Hemingway - Zoe Dawson Page 0,61

out!”

His abs were burning by the time the whistle blew again, the water feeling even colder than when they first went in. He was up and moving back to the sand, his elbows and knees almost numb to the pain from the immersion in the water. Six guys quit, running for the truck, and already after just a couple hours they’d lost nine guys.

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