Battle Dress Read online

  “YES, SIR!”

  “Then POST!”

  We hurried toward the sally port and waited in single file for our turn to be called forward by the Cadet in the Red Sash.

  I was standing on the dividing line between the sweltering brightness of the quad that the Hollywood Hero had called North Area and the cool dimness of the sally port. A light breeze blew through the tunnel, relieving my sweat-streaked skin.

  The person ahead of me turned around. Another girl! She had short curly hair, and when she leaned toward me, I could see freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.

  “So what do you think?” she whispered.

  I shook my head. I had no words to explain what I was thinking.

  “So ...” An upperclass cadet was standing right beside us, his hands on his hips and a smile on his lips. “You two ladies old friends?”

  We both relaxed. “No, we just met in line,” the girl said.

  “Oh, just getting acquainted, huh? How so very nice,” he said. “It looks like you both are in H Company. Maybe you’ll be roommates.”

  We looked at each other and smiled.

  “There’s only one problem, though, Ladies.” I watched his lips as he talked. Saliva, dried and white, stuck to the corners of his mouth. “I’m in H Company, too.” Then his smile fell into a hard line, and the hard line changed into a huge oval. “WHY ARE YOU TALKING IN MY LINE?”

  Relaxation fled. Muscles stiffened. But somehow we stuttered, “N-n-no excuse, sir!”

  He glared at me. I felt as if he could see right through my eyes and down into my soul. “I SAW YOU GAZING AROUND, BONEHEADS!” His face twisted into an angry scowl. “New cadets are not authorized to gaze around! Keep your greasy little heads and beady little eyes straight ahead.” Then he smirked. “But I’ll indulge you with one last luxury.” He pointed to his name tag. “LOOK! ADMIRE! MEMORIZE!” Five white letters screamed at us out of their shiny black background: DAILY. “Easy to remember, Ladies. Just think of me as your Daily nightmare!” Then he grabbed our tags and read our names out loud: “Davis. Martin.” He glared into our faces. “You better remember me, because believe me, I’ll remember you!”

  Goose bumps sprouted all over my body.

  “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU THINK THIS PLACE IS, LADIES, BUT YOU BETTER LEARN QUICK. THIS AIN’T NO SESAME STREET; THIS IS THE PAIN PALACE. AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, I WILL PERSONALLY ESCORT YOU OUT THE FRONT GATE!” And with that, he was gone.

  The girl turned around. I kept my eyes fixed on the back of her head. I did not think of anything until it was my turn on the chopping block.

  “DROP YOUR BAG!” the Cadet in the Red Sash roared as I approached him.

  I placed my red duffel bag on the ground.

  He looked at me as if I were covered in vomit. “You will perform all tasks in a military manner, Miss! Now ... PICK IT UP!”

  I reached down and picked it up.

  “DROP YOUR BAG!”

  I dropped it—clunk!—and winced, thinking of the clarinet inside that my mother made me bring.

  “Miss, you will immediately execute at my command. PICK UP YOUR BAG!”

  The shouts in the sally port were deafening. I could hear bags dropping to my left and right. I wasn’t the only new cadet playing hot potato with my bag.

  “Now, New Cadet, drop your bag and report.”

  I dropped it and shouted, “Sir, uh, New Cadet Davis, um, is reporting ... I mean, reports to the Cadet in the Red Sash on order!” I winced. “As ordered.” I held my breath, then squeaked, “Sir.”

  I watched him, waiting for his wrath to erupt. He was taller than anyone in the sally port, I was certain. The features of his face were smooth, almost comforting, like hot chocolate on a snowy day.

  “Not bad,” he said. “You forgot to salute. Try it again.”

  I stared at him. A second chance?

  “I say again, New Cadet, you forgot to salute.”

  I flung my hand in the direction of my temple, as the Hollywood Hero had shown me, and shouted, “Sir, New Cadet Davis ... reports ... to the Cadet in the Red Sash as ordered!”

  He nodded and saluted back. “Drop your salute after you see me drop mine, New Cadet.” His arm fell to his side, so I copied him.

  Simon Says. Kindergarten after all.

  He inspected my tags and said, “New Cadet Davis, you are assigned to Cadet Basic Training Company H. On my command you will enter the doorway to my right—your left. Take the stairs to the third floor. There you will report to the First Sergeant of H Company. Do you understand, New Cadet Davis?”

  I’d figure it out. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Post!”

  I grabbed my bag and took off for the stairwell. That wasn’t so bad!

  “MISS, HALT!”

  Oh, no! What now? I stopped and turned around. “Yes, sir!”

  “You forgot to salute. Post on back here and try it again.”

  “Yes, sir!” I retraced my steps, stood in front of him, and dropped my bag at my feet. I raised my shaking right hand to my throbbing temple.

  “Did I tell you to drop your bag, New Cadet?”

  “No, sir.” Way to go, Andi.

  “Initiative is not invited here during Beast, New Cadet.”

  Beast? Is that what they call this? The name was perfect.

  “You’d best do only as you are told.” He raised his hand, and as I waited for him to drop it, I could’ve sworn that his left eyelid fluttered, ever so briefly, before he said, “Pretty weak salute there, New Cadet. POST!” My hand fell with his, and snatching my bag, I fled for the stairs.

  Did the Cadet in the Red Sash actually wink at me?

  10:51 A.M.

  A howl as harsh as the winter wind greeted me as I entered the stairwell. Another cadet. “Neck back, Smack! Take the steps one at a time. Keep your forearms parallel to the ground. At all times when indoors, you will slither along the wall like a snake. I don’t want your stinking carcass anywhere near me! And move out! Got that, Smack?”

  “Yes, sir!” I yelled, trying to obey these complicated orders while following the stinking carcass ahead of me. Then he tripped on one of the steps, and the weight of the bag slung over his shoulder threw him backward. He grabbed the railing. I shoved my bag into his back to help him stay up.

  “WHO’S THAT SPAZZING AROUND IN MY STAIRWELL?” growled another voice from the first landing above us. I pulled my bag back. The voice’s owner, a stocky cadet, looked like a troll who had just crawled out from under some bridge. He bounded down the stairs and bellowed at the sprawled new cadet, “You, Bean Smack! Knucklehead! Trying to take out a classmate?”

  “No, sir!”

  “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, NEW CADET!” he yelled. The new cadet struggled to his feet. “Listen, Bonehead, take the steps one at a time and move out in a military manner, keeping your forearms parallel to the ground. And stay on that wall. Now get outa here!”

  “Yes, sir!” he answered, and started pounding up the stairs with his arms straight out in front, looking like Frankenstein’s monster on a homicidal rampage.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing. He said forearms, not arms!

  The Troll stepped in front of me. “Are you laughing at your classmate, Miss? You find this amusing? Do you think you are better than he is?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Wipe that nasty smirk off your face. You make me sick! Do you actually think that you’re going to somehow make it through this place on your own? That you’re gonna skate by without making any mistakes? From what I’ve heard, you’ve made plenty of mistakes already!” He snorted. “You’ll probably be the first to go. At least this guy here is trying.” He thrust his face into mine and whispered, “Personally, Miss, I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to make it here.”

  His words, so similar to my mother’s, cut into me, making me flinch. I swallowed.

  “Hell-o! Are you having a brain cramp, or are you just stupid?”

  What did he want me to do? “N-no, sir. I—”

  “No, you’re not having a brain cramp? Or no, you’re not stupid?”

  I felt trapped. “S-s-sir, I—”

  The Troll shook his head with disgust. “Just get your sorry, unmilitary mass out of my AO. POST!”

  “Yes, sir!” I yelled. I didn’t want to catch any more of the kind of abuse he was dishing out.

  He stepped aside to let me pass. I charged up the stairs and made it to the third floor unscathed. On the landing I hesitated. Now what? Oh—what did the Cadet in the Red Sash say? I chanced a quick look to my left, then right. Thank God. No cadets were around right then. But the stairwell was anything but quiet. Come on—left or right? The door to my left was wide open, so I hurried through it and was confronted with a long hallway. Closed doors lined one side. The other side, the side I was on, was bare. Loud voices filled the hall, coming from a mob at its far end. On instinct, I moved along the wall in the direction of the noise until the mob—a long line of stuttering new cadets—blocked my way. Shouting upperclass cadets swarmed around them like bargain hunters at an after-Christmas sale.

  “Stay on that wall!”

  “Do not speak unless spoken to!”

  “No gazing around! You thinking of buying this place?”

  The reason for the traffic jam became clear as the loudest cadet of them all shouted, “Get your beady eyes offa me and memorize that sign, Smacks! Gawk at it like it’s your best friend’s girlfriend!”

  I had a sudden urge to run, to escape this nightmarish place. But where would I go? So I just looked over the heads in front of me at the white sign hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the hall and mouthed the words spelled out in black letters: “(Salute) Sir, New Cadet _ reports to the First Sergeant of Hotel Co
mpany, Cadet Basic Training, for the first time as ordered.”

  And then I remembered what the Cadet in the Red Sash had said my next task would be—to report to the First Sergeant of H Company.

  A cadet yanked me from my spot on the wall as I was memorizing the sign and shoved me toward a closed door. “Did you understand the sign, Smack?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Good. Knock three times. Wait until the First Sergeant tells you to enter, and report. And leave your bag outside. Got that, Smack?”

  “Yes, sir!” Knock three times. Leave the bag.

  I knocked three times. Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “ENTER!” boomed a voice from behind the door.

  I opened the door and peeked inside.

  “WHO ARE YOU?” screamed the red-faced cadet, with hair the color of peach fuzz, sitting behind a desk. “LITTLE BO-PEEP?” He glared at me from behind gold, wire-framed glasses and hissed, “When I say, ‘Enter,’ you will walk into the room with a sense of purpose, stop three paces from my desk, and report. NOW GET OUT OF HERE AND TRY IT AGAIN!”

  I fled through the door, pulling it shut behind me, and knocked three times again, louder this time.

  “ENTER!”

  I marched up to his desk, saluted, and yelled, “Sir, New Cadet Davis reports to the First Sergeant of Hotel Company, Cadet Basic Training, for the first time as ordered!” Whew!

  He stared at me for what seemed like two and a half days. A clock ticked somewhere in the room. My grand-parents collected clocks, and when I slept at their house, the clocks all over the house joined together to lull me to sleep with their gentle ticking. The sound didn’t fit in this sweltering, inhospitable place.

  The First Sergeant finally saluted in slow motion and whispered, “Are you scared, New Cadet?”

  Am I scared? My stomach was trying to pass for a pretzel and my mouth for a desert. But no way would I tell him that. “No, sir!”

  He slowly lifted himself up, slammed his chair against the wall behind him, leaned over the desk, and whispered, “Oh yeah? You sure look scared, New Cadet.” I felt my lip tremble and bit it quick to make it quit. His eyes narrowed. “Your momma’s waiting for you outside. Want to go home?”

  That was probably the best thing he could have said to me. If he had made me a different offer—any other offer—I might have taken him up on it. But the thought of getting back into that blue station wagon, back to 202 Lincoln Drive a quitter, back to my mother’s I-told-you-sos—no, anyplace but home. I clenched my fists and shouted, “NO, SIR!”

  He studied me thoughtfully. Then he reached under his desk, retrieved a green book, and slammed it on his desk. I jumped.

  He snickered, then roared, “SIGN IN, SMACKHEAD! Name. Date. Time. Class.”

  “Yes, sir.” I staggered up to his desk and took his pen.

  “Left-handed, huh? That’s just another strike against you, Smack.”

  My hand shook as I began my name. D, a, scratch, scratch. I gulped. The pen wouldn’t write.

  “Get your nasty elbow off my desk, Grub Ball! I don’t want your arm hairs touching my desk again!”

  I tried again. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Nothing.

  “WHAT’S YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION, BONEHEAD? YOU TRYING TO GROW A BRAIN?”

  “Sir, I ... this ... this p-p-pen is, um—” I looked up at him.

  His hand shot down, grabbed the pen out of my hand, and threw it against the wall. “YOU ARE TRYING MY PATIENCE, MISS!” He slammed another pen down on the desk. “WRITE!”

  My shaking fingers formed the correct letters. Davis, Andrea. June 28, 2004. I looked at my watch. 11:09. I could feel his eyes drilling into my head. Class—2004.

  The First Sergeant spun the book around. Then his head sprang up, fire dancing behind the wire-framed glasses, spreading to his cheeks, his ears, down his neck. “WHAT?” I had never heard anyone yell so loud in my life. “WHAT IS THAT, MISS?” He cursed, making my mother’s angry words sound like the sentimental mush on Hallmark cards. He jabbed his finger up and down onto the book until I thought only a hole would remain where my “2004” was written.

  He leaned over the desk until his wire-framed face was so close to mine that I could smell his breakfast—eggs and coffee—as he hissed, “Six weeks ago one thousand men and women sat in Michie Stadium, ending four long years of sleepless nights, grueling days, area tours, Cow English, baked scrod, CORs, the IOC, and Juice PRs!”

  I bit my lip. What in the world is he talking about?

  “They gave their sweat, blood, and tears to earn the right to be called the Class of 2004. DO YOU DARE EQUATE YOURSELF TO THEM?”

  “N-n-n-no, sir,” I croaked, clutching at the fabric of my shorts.

  He snatched the pen from off his desk where I had left it and with bold strokes crossed out the “2004” and scrawled “2008” in its place. Then he turned his eyes onto a pile of papers on his desk. “New Cadet Davis, you are in Third Squad, Third Platoon. Room 305. Your squad leader is Cadet Daily.”

  My body went cold. I remembered Cadet Daily. And he said he’d remember me, too.

  The First Sergeant looked at me again and yelled, “WHAT SQUAD, MAGGOT?”

  Somehow my vocal cords defrosted enough for me to shout, “Sir, I am in Third Squad, Third Platoon.” Whatever that is.

  The whites of his eyes became my whole world. “Are you scared now, New Cadet?” he whispered.

  “NO, SIR!” I shouted, my voice shaking like I had been injected with fifty shots of espresso.

  “Only fools don’t fear the enemy, New Cadet,” he said. “And I’m the enemy.” My eyes followed his finger to his name tag. The white letters S-T-O-C-K-E-L, etched into the black plastic, seemed to mock me. Cadet Stockel opened his mouth and bellowed, “POST!”

  I flew out the door, where the next victim was already waiting.

  “Report to your room, New Cadet,” I heard some other upperclass cadet say to me, “and deposit your gear. Then report back to the Cadet in the Red Sash. And no gazing around! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” I said. I sped along the bare wall, away from the growing throng of new cadets mouthing the words on the sign. I tried to catch the room numbers out of the corner of my eye as I passed door after closed door on the opposite side of the hall. Random thoughts whipped through my mind. Sir, I am in Third Squad, Third Platoon. Room 305. The First Sergeant is my enemy. Cadet Daily is my squad leader. The Cadet in the Red Sash winked at me, and I look like I’m scared. I am a dirtbag, a bonehead, a stupid, pea-brained, stinking-carcassed knucklehead. I dared to equate myself to the Class of 2004. I have Four Responses. My name is Davis. I slither like a snake.

  Room 305. I crossed the hall and opened a solid oak door. No locks, no keys. I shut out the clamor of the hallway, dropped my bag, and leaned against the door. I squeezed my eyes shut and took deep breath after deep breath until I finally stopped shaking.

  CHAPTER 3

  MONDAY, JUNE 28 11:13 A.M.

  War is hell.

  —GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, WEST POINT CLASS OF 1840

  If General Sherman’s definition be right,

  West Point is war.

  —GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON, JR.,

  WEST POINT CLASS OF 1909 (IN A LETTER WRITTEN

  HOME WHILE HE WAS A PLEBE AT WEST POINT)

  IOPENED MY EYES to four windows and a window ledge over a radiator. Two desks, two vinyl armchairs, and two single beds, completely covered with Army equipment, mirrored each other on opposite sides of the room. A waist-high dresser, two wooden closets, and a sink with two mirrored medicine cabinets above it completed the room.

  The name tag DAVIS, stuck on the corner of one desk, drew me to the left-hand side of the room. A piece of paper on the desk told me to take ten minutes to relax and get a drink of water before heading out again. It was signed by Cadet William F. Haywood, H Company Commander. It wasn’t exactly a “We hope you enjoy your stay” card with a red-and-white peppermint candy beside it, but it was the only West Point welcome I had gotten today.

  The tag on the other desk read QUINN. New Cadet Quinn. My roommate. She hadn’t arrived yet. I wondered what she looked like, where she was from. What her first name was. Would she want to talk to me as much as I wanted to talk to her?