Hemingway - Zoe Dawson Page 0,34
Max, and Hemingway broke his rule about not looking at her. She made eye contact with him. In those dark depths were encouragement and a softness that made him want to get as close to her as he could. But training had to be his focus, and he couldn’t lose that. He had a long way to go. Damn this timing.
“So far I don’t see anything too impressive. Some of you have the stamina and are pushing out the push-ups, but this isn’t about single guys. This is about why you’re all here. You’re here for one purpose. Get to the teams. Be a ‘team guy.’ We don’t want any candy asses serving at our backs. We’ll weed those out,” Walker said. He was leading the PT.
“He’s not even breaking a sweat,” Professor said, his form good next to Hemingway.
“Yeah, he’s no candy ass,” Hemingway said, and Professor chuckled.
Suddenly a stream of water hit them both and a couple of guys next to them, a stinging frigid blast that wasn’t strong enough to knock them over but made Hemingway and Professor gasp simultaneously at the cold stinging spray.
“Having fun now fellas?” one of the instructors said, keeping the water on them. He thought it was Hal Cheezer, a mean looking SOB, stocky, built with white straight teeth. Hemingway was sure this wasn’t the last he’d see of a Cheezer beat down. Cheezer crouched down and said, “You think this is a joking matter?”
“No, instructor.”
“Wipe those smirks off your faces, and all of you, surf and sand time, courtesy of Sinclair and Prescott. Get out there and make me proud. I wanna see some sugar cookies. Move!”
Hemingway popped up from his push-up form to his feet and dashed toward the beach, making his way across the instructor parking lot and over the sand berm, a barrier manually erected for protection in the case of storms.
The salty scent of the ocean mingled with the smell of rotting kelp and sand in a mixture he’d always associated with the beach on a leisurely day. He wondered when this was over would he ever be able to forget this experience. An experience that was getting him closer to his goal. I can make it until breakfast, he thought, thinking of the hot food, the full feeling in his now empty stomach, the images urging him on.
He threw himself into the water, getting deep enough to saturate his clothes, then pushed out of the breakers to the fine, soft sand of the strand. He rolled, threw sand over his head and made sure every part of him was covered. It got in his mouth, nose, eyes and ears, but he endured it. Then he was up and moving back to the grinder.
The next forty-five minutes were more of the same. All told, they had been at this for almost an hour and fifteen minutes. The instructor shouted at the weaker guys, but luckily Hemingway avoided any more individual attention, especially from Cheezer. By the time he was ready for breakfast, he’d estimated they had done over five hundred push-ups, sixty pull-ups, untold flutter kicks and many sit-ups.
The sand from the beach was grinding against his skin, causing chafing, which was only aided by the water and his cold skin. The salt from the ocean stung every abrasion.
He knew the first three weeks of BUD/S were designed to weed out the men who didn’t have the emotional commitment needed to be SEALs.
“We’re looking for warriors, not men just getting by. If you can’t even do this much PT, there’s the bell. Do yourself and all the dedicated guys here a favor and ring out.” This was a fire-in-the-gut check. First Phase was also about each man here looking deep into himself to really understand and know why they were here at BUD/S.
“My sister has better form than you do, Hitchcock. Get that weak ass out of the air and do your push-ups like a man.” Matt Hitchcock was one of Hemingway’s boat crew, with boy-next-door looks, dark hair, and piercing pale blue eyes. He was from a small town in Kansas. In the fleet he was on a destroyer and worked as a radar fire control guy. Hemingway liked him. He was solid, but this PT was kicking his ass, and Hemingway had to wonder if he was going to make it. His chest got tight, and he thought about his own reasons for doing BUD/S. He knew Matt was just as dedicated and had a