Recruit by Jonathan Brazee (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

Tarawa:  Recruit Training

Chapter 3

The ship landed in the middle of the night on Tarawa.[9]  The recruits debarked the Sally Ling when most of the passengers were either in the casino or in their staterooms asleep.  The other passengers probably had no idea that more than 300 recruits had shared the voyage from Vegas.  They’d been confined to their billets on F Deck since coming on board. The recruits had been quietly herded out of a cargo hatch, so as not to disturb the paying passengers’ night.

It was still hot when they walked down the ramp despite the late hour.  Ryck strained to make out anything about where he would be spending the next 42 weeks.  It was just a standard spaceport, though, and as it didn’t have the glamour and non-stop advertising of Vegas’ main spaceport, it was not much different from the one back on Prophesy.  There were a few murmurs coming from the recruits, but most of them walked in silence.

That silence lasted until they passed through the door over which hung the innocuous sign with “RECEIVING” printed on it.  Several civilians directed them to a processing center with five desks in the front.  Each recruit gave his name and was scanned.  Told to move in by their handlers, they were led outside where buses waited.  Ryck got on board, saving seats for Joshua and Proctor.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Proctor said as he got on and took the seat.

“Yeah, I thought it would be tougher.  I know the training itself will be harder, but I guess it isn’t as bad as what we read on the net,” Ryck said.

The buses hissed as they lifted off the ground, and the drivers eased the rigs forward.  The three recruits were in the second-to-last bus, and as they moved through the streets of Gibraltar, they tried to catch a view of the city’s infamous nightlife.  Either that nightlife was somewhere else in the city, or the extent of it was something else that had been exaggerated on the net.

It was after midnight, but excitement kept most of them awake as the buses picked up speed outside the city.  Recruits talked in quiet voices as they discussed what was ahead of them.  An hour later, the lights of Camp Charles broke the darkness.  Everyone on board shut up as the buses slowed down in front of the gates.  Two Marines in their dress blues were manning it, and they motioned the vehicles to enter.  Ryck pushed his face up against the window to be able to see the arch over the gate, Per Terra et Mare[10] written in gold-colored metal tubing.

The buses pulled into a courtyard and stopped.  Their civilian guide stood up in front of the bus, turning to face them.

“OK, this is it.  Welcome to Camp Charles.  I need all of you to file off the bus, then cross in front and to the area to our left.”

“What do we do then?” a voice asked toward the rear of the bus.

“Oh, someone will tell you what to do.  Don’t worry about that,” the man said with a chuckle.  “And good luck,” he added as they started to file off.

Ryck, Joshua, and Proctor stuck together as they moved past the bus and into a square with buildings closing in on three sides.  Three-hundred-plus recruits milled about, wondering what was next.  Two doors in one of the buildings opened, sending light out into the square.

“Come on, you spineless worms, get your sorry asses on the yellow footprints!” a voice yelled out.

Ryck couldn’t see who was yelling, and he couldn’t see any yellow footprints, but he pushed ahead with the herd.  He’d read about the infamous yellow footprints before leaving Prophesy and expected them, but reading about something and experiencing it were two different things.  Despite himself, he could feel his heart rate soar.

“Come on,” he told Joshua.  “Push.  We don’t want to be the last ones there.”

“Move it, move it!” the voice screamed.  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing here!  I refuse to see what pieces of shit think they can be Marines!”

Other voices chimed in, coming from the sides.  Ryck glanced around and caught sight of a drill instructor closing in from behind.  Like a minnow trying to escape a pike, he darted forward, pushing other recruits aside, not wanting to let the drill instructor get close.  He’d lost Joshua and Proctor, but he saw the yellow footprints on the floor and got on top of the first free one he reached. 

The DIs continued to scream, their orders only interrupted by their observations of the worth of this batch of recruits; that worth wasn’t much.  In position on his claimed footprints, he could see the DI in front of him.  The man was red in the face and seemed to be in the throes of an epileptic fit.  He was screaming out his displeasure, and Ryck was in awe of the man’s mastery of expressing his distaste.  Ryck let his eyes drift down to the DI’s arms.  He couldn’t remember if the stripes on the sleeves of his uniform meant the DI was a sergeant or corporal. 

“You eyeballing me, you piece of slime?” the DI shouted at Ryck. 

The shorter DI rushed forward, bending down slightly, then crooking his neck to look right up Ryck’s nostrils, it seemed to him. 

“You don’t rate eyeballing me, farm boy.  You keep your eyeballs locked to the front, got it?”

“Yes, sir!” Ryck shouted, looking straight ahead.

“‘Sir?’  ‘Sir?’  Do I look like a fucking officer?  I work for a living.  It’s ‘Aye-aye sergeant,’ or ‘aye-aye drill instructor.’  Don’t ever call me sir.”

“Yes, sir, sergeant!” Ryck stammered out.

“‘Sir?’  What the hell did I just tell you?  Can’t you follow a simple order?” the DI screamed.

“Uh, aye-aye, sergeant!” he managed to get out.

“Oh, my loving Mary!  I asked you a question!  You answer yes or no.  Not ‘aye-aye.’  If I tell you to do something, then it’s ‘aye-aye.’  My three-year-old niece can manage that!”

Ryck had to think a moment before offering, “Yes, sergeant.”

He wasn’t sure he was correct, but the DI had moved on to torment someone else.  Ryck let out a sigh of relief.

How did he know I was a farm boy? he wondered.  Do I look like one?

The next few hours were a blur.  A roll call was made, and Ryck remembered to respond with the “Here, drill instructor” as directed.  Quite a few other recruits couldn’t manage even that, and they paid the price with pushups.  They were broken into groups, then herded to the barber, where their heads were shaved, to the sickbay, as Ryck learned the medical facility was called, for an analysis, and to uniform issue.  Ryck had a complete physical two days before leaving Prophesy, so he wondered why another physical was necessary.  Did they think they’d gotten some