Hemingway wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like they hadn’t gone through this before. It was just more of the same from First Phase. Then he thought maybe it was because these guys hadn’t really heard Mad Max when he said try not to think of Hell Week in one chunk. Get through it, evolution by evolution. Maybe these men let their dread overtake their ability to embrace the suck.
“Grab the boats and hit the surf!” Walker screamed. He wondered if the instructors ended up hoarse after Hell Week. Fact of the matter was, Mad Max, Cheezer, Walker, and all the night shift instructors would leave, and a fresh set of instructors would come in. They would be rested while the trainees were going without rest or sleep.
They attacked the surf like hungry sharks, paddling like hell, dumping the boat, righting the boat, switching life jackets, swimming the boat, walking the boat, running with the boat, sit-ups with the boat on their heads. Then, in a sadistic move, they had to take the boat over the obstacle course.
“Who’s the sick fuck who thought of this jacked up shit!” Hitchcock said. “Fuck!” He grunted as they pulled the two-hundred-pound boat across the Burma Bridge. Two more men quit, and one went to medical when he fell from the slide for life. They were down to sixty-four.
Then around midnight, it was log PT in the surf. Exhausted muscles ached and throbbed in every part of his body, his elbow and knees bloodied. They all struggled against the two-hundred-pound log, agony alive in every nerve ending and cell.
His mind fogged over with the excruciating pain and fatigue until they were live things beating at him with hammers, and his muscles protested with each movement.
“Stay with me, Atty,” Professor said through clenched teeth. Then he looked at one of their crew. “I swear, Babcock, I will choke you out if you keep ducking.”
“And when he’s finished, I’ll choke you out, you fucker!” Hitchcock said.
“This isn’t helping,” Hemingway said. “Come on, Babcock. Think about why you’re doing this. Think about the next rep and nothing else.”
“I can’t make it,” Babcock rasped. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Hemingway said. “You can and you will, Babcock.” But Hemingway’s heart sank. Already, Babcock was giving over to the idea of quitting, and it would be a matter of time.
Cheezer knew it, and like a shark smelling blood in the water, he called for another set of twenty sit-ups. On the heels of Cheezer’s order, Babcock shouted, “I quit. I’m not doing this shit anymore.” He scrambled out from under the log, and the rest of them groaned as the log sank back against them without Babcock’s support. The instructor sent him up to the truck, and with a somber look on his face, Babcock never even glanced back at them.
“Can’t even acknowledge that he let us down,” Brown said.
“He’s a no-load,” Hitchcock said. “Ignore him. We are six strong, and we can do this.”
“Hoo-yah,” they all said in unison.
Damn, not only were they losing one of their boat crew, dropping them down to six, but the log felt ten times heavier without Babcock, even if he had been ducking some of the load.
“Do I have any more quitters?” Cheezer yelled, but no one said anything or got up. “That’s too bad. Log PT builds character, I guess, and everyone wants to do more.”
“Hoo-yah,” was the class’s response.
“Don’t give me that bullshit answer. I know there’s more of you dirty, low-down, no-load quitters lurking out there. I tell you what. If one more quits in the next five minutes, I’ll give you those five minutes back during chow.”
Cheezer looked at his watch and the seconds ticked down. That was a luxury to have five more minutes without yelling instructors, five more minutes without a boat banging on their already tender scalps, five more minutes of warmth, five more minutes of sitting and resting, and five more minutes of anything hot he could consume. He wanted those five minutes and justified his desire in seeing another man quit by realizing if the man was going to quit down the line, why not just get it over with now?
Hemingway glanced around at his boat crew, but their faces were grimly set. The next quitter wouldn’t come from them.
“One more minute. C’mon guys, just one more no-load, slipknot, quitter.”
Down the line a man got up and headed for the truck. It was like the floodgates opened and nine more trainees were gone. The bell rang for a long time as they pushed out their sit-ups, a man down.
“Damn,” Hitchcock said, “We’ve only been at this for three fucking hours, and we’re down to fifty-four guys.”
“Good riddance,” Brown said.
Hemingway was doing everything in his power to keep up the brutal PT. Finally, the instructors had them lay down their logs. Hemingway thought that was just one more evolution done in this long chain evolution called Hell Week.
His thoughts were interrupted when they were ordered out of the surf and told to remove their T-shirts and uniform tops. His unresponsive numb fingers stumbled over the easy task. The directive to separate at arm’s length and keep their arms extended was nothing but another instructor mind trick. Unbearable and steady cool ocean breezes swept over them, their wet skin magnifying the effect. Without the body heat of his fellow classmates, he especially felt the chill in his armpits as his body immediately started to jackhammer.
It didn’t take long for his arms to feel the strain, but the simple exercise kept his mind off the cold misery.
A Navy physician made the rounds and checked eyes and asked simple questions. When he paused, in front of a blue-lipped trainee, that blue-lipped guy was dragged to the ambulance. Some were taken away and did not return.
Hypothermia. Even with the tables and the caution, some unlucky guy’s core temperature dropped too low. Hemingway was just thankful it wasn’t him.
“Back into the surf, snowflakes! Find a good seat for the show!”
Once again, Hemingway found himself staring into the blackness, holding his breath as waves rushed overhead. Surprisingly, the water was preferable to that unbearable soft ocean breeze.
They were ordered back to shore, and the drill was repeated. The doctor made his rounds again, removing three more students. Two returned and the other did not.
“About-face!” Cheezer yelled.
Five walked away, shoulders slumping up to the big blue truck.
“About-face!”
The class turned back from the surf. Another mind trick? Were they really done?
“About-face!”
Another man broke from the line. It was Manning, one of Wilson’s close inner group. Wilson lunged for him, but the guy fought until Wilson let him go.
Hemingway noticed Wilson’s group was losing trainees rapidly.
He looked toward Shea, who had been watching everything since the chaos of Hell Week’s Breakout. When she met his gaze, her silent confirmation that she’d seen what was happening with Wilson traveled between them. Then she shot him a you can do this look that bolstered him. No sympathetic, poor baby looks from his kickass woman.
“Don’t fight it,” Lane said, his words quiet.
Suddenly someone started singing. It was the guy next to him. Professor’s singing voice was all hoarse, harsh rock and roll, tight jeans, and black leather jacket. His whole cerebral persona went out the window when he exercised those pipes. He started with the beginning strains of “Holding Out For A Hero.” Even more impressive because it was acapella. Despite the cold, despite the pain, Hemingway started grinning and singing along at the top of his lungs, his spirits lifting with each word and the determined voices of the trainees.