CHAPTER ONE BASIC TRAINING
CHAPTER
ONE
Basic Training
In those first few weeks Benny barely said a word, terrified of being found out. He ate on his own and wouldn’t join in playing cards or dice in the evenings after training. At night he climbed into bed and turned his face to the wall.
At least he slept as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Basic training wiped him out and he finished every single day exhausted.
The army needed to turn a bunch of salesmen, plumbers and factory workers into soldiers, and didn’t have much time to do it.
And even though the papers reported that the US campaign was effective, and that the war would soon be won, the officers walked around with grim expressions and a perpetual sense of urgency.
Benny didn’t much like the marching, but he hated the running.
Running carrying a weapon. Running with a pack.
Running through shallow water. The army couldn’t get enough of making them run.
But worse than the running was the climbing and the crawling.
Before he joined, he’d pictured himself facing down enemy lines, but he hadn’t much considered how he’d get there.
The army had. He’d march and run and crawl and climb.
It was a crawling day when he accepted that, if he wanted to make it through the war, he needed to talk to the other men.
The sergeant had made everyone jog to a field where barbed wire stretched over a mud pit.
They’d dropped to their knees and crab-crawled on their bellies under the barbed wire, through the mud, with the sergeant shouting at them from the sidelines.
Benny panted open-mouthed at the effort and spat out mud that splattered onto his tongue.
To his right, Parker grunted as he moved, and on his left, Adams swore.
When they got nearly halfway, the gunshots started.
Benny’s instinct told him to jump up and run, but the barbed wire cut him as he tried to rise and held him down. Another shot rang out and he flinched, covering his head with his hands, his face dipping into the mud. He lifted free and blew the mud from his nose.
‘You men are going to war,’ the sergeant shouted. ‘That means the enemy will shoot at you. It’s about the only thing I can guarantee you when you get over there. How you act under fire will determine if you live or die.’
He said all this as he shot bullets above their heads.
‘You don’t get up. You don’t stop. You stay low and you keep moving.’
He traded his pistol for an automatic and let the bullets fly. Benny got moving, slithering and grappling, his heart hammering in his chest.
The gunfire made Parker panic. ‘I’ve got to get out, I’ve gotta get out of here.
’ Eyes as wild as a spooked horse, he rose to all fours and tried to stand.
The barbed wire held him down, but he struggled against it, reaching his hand through an opening.
Gunshots exploded overhead and Benny grabbed him, pulling him down.
‘Move, Parker,’ he shouted, tugging him forward. ‘Move, move.’
‘I can’t,’ the man said, but he did when Benny pulled at him, so he kept on pulling.
‘Get your asses out of there,’ the sergeant shouted. ‘Do you think the enemy’s going to stand there watching you crawl away? He’s going to shoot you. You are the target. Move it. Move it.’
Benny flinched with every shot, but he kept moving, tugging Parker along. A few men cried out like they’d been hit. Then Benny felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He screamed and let go of Parker, feeling for the bullet wound. There wasn’t one.
‘It’s just rocks,’ Adams said on his left. He held up a stone beside Benny’s shoulder. ‘Come on, keep moving.’
Benny looked over at the sergeant firing his gun with one hand and throwing stones with the other.
‘If you get hit, you don’t stop and let the enemy finish you off. You go faster and get the hell out of there. A medic will fix you up later. You stop and you’re dead. Move!’
Benny pulled himself forward, on and on, until he got to the other side of the barbed-wire mud patch and collapsed on the ground next to Parker and Adams. The sergeant shot his gun over their heads, and they flattened themselves to the ground.
‘What the hell are you dumb asses doing? They’re trying to kill you. Keep running.’
Benny staggered to his feet and ran, keeping low, pushing himself on.
His chest heaved as he dragged in noisy lungfuls of air, all the while making himself run faster and faster until, with a bullhorn, the sergeant called them all to a halt and sent them back to the barracks.
That night in the mess hall, Benny sat with Adams and Parker.
As the weeks ticked by, as the training got tougher, as they all started to understand what they’d signed up for, a camaraderie formed.
Benny never would have believed he could feel close to a bunch of whites, but knowing that, out there, they’d keep each other alive stripped away all kinds of barriers.
They ran obstacle courses where they scaled walls and jumped from ten feet high. They loaded weapons in the dark and shot while moving. And most of all they learned to obey orders. Directly, quickly and the first time.
That was why, when Cora sent Benny a photograph with her letter and his team leader said, ‘Let me see that,’ Benny handed it over without thinking.
‘Who’s she?’ Harrison asked.
Too late, Benny realized what he’d done. He lunged for the picture, snatched it out of the man’s hand and slid it into his pocket.
‘Woah,’ Harrison said.
Benny held his gaze as sweat pooled under his arms and on his upper lip. The air felt heavy in his lungs and his hair stood up on the back of his neck.
Harrison was from New Hampshire, and a New Hampshire man wouldn’t necessarily see that picture and guess Benny’s secret.
Hell, he might not even know you could look white and still be colored.
But Benny couldn’t explain why he had a colored woman’s picture, and if Harrison told Polk from Texas or Crawley from Alabama, one of them was sure to put two and two together.
Benny’s gut trembled and lurched and his lungs tightened, but Harrison just snorted. ‘Holy shit.’ He grinned stupidly. ‘You like dark meat.’ He threw back his head and barked out a laugh. ‘It’s always the quiet ones,’ he said, shoving Benny’s shoulder.
He walked away, leaving Benny trembling in his army-registered boots, pulling in shaky breaths while his heart jackhammered in his chest so hard, he could hear it in his ears.