"Apparently they've found a way to have intercourse."
"Apparently, sir." Sergeant to sergeant, Hawkins had told Fossberg they snuck off to the water heater room, but Fossberg didn't volunteer the information. Though if Mulvaney had asked, he'd have told him.
"Tell Sergeant Hawkins to be alert for any undesirable effects in their hut. The briefing we received on the Jerries was long on generalities but short on details."
"Yessir, Captain."
Fossberg headed for the noncommissioned cadre's latrine. The captain's questions had inspired one of his own. How did a young girl like her, from a primitive fundamentalist planet like New Jerusalem, learn about birth control pills? He decided to ask Recruit Spieler, as circumspectly as he could. These Jerries were turning out to be an interesting experience.
Esau had gotten over having to shepherd his wife to the latrine, though he still hovered watchfully near her in the shower. And as usual, they used adjacent washbowls. This morning while they washed, he murmured to her: "You fell way behind this morning on the run." His tone was accusatory.
"Not till the last," she countered. "When we had to sprint."
"That's what I meant, in the sprint. You embarrassed me."
"I did the best I could." She said it quietly, without apology.
"Your best?" he muttered. "You were way back near the end of 4th Platoon."
She said nothing, and avoided looking at him.
"Let's see if you can do better on the chin-ups this morning."
She didn't answer that, either.
At the head of the mess line were several chinning bars. Each trainee was required to do all the chins he could before going inside to eat, monitored critically by two or more cadre. This time Esau did thirty-nine, and Jael struggled out eleven, with Corporal Fong watching.
"Good work, Recruit Wesley," the corporal said. "That's up from four the first day." The number identified which Wesley he was talking to.
"Thank you, Corporal," she said.
As the couple entered the mess hall, Esau jostled her. "Don't you have any sense of decency?" he hissed.
"What?"
"You know what I mean," he murmured. "Fong telling you `good work.' For eleven puny chin-ups! I did thirty-nine, and he didn't say a thing to me. He wants you to commit adultery with him."
He'd turned his face to her when he said it, and without thinking or speaking, she slugged him in the left eye, almost knocking him down. The 1st cook had been standing with a spatula, serving scrambled eggs, and saw the exchange.
"YOU TWO!" he bellowed, pointing with the spatula. "WHAT'RE YOUR NAMES?"
Esau spoke for them both, glaring at Jael, who stood red-faced but without visible repentence.
"Report to Sergeant Henkel at the orderly room, both of you! Now! And tell him you're not getting back in here till I have his okay. In writing. Now out! OUT!"
They hurried out, aware that everyone in the mess hall had heard and seen their ejection. Esau was about to berate Jael some more, when Lance Corporal Fong called after them.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"The cook just sent us to the orderly room," Esau answered.
Fong pointed at the chinning bars. "You know the orders. Trainees do exit chin-ups when they leave the mess hall."
Esau made no move to comply. "We didn't eat."
Fong's reply was not particularly loud, but it was prompt, and strong with intention. "Recruit, that was backflash. Let's see those chin-ups. Now! And they'd better be good." Esau turned to the bars, pivoting violently enough, it seemed to Fong he almost screwed his boot into the ground. The Jerrie homesteader snapped off forty-two chin-ups this time; the corporal was impressed in spite of himself. Fong had trained with the 4th Terran Infantry, and some of these Jerries were already stronger than most of his buddies had been when they finished their training. And their cadre had been Masadans!
By the time Esau had finished and was free to leave, his wife was out of sight on her way to the orderly room. Her twelve hadn't taken a third as long as his forty-two, and when Esau had finished his chin-ups, Fong had ordered him to do fifty pushups for the backflash.
At the orderly room, Esau found Jael standing before Master Sergeant Gerritt Henkel, who clearly had been waiting for him. "What kept you, recruit?" Henkel asked.
Asked it like a cat, Esau thought, waiting for the mouse to move. He told the master sergeant how many chin-ups he'd done, and about the fifty pushups, not withholding what they'd been for.
The ex-marine looked at the couple appraisingly. "That's quite an eye you've got there, Recruit."
Esau said nothing. He looked like he could chew rocks.
"What happened? I'm asking you, Recruit Esau Wesley."
"My wife was disrespectful, Sergeant. So I upbraided her, and she struck me."
"Disrespectful? Really! And upbraided! My my!" The mockery was thick. "Tell me what you said, as exactly as you can."
Esau did. The sergeant turned his eyes to Jael. "Is that the way you remember it, Recruit Jael Wesley?"
She nodded. "Yes, Sergeant," she said quietly, and Henkel turned again to Esau.
"Where exactly did this happen?"
"In the mess hall, Sergeant. In line, by the tray stack. Then the cook kicked us out without breakfast."
"Um-hmm. You're in 2nd Platoon, right?"
"Yessir."
"Recruit Esau Wesley, go sit in that chair." He pointed. "Recruit Jael Wesley, you sit in that one." He pointed at the opposite end of the row, then turned to the company clerk who'd been watching with half a grin. "Corporal, go tell Sergeant Hawkins what we've got here. This is his problem. For now, anyway."
The clerk left briskly, and was back in five minutes. Hawkins, on the other hand, didn't hurry. He finished his breakfast first. If Henkel had wanted him right away, he'd have said so.
Meanwhile, for the most part Esau avoided looking at his wife. But he was angry. His left eye was swollen half shut. It would be black, too, and everyone would be talking about it. He shot an occasional, resentful glance at Jael, but she never returned it, simply faced straight ahead, her expression stony. It struck him then how pretty she was in profile. And how strong her character, even if she was in the wrong. His anger softened.
When Hawkins arrived, he took them both outside, without berating them at all. "Esau Wesley," he said, "drop down and give me forty. On my count." As Esau got down, Hawkins continued. "Jael Wesley, drop down and give me twenty-five."
"What!?" Esau demanded, looking up. "Me forty and her twenty-five? That's unfair!"
"And that, Recruit Esau Wesley, is backflash," Hawkins said calmly. "Which will cost you. But not now. Later. And for her, twenty-five is as hard as forty is for you. Harder. Now, on my count… "
When they'd finished and stood before him, Hawkins told them their idiocy had cost them breakfast, because they had less than ten minutes before muster. "Report to me at the orderly room this evening, both of you, at 2030 hours. Among other things, I will tell you then what your punishment is. You, Esau Wesley, for repeated backflash. And you, Jael Wesley, for striking another recruit."
Then Hawkins turned and walked away. They needed more than punishment, he told himself, but he wasn't sure what.
From muster, where the trainees gave their cadre twenty-five more pushups, B Company jogged three quarters of a mile to a lecture shed, where they dropped down and did another twenty-five before entering. Then they filed inside and took their seats on wooden benches, benches hard enough, the trainees were less likely to fall asleep, despite their heavy exercise regimen.
The presenter was a major from Division, who stood before them in a clean, pressed field uniform. He also wore a crimson turban, instead of the field caps of the company cadre.
"What you're about to watch on the screen," he began, "is a presentation of regimental and small unit tactics. While you watch it, try to spot just what's going on. The better you understand it, the better fighting men you'll be, and the less likely you'll be killed. Afterward we'll go over it again.