not tear their eyes away from that dead lamb, its pathetic body cooling in the shade.

  The instructor pulled out a knife so sharp its edge seemed to fade off into a silvery mist. “Now gather round, girls,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to divvy up a lamb to feed thirty or more…”

  The farm girls took the butchering in stride. The city girls mostly turned their eyes away. Even so, they didn’t turn down the food when each two-woman team was given a few ounces of the meat, along with a handful of rice, a moldy potato or two, a carrot, an onion, some unidentifiable greens, a little salt and a metal ammunition can.

  They hadn’t eaten for two days. If they were to eat, they had to cook their own meal. Sadly, however, what they’d been given—excepting the rabbits—wasn’t enough to keep body and soul together. That was why they had been given the rabbits; those wonderful, cuddly, lovable little bunnies.

  They had to kill them to live, or at least to stop the hunger pangs.

  Marta just couldn’t. She tried. She’d pet the rabbit to calm it down, then try to deliver a killing blow to the little thing’s neck. But she couldn’t really follow through with the blow. She just succeeded in scaring it almost to death. Eventually, she fell to her knees, crying.

  Maria had to eat. So did Marta. Maria took the rabbit from her friend’s arms. The rabbit looked up at her with terror in its eyes. Even so, she took it by its feet and said, “I’m sorry, but it’s you or us.” Then she smashed its little head against a tree. It took her three swings to kill it, poor animal. That’s how weak she was.

  Marta wouldn’t speak to her as she skinned it and cut it into pieces. But, once that was done, she took over the job of preparing the stew.

  Marta resigned from the school shortly after that. Though Maria said she thought Marta was being premature, she understood.

  * * *

  As tough and miserable as the school was in general, the really hard times were the leadership phases. That was when you could really screw up and have it matter, exactly as Trujillo had.

  As soon as a squad finished one mission—or a part of a mission, they couldn’t really predict the instructors—the old leaders would be taken aside and evaluated on their performance. While that was going on the new instructors would let the rest hang for a bit, hearts pounding and sick at the stomach, then announce who was responsible for leading the next mission or the last half of the current one.

  It was always a tremendous relief when someone else was chosen. That meant they only had to be miserable, which took little talent or effort, but didn’t have to worry overmuch about failure, humiliation, or hurting their sisters through their own incompetence.

  Sometimes they had to plan a mission for someone else to carry out, sometimes they had to carry out a mission someone else had planned. Sometimes a leader was relieved on the spot and some other girl inherited her mess. Whatever sort of mission it was, the only constant they knew was that it would really, really suck.

  The women had to pass leadership phases to graduate the course, at least fifty percent of them overall and at least one in each of the three field portions of the course: Primary Cazador, mountain, and jungle.

  Most were uneventful; some were passed, some were failed.

  * * *

  The instructor announced, “Cazadora Campestre, you are relieved. Cazadora Fuentes, take charge of your squad.”

  Crap. “Yes, Centurion.”

  Maria trudged wearily to where Inez was trying to bring order from chaos. Two other squad leaders were already there by the time she arrived and sat down.

  “Maria, your squad cleans its machine gun last in order,” Trujillo said. “Don’t start until the other two are done. Must keep two thirds of our firepower ready.”

  “Sure…okay,” Maria answered wearily.

  “Meanwhile, I need you to make me a terrain model of this area here, from this point to this.” Inez’s finger traced a route on the map.

  “All right. Sure.”

  “Maria? Maria? Wake up, Maria!”

  “Sorry. Just so damned tired. Sorry.”

  Maria dug into a pocket, pulled out a small packet of freeze dried coffee, and ripped it open. She tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and carefully poured the contents under her tongue.

  Inez’s look of distaste matched the sour expression on Maria’s face. “I don’t know how you can do that,” she said.

  “Me, neither.” Maria stood to return to her squad.

  * * *

  Concentrating on the sand table, utterly exhausted, dried coffee or not, Maria never noticed that the time had begun for her to have her squad start cleaning the machine gun until it had already nearly run. By the time she was able to order hers taken apart it was already time to put it back together and move out. Her squad’s gun didn’t get cleaned properly.

  The instructors caught that. By the expressions on their faces she knew they were going to fail her at the end of the mission. How she hated those condescending, contemptuous looks.

  Morale at a low ebb, Maria did little more than keep her troops in formation for the march. They were moving forward in a column of squad wedges, her squad last, through a very green glen.

  I am so toast. They’re going to fail me. Worse, I deserve to be failed. I am low, loathsome, a piece of…

  Suddenly, from behind and to the right, came the rattle of massed fire from machine guns and rifles. The first two squads had missed the ambush completely.

  Maria and her squad dove for the dirt, automatically. She was confused, and more than a little annoyed at the other two squads and Inez.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. She risked sticking her head up just enough, and just long enough, to see who was shooting her people and from where.

  Feeling a rush of anger that quickly turned itself into energy, she began shouting orders to her squad. “Alpha Team. Four o’clock. Suppressive fire! Bravo Team. Twelve o’clock. Move fifty meters then halt to support Alpha’s withdrawal.”

  As soon as she heard fire coming from behind her, she knew that Bravo was in position. “Alpha Team, machine gun, follow me!”

  She and the five Amazons from Alpha, plus the two-woman machine-gun crew, scampered forward, in the direction of the other squads of the platoon. Ahead, she could see Inez chivying the other two squads into position.

  “Alpha, down.�
� She waited until that team was firing on the enemy, then called, “Bravo, up and move!” even as she leapt to the machine gun to direct its fire personally.

  It worked…perfectly, through three bounds, a textbook breaking of contact with the enemy. This allowed the entire platoon to withdraw and regroup without loss. She might have been pleased with herself, except for that damned dirty machine gun hanging over her head. She was still very sure that she would be failed on the leadership phase.

  Nor was she doing so well that she could afford to fail one.

  Continuing the march, Maria argued with herself. Unfair, she thought. Not my fault. What could I have done about another squad’s tardiness in cleaning their gun?

  Then another part of her mind realized, It really doesn’t matter that it might have been unfair. War is unfair and sitting and crying “stop being so mean to me” gets you either nowhere or dead. What I should have done is gone to one of the other squad leaders and said, “I’m having my machine gun cleaned in five minutes. If yours isn’t done by then, I am going to come back here and beat you to death. I’ll try, anyway.”

  That was almost precisely what the instructor told her during her evaluation at the end of the mission. Then he surprised her speechless. He said, almost reluctantly, “On the other hand, the machine wasn’t so filthy that it didn’t work. And you did a truly superb job of breaking contact and covering your platoon when you were all ambushed from behind. We’re not looking for perfection; just for lots and lots of very damned good. For this reason, Cazadora Fuentes, you are a pass for this mission.”

  It’s considered impolite and unprofessional to thank an Instructador de Cazadores for passing one on a leadership phase. Maria just nodded, looked up at the sky, and said, very quietly, “Thank you.” The instructor could think she was thanking God if he wanted; that was permissible. She was thanking both.

  * * *

  The other leadership phase she would always remember was the last one, the one where they really shoot…to kill.