Battle Dress

by Amy Efaw

  “She makes me want to puke,” I overheard one of the upperclassmen whisper to First Sergeant Stockel. “What’s her big medical issue now?”

  First Sergeant Stockel snorted. “What’s not? Last week it was a strained back. Today it’s ‘pains in the thighs.’ Can you say ‘sore muscles’? But hey, it’s legit—she’s got a doctor’s signature, so she’s got a profile. Miss ‘Often-slacker’ with the ‘pains in the thighs.’”

  The upperclassman had gotten a good laugh out of that one. And now, hours later, First Sergeant Stockel decided to share the joke with the rest of the company.

  I will never go on sick call. I didn’t want these people to talk about me the way they talked about Offenbacher. I had had enough of that back home—knowing that the kids whispering on the bus or in the halls at school were laughing at me. Laughing about the one thing I had no power over—my family. And it made me mad that Offenbacher would allow herself to be so weak. I don’t care how bad I’m hurt. I’d rather put up with any amount of physical discomfort than be the company joke that she was. I almost hated her for it.

  “AS YOU WERE, HARDCORE!” yelled First Sergeant Stockel, smirking. “THIS IS A MILITARY FORMATION! All Corps Squad wanna-bes report to Cadet Williams at the entrance of Leyte Sally Port immediately following this formation. All remaining new cadets, fall out into your respective teams for Mass Athletics. . . .”

  I sucked in one slow breath. This is it. By dinner formation, tryouts will be all over. In just a couple of hours I’ll be standing right here, knowing if I’m still a wanna-be . . . or not.

  After formation, Gabrielle with her tennis racket, Hickman with his baseball glove, and I with my running shoes hurried over to the other wanna-bes huddling around Cadet Williams in the shade of the sally port.

  Not far from us, First Sergeant Stockel was unleashing his wrath on the ragged row of new cadets with crutches. “I will not have a bunch of lame and lazy profile get-overs hiding out in the barracks while the rest of H Company is sweating in the sun!” I heard him yell. “Sick call is not spelled F-U-N. And it is not spelled R-A-C-K. So spread the word, Boneheads. Sick call ain’t what it’s cracked up to be!”

  I noticed something familiar about the girl standing nearest me, at the end of the row. She had curly brown hair and freckles across her sunburned nose. I know her. Didn’t I talk to her once?

  “You have ten minutes from right now to get yourselves, your crutches, and a barracks bag containing one each: pair of boots and low quarters—”

  I know! She’s the girl Cadet Daily caught me talking to on the first day of Beast!

  “—hat brass and belt buckle, shoe polish and Brasso—”

  I stared at the girl again. I remembered how she had smiled at me that first day. Her smile was now long gone as she stood kneading the hand grips of her crutches and watching First Sergeant Stockel. What happened to her? I wondered if she was a sick call junkie like Offenbacher. I hoped not.

  “—to the Orderly Room and report to the Cadet in Charge of Quarters.” First Sergeant Stockel smiled. “And you’re in luck, Sick Call, because today the CCQ just happens to be Cadet Aussprung, and I have the utmost confidence that he will keep you gainfully employed for the next hour and a half polishing brass, shining shoes, and memorizing this week’s knowledge.” First Sergeant Stockel turned to New Cadet Offenbacher. “Like Schofield’s Definition of Discipline.”

  Every week we had definitions and West Point trivia to memorize out of our Bugle Notes, the tiny book new cadets were required to carry everywhere. Cadet Daily called it the “Plebe Bible”—a perfect name. Not only did it contain everything we’d have to know as West Point cadets, but it also happened to be about the same size as the pocket New Testament that Kit Boguslavsky always carried in his back pocket.

  Gabrielle and I tried to memorize the entire week’s knowledge on Sunday nights, quizzing each other while we polished boots and brass, so we wouldn’t be scrambling later in the week. Schofield’s Definition of Discipline was on page 245 of the book. I already knew it. So did Gabrielle.

  First Sergeant Stockel’s face had inched closer to Offenbacher’s. “Let’s hear it, Hopalong. You’ve had plenty of time to memorize your knowledge, skipping out on all that good Army training!”

  “Y-y-yes, sir. Sir, Schofield’s Definition of Discipline: ‘The discipline which makes the soldiers in a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained through harsh treatment. On the contrary—’”

  First Sergeant Stockel made a sound like a buzzer. “Cease work, Lamebrain! ‘Harsh and tyrannical treatment.’ You may think you’ve received some harsh treatment thus far at West Point, Miss Offenbacher, and if it were just up to me, I’d toss a little more harsh treatment in your direction. But harsh and tyrannical treatment is something altogether different—something you’ll never know anything about. Try again!”

  She is so pathetic! Her “pains in the thighs” had nothing to do with her brain! The least she could’ve done was put out the extra effort to know her knowledge cold. Any sympathy I might have had for her vanished. I turned my attention back to the huddle and joined the group of wanna-bes who were holding running shoes.

  There I waited with the others, blinking sweat and flies out of my eyes and trying hard to keep from thinking about tryouts.

  Finally a black upperclass female loped toward us with enough track team wanna-bes to make a platoon jogging in her wake. “Get on the end and follow me,” she called and took off, away from the Plain, down the long hill toward the river, around the grassy field that showcased the track, and into the Field House. Its high ceiling and relative dimness were a haven from the heat. It felt almost like air-conditioning.

  “Okay, New Cadets,” she said when we were all inside. “Listen up. I’m Allegra Spence, the captain of the Women’s Cross Country Team. But you can call me ‘Ma’am’ for now, all right? If you make the team, I’ll be more than happy to drop the formalities, but let’s not develop bad habits just yet.”

  I looked at the mob of tense faces around me. So many . . .

  She pointed across the track to a medium-height, balding black man wearing civilian clothes—a yellow polo shirt and black warm-up pants—and talking to an Army officer with a mustache. The way he jerked his head back and forth as he talked, I could tell that he was intense. “That’s the man you want to impress, New Cadets. Coach Louis Banks, Head Track and Cross Country Coach. You have one chance to show him your stuff, and that’s today, so give it all you got.”

  One chance. I took a deep breath and looked at the floor. Give it all you got. The Big Bites of Eggs MacArthur and cottage fried potatoes I’d gotten at breakfast today hadn’t come close to filling my stomach. And my tight hamstrings and quads reminded me that only a few hours had elapsed since the P.T. test. Fighting to stay awake during classes on the honor code, hiking up to the Cadet Chapel, and lugging my rifle around during drill practice hadn’t helped me get ready for anything but my bed.

  “If you were recruited, don’t worry. You’re on the team”—and she smiled for the first time—“for now.” She pointed toward the large group of new cadets sitting apart from everybody else on the far end of the Field House. “Just hang tight over there during tryouts. Afterwards, Coach’ll want to talk to you.”

  I stared. The track recruits sat talking and laughing, looking totally unaware of all the jumping, stretching, and running around them. I even spotted a couple of new cadets sprawled across a high jump mat, asleep.

  The mob near the door shrank as Cadet Spence sent us wanna-bes to different areas of the Field House, depending on the event, until only the distance runners remained.

  “Okay, guys. I saved the best for last—the ones who go the distance.” She paused, taking the thirty or so of us in with one long look. “Wait over there”—she pointed across the length of the track—“and warm up. You’ll be nice and close to the latrines. If you’re anything like me, you’ll need to take care of business before hitting the track
.” She checked her watch. “We don’t have a lot of time to knock this out, so it’s going to be ‘boom, boom, boom.’ A quick mile on the track and that’s it. Men under 4:40, women under 5:30. If you can run that, you’re on the team. Plain and simple. Any questions?”

  Under 5:30? I shook out each leg. I can run that, maybe, when I’m fresh. I started chewing on my thumbnail. What was my mile split this morning—5:39? And I still had a mile to go. I don’t know. Maybe . . . But I knew there were no “maybes” for me. I just had to make the team. Running was what had saved me at home, helped me cope. When I was racing on a track or through the woods, I was somebody. The medals and trophies I took home told me that, even if no person ever did. Running was the only thing I had. And I felt for a second that if I couldn’t be on Corps Squad, I didn’t want to stay at West Point.

  “Uh, ma’am?” asked a tall, skinny guy on my left. “Are we running in here or outside?”

  “Right here.” Cadet Spence pointed over her shoulder to the centerpiece of the Field House. “Right on that two-hundred-meter track.”

  An indoor track? I felt sick. I had never run on an indoor track in my life, had never even seen one up close. I glanced at the others. None of them seemed worried. I rubbed my jagged thumbnail, back and forth, across my upper lip.

  How many laps make a mile? It’s a two-hundred-meter track, so that makes . . . eight? An indoor track was half the size of an outdoor one. It took a different kind of strategy, a strategy I didn’t know. My mile split this morning was only a 5:39. I’ll never be able to knock off nine seconds. Not with all the curves and the short straightaways.

  Cadet Spence looked at her watch again. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said a girl behind me. “How many people will make the team? I mean, ma’am, is there a limit?”

  “Like I said, if every one of you makes the cutoff times, you all make the team. If none of you do, then no one does. But I will tell you, from past experience, we get very few walk-ons.” She shrugged. “That’s just the way it goes.”

  I followed the other distance runners to our spot near the bathrooms and put on my Sauconys from home. I had almost forgotten what a good pair of running shoes felt like. Probably won’t make enough difference to matter. At least if I wore bad shoes, I’d have an excuse. But I knew that wasn’t true. I’d never allow myself an excuse if I failed today. I sat down to stretch my tight, tired legs.

  I stared again at the recruits. How good are they? I squinted, trying to pick out the skinny ones, especially the girls, who looked fast. Don’t be an idiot. They’re all fast. That’s why they’re there. And I’m sure they’ve all been to State. Probably Nationals, too. I sighed. I don’t have a chance. I grabbed my feet and slowly pulled my body flat against my legs until my face touched my knees. The muscles in my thighs trembled, and I suddenly realized that I was going to throw up.

  I got to my feet. As calmly as I could, I jogged over to the bathroom, found a vacant stall, bent over the toilet, and chucked the little bit of shrimp scampi over white rice that I had eaten for lunch into the toilet. Still clutching the sides of the toilet seat, I took deep breaths, trying to relax my churning stomach and my nerves. It’s only one mile. Just five and a half minutes of pain, and it’s over. One chance to make the team. Give it everything. You’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it if you don’t. I closed my eyes. Won’t survive this place if you can’t run.

  I heard a girl’s voice, and then the door to the bathroom opened.

  “Yeah? That’s incredible. New York’s a really competitive state, too. I should know—I missed Nationals by thirty-two hundredths of a second in the 800. This girl from Newburgh came out of nowhere and snatched it from me.”

  I straightened up and wiped my face with toilet paper.

  A pair of Nikes walked over to my stall, and their owner, the girl who had been talking, pulled at my door.

  “Someone’s in here,” I said.

  “Oops. Sorry,” she said, and the Nikes moved away. “But that’s okay,” she continued, stepping into the stall next to mine. “I’ll go someday. Plus I’m hoping to move up to something longer, here. Maybe the 1500.”

  “Oh,” came the other girl’s voice for the first time. “Then you’re recruited?”

  I hesitated, my fingers grasping the latch of my door.

  “Yeah. Aren’t you?” asked the voice above the Nikes.

  “Nope.”

  “You are kidding! With your times? And qualifying for Nationals? I thought for sure—”

  Wonderful. I get to go against girls who went to Nationals. My great victory at the P.T. test didn’t seem so great, suddenly. I opened the door and stepped around the waiting girl. She was crouched, tightening the laces on her Asics running shoes.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound casual, and smiled.

  She didn’t return my greeting, but I could feel her sizing me up as I walked to the sink, her eyes lingering on my shoes.

  I felt a prickly feeling rise from the base of my neck to the top of my head. I knew that look. The and-why-are-you -alive look the “beautiful people” reserved for me at school. I took a swig of water from the faucet and walked out of the bathroom, feeling cold—and mean.

  So you have Asics, Speedy Gonzales. Big deal. My Sauconys are going to kick your Asics’ butt.

  1729

  The door pulled me into my room before I had a chance to turn the knob.

  “Andi!” Gabrielle screamed, standing in the doorway, on her way to the bathroom in her bathrobe and flip-flops. “You scared me to death!”

  “And you almost pulled my arm out of its socket.” I walked past her, pulled off my sweat-soaked shirt, and tossed it on my chair. Then I sat down and started unlacing my shoes.

  Gabrielle shut the door. “Well?”

  I peeled off my socks and wiggled my toes. “Isn’t it amazing how much cooler you feel when you take off your shoes?”

  “Yeah. Mind-boggling. Come on, Andi! You made the team. Right?”

  “How’d you get back so soon?”

  “It’s not so soon. The tennis courts are closer to the barracks than the Field House, you know. Plus today was tryouts, remember? Tryouts? Since I was recruited, I got to sit in the shade and watch”—she smiled—“sipping Pepsi.”

  “You dog!”

  “And I even snuck one back for my poor, deprived roommate.” She walked over to her wardrobe closet and took out a can of tennis balls. “I sacrificed my own property”—she pulled off the lid—“not to mention my very skin if I had gotten caught.” A Pepsi can slid out of the canister and into her other hand. “Gorgeous Gray Eyes is on CQ tonight, you know. He was eyeing my tennis balls very suspiciously when I passed him in the hall. And all for naught.” She tossed the empty canister into the trash can. “But that’s okay. One can never drink too much Pepsi. Especially during Beast.” She flashed me a saccharine smile, then kissed the Pepsi can. “Of course, if you talk . . .”

  I laughed, then picked up one of my sweaty socks and lobbed it at her. “You little sadist.” I checked my watch. “Are you aware that I have to be standing on Daily’s wall in eighteen minutes? And that you have to be at your clock in thirteen? And we have a shower to take?”

  “Don’t bore me with piddly details.”

  I sighed. “Okay, Gab. We had to run a mile on the indoor track. I’ve never run on an indoor track. I had to run under 5:30. I’ve rarely run under 5:30.” I dropped my shorts next to my T-shirt and slipped on my flip-flops.

  “And? And?”

  “And”—I shrugged—“today I did both.” I crossed the room, hiding my smile from her, and grabbed my bathrobe out of the closet near the door.

  “Yeah!”

  I hopped up on the counter of our sink and sat down. And not being able to contain my excitement any longer, I blurted out the details—probably too many details—surprising even myself. “Gab, it really was a miracle! First of all they just sort of put a bunch of us on the track at the
same time—many more than you’d ever have in one heat during a track meet. And they ran guys and girls together, which was weird because the guys kept lapping the girls—the guys had to run under 4:40, so they were faster—and it was almost impossible to keep track of which lap each person was on. . . .” I looked at Gabrielle; I hoped I wasn’t boring her. “You know, total chaos! So anyway, when I crossed the finish, Coach Banks—that’s the Head Coach—was calling off the times. And when I heard ‘5:28,’ I couldn’t believe it! You know what I did? I ran right off the track and up to him—the coach—and hugged him!”

  “You? No way!”

  I nodded. “And I said, ‘I did it! I did it!’ And he said, ‘That’s what the clock says.’ He was smiling, though. And then I said, ‘You won’t regret this. I’ll work really hard!’And you know what he said? He said, ‘You know, Davis, I think I believe that.’ I kind of made a fool out of myself, but I was so nervous before, and I didn’t think I’d be able to do it, and . . .” I smiled at Gabrielle and held out my hand. “Can I have my Pepsi now?”

  CHAPTER 9

  FRIDAY, 23 JULY 0633

  Feed ’em up and give ’em hell.

  Teach ’em where they are.

  Make ’em so mad they’ll eat steel . . .

  Make ’em hard, but don’t break ’em.

  —LAURENCE STALLINGS, WHAT PRICE GLORY?

  “DAVIS HAS BEEN BEATING you up all week, gentlemen,” Cadet Black said after he formed H Company’s Black Group into two squads for our run. “This morning I expect to hear the rest of you returning my cadences, too. I’m not fond of duets.”

  I smiled to myself. P.T. was easily my favorite part of the day. I looked forward to it even more than I did the meals. Since the middle of last week, when Cadet Barrington had divided H Company into three ability groups for the runs, I had had a great time letting everyone in the Black Group know how effortless I found the runs—the runs that most of them struggled to finish—by calling cadences louder than anyone else. And because I was the only girl out of about twenty guys, Cadet Black had had a great time, too, rubbing it in.