VIII. A Little Hart

Fort Benning, Georgia.

February 18, 1984.

I started to think of my training as a test after a week had gone by. It was something I had to survive to prove I was strong enough to leave home. Harley and Gordon disappeared after gas mask training, Turner, Blue, and Andrews made it halfway to the end of a muddy obstacle course, and then their bunks were cleared out. One by one the weak lost points, failed, or cracked. Late at night I could hear them talking to their bunkmates about how tired they were, how much they wanted to go home, how their minds had changed and they wanted to leave.

Ford turned onto a massive shoulder one night and sighed to himself, "You know, when people quit in the middle of basic, they don't get to go home. They get put in holding, so the army can figure out what to do with them. If they just stayed they would probably get home faster."

I had spent a whole week with Ford, always jogging by his side, racing him through small obstacle courses, trying to do more push-ups than he did – and failing. I got used to his pock-marked face, to that terrible smell he gave off after a long run, and to that southern drawl. He spoke softer than most boys, thoughtful, even though he seemed a little dim to me at first. What I liked most about him was how little he talked. We could go a whole day saying nothing to each other.

Ford talked the most at night, if he was going to talk at all. He knew a lot about the military and he gave me pointers relevant to whatever we had done that day. He made me tuck in my legs to do sit-ups, and stop flapping my arms so much, and to turn my wrists when I did push-ups. He knew the secret to the perfect suicides, and when it came to jogging, he was the king.

"Focus on the legs in front of you, and match their pace," he would say, sitting up to hold his hands out and demonstrate exactly which way I should face. "No more, no less."

He laughed when I told him why I had a lot of stamina during our runs. When I was little and Dad was on a bender, I would lead him around the neighborhood for hours to entertain myself. Ford had his reasons, too. His family raised pigs and he was the one responsible for chasing them down when they busted through the fence.

It was our second Saturday at the base, one week since we started, when they carted us off into the country and delivered us to a heavy green fence. It was impossible to see over and military personnel checked us at the gate.

Ford leaned over and said, "Obstacle course."

He was right. We rolled into a massive dirt field dotted with obstacles. One of the walls looked fifty feet high, with hand holds and no safety net. There were low barbed wire nets with ridges of mud beneath them, sandy tracks with lanes made of tires, and climbing bars with muddy moats beneath them to mark anyone who slipped off the bars.

McKinney was waiting for us when we got off the bus. He looked over us all, giving me and a few others a serious look. I looked away, focusing on the ground. I had been one of the people to cry and vomit outside of the gas chamber, but unlike Harley and Gordon I got back up. McKinney had screamed in my face for a solid five minutes, asking me if I wanted to be a soldier or a coward, and I responded soldier every time. He put me back in line, slapped me on the back, and moved on to berate the recruits who were still on their knees.

"We've lost seven recruits in seven days," McKinney began, eerily, walking back and forth along the lines of Echo Company with his arms folded in the small of his back. "I want you all to look at this course behind me and decide now if you're man enough to take it on."

Silence.

"You will not be allowed to stop until you and your partner cross that finish line, or until time is called at five," – it was dawn, and those words were an ominous threat – "This is the jungle in Taiwan. This is the swamp in Egypt. This is a rocky hill in Tanzania. Use your strength, use your head, and keep my uniforms out of the mud. Do you understand?"

Like a chorus of trained birds, we responded, "Yes, drill sergeant."

"Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

"Let it destroy you!"

His voice came again, louder, "Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

"Let it destroy you!"

We were lined up in pairs at the far side of the field. It should have been random, but Sergeant Tully walked his favorite recruit, Hart, over to me and patted both our shoulders. Ever since he saw him shiver that first morning at the leader-reaction course, Tully had taken a special interest in the skinniest, shakiest recruit. I suppressed a groan at the sight of him.

Hart was the opposite of Ford in every way. He was smart, he babbled, and he was suspiciously small for his age. He looked like he was built completely of bird bones.

"Today is not about time, but completion," McKinney went on. "Stick to your partner. We do not leave any man behind. You are all brothers now."

I would have rather gone through the course with Nate.

When the foghorn went off, I sprinted for the first obstacle – a massive slanted wooden climbing board with ropes slung across it to use for balance. It was inclined at a hard angle, but my boots got a good grip on the grainy wood and I was able to hunch and run straight to the top. I jumped the ropes like they were snakes. It was the easiest obstacles and everyone else was doing the same as me, except my partner.

Hart was struggling on one knee, near the middle of the obstacle, having run up part of the way and then fallen down. He gripped the ropes and tried to pull himself up instead.

"Go back down and run up!" I shouted.

He looked up, squinted, and slid backwards until his boot was back on the ground. This time he got a running start, made it halfway up again, and got his foot caught in a rope. He flipped, fell a little ways, and hung there like he was on display.

Laughter erupted from the recruits lingering on the top to watch the show.

I covered my eyes for a second to black out the world and cull my temper. Tully must have had it out for me, to make me partner up with this unbalanced chicken.

"Sorry, Westen," Hart called up. He was red all over.

I grabbed a rope and walked down to him, taking him roughly by the arm and yanking him to his feet. He was light, almost the same weight as Nate. "Step over the ropes this time."

"You're supposed to climb it," Hart grumbled.

His calves were as skinny as his biceps, but I kept my comments to myself. It was cold and the other recruits were way ahead of us by now. Ford had probably already started the last obstacle, as quick as he was. If we had been partnered up we would have made it to the end by now.

Hart grabbed a rope, following my lead, and hunched over like an awkward turtle. I saw the disaster before it happened and stayed at the bottom. Hart shuffled toward the top, hit another rope, tripped, and rolled back down, giving a big oomph as he landed on his back in the dirt.

Tully noticed our struggle and came over to us, "Wall too steep for you, recruit?"

"No, I just tripped," Hart responded, hopping back up and dusting himself off.

"Put your weight forward, and grab a rope for balance," Tully advised.

Hart tried again, looking more like a mountain climber this time. He tripped, but recovered, and made it three-quarters to the top before he went down on one knee – hard – and tried to climb up like the wall was sheer. I had to look away to keep myself from laughing.

"Westen!" McKinney beckoned me from the shade of the climbing wall. When I was close enough, he whacked me on the shoulder, "What did you not understand about no man left behind?"

His tone pinched a nerve, and anger boiled up in my stomach, "I was waiting."

"You were laughing at him."

That struck me. Was I supposed to be his partner, or his babysitter? "Come on, sergeant, he can't even climb a wall with no gear on."

"Did he cry like a little girl after the gas mask training?"

I examined the ground again. "No…"

"Did he quit, like the other seven?"

"No."

"No, what?"

"No, drill sergeant."

"Hart is here to become a soldier, like all the other boys busting their assess every day. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter why you came, or what shape you came in, it matters that you're brothers. When the bullets start flying, you're brothers." McKinney struck me in the middle of the chest with surprising strength, making me stagger backwards. "Now go and be his brother."

Groaning would have gotten me smacked again, so I closed my mouth tightly and went back to the base of the obstacle. Hart was still trying and failing despite the advice Tully gave him. Watching him felt like watching an injured lamb limp across a busy highway. He had no business here, and one day his weakness was going to get someone killed. He was holding me back. He was making me look like an idiot in front of two sergeants.

But when I thought about confronting him, telling him what I thought, it reminded me of how my dad used to go after Nate. He thought he was too small, thought he was too skinny. Just the thought of having anything in common with Dad quelled my rage.

There was only one way Hart was getting up that wall, and it wasn't yelling at him.

I sized him up, angled myself sideways, and picked him up. Hart gave a startled cry and squirmed as I laid him lengthwise across my shoulders. Without pausing, I ran up the wall. His weight was nothing. I had carried Nate like that a hundred times. The incline set my calves on fire, but the satisfaction when I reached the top canceled it out.

I dropped him unceremoniously, panting.

Hart got up, dusted himself off again, and cleared his throat. "Warn me next time."

I nodded and patted him on the shoulder. The next obstacle was worse – ropes hanging from poles that you had to swing across like a money. The other side was over fifteen feet away, and the muddy moat waited at the bottom.

McKinney and Tully moved over to watch us.

"Can you do it?" I asked Hart. I already knew the answer. In the leader-reaction course he had failed with physical maneuvers many times, and he could only do twenty push-ups before he hit his stomach for good.

Hart gave me a skittish look. "I can… I can do it."

I waited this time, and watched him make his way, miraculously, to the third loop of rope before he dropped straight into the muddy water. He came out sopping wet, looking like a stick bug in that oversized uniform. He climbed the ladder and joined me on the platform again.

"You're stubborn, I'll give you that." I couldn't carry him this time. There was no way. But the drill sergeants were watching and I wouldn't be allowed to leave until me and Hart both made it through the course, so we had to try. "Grab onto my neck."

Hart was much heavier when his arms were around my neck. I swung from one loop to the next and the weight seemed to double, until it was too intense and I had to let go. We both hit the water. It was so cold I yelped. My uniform was flooded. My boots were soggy. I followed Hart back into the platform and trembled against the wind for a moment – and then we tried again.

And again.

And again.

"This is impossible," I said to McKinney the fourth time we hit the water. "He can't do it."

"Either quit, or keep going, Westen. Five will come either way."

I groaned all the way to the top, arms aching.

Hart tried on his own again, and failed on the second loop. When he made it back up I had to take a moment to bend over and breathe.

We took a short break, recuperating, using the two walls on the platform between obstacles to stay out of the cold wind. I sat on one side, and Ford sat on the other. It was nice to be out of the judging eyes of the sergeants, and away from all the other recruits, who were way ahead of us. Hart curled his legs up to his chest and closed his eyes, and I stared up at the ropes.

Finally, it came to me.

"New plan. Step in my hands. I'll hoist you up, and you use the ropes like stepping stones."

I hoisted Hart up and he grabbed the top of the obstacle, putting his foot through the loop. He held the poles at the top and walked along instead of swinging. Once he was on the other side I swung across, nearly falling in as my strength left me. Hart grabbed me by the jacket and yanked me toward the platform, and we both fell down, panting, dripping through the grated metal.

Down below I heard McKinney giving muted praise, "Clever."

Hart did well on the climbing wall. His low weight made his lack of strength trivial. He could use his arms and legs to climb, and before he even started he mapped out his path. He scurried up like a little spider and showed me the way, but when he got to the top he couldn't make it over. I had to go around him and pull him up.

We ran into other recruits at the top of the wall. They were soaking wet, rethinking the strategies they had used for the next obstacle. It was a ladder suspended twenty feet above a muddy pool, going straight across to another platform. Giant balloons swung back and forth over the length of it on strings like pendulums, and the rungs of the ladder were wet and slippery.

"How is your balance?" Hart asked me quietly.

"Great." I watched a recruit get knocked off by a balloon, and winced. "But I'm doubting myself."

"We already know mine is bad, so how about we compromise?"

Hart turned out to be a pretty clever guy. What he lacked in strength he made up for in intellect. I was stronger and better balanced, so I carried him piggy-back style, and he gave me precise instructions on how to avoid the balls. I could focus on balancing on the ladder rungs, and he could focus on where the balloons were.

We made it halfway across the first time, but I slipped and we both hit the water. The second time we made it three-quarters before Hart miscalculated my speed and a balloon hit us. Other teams were already mimicking us. The third time we made it across, and two other teams followed us in a similar arrangement. Hart was so proud we had to linger so he could clap for them.

Next we had to run along four-inch wide wooden beams suspended on pillars, only inches above the murky water. Hart fell in seven times before I went back to him, made him hold my boots, and ran through it barefoot. He made a whipping sound at the end like he was riding a horse, so I dropped him an inch or so off of the platform and let him swim back.

It was midday when we came to another difficult obstacle.

It was just a line of eight ropes, tied to a post that was twenty feet high. We were given black climbing gloves and told we each had to ring the bell at the top.

Hart tried his damndest to climb it, but he could only make it ten feet before his arms gave out and he slithered back down. He sunk into a crouch after each attempt, breathing heavily, rubbing his upper arms, looking up at the rope and trying to think his way through it.

We tried to climb it with him holding my neck, but he almost choked me halfway up and I had to come down. He tried holding my waist, but he pulled my pants down and the sergeants and every other recruit laughed hysterically until I made it to the bottom and yanked them up again.

We ended up with Hart on my back, his arms wrapped so tightly around my torso, right under my arms, that it felt like he was squeezing my heart. I breathed short and fast, tugging my way up with my arms, sweating despite the cold. Every muscle pulled and complained at the extra weight. Near the top I slid down several inches and held on tightly. It felt like I couldn't go on.

"A little further, a few more feet," Hart said, also breathless.

I released one hand and dangled, one-handed, for several seconds. I imagined I was climbing down that old ladder at the stadium, with the cops coming after me, with Nate dangling on my back. I imagined what would happen if the police delivered me to my house again.

One more pull, and I made it. I rang the bell, and Hart rung it right after me.

I came down the rope one hand at a time, resisting the desire to just let it go.

At the bottom, I laid out in the dirt for a while, watching other recruits try to scale the rope. Some couldn't do it on their own, but their partner was either not strong enough, or not big enough to carry them. Some of the bigger guys had a hard time because of their weight. I was glad for the first time that I was lean, not burly. I was glad I had spent so long climbing around in the city, sprinting through my neighborhood, and beating up mattresses with Andre.

Hart sat up beside me, looking away. "Sorry I'm so bad at this."

"I'm glad I got you and not that guy," I said truthfully, motioning to Smith, one of the bigger recruits who could only climb halfway up the rope.

"My parents said they wouldn't let me in the army, because of how small I am." Hart looked over at me, finally, and his face was changed from that morning. He looked satisfied, and happy. I had never liked the look of him – hook-nosed, drawn, dark eyes – but this suited him.

I sat up, groaning, and let my aching arms hang limp at my sides. "How much do you weigh?"

"90 pounds. I had to get a note from my doctor to enlist."

I snorted. "Come sit on my back next time we practice push-ups."

"You know I thought you were gonna be a lot meaner, when I met you."

"Why?"

"You never talk. Not much, anyway."

I looked across the obstacle at McKinney, who was berating a recruit for falling and knocking his partner from the rope. "Never been a big talker."

We sat in silence for a while, until I made myself get up. We walked together to the next obstacle, a big metal triangle with ropes lying over its side. We had to grab them and use them to walk up one side. The other side was made up of boards, to climb back down to the ground.

Ford took a while to get the hang of the rope. I refused to carry him up this one, so I sat on the point at the top and called out instructions, until he finally wrapped the rope around his wrist and scaled the side. He grabbed my hand and slipped, flat on his belly, and I pulled him the rest of the way up. Going down was much easier.

At the end we walked over the line together, and I laid in the dirt and sucked down a whole canteen of water, letting the cold ease the ache in my muscles. Hart went off to talk to McKinney, and Tully came over to stand by me.

"You did a good job today. You showed superior physical condition."

I nodded as respectfully as I could with a canteen in my mouth.

Hart returned, and Tully complimented him on his perseverance. McKinney gathered all the recruits who had finished the course and made us do laps around the field for half an hour, and then ran us through PT drills until he was satisfied we were exhausted. I laid down under one of the nearby structures, back flat on cold concrete, and napped with my hat over my face.

A whistle blew at five and I sat straight up. Ford was getting up beside me, having laid down without me noticing. He held out a hand and helped me up, and we both jogged to the center of the field. McKinney was beckoning the last stragglers over the finish line.

Some had not made it. Smith never did climb that rope, so he and his partner sulked in together, and Wilson was still trying to figure out the climbing wall so his partner Garret was sitting on top of it, looking down at him sadly. McKinney reeled them in, too, giving them dirty looks as they joined the ranks. We were all muddy and disgusting and cold.

"When we get back, you have free time. I suggest you all start with a shower." McKinney led the march back to the bus, shouting, "Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?" the whole way.

It had new meaning to me today, so every time he said it I responded the loudest, not caring that my throat ached from all the cold water I had swallowed, "Let it destroy you!"

I spent the day outside, playing basketball with Ford. I even called my mom, and told her about the obstacle course and how the drill sergeant had complimented me. She was bitter when she answered, because I hadn't called since I left, but my tone softened her up. Soon I was gushing about my life in the army and I used up all the call time I had earned without noticing.

Ford and I walked into the barracks together an hour before lights out. Dean had smuggled in a pack of cards and we all sat down to play some stupid game he made up.

Recruits trickled in, hitting their beds like falling slabs of concrete, and the cards were put away. I sat up on my bunk, still glowing from my victory, and Ford read that little book of his for the third time. It was warm in the barracks, and the dim light could have put me to sleep.

But something kept me up.

One more bunk was empty.

Hart never came in.

I waited, hoping to see him again so we could share a celebratory smile, hoping that I now had two friends out here, but his bunk stayed empty. McKinney came in to announce lights out and then shut everything off, without Hart in his bed.

Something possessed me then. I jumped out of my bunk and ran out after him.

McKinney turned, surprised by the sound of the door slamming open. I stopped short, uncertain of what I meant to say. We stood bathed in the light of a base streetlamp, four feet from each other.

He narrowed his eyes. "You should be in your bunk, soldier."

"Is something wrong with Hart?" I blurted.

McKinney looked at me for so long I thought he was trying to set me on fire with the sheer power of his gaze. While his eyes finally softened, his tone was hard, "How old are you, Westen?"

"Seventeen."

"I was seventeen when I joined, back when you didn't need mommy and daddy to sign your little forms." He looked me up and down then, and said, "Hart requested to leave right after you finished the obstacle course this afternoon."

I had never been shot before, but those words must have been what it felt like to have a bullet tear through your chest. It was silly to feel so strongly about someone you had only known for a day. It wasn't even about Hart, really. Hearing those words took away my glow, took away my victory. No matter how much I had accomplished – physically, mentally – it suddenly felt like I had failed.

Now go and be his brother.

"W-W-Why?"

It was all I could manage to say, and it made me sound like a little boy.

McKinney snorted, and put his hand on my shoulder, his tone gentler. "You saw him. He was barely hanging on. Some people aren't strong enough."

He turned on his heel and walked off, adding over his shoulder,

"But you, kid, you were born for this."