Afterward the major took questions, almost all of them from the cadre. That went on till it was time to leave for lunch. Outside, the trainees gave their cadre a quick twenty-five, then double-timed briskly in a column of fours to the company area, where there was just time for another twenty-five and to wash up before their noon meal-broiled ground beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, crisp green beans, bread and butter with apple sauce, rich bread pudding, and coffee.
The 1st cook didn't say a word to Esau and Jael, and they said nothing to each other. They simply ate as if they hadn't eaten for a day. Actually it had been eighteen hours.
After the noon meal and the break that followed, the company mustered, did pushups, then jogged to the regiment's physical training area. 2nd Platoon began its workout on "the log yard." Each five-man fire team had its own log, which massed roughly two hundred and fifty pounds, Terran. Working together, they lifted it to their collective right shoulders, then to arms' length overhead, then down onto their left shoulders, and back onto the ground. From there they repeated the sequence in \reverse, and again, and again, until they had to fight it up. Esau was the leader of his five-man fire team, a team that unfortunately included not only Jael, but Isaiah Vernon, two of the weakest in the platoon. Esau had put himself in the middle, between Jael and Isaiah, to make up for their lack of strength. Before they were done, he was gritting his teeth, partly from exhaustion, partly exasperation.
That done, they did twenty-five pushups. Then, driven by barking second-tier cadre, they ran hard to the chin-up bars, a bar per man, where they alternated between sets of ten chin-ups, fifteen pushups, and thirty side-straddle hops, each exercise serving as rest from the one before. After six rounds of those, they jogged to the obstacle course and ran it, climbing walls on knotted ropes, shinnying up rough-textured poles, vaulting or bellying over low fences, crawling through culverts, and ending with a hard, sixty-yard sprint.
They finished on what the Terran trainees had termed "the junkyard." The name had been passed on by the second-tier cadre. It had rows of stout iron pipes, the ends of which had been stuck in tins of concrete before it hardened. Each crude barbell massed roughly seventy pounds Terran, hefting about eighty-eight on Luneburger's World. The exercises were led by a husky second-tier cadreman, a corporal, who'd finished twenty-six weeks of training only three weeks earlier, and was in superb condition. Mostly they did high repetition cleans and jerks. To rest between sets, they lay on the ground and did leg raises, pushups, and situps.
They'd been in the PT area every day since they'd been at Camp Mudhole (which so far had been more of a dust hole), but never had they been pushed as they were this day. It was in the junkyard that Isaiah Vernon collapsed in the sun. Two cadremen helped him into the shade until an ambulance arrived.
From the PT area, the company ran to "the pond"-a long, dozed-out depression covered with a foot of sand, then flooded by damming a creek. It was new to them. They ran toward it at a good lope, waiting for their cadre to halt them. No one did, and to their own astonishment, the trainees ran fully clothed into the water. Only when the last of them was in did Fossberg bellow "COMPANY HALT! REST!"
For the next twenty minutes they sported in the water. There was a lot of laughter, splashing, wrestling, some holding under, and a few brief fistfights that were broken up by cadre. When it was over, there were no pushups. Instead they marched back to the company area in their soggy boots and socks, the clothes drying on their bodies. They were even dismissed without further pushups.
They changed clothes before supper, which was preceded and followed by the usual chin-ups. At 1845 hours they mustered again, and marched to a lecture shed where they viewed another cube. This one was an assemblage of preinvasion scenes from worlds since captured by the invaders. Presumably the people shown, those who'd declined evacuation, were dead now. The trainees left more soberly than usual.
Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh, Ensign Erik Berg Singh, and Sergeant First Class Arjan Hawkins Singh didn't go with them. They were in Mulvaney's office, discussing the case of Recruit Isaiah Vernon, and whether they'd cranked up the physical demands on the trainees too rapidly. War House wanted them pushed hard, and Division had provided guidelines and schedules, but the company cadre retained considerable latitude. Berg pointed out that most of the trainees were meeting the demands very well. They were not only heavyworlders, and young; they'd also worked at farming or other heavy labor. And Hawkins pointed out that the amount of running would soon stabilize. At midweek they'd be issued weapons and pack frames, and march to more distant field locations, carrying sandbags on the march.
They were interrupted by the Charge of Quarters knocking on the door. "Recruit Isaiah Vernon is here, Captain. They just brought him back from the infirmary."
"Good," Mulvaney answered. "Just a minute." He looked at the others. "I'll have him sent in, and question him. It may cast light on the subject." He looked toward the CQ. "Send him in, Corporal."
The CQ ushered a subdued Isaiah Vernon into the room, then closed the door behind him. The commanding officer looked the trainee over. "At ease, Vernon," Mulvaney said. "Let me see your medical release."
Vernon stepped over and handed a sheet of paper to him. Mulvaney scanned it. "Simple exhaustion," he read, and looked up at the young Jerrie. "Not heat exhaustion. Good." He paused, holding the youth with his eyes. "You've been having a harder time of it than the others. Tell me about that."
Vernon didn't hesitate. "The others-lived differently back home than I did," he said. "My father's a speaker of the books, and I was to be one, too. So when other boys were working in the field or the woods with their fathers, or in the tannery or sawmill or whatever, I studied scripture. Instead of lifting and carrying, grubbing stumps and ditching swales, I read and memorized. I did barn chores and cut and brought in firewood, but that was about it. And I never cared much for games or footraces or wrestling. So I wasn't properly ready for training to be a soldier."
The frown had left Mulvaney's eyes. "I see," he said thoughtfully, then made a decision. The abler trainees shouldn't be held back for the least able. "Recruit Vernon, I'll see about getting you transferred to administrative duties in Regiment or Division. Meanwhile-"
Remarkably the young man interrupted. "Sir?"
Mulvaney frowned. "What is it, Recruit?"
"Sir, I can do this training. I can! I quit this afternoon. I just up and quit! I could have kept on. I thought I couldn't, but really I could have. I know that now. I'm learning that when I feel like I haven't got anything left, I've still got a little. And I'm getting tougher and stronger every day."
Mulvaney glanced at Berg and Hawkins, then looked back at the Jerrie. "Very well, Recruit Vernon, I'll leave things as they stand, and give you a chance to show what you can do." He handed the paper back to the young man. "Give this to Corporal Rodin." He paused. "I presume they fed you supper at the infirmary?"
"Yessir."
"Good. The company is at Lecture Shed Four. Do you know where that is?"