Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  "Now," Mulvaney continued, "everyone on the ground." To a man, the trainees dropped to their bellies, knowing what followed but not how many. "Give me-twenty-five!" Up from twenty; that was new. The captain began to count, and the ranks of trainees pumped pushups to match-in strict form; they'd already learned the penalties for cheating. Besides, for most, even in Luneburger's 1.25 gees, twenty-five pushups were readily doable. Farm work or other hard labor in New Jerusalem's gravity had given them abundant strength.

  For a few, including Jael, twenty-five were only marginally or not quite doable. But they were young, and with company punishment and New Jerusalem's work ethic, they did their best. And they did at least twenty sets of pushups a day; they were gaining.

  "… twenty-four, twenty-five. All right, on your feet!" Mulvaney said, and the trainees stood. "The mess hall opens for breakfast at 0730 hours. You will fall out for muster at 0815 in field uniform. Company dismissed!"

  The ranks dispersed, the trainees hurrying to their huts for towels and soap. Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh and Field Sergeant Kirpal Fossberg Singh watched them go. "How is recruit Jael Wesley doing?" Mulvaney asked.

  "According to Sergeant Hawkins, sir, she asked if she could go to the dispensary. When he asked her if she was pregnant, she blushed bright red and told him no. And that she didn't intend to be. I'd say she's smart and responsible."

  "Or hoping perhaps to be promiscuous?" It occurred to Mulvaney that some of his trainees, removed from their straitlaced culture, might cast off its inhibitions. Though Jael Wesley didn't seem like a rebel.

  "Hawkins doesn't think so, sir. He doesn't think she'd find many takers if she was. Her husband is the dominant recruit in their squad. One of the two or three most dominant in their platoon."

  "Apparently they've found a way to have intercourse."

  "Apparently, sir." Sergeant to sergeant, Hawkins had told Fossberg they snuck off to the water heater room, but Fossberg didn't volunteer the information. Though if Mulvaney had asked, he'd have told him.

  "Tell Sergeant Hawkins to be alert for any undesirable effects in their hut. The briefing we received on the Jerries was long on generalities but short on details."

  "Yessir, Captain."

  Fossberg headed for the noncommissioned cadre's latrine. The captain's questions had inspired one of his own. How did a young girl like her, from a primitive fundamentalist planet like New Jerusalem, learn about birth control pills? He decided to ask Recruit Spieler, as circumspectly as he could. These Jerries were turning out to be an interesting experience.

  ***

  Esau had gotten over having to shepherd his wife to the latrine, though he still hovered watchfully near her in the shower. And as usual, they used adjacent washbowls. This morning while they washed, he murmured to her: "You fell way behind this morning on the run." His tone was accusatory.

  "Not till the last," she countered. "When we had to sprint."

  "That's what I meant, in the sprint. You embarrassed me."

  "I did the best I could." She said it quietly, without apology.

  "Your best?" he muttered. "You were way back near the end of 4th Platoon."

  She said nothing, and avoided looking at him.

  "Let's see if you can do better on the chin-ups this morning."

  She didn't answer that, either.

  ***

  At the head of the mess line were several chinning bars. Each trainee was required to do all the chins he could before going inside to eat, monitored critically by two or more cadre. This time Esau did thirty-nine, and Jael struggled out eleven, with Corporal Fong watching.

  "Good work, Recruit Wesley," the corporal said. "That's up from four the first day." The number identified which Wesley he was talking to.

  "Thank you, Corporal," she said.

  As the couple entered the mess hall, Esau jostled her. "Don't you have any sense of decency?" he hissed.

  "What?"

  "You know what I mean," he murmured. "Fong telling you `good work.' For eleven puny chin-ups! I did thirty-nine, and he didn't say a thing to me. He wants you to commit adultery with him."

  He'd turned his face to her when he said it, and without thinking or speaking, she slugged him in the left eye, almost knocking him down. The 1st cook had been standing with a spatula, serving scrambled eggs, and saw the exchange.

  "YOU TWO!" he bellowed, pointing with the spatula. "WHAT'RE YOUR NAMES?"

  Esau spoke for them both, glaring at Jael, who stood red-faced but without visible repentence.

  "Report to Sergeant Henkel at the orderly room, both of you! Now! And tell him you're not getting back in here till I have his okay. In writing. Now out! OUT!"

  They hurried out, aware that everyone in the mess hall had heard and seen their ejection. Esau was about to berate Jael some more, when Lance Corporal Fong called after them.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  "The cook just sent us to the orderly room," Esau answered.

  Fong pointed at the chinning bars. "You know the orders. Trainees do exit chin-ups when they leave the mess hall."

  Esau made no move to comply. "We didn't eat."

  Fong's reply was not particularly loud, but it was prompt, and strong with intention. "Recruit, that was backflash. Let's see those chin-ups. Now! And they'd better be good." Esau turned to the bars, pivoting violently enough, it seemed to Fong he almost screwed his boot into the ground. The Jerrie homesteader snapped off forty-two chin-ups this time; the corporal was impressed in spite of himself. Fong had trained with the 4th Terran Infantry, and some of these Jerries were already stronger than most of his buddies had been when they finished their training. And their cadre had been Masadans!

  By the time Esau had finished and was free to leave, his wife was out of sight on her way to the orderly room. Her twelve hadn't taken a third as long as his forty-two, and when Esau had finished his chin-ups, Fong had ordered him to do fifty pushups for the backflash.

  At the orderly room, Esau found Jael standing before Master Sergeant Gerritt Henkel, who clearly had been waiting for him. "What kept you, recruit?" Henkel asked.

  Asked it like a cat, Esau thought, waiting for the mouse to move. He told the master sergeant how many chin-ups he'd done, and about the fifty pushups, not withholding what they'd been for.

  The ex-marine looked at the couple appraisingly. "That's quite an eye you've got there, Recruit."

  Esau said nothing. He looked like he could chew rocks.

  "What happened? I'm asking you, Recruit Esau Wesley."

  "My wife was disrespectful, Sergeant. So I upbraided her, and she struck me."

  "Disrespectful? Really! And upbraided! My my!" The mockery was thick. "Tell me what you said, as exactly as you can."

  Esau did. The sergeant turned his eyes to Jael. "Is that the way you remember it, Recruit Jael Wesley?"

  She nodded. "Yes, Sergeant," she said quietly, and Henkel turned again to Esau.

  "Where exactly did this happen?"

  "In the mess hall, Sergeant. In line, by the tray stack. Then the cook kicked us out without breakfast."

  "Um-hmm. You're in 2nd Platoon, right?"

  "Yessir."

  "Recruit Esau Wesley, go sit in that chair." He pointed. "Recruit Jael Wesley, you sit in that one." He pointed at the opposite end of the row, then turned to the company clerk who'd been watching with half a grin. "Corporal, go tell Sergeant Hawkins what we've got here. This is his problem. For now, anyway."

  The clerk left briskly, and was back in five minutes. Hawkins, on the other hand, didn't hurry. He finished his breakfast first. If Henkel had wanted him right away, he'd have said so.

  Meanwhile, for the most part Esau avoided looking at his wife. But he was angry. His left eye was swollen half shut. It would be black, too, and everyone would be talking about it. He shot an occasional, resentful glance at Jael, but she never returned it, simply faced straight ahead, her expression stony. It struck him then how pretty she was in profile. And how s
trong her character, even if she was in the wrong. His anger softened.

  When Hawkins arrived, he took them both outside, without berating them at all. "Esau Wesley," he said, "drop down and give me forty. On my count." As Esau got down, Hawkins continued. "Jael Wesley, drop down and give me twenty-five."

  "What!?" Esau demanded, looking up. "Me forty and her twenty-five? That's unfair!"

  "And that, Recruit Esau Wesley, is backflash," Hawkins said calmly. "Which will cost you. But not now. Later. And for her, twenty-five is as hard as forty is for you. Harder. Now, on my count… "

  When they'd finished and stood before him, Hawkins told them their idiocy had cost them breakfast, because they had less than ten minutes before muster. "Report to me at the orderly room this evening, both of you, at 2030 hours. Among other things, I will tell you then what your punishment is. You, Esau Wesley, for repeated backflash. And you, Jael Wesley, for striking another recruit."

  Then Hawkins turned and walked away. They needed more than punishment, he told himself, but he wasn't sure what.

  From muster, where the trainees gave their cadre twenty-five more pushups, B Company jogged three quarters of a mile to a lecture shed, where they dropped down and did another twenty-five before entering. Then they filed inside and took their seats on wooden benches, benches hard enough, the trainees were less likely to fall asleep, despite their heavy exercise regimen.

  The presenter was a major from Division, who stood before them in a clean, pressed field uniform. He also wore a crimson turban, instead of the field caps of the company cadre.

  "What you're about to watch on the screen," he began, "is a presentation of regimental and small unit tactics. While you watch it, try to spot just what's going on. The better you understand it, the better fighting men you'll be, and the less likely you'll be killed. Afterward we'll go over it again.

  "Incidentally, it is not a recording of actual fighting. So far as we know, there hasn't been any actual fighting with the invaders. They've attacked only undefended colonies. But the animated visuals you'll see"-he gestured at the large wall screen-"are as realistic as they can be made. Realistic enough to be mistaken for real."

  The entire company cadre was there, including Captain Mulvaney and Master Sergeant Henkel. The cube was one of a set newly arrived from Terra, via pod, and none of the company staff had seen it before. The major had, the night previous. It had its own audio, but he had a list of questions to expect, and tips on how to deal with them.

  The audience watched the whole forty-five-minute first run-through without a pause. Captain Mulvaney would have bet that none of them dozed. Then they got a fifteen-minute break that began and ended with pushups for the trainees, with time to rassle around or use a field latrine in between. Afterward the same cubeage was shown again, but this time with numerous built-in pauses where a voice-over discussed the tactics they were watching. When that run-through was finished, there was another break like the first-pushups, latrine, and more pushups.

  Afterward the major took questions, almost all of them from the cadre. That went on till it was time to leave for lunch. Outside, the trainees gave their cadre a quick twenty-five, then double-timed briskly in a column of fours to the company area, where there was just time for another twenty-five and to wash up before their noon meal-broiled ground beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, crisp green beans, bread and butter with apple sauce, rich bread pudding, and coffee.

  The 1st cook didn't say a word to Esau and Jael, and they said nothing to each other. They simply ate as if they hadn't eaten for a day. Actually it had been eighteen hours.

  ***

  After the noon meal and the break that followed, the company mustered, did pushups, then jogged to the regiment's physical training area. 2nd Platoon began its workout on "the log yard." Each five-man fire team had its own log, which massed roughly two hundred and fifty pounds, Terran. Working together, they lifted it to their collective right shoulders, then to arms' length overhead, then down onto their left shoulders, and back onto the ground. From there they repeated the sequence in reverse, and again, and again, until they had to fight it up. Esau was the leader of his five-man fire team, a team that unfortunately included not only Jael, but Isaiah Vernon, two of the weakest in the platoon. Esau had put himself in the middle, between Jael and Isaiah, to make up for their lack of strength. Before they were done, he was gritting his teeth, partly from exhaustion, partly exasperation.

  That done, they did twenty-five pushups. Then, driven by barking second-tier cadre, they ran hard to the chin-up bars, a bar per man, where they alternated between sets of ten chin-ups, fifteen pushups, and thirty side-straddle hops, each exercise serving as rest from the one before. After six rounds of those, they jogged to the obstacle course and ran it, climbing walls on knotted ropes, shinnying up rough-textured poles, vaulting or bellying over low fences, crawling through culverts, and ending with a hard, sixty-yard sprint.

  They finished on what the Terran trainees had termed "the junkyard." The name had been passed on by the second-tier cadre. It had rows of stout iron pipes, the ends of which had been stuck in tins of concrete before it hardened. Each crude barbell massed roughly seventy pounds Terran, hefting about eighty-eight on Luneburger's World. The exercises were led by a husky second-tier cadreman, a corporal, who'd finished twenty-six weeks of training only three weeks earlier, and was in superb condition. Mostly they did high repetition cleans and jerks. To rest between sets, they lay on the ground and did leg raises, pushups, and situps.

  They'd been in the PT area every day since they'd been at Camp Mudhole (which so far had been more of a dust hole), but never had they been pushed as they were this day. It was in the junkyard that Isaiah Vernon collapsed in the sun. Two cadremen helped him into the shade until an ambulance arrived.

  From the PT area, the company ran to "the pond"-a long, dozed-out depression covered with a foot of sand, then flooded by damming a creek. It was new to them. They ran toward it at a good lope, waiting for their cadre to halt them. No one did, and to their own astonishment, the trainees ran fully clothed into the water. Only when the last of them was in did Fossberg bellow "COMPANY HALT! REST!"

  For the next twenty minutes they sported in the water. There was a lot of laughter, splashing, wrestling, some holding under, and a few brief fistfights that were broken up by cadre. When it was over, there were no pushups. Instead they marched back to the company area in their soggy boots and socks, the clothes drying on their bodies. They were even dismissed without further pushups.

  They changed clothes before supper, which was preceded and followed by the usual chin-ups. At 1845 hours they mustered again, and marched to a lecture shed where they viewed another cube. This one was an assemblage of preinvasion scenes from worlds since captured by the invaders. Presumably the people shown, those who'd declined evacuation, were dead now. The trainees left more soberly than usual.

  Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh, Ensign Erik Berg Singh, and Sergeant First Class Arjan Hawkins Singh didn't go with them. They were in Mulvaney's office, discussing the case of Recruit Isaiah Vernon, and whether they'd cranked up the physical demands on the trainees too rapidly. War House wanted them pushed hard, and Division had provided guidelines and schedules, but the company cadre retained considerable latitude. Berg pointed out that most of the trainees were meeting the demands very well. They were not only heavyworlders, and young; they'd also worked at farming or other heavy labor. And Hawkins pointed out that the amount of running would soon stabilize. At midweek they'd be issued weapons and pack frames, and march to more distant field locations, carrying sandbags on the march.

  They were interrupted by the Charge of Quarters knocking on the door. "Recruit Isaiah Vernon is here, Captain. They just brought him back from the infirmary."

  "Good," Mulvaney answered. "Just a minute." He looked at the others. "I'll have him sent in, and question him. It may cast light on the subject." He looked toward the CQ. "Send him in, Corporal."

  T
he CQ ushered a subdued Isaiah Vernon into the room, then closed the door behind him. The commanding officer looked the trainee over. "At ease, Vernon," Mulvaney said. "Let me see your medical release."

  Vernon stepped over and handed a sheet of paper to him. Mulvaney scanned it. "Simple exhaustion," he read, and looked up at the young Jerrie. "Not heat exhaustion. Good." He paused, holding the youth with his eyes. "You've been having a harder time of it than the others. Tell me about that."

  Vernon didn't hesitate. "The others-lived differently back home than I did," he said. "My father's a speaker of the books, and I was to be one, too. So when other boys were working in the field or the woods with their fathers, or in the tannery or sawmill or whatever, I studied scripture. Instead of lifting and carrying, grubbing stumps and ditching swales, I read and memorized. I did barn chores and cut and brought in firewood, but that was about it. And I never cared much for games or footraces or wrestling. So I wasn't properly ready for training to be a soldier."

  The frown had left Mulvaney's eyes. "I see," he said thoughtfully, then made a decision. The abler trainees shouldn't be held back for the least able. "Recruit Vernon, I'll see about getting you transferred to administrative duties in Regiment or Division. Meanwhile-"

  Remarkably the young man interrupted. "Sir?"

  Mulvaney frowned. "What is it, Recruit?"

  "Sir, I can do this training. I can! I quit this afternoon. I just up and quit! I could have kept on. I thought I couldn't, but really I could have. I know that now. I'm learning that when I feel like I haven't got anything left, I've still got a little. And I'm getting tougher and stronger every day."

  Mulvaney glanced at Berg and Hawkins, then looked back at the Jerrie. "Very well, Recruit Vernon, I'll leave things as they stand, and give you a chance to show what you can do." He handed the paper back to the young man. "Give this to Corporal Rodin." He paused. "I presume they fed you supper at the infirmary?"

  "Yessir."