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.
The guys who had been to that Karaoke night joined in and their cold voices powered from the surf with the oohs and ahs of the song’s opening.
At first the instructors were dumbfounded, and as they really got into the words, Cheezer looked over to Walker and Max and the others, shaking his head and grinning.
If they could make Cheezer laugh, then they might have a chance to get through this alive. They got pulled out of the surf and allowed to dress. Then it was back at it.
“No rest for the smartasses,” Professor said.
“Move your butts to the boats, double time it or it’s back into the drink for you!”
Grabbing their boat, outfitted with four green glow sticks so the instructors could keep tabs on them in the dark, along with seven Pro-Tec helmets and life jackets assembled in the center of the vessel, Lane reached in and removed one set of gear. Babcock was long gone.
“Rock portage,” Ben Vincent said ominously. He was a quiet recruit but participated fiercely in everything they did