by Gray Gardner
She obediently turned on her heel and began sprinting towards the mud pit in the distance with a knotted rope hanging over it.
Lieutenant Reyes walked up and stood next to him, looking down at the clipboard. “She’s cute.” Reyes nodded, pulling out the keys to the tan vehicle with the course monitors in it.
“She’s trouble.” the Captain sighed, walking with him to the van and opening the rear doors. “But, yeah, kind of cute.”
They sat inside and switched on the monitors, which were remotely connected to cameras placed throughout the course.
Connor and Reyes leapt out of the van half an hour later and stared at that same little defiant redhead, huffing and catching her breath as she gulped her water and wiped her mud smeared face.
“Was that good?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. The other girls weren’t even in sight yet.
The Captain looked over at Reyes and showed him the stopwatch.
“That’s a course record, sir,” Reyes mumbled, checking the papers on his clipboard twice.
“Burton, get over here!” Captain Connor yelled, hands on his hips.
Private Burton glanced back around and ran over to them, standing at attention and actually smiling. She did love winning.
“You knew you were going to beat them, didn’t you?”
“Yes sir. I-I thought I already told you that.”
He pressed his lips together to stop the cursing and stepped towards her. “I don’t appreciate your little act. I don’t appreciate the meek attitude when you so clearly excel, Private. I want only your best and I don’t want an argument about it. Go to the track and run twelve laps.”
“Yes sir,” she quickly saluted, turning and running down the hill towards the athletic fields of the base. She wasn’t about to argue. He looked like he was about to blow his top.
“What in the hell was that all about?” he asked, glancing at Reyes.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. She’s like… it’s like she’s fighting instinct, except you can tell she loves being in training. If that makes sense.”
“Strangely, it does.” He sighed, turning and walking back to the van. “I’ll be reviewing these videos. When the rest of them get back, make them do it again.”
“Yes sir.”
Captain Connor sat at the officer’s table during lunch, but instead of listening to his friends talk about their new respective units, he studied his own, sitting two tables away, all reeling at the fact that Burton was their new leader and her performance had forced them to run the obstacle course twice.
They argued, exchanged words, looked at each other, shrugged, and then sat down, allowing Burton to finally join the table. Connor squinted as he thought he saw a smile sneak out of the corner of her mouth. She wasn’t stupid. She took advantage of his punishment of running twelve laps and used it to get in on the good side of her unit. She was on her way, all right. He needed to figure her out, though. If he couldn’t trust her, how could he train her to be the best?
Black Water and Big Balls
Burton frowned as she stared ahead of their two marching lines and saw the crashing waves appear in front of them over the saw grass dunes on the edge of the base. During basic training they didn’t really go near the ocean, only the pool. Well, now it was time for the real thing, she guessed. Placement Training, they were calling it.
“I grew up in the middle of Boston,” Private Jennings whispered, looking back at Burton desperately, faltering in her marching. “I only just learned how to swim in basic training.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll stick next to you if they make us get into the water,” Burton shrugged, giving a half smile. This girl looked really frightened of the water, and Burton knew exactly was it was like to feel frightened.
Sometimes it felt like she was frightened of everything.
Jennings suddenly paused and gave her a confused look. “You’d do that?”
“Sure, I grew up on the water. I’m a strong swimmer.”
“Even after the way we’ve been treating you?” she asked in disbelief, with an ashamed look on her face. Hiding her uniform, hoisting her boots up the flag pole, and basically cold-shouldering her, and now she was being kind. Jennings felt terrible.
“It’s just for fun, I know. No one’s gotten hurt,” Burton replied, trying to brush it off. The truth was, she’d endured much worse in her life, so a little teasing didn’t even faze her. She just wanted to make it through training and get on with her deployment.
Jennings began to look a little guilty as she replied, “Thanks, Baylor.”
Their steps steadied as they went from dry sand to wet and paused as Captain Connor marched around to the back and grabbed Burton out of line.
“Private Burton, during your nice little chit chat back here did you happen to listen to any of my instructions?” he yelled, as the sea breeze made the collar of his camo jacket flap.
She squinted and looked up at him in the bright sunlight as he gripped the front of her t-shirt. The waves crept up around their boots and then retreated and she had no idea what he’d been saying to them. She couldn’t come up with anything except, “No sir.”
“O’Malley!” he hollered, glaring down at her as a brown-haired girl hopped out of line and stood in front of him.
“Yes sir?” she asked above the crashing waves behind her.
“Please repeat my instructions to the hearing disabled in the back of the line,” he ordered, pulling Burton in front of him and holding her shoulders as O’Malley began repeating what he had said.
“Sir, you said that we are to dive in and swim out to the first buoy, grab our assigned number tagged on it, and swim back, sir!”
“And how do you know your assigned number?” he asked, squeezing the little but strong shoulders in his hands.
“It’s our rank at the finish line of the obstacle course, sir. Mine’s three.”
“And what would that make Private Burton’s?”
“Number one, sir.”
“Thank you, Private O’Malley. Fall in,” the Captain said, as she ran back to her place in line. He spun the misbehaving private around, still holding her shoulders. “Did you get all that, Burton?”
“Yes sir,” she replied, stumbling over her boots as he shoved her back in line.
“You are being timed! Begin!” he ordered at the top of his voice, watching as they all ran for the water as Lieutenant Reyes approached the shore in an army green dinghy.
“Ready, Captain?” he asked, putting a foot down to hold it steady as the waves crashed against him.
“Let’s go,” Captain Connor said, pushing the boat out and jumping in as Reyes started the small outboard motor. “What were their times like in the pool?”
The waves subsided as the water became deeper and was only a little choppy as they circled the buoy and waited.
“Who do you think had the best times?” the lieutenant asked, sighing as he checked the records and gave the captain a look.
“Burton,” Connor uttered, watching the splashes of people swimming in heavy boots in the distance. A horn sounded behind them and a small Coast Guard vessel slowed to a stop.
“Connor?” a man in an orange vest shouted, walking out onto the deck. “Hey! Sorry we’re late. Stranded sail boat at Eastside Beach. Did they just start?”
“Yeah,” Connor replied, resting his elbow on his knee as he looked up at his friend. “First time in the rough water with all of their gear. Someone’s bound to start panicking.”
“I’ve got an eye on them, Captain Gwinn,” a young man said, standing at the front of the Coast Guard boat with binoculars.
“Any favorites this time?” Gwinn asked, pulling out a twenty and scratching underneath his sun-lightened hair. Betting on the first ocean swim was one of his favorite pastimes. It was an anything goes event in the deep choppy water, and he’d never seen a female unit attempt it.
“Burton,” Connor and Reyes answered at the same time,
glancing back at the girls.
Jennings was not doing well. She barely had her head above the water and was paddling her long, skinny arms and legs with everything she had.
“We’re still pretty close to the shore. We can turn back if you want,” Burton nodded, treading water and waiting for an answer. Swimming was something she’d always known how to do, even though every experience in the water wasn’t exactly favorable.
Jennings couldn’t speak because her mouth was underwater, but she gave a violent shake of her head and began paddling harder towards the buoy.
“Okay, we can do this,” Burton said, swimming the breast stroke and trying to assess if Jennings could actually make it to the buoy and back if she kept using all of her energy to keep her head afloat. Minutes passed like hours.
“I don’t think I can make it,” Jennings choked, giving Burton a worried look as her head dipped under. The panic was beginning.
Burton grabbed her arm and gave her a shake, sinking a little under her weight, the horizon coming and going as salt water splashed over her face. “You can do this. The buoy is right there. Now come on! You can do this!”
They continued to the buoy at an agonizing pace and found a lonely Coast Guard boat waiting for them. Burton reached for Jennings’ hand and pulled it up onto the red rusted metal buoy.
“Catch your breath,” she huffed, treading water and grabbing their plastic magnetized numbers. She stuffed them into her pocket and breathed deeply a few times until a man appeared on the side of the boat.
“Burton and Jennings, I assume?”
“We’re going,” Burton nodded, as she looked up at the men on the boat and jerked her head towards the beach.
“I don’t think so,” the man in the orange vest shouted back. “It’s almost dusk and we need to get you both back to shore.”
“Just let us finish,” Burton said, glancing back and forth between him and the shore. “We can finish.” Jennings needed this victory if she was ever going to get into the water again.
“I know you can finish,” he said, crossing his arms. “But you may not finish. It’s going to be dark in a little while.”
“Please,” Burton said, looking over her wet shoulder at Jennings. “Just let us finish so that we can keep our pride.”
“It’s not your pride I’m worried about,” he said, reaching down for her and grunting. “It’s your lives.”
She pushed off the boat and tread water a few feet away.
“We aren’t going to drown, sir! We can make it back!”
“No, you can’t!” he shouted, getting irritated as he instructed his first mate to come about so that he could pull the girls onto the boat. “It’s not the drowning that concerns me. It’s almost dusk and when the sun goes down these waters are going to be infested with hungry sharks. Do you understand me now?”
“Sharks?” Burton repeated, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. Maybe she should check her pride, though how big could the sharks be?
“Sharks!” Jennings screamed, slipping off of the buoy.
“Shit,” Burton groaned, diving down after her, a sailor from the Coast Guard Boat diving in next to her. She felt her way down the seaweed covered chain that tied the buoy to the ocean floor and grabbed Jennings’ struggling arms. She paddled to the surface and gasped for air as Jennings thrashed around. Suddenly, someone grabbed their t-shirts and pulled them onto the boat. The cold hard deck was a warm welcome.
“Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?” the man in the orange vest asked, breathing heavily as the sailor climbed back aboard and took a towel off of a chair.
Burton coughed up some water as she lay on her side and looked up at him like he was crazy. “Me? I had to go down and save her! She can hardly swim!”
“Then what in the hell was she doing a mile swim for?”
“Because we all had to!” Burton shouted, coughing some more as the boat sped towards the shore and the sun sank in the small hills in front of them.
The man hopped into the water with both girls in tow and walked them to the dry sand where the Captain and the rest of the girls were waiting.
“Thanks Gwinn,” Connor sighed, as the girls fell to their knees, exhausted.
“You’re welcome,” he huffed, staring down at the girls and waving a finger at his friend. “You’ve got your hands full with this one. If she was mine she’d be real sorry for disobeying my orders right now.”
“I think disobey is her middle name,” Connor retorted, hands on his hips as he stared down at the girls on the ground. She must have done something pretty bad to get under Gwinn’s skin. He was the most easy-going person he knew. Sighing, he handed over a twenty for losing the bet.
Gwinn chuckled in retreat, watching as his friend couldn’t peel his eyes away from the wet little redhead. “Yeah, buddy. She needs her little ass spanked. Good luck.”
Captain Connor sighed and rubbed his head as he stared down at the stragglers. He nodded as Reyes marched the other girls back to the barracks and then he took a knee on the sand.
“How’s it going?” He was trying to not be as scary as his reputation suggested. They were just girls, after all, and he’d known from Jennings’ file that swimming wasn’t a strong suit of hers.
Jennings lay on her back, still panting, as Burton leaned forward on her hands and turned her dark green eyes up to him.
“Just peachy, Captain. We could’ve finished the swim.”
Attitude? No one gave him attitude.
“Now, Captain Gwinn seems to know a thing or two about the water. He says that at dusk we have a small shark problem.”
“Sharks,” Jennings repeated through pants, staring up at the sky.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, sir,” Burton snapped. “And she could have finished if that asshole had just given us the chance.”
“Captain Gwinn knows these waters,” Connor replied, frowning at her insolent attitude.
“We needed to finish,” Burton repeated, feeling angrier by the second.
“It didn’t look like that was going to be a reality, anyway,” he said, nodding his head down at Jennings.
Burton got to her feet and pulled her wet cargo pants up as they slid down under the weight of the water. Her wet shirt clung to her chest in the most appealing way, though she had no idea. Connor felt a slight quickening of his heartbeat but quickly focused on the task at hand. Jesus, not now.
“I’ll do it right now. What was the best time?” she asked, turning for the dark water as the stars came into view in the distance. “I’ll bet I can beat it.”
“Private, get back here,” Connor ordered, standing as the small girl disobediently walked into the waves. “Burton!”
“I can do it!” she shouted over her shoulder, already up to her knees in the water. She was not a quitter. And she hated losing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the Captain muttered, pushing up his sleeves and marching out into the black water. He grabbed her wet, slippery arm but she just wiggled free. “Will you stop trying to swim out there?”
“But I can do it!”
“I know you can!” he yelled, getting a good grip on the back of her shirt and yanking her towards the shore. “But right now, I won’t allow it!” Was she unable to follow any kind of order?
Burton tripped over her boots and the hem of her pants as he dragged her along and finally fell to the sand as he released her. She tried to sit up but he pushed her back down with his wet boot, noticing to his right some footprints running back towards the base. Jennings had made a run for it. It didn’t matter, though. Burton was the real problem. Man, she had a temper on her.
“Stay,” he ordered, glaring down at her. “In one trainee, I have never seen such intelligence, such determination, such competition, such insolence, and such utter stupidity! You are the world’s best and worst soldier all wrapped into one! I don’t know if I should commend you for helping Jennings or paddle you for disobeying orders!”
> Burton swallowed and dropped her head back to the sand. She was tired of letting her pride always get in the way. She was tired of not having anyone to talk to. She was tired of fighting and just wanted a good night’s sleep. She sighed and looked up at the Captain, knowing he’d let it go. The drill sergeant always did. Eventually.
“I’m sorry, Captain. I-I just wanted to prove that I could do it.”
Captain Connor sighed, removed his foot, and finally leaned over and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. He didn’t release her as they started walking back to the barracks. She was turning into such a mystery. She’d apologized. Insolent people were never that quick to apologize. So what was with her?
They crossed over the dark dunes and through the trees to the brightly lit base. He paused underneath the light at her barracks door and turned her around to face him.
His emotions were everywhere as she peered up at him. Pride. She’d sacrificed her own competitive time to save a member of her unit who by her own admission wasn’t very kind to her. Anger. She was blatantly arguing and disobeying orders. And finally, attraction. She was beautiful.
“Tomorrow, we start fresh. No more trouble, just straight training. Got it?”
She leaned her head back as she looked up at him and nodded, “Yes sir.”
He turned and headed towards the officer’s quarters, and as she watched him walk away, she wondered why he was so nice to her. The drill sergeant and nearly every other officer she’d met treated her like a disease. What was this guy’s deal? He had to know how good looking he was. He had to know the effect he had on women. All the girls talked about him. Why was he so focused on her, though?
“Did you do it, Baylor?”
She fell back against the door as the girls jumped off of their bunks and approached her as she walked into their barracks.
“Well did you?”
“Did I do what?” she asked, kneeling down and taking off her wet boots as she saw the others lining the wall.