Decisions which have to be made

Chapter 11: Basic Training 1

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but I had a bit of a writer's block.

Basic training began shortly afterwards. To Fergal's great dislike he was teamed up with Harry. Caroline and Cieran were a team, Hilary and Eileen, and Ulla and someone called Paul who had only come to CHERUB a week before training had started. It was tough and the youngsters were more than once pushed to their limits.

This is tough but Cherubs are tougher, Harry thought grimly as he stood up from the mud after Fergal had managed to get him down with a karate kick. He tried rubbing the dirt off his face but only made it worse.

"No resting!" Large roared at the youngsters.

Harry used the moment of carelessness to attack Fergal who had been distracted by Eileen falling into the watery mud, screaming loudly. Harry already had his leg high in the air as he brought it down, rushing with the others towards her.

"What the hell is going on?" Large bellowed.

"My shoulder," Eileen sobbed, holding her right shoulder with her left hand tightly. "It hurts!"

"Can you move your arm up and down?" Mr. Winter, another instructor, asked, kneeling down in the mud next to her. Eileen tried but the pain was too great. she bit her lip until it bled in order to hold herself from screaming again.

"I-I'm so sorry," Hilary stammered, not really knowing what was going on.

"Go to the medical center," Large ordered. "Winter, you bring her there."

As it turned out Eileen's collarbone was broken, and she'd have to start basic training again once it was completely healed.

Sooner than any of the youngsters thought 97 days of basic training had passed, and it was time for them to leave the island of Great Britain to finish the last few days of training and to use the skills they had learned, enabling them to really earn their grey shirts. They'd go to the Malaysian Rainforest where the trainees would have to survive and follow a certain route for three days, on the last of which they'd get their shirts if they succeeded. If not, then they'd have to start all over again.

The instructors and trainees spent a night in a hotel before they'd be left on their own.

"It's bad luck Eileen can't be here," Caroline said. She and the others sat on the beds in Harry's and Fergal's room. "Oh, I can't wait to get on missions! Maybe they even let me do one with my brother?"

"Who knows?" Hilary said. He still felt bad about breaking her collarbone. "Who knows."

"Come on!" Harry said, throwing a pillow at him. "Stop sulking and start enjoying the one night before things get really tough."

"He's right," Cieran said firmly, taking a pillow. "You know what? The thing we need now is a pillow fight!"

The trainees spent the next quarter of an hour throwing pillows at each other, and the girls spent a great amount of time screaming their lungs out whenever they were hit.

Paul aimed at Fergal who stood a meter away from the door as it suddenly opened. Having misjudged the timing and not having aimed carefully enough the pillow hit Mr. Large who stood in the doorway into the face.

"What the-" he gasped.

"S-Sorry," Paul said in a low voice.

"The people on this whole floor complaint about you making too much noise," Large said through gritted teeth. "And now I see why." He slammed the door shut and the youngsters could hear a woman in the corridor screaming.

"...need sleep... stop this racket instantly... can't you control these... yourself not any better... next time I..."

The trainees couldn't help but explode in laughter, and from both the left and right wall came a thunder of knocking.


"Phew," Harry exclaimed as he saw a boat and half a hut. The whole day he and Fergal had been wandering through the rain forest following the map they'd been given as good as they could, and now they finally had reached their destination for that evening with another hour to spare.

"Look under there to see what's in the boat," Harry ordered, pointing at the tarpaulin covering the boat. Grudgingly Fergal obeyed while Harry rebuilt the hut as good as he could.

"Is something the matter?" he asked as he heard Fergal giving a little scream of fright.

"N-Nothing," the other boy replied, quickly pulling the tarpaulin over the boat again. "There's food. You continue building up the hut while I cook us something, huh?"

"Yeah, kay," Harry muttered, not giving it another thought.

After a delicious dinner and after trying to translate their instructions for the following day as good as they could the two of them went to sleep. The day had been tiring so Harry slept peacefully, until -

"AHHHHH!"

"What's the matter?" Harry asked sleepily, sitting up. He rubbed his eyes and then he suddenly saw the snake which was ready to attack his partner. He took the first thing in reach - a branch- and hit the snake with it on the head. It fell onto the ground, half unconscious. However, its tail flew around the air, and a second later it wind itself around Harry's arm. The boy gasped as he tried to pull his arm away, but a moment later the snake's tail was too tight around it and there was a snap! as his arm broke. He took the branch again and started hitting the snake as hard as he could. It wriggled away into the distance.

"I-I didn't want this to happen!" Fergal sobbed, still shocked from what had happened.

"Look for the radio," Harry managed to say, not wasting his thoughts on what Fergal had said. "Contact Large or Winter. Tell them what happened."

Quarter of an hour later Large helped Harry get into the helicopter after Hilary, who'd be Fergal's new partner, had got out. He knew that basic training for him was over.