Recruit, Jonathan Brazee [which ebook reader .txt] 📗

Chapter 7

Ryck strapped on his armor.  Not the body armor they would be issued at the end of Phase 2, but plastic armor, gloves, and a helmet that looked like some old-time football gear.  This was pugil stick training, what some said was the highlight of Phase 1. 

Ryck wouldn’t call it the highlight, himself.  What was next?  Jousting?  Sword fighting?  He thought that in today’s Marine Corps, the weapons were just slightly more advanced than smacking each other with padded sticks.  It didn’t matter what Ryck thought, though.  For the Drill Instructors, this was life and death.  Competition between squads, platoons, and companies was the very lifeblood of the DIs.  Each unit had to do better than the rest, and the DIs held their recruits’ victories over each other.  The pugil stick tournament was the first major competition within the company, and all the DIs were anxious for an early victory.

They’d been introduced to the sticks in the morning session.  There was actually some technique involved, but from the undercurrent being discussed, the actual bouts were more like two recruits simply trying to bash out each other’s brains.

Now, after chow and after a class on first aid, which Ryck thought was appropriate just prior to the tourney, it was time to have at it.  It was First Squad against Second, and Third against Fourth.  The final platoon winners would go up against the other platoon champ in a death match at the end of Phase 1. 

Ryck figured he would be matched against Raj Simperson, the Third Squad leader, but the DIs chose No Initial as his first opponent.  Ryck’s first reaction was why me?  No Initial was huge, but then as he thought about it, Ryck figured this would be a way for him to shine.  Ryck already knew that No Initial didn’t have stamina and that he was slow.  All Ryck would have to do would be to dance around, darting in and out, landing what blows he could until the big guy from Craxion 4 tired.

With his gear on and checked by Drill Instructor Lorenz, Ryck joined the rest of the squad around the huge sawdust-filled circle just to the east of the obstacle course.  The circle was only used for pugil stick training. A recruit would think this was sacred ground. Woe and behold any recruit who happened to try and walk across it.  That had happened to Hodges when he was told to go back to the start of the obstacle course back on T4, or “Training Day 4,” and what happened to him was something Ryck never wanted to see again.  He thought Hodges was going to DOR right there, but somehow, the guy had stuck through his “motivational training.”

First Squad and Second were going at it.  Some bouts were quick, some took time.  Du Boc, a smaller recruit from Harmony, and Graeme Styles, a heavy-worlder from Rio Tinto, had an epic battle, with all the recruits and drill instructors cheering.  Du was quicker than the stockier Graeme, and he kept up a tremendous flurry of blows that the heavy-worlder absorbed as he tracked down his lighter opponent.  Heavy-worlder or not, though, Du was getting through, staggering Graeme twice.  Finally, as Du darted in for another shot, Graeme connected, almost sending Du down.  Somehow, Du stayed up as Graeme waded in.  Several blows hit Du from each side, yet he would just not give up.  His helmet was knocked askew, blinding him.  Graeme lunged forward to take advantage of it, but Du lashed out with a wild roundhouse swing, going yard.  Somehow, he connected against Graeme’s head, and the Rio Tinto recruit almost went down. 

The rest of the recruits, even those in Third and Fourth Squads, were going crazy.  Just to his right, the Second Squad “coach,” Drill Instructor Mendez, was in full apoplectic fit mode, screaming as it looked that Du might pull it out.

The recruits wore big, bulky gloves while fighting, and these gloves fit through the padding on the sticks to allow a combatant to get a firm grip.  It was considered a coward’s loss to drop a pugil stick, akin to a Spartan coming home without his shield, so the gloves and handhold made it easier to hang on, almost locking the hand in place.  This didn’t make the gloves very useful for anything else though, and when Du removed one hand to try and twist his helmet back so he could see again, he couldn’t get a good grasp on it.

When Graeme’s next blow hit him, it smashed through Du’s hand and lifted the taller, but lighter recruit up right off his feet to crash down in the sawdust.  Lying flat on his back, Du weakly lifted his left hand, which had somehow still retained its grip on his pugil stick.  This was no coward’s loss.

Graeme strode forward, and for a moment, Ryck thought the guy was still in attack mode.  When the bloodlust was up, anything could happen, and more than once, DIs had to wade in to separate fighters.  Graeme was a heavy-worlder, too, and while Ryck had never really known one, he knew their reputation as undisciplined brawlers.  He was surprised, then, when Graeme merely bent over to help Du to his feet.  Graeme even held up Du’s arm in the victor pose.  The senior moved into the ring and held up both of their arms.  Winning was drilled into each recruit’s head, but it seemed that even in losing, Du had gained the DIs’ respect.

Despite himself, Ryck could feel his own competitive blood boil.  This might be antiquated, it might be useless, but Ryck was getting psyched.  He wondered what his chances were to emerge as the platoon champ.  He was already a squad leader, but that was assigned to him.  Platoon pugil stick champ would be earned.

When First and Second completed the first round, the winners were all taken to the side where they would await the winners between Third and Fourth.  Due to drops, the squads were not even, so two recruits from First had joined Third for their first bout.  If they won though, it would still be a First Squad win.

Drill Instructor Lorenz gathered them all around before they started their bouts.

“I can give you an ‘oorah’ speech, but frankly, if it isn’t in you, then I’m not going implant it into your heart with a 30-second speech.  This, recruits, is up to you.  No one else.  Yeah, I want you to win, because I’d love to stick it in Drill Instructor Temperance,” he said, holding one hand up as if it was on back of the neck of someone, then taking his right and driving it up as if thrusting a knife, then twisting it back and forth.  “If you lose, you’re going to wish you hadn’t, I promise you.  But that’s not why you want to win.  You should need to win because you’re the baddest, meanest motherfuckers around, and you want the world to know it.”

He looked around at the 18 of the recruits in turn, catching each one of them eye-to eye, before saying, “OK, bring it in.  On three.  One, two three!”

“Fourth Squad, 1044!  We bring it!” they shouted almost in unison.

Then it was time.  Despite himself, Ryck forgot about his previously-held notion that pugil stick bouts were a waste of time. He jumped up and down, shaking out his arms, feeling the aggressor in him surface.  He was going to kick some grubbing ass!  He didn’t lose that when the first two recruits in Fourth Squad fell quick victim to their Third Squad opponents.  He was going to break that trend.

“So what are you going to do, Recruit Lysander?” Drill Instructor Lorenz asked him as he gave Ryck’s equipment one last check.

“He ain’t nothing but a grub, Drill Instructor.  He can’t even