第18页
“I am Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” the uniformed man next to John shouted. “The rest of these men areyour instructors. You will do exactly as we tell you at all times.”
Mendez pointed to the far end of the cinderblock barracks. “Showers are aft. You will all wash and thenreturn here to dress.” He opened a trunk at the foot of John’s cot and pulled out a matching set of graysweats.
----------------------- Page 35-----------------------
John leaned closer and saw his name stenciled on the chest: JOHN-117.
“No slacking. On the double!” Mendez tapped John between his shoulder blades with the baton.
Lightning surged across John’s chest. He sprawled on the cot and gasped for breath.
“I mean it! Go Go GO!”
John moved. He couldn’t inhale—but he ran anyway, clutching his chest. He managed a ragged breathby the time he got to the showers. The other kids looked scared and disoriented. They all stripped offtheir nightshirts and stepped onto the conveyor, washed themselves in lukewarm soapy water, thenrinsed in an icy cold spray.
He ran back to his bunk, got into underwear, thick socks, pulled on the sweats and a pair of combatboots that fit his feet perfectly.
“Outside, trainees,” Mendez announced. “Triple time . . .march! ”
John and the others stampeded out of the barracks onto a strip of grass.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the edge of the sky was indigo. The grass was wet with dew. There weredozens of rows of barracks, but no one else was up and outside. A pair of jets roared overhead and arcedup into the sky. Far away, John heard a metallic crackle.
Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked, “You will make five equal-length rows. Fifteen trainees in each.”He waited a few seconds as they milled about. “Straighten those rows. You know how to count tofifteen, trainee? Take three steps back.”
John stepped into the second row.
As he breathed the cold air he began to wake up. He started to remember. They had taken him in themiddle of the night. They injected him with something and he slept for a long time. Then the womanwho had given him the coin told him he couldn’t go back. That he wouldn’t see his mother or father—
“Jumping jacks!” Mendez shouted. “Count off to one hundred. Ready, go.” The officer started theexercise and John followed his lead.
One boy refused—for a split-second. An instructor was on him instantly. The baton whipped into theboy’s stomach. The kid doubled over. “Get with the program, boot,” the trainer snarled. The boyuncurled and started jumping.
----------------------- Page 36-----------------------
John had never done so many jumping jacks in his life. His arms and stomach and legs burned. Sweattrickled down his back.
“Ninety-eight—99—100.” Mendez paused. He drew in a deep breath. “Sit-ups!” He dropped onto thegrass. “Count off to one hundred. No slacking.”
John threw himself on the ground.
“The first crewmen who quits,” Mendez said, “gets to run around the compound twice—and then comesback here and does two hundred sit ups. Ready . . . count off! One . . . two . . . three. . . .”