Hemingway - Zoe Dawson Page 0,37
had to get back to their rooms for inspection, showered, buffed and in their starched uniforms.
As Hemingway, Professor, Wilson and Brown stood by waiting for their turns, Hemingway could hear the instructors going from room to room. There was plenty of shouting with words like pigsty and terrible and you failed, hit the surf. Sometimes clothes, bedding or items would fling out of the open doors, then trainees would run out on their way to the surf.
Lane followed the instructors around. Two rooms passed and Hemingway was relieved to have been one of the two. Lane’s room had been the other pass. Not having to clean up, after the instructors pulled the room apart, would leave Hemingway more time with Shea.
Once inspection was over it was back into wet and sandy clothes, then it was time for surf passage in their “inflatable boat, small,” or IBS.
He’d been introduced to IBS in BO, but this surf passage was ten times harder and more demanding with Hal Cheezer in charge. He had them paddling out in the surf and dumping the boat, which meant they would have to bail out of it, turn it upside down, then right side up all the while keeping a hold of their paddles, then paddle back to the beach. To top it off, this was a race and whoever wasn’t in first place wasn’t a winner. Hemingway’s competitive spirit always came to the fore when there was a challenge. Lane pushed them with the kind of calm, measured leadership Hemingway was used to from him. He kept them all in line, kept them working hard and by the time they were back on the beach, they were winners.
“Hoo-yah,” Hemingway yelled as the guys on his boat crew congratulated each other. “Lane, you are the freaking best!”
Lane smiled and clapped Hemingway on the back, his serious dark eyes filled with the glow of admiration for him and their team. “You guys pulled together like champions. Job well done!”
“I don’t think in all my time as an instructor I have seen such a smooth and well-executed dump boat. It deserves an acknowledgment,” Cheezer said. Cheezer and the other instructors, including Mad Max clapped and Hemingway and his team could settle into the sand while the other boats crews went out again.
Cheezer was impressed and that wasn’t easy to do. The instructor was a bear, but Hemingway understood the man’s tactics and only bonded closer with the guys in his crew. Teamwork did win, and he had to give grudging admiration for Cheezer’s tactics. There was levity mixed in with the suffering, recognition and reward for spirit and leadership
After IBS, they headed to chow, then the classroom with Mad Max as the instructor, one hundred and thirty-seven exhausted, sandy, wet, battered and bruised guys along with one gorgeous woman. Hemingway shouldn’t be thinking about getting to be alone with Shea, but that was the only thing on his mind. He wanted to snuggle up with her, get comfortable and just rest in her arms. The lesson was on surf observation, or SUROBS where they were taught how to gauge and classify surf and record the data in an exact format.
Mad Max was a precise and surprisingly interesting speaker. He didn’t lecture them but gave examples straight from his SEAL experience to show them why all this information was important and that it could save lives on the team when they were deployed.
He delivered the lesson with an often-crooked smile, as if he had a secret only he knew.
“With a water insertion and beach egress, you guys have to know the conditions and what’s going on in the water before you hit land. We were four strong going in. We knew the rip currents, where the tide was ebbing and flowing. Everything can be planned down to the tiniest detail.” He shook his head and took a breath, the room hanging on his next words as his voice roughed. “We didn’t know there were insurgents in a small boat hidden by reeds, trying to fish up something to eat. It was a strange happenstance…chance. When we surfaced, they saw us from their concealment. They shot and killed the guy next to me. In a blink of an eye, our mission was compromised.”
“What did you do?”
“Improvised,” Max said. “When chance is involved, there is no other alternative.” His shoulders tensed, and he shifted as if the painful memory hurt physically. “We went back under and dragged our teammate with us. They