Chapter 5 - June 15-21, Camp Lejeune
Dear Bucky,
Surprise, surprise - I've been accepted to the USMC Women's Reserve! I am now a Marinette. But don't worry your pretty head - I'll be working stateside as a radio operator, or maybe a code-breaker if I'm lucky. When you picture me, imagine me in an office, hunched over a radio.
Here, she drew an exaggerated doodle of herself at a desk, wearing a giant pair of headphones and surrounded by teetering mountains of paperwork.
Or you can picture me hunched over by the side of the road, puking my guts out. Why didn't didn't you tell me training was so hard!? Also, I'm not sure the food is real. Was it ever alive or do they just churn it out in a factory in Newark?
She closed with a sketch of a Marinette color guard - herself standing at the end with messy braids and thick spectacles, beating a snare drum.
Don't win the war before I'm done.
Stevie
Stevie didn't like lying to Bucky, even by omission, but she had been strictly warned not to tell anyone why she was really at Camp Lejeune. Even the Marine recruits and the other Marinettes in training at the camp didn't know what the eleven "special trainees" were engaged in - a top secret operation called "Project Rebirth." The morning after Stevie had arrived, the drill sergeant had lined them up on one corner of the parade ground - ten tall, athletic women - and Stevie at the end, half a head shorter than the rest. It was early and the day was cool, with a breeze blowing in from the sea. They were wearing loose pants and shirts that reminded Stevie of men's fatigues, which gave her the sinking suspicion that they would be doing a lot of calisthenics. Well, you did sign up for the Marines, Stevie told herself. What did you expect? Just as she had this thought, a jeep pulled up in front of them and the sergeant barked out, "Attention!"
Stevie and the rest of the trainees snapped straight. Three people emerged from the car. The first was Dr. Erskine, bearing a clipboard and the what looked like the same battered notebook he had been carrying in the recruitment center. He greeted Stevie with a smile and a small wave. The second person to leave the car was a colonel who reminded Stevie of a hunting hound - droopy and displeased. The third was a woman. She wore a uniform like the Marinettes wore - tailored brown jacket and an A-line skirt cut just below the knee - but on her it looked as elegant as the latest New York fashions. Her lips were rogued, and her dark hair fell in soft, movie-star curls around her face. She and the Colonel stopped in front of the group, while Dr. Erskine held back, clipboard at the ready.
"At ease, ladies," said the colonel, in a voice with a mild twang that might have been Texan. "I am Colonel Phillips." He gestured towards the woman. "This is Agent Carter." He began pacing slowly in front of the trainees, looking intently at each one. "General Patton has said, 'wars are fought with weapons, but they are won by men.' We are going to win this war because we have the best men." He stopped in front of Stevie and did a double take, his smooth speech faltering for a moment. "And you are going to help them get better. Much better."
He had reached the center of the line again and stopped pacing, facing them with his arms behind his back. "The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an allied effort, made up of the best minds of the free world." Here he nodded at Dr. Erskine. "Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army has to start somewhere."
He looked out at them, his brown eyes piercing in his wrinkled face. "By volunteering for this program, you ladies are freeing our servicemen to fight while we develop and perfect Project Rebirth. At the end of this week, one of you will be chosen to be the first to undergo the process that will create a new breed of super soldiers - soldiers who will personally escort Adolf Hitler through the gates of Hell."
Stevie felt her pulse quicken. This was exactly the kind of work she had wanted to do for the war effort - real, meaningful work. Work that could help save the lives of the boys fighting overseas. She silently promised that she would give her all to this project, no matter how hard it was. But very soon she was struggling to see why she had been chosen for Project Rebirth at all.
Day one of training - or, more appropriately, testing - consisted of physical drills as Stevie had suspected - running, calisthenics, and obstacle courses that left her wheezing, retching, or in one embarrassing case, fainting. Stevie's fellow recruits, on the other hand, were more than up to the task. The group of ten assorted swimmers, runners and gymnasts bounded through each challenge like a herd of lithe gazelles. But despite being unified by a common purpose, the group of special trainees was not entirely harmonious.
The final challenge of the day was a sprint along the beach that formed the eastern border of Camp Lejeune. The other trainees had already made it to the halfway point and were turning back, coming towards Stevie as she panted and puffed, mired in the wet sand. The front runner, Alice Hodge, had run hurdles in the 1936 Olympics. Though deceptively petite, almost delicate-looking, she was clearly one of the strongest recruits and had come in first or second in every test so far. This time, though, it looked like she might lose her first-place slot; a tall, muscular blonde was gaining on her, and as they approached Stevie, the blonde and Alice were neck and neck. Then, Alice put out her foot and sent the blonde tumbling into the sand.
Stevie jogged over to her. "Are...you...alright?" she said, in between gasps.
The blonde stood up and brushed herself off. "I think so," she said. She tested her weight on her right foot and frowned. "I don't think it's sprained.'
Both women looked toward the finish line, where Alice was getting a pat on the back from Colonel Phillips. What is her problem? Stevie thought.
"Pick it up ladies!" Colonel Phillips called. "Rogers! Move it!"
"Thanks," the blonde said quickly, and joined the other trainees as they thundered past.
Stevie looked at the long trudge ahead of her and groaned.
Night at the camp was...different. Stevie had never spent the night outside of Brooklyn, and the various hoots, chirps and squawks coming from the pine forest around the barracks seemed eerie and sinister. Stevie wondered if there were still wolves out there. Or bears.
I thought nature was supposed to be quiet and peaceful, Stevie thought, shivering. The stars were spectacularly bright, compared to the faint, washed-out stars that made it past the lights of the city. They looked close enough to touch.
Ah, there she is.
Alice was leaning against the back wall of the barracks, looking out into the trees. She had ducked away after lights-out for a smoke, a risky proposition if she was caught, but it meant Stevie could talk to her alone.
"I saw what you did," Stevie said.
"Beg pardon?" Alice didn't even look at her.
"I saw you trip Helen on the beach."
"Oh," said Alice, unconcerned. "That." She continued smoking, staring at the dark forest. Stevie felt her anger rising in her chest.
"I just don't get it," Stevie said, "You're really, really good already. You're probably the best of the bunch. Why would you do something like that? Helen could have turned her ankle!"
Now Alice did look at her - as if she had crawled out from under a rock. "I wouldn't expect you to understand," she said, infusing the word "you" with so much condescension that Stevie felt the momentary urge to slap her.
"I didn't get where I am by being nice," Alice continued. "I got to the Olympics because I did everything and anything it took. Everything." Stevie saw something in Alice's eyes that surpassed mere determination. Something like mania.
"But we're all on the same team!" Stevie said.
"Wrong," said Alice, and flicked glowing sparks from her cigarette. "They'll pick one of us. One. And the woman they pick will win the ultimate prize. She'll be the first of a superior race." Alice's eyes glowed in the night. "That's a once in a lifetime chance, and I am not letting it slip by. If the others want it, they'll just have to fight for it. Harder than I can."
Stevie couldn't think of anything to say to counter Alice's naked ambition, so she just stared at her.
"You know," Alice continued, "At first I couldn't figure out why they chose you for the project."
You and me both, Stevie thought.
"Do you know what I think now?" Alice leaned in to look Stevie in the face. Stevie shook her head. "I think you're a mole. You look so harmless no one would suspect you, but you're going to go and tell the Colonel and the doctor everything we say and do when they're not around. One more part of the test." She took another drag. The smoke was stinging Stevie's throat, and she fought the urge to cough. "So. Are you going to tell Colonel Phillips what you saw me do?"
Stevie had considered it, but Colonel Phillips seemed like the type who would expect trainees to fight their own battles.
"I don't think he'd take kindly to tattling," Stevie said.
"Good," Alice dropped her cigarette and ground it out under her foot. She turned to go in, then stopped, and turned back to Stevie.
"Look, Cindy, is it?" Alice said.
"Stevie," she corrected, through gritted teeth.
"Stay out of my way, Stevie."
While day one consisted of physical tests, day two consisted of mental tests - tests of teamwork, problem solving, and lateral thinking, supervised by the watchful and silent Agent Carter. Stevie excelled at them, but Alice was merely average - a fact the seemed to make her quietly furious. The evening in the mess hall, someone bumped into Stevie so hard that she dropped her tray. Colonel Phillips sighed and muttered something that didn't sound appropriate for mixed company.
Day three consisted of marksmanship training - trainees shot at paper targets using rifles, handguns, even Tommy guns, which Stevie had always associated with gangster movies. A few of the trainees were already experienced hunters, and others were quick learners; but Stevie was awkward enough to be dangerous. After she almost put a hole through the instructor who was teaching her how to hold a revolver, Colonel Phillips parked her at the edge of the firing range with an M1 rifle and a target so far out of Stevie's myopic range of vision that she could only speculate if she was hitting it or not. There was no speculation about the bruise growing on Stevie's shoulder, though. The M1 had one hell of a kick.
"You're not holding it right," said a soft, British voice behind her.
Stevie turned - after carefully putting down the gun; Colonel Phillips had strictly ordered her not to kill anyone. It was the woman in uniform - Agent Carter. She had spoken so little until this point that Stevie hadn't realized she was English.
"May I show you?" Agent Carter's voice was as polished as the rest of her, melodious and cultured. Stevie handed her the M1, and Agent Carter lifted it smoothly to her shoulder, pointing it at the distant target.
"Square yourself up to what you're shooting at, don't come at it from the side. Stand with your feet apart and stagger your right foot a little behind your left," Agent Carter demonstrated the stance and she talked. She was obviously experienced. "Hold the rifle stock near the center of your body, high up on your chest, and keep your elbows down. That will minimize the recoil. Here," She handed the rifle back to Stevie. "Have a go."
"Okay," Stevie tried to imitate what Agent Carter had just shown her, feeling more awkward than ever in front of this confident, skilled woman who was just about everything that Stevie herself was not.
"Good!" Agent Carter said. "Look through the ring and try center your front sight in it." Stevie squinted one eye shut. The ring of the rear sight blurred as she focused on the metal knob that was the front sight.
Agent Carter continued. "Now, aim the front sight just underneath the target."
"Got it," Stevie said. The target was 200 yards away, within the M1's range, but pretty much a dot to Stevie. She tried to aim in the general vicinity of the printed red circle.
"Alright," Agent Carter said calmly, "now press the trigger steadily, straight to the rear. Don't anticipate when the gun will fire. Just concentrate on squeezing the trigger."
Stevie took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed - trying to relax and not jerk in anticipation of the shot. The gun went off with a deafening crack and she let out her breath in a rush. She wasn't sure she was any more accurate, but at least she no longer felt like she was getting kicked in the shoulder by a horse.
"Very good!" said Agent Carter, with a smile that had probably left a trail of broken hearts all over London or wherever she was from. Just the kind of girl Bucky would love, Stevie thought. She imagined what Bucky would say about her own piss-poor shooting performance. He was a natural marksman, and had trained as a sniper before shipping out - part of the reason he left training as a sergeant instead of a lowly private. Thinking of Bucky gave Stevie a sudden pang of loneliness.
Agent Carter made Stevie take five more shots before they went to check the target, where Stevie was happy to see six bullet holes - if not in the bullseye, or even on the red circle, at least on the square of the target itself.
"You really know your stuff," Stevie said to Agent Carter, as they walked back to where the other trainees were on the main firing range. Agent Carter was confident that Stevie could learn to shoot a handgun now without unintentionally maiming anybody.
"Yes," Agent Carter replied. "My father would hold a hunt at the estate every November. Pheasants, mostly."
"Oh," said Stevie. There was an awkward pause in which she wondered exactly how much money one had to make before one had an "estate" instead of just a house. "I have more experience with pigeons myself. Not shooting them, you understand. Primarily just tossing bread crumbs in their general direction."
Another awkward pause descended. Stevie had never been very good at having female friends; she never seemed to know what to talk about. Most girls in Brooklyn hadn't cared about military history. Agent Carter looked like she might, though. Stevie cleared her throat.
"So, if you don't mind me asking," Stevie said, "How did you get from the estate and the pheasants to Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina?"
"My family wanted to do their bit, so they volunteered the house to be used as a hospital for wounded airmen," Agent Carter said.
Her house is big enough to be a hospital, thought Stevie, picturing the cramped apartment she shared with Bucky's mother in Brooklyn.
"I had never seen anything like what I saw there," Agent Carter said softly, looking out past the camp, to another place and time. "The men had all survived being shot down, but at terrible cost. They had limbs missing, horrible burns. They woke up at night screaming and weeping." She shook her head slightly as if trying to dislodge the memories.
"Instead of holding their hands and wiping their fevered brows, I thought it would be a damned sight more efficient to stop them getting shot up in the first place. So I thoroughly irritated quite a few important people until the Special Air Service agreed to have me. Ah, here we are."
They had reached the handgun range, where Stevie's former instructor, upon seeing her, decided he had urgent business elsewhere.
"Well," Agent Carter said. "Now that you have the rifle down, I'm sure you'll take to the sidearms just 's really nothing to it." Drawing her own sidearm, she promptly discharged five shots into the dead center of the nearest target.
"Nothing to it," Stevie agreed weakly.
Day four was hand to hand combat training - led, surprisingly, by the genteel Agent Carter - who, despite her impeccable manners, was just as stern in her way as the Colonel was in his. When Alice muttered that "Queen Victoria over there sure was a stuck up bitch," Agent Carter didn't show any sign of overhearing, but suddenly Alice became Agent Carter's assistant in demonstrating joint locks, throws, and, in one memorable example, how to knock an opponent down with one punch.
Yup, thought Stevie. She's just Bucky's type.
Day five and six were filled with tactical exercises and - joy of joys - more obstacle courses. At this point, Stevie lived in an exhausted haze, her main hopes to not faint again and not run afoul of Alice. Whether or not she still thought Stevie was a spy for the Colonel, harassing her seemed to help Alice deal with the stress of training, and so, as day seven approached, Alice become more hostile. The night after Agent Carter had knocked Alice down, Stevie's hairbrush and toothbrush had mysteriously disappeared, leaving her to beg and borrow from the other trainees. When everyone had to crawl under barbed wire in full gear, Alice had "accidentally" kicked over a support beam, trapping Stevie in a snarl of wire and wood. Colonel Phillips had pulled her out with a long-suffering sigh.
Day seven dawned clear and hot. Everyone knew that this was the day that the Colonel, Dr. Erskine, and Agent Carter would make their decision, and an atmosphere of nervous energy permeated the group. Agent Carter had been putting them through drills all morning and now they were on the parade ground, trying to complete as many push ups, squat thrusts and jumping jacks as possible while she timed them with a stopwatch.
"Faster, ladies, come on!" She said. "My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul."
For all Agent Carter's exhortations, Stevie got the impression that her heart wasn't in it. They were just marking time. Agent Carter, like the rest of the group, was waiting to find out who had been chosen, watching Colonel Phillips and Dr. Erskine out the corner of her eye. The Colonel and the Doctor were standing a ways apart from the group - having an argument by the look of things. Stevie caught a few words as she struggled through an interminable set of push ups.
"Never thought you'd pick her." That was the colonel's Texas twang.
"I am looking for qualities beyond the physical." That was Dr. Erskine's clipped, German accent.
"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?" The Colonel countered. "How much groveling I had to do…." The next few words were drowned out by Agent Carter ordering them to get up and begin another endless set of jumping jacks. The Colonel continued.
"Alice Hodge passed every test we gave her. She's strong, she's fast."
"She's a bully," said Dr. Erskine.
"You don't win wars with niceness, Doctor," the colonel said. "You win wars with guts."
And then metal object, about the size of a man's fist, fell to earth in the center of the trainees' ranks. Everyone stared at it stupidly for a second. It looked a little like a pine cone.
Wait, Stevie thought, Is that a…
"Grenade!"
The trainees scattered like pigeons fleeing an oncoming bus. Shrieks filled the air as they scrambled for cover, Alice vaulting over the hood of a jeep, other trainees running to get behind troop carriers or even just hummocks of dirt. Stevie did not run. She felt like time had slowed down, like she could see everything with perfect clarity. The trainees and Agent Carter wouldn't be able to get to cover in time. They would be hurt. Some would be killed. There was only one solution.
Stevie threw herself to the ground and curled around the grenade as tightly as she could, like a running back protecting a football.
"Get back!" she cried. She didn't know if her meager bulk would be enough to completely contain the explosion.
Stevie's whole body felt like one clenched fist as she waited for the grenade to go off. Would it hurt? Would she feel it at all? Would Bucky ever find out what happened to her? She squeezed her eyes shut and heard her own heartbeat pounding in her ears - one, two, three, four….Shouldn't it have exploded by now? She opened her eyes again. Colonel Phillips and Dr. Erskine were standing over her - the Colonel looking exasperated, the doctor smiling almost smugly. Stevie felt a rush of relief - mixed with confusion.
"Is this a test?" She asked.
The Colonel turned to Dr. Erskine instead of answering her. "She's still skinny," he said, and stomped away, leaving the doctor to tell Stevie that she had been chosen to be the test subject for Project Rebirth.
Note: Thanks to all you fine people for reading and reviewing! Peggy's instructions about firing a rifle come from The Art of Manliness blog article "How to Fire a Rifle" - because I know nothing about guns.