“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Barnard said.
“Staff Sergeant Decker,” Faith barked, pointing in front of her. “Front and center.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Decker replied.
“You can do this both quickly and accurately, Decker,” Faith said, starting at the top. What had taken Decker, repeatedly, at least seven minutes took Faith less than two as she sped through the check from top to bottom. “You will get to the point you can do this in under three minutes, Staff Sergeant. That is the standard that I set and you will make that standard.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Decker said.
“Admittedly,” Faith said, dropping out of command voice, “a big part of it is practice, practice, practice. You’ll get plenty on the float. You’re doing well, Staff Sergeant,” she added, looking him in the eye. “You’re doing well, Decker. You’re a credit to the Corps.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Decker said.
“The colonel wants you to instruct me on drill commands, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, resuming command voice. “When we have time on the float I am supposed to drill some of the enlisted with you instructing me. I know I have got a lot to learn in that regard and I also know that you know the manual back and forth. You oo—gung ho with that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Decker said, his face working. “Gung ho.”
“Hang in there, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said quietly. “We’ve all got our problems. And Trixie really likes you,” she added in a whisper.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Decker said, then frowned. “Permission to ask a question, ma’am?”
“Speak, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said.
“I am unaware of a member of the squadron named Trixie, ma’am,” Decker said.
“That’s right,” Faith said. “You haven’t met Trixie, yet. I’m sure you will at some point. Probably at some point when we clear the island. Or you can ask Sergeant Hocieniec. But I would appreciate it if you would ask him in private. Trixie doesn’t like Staff Sergeant Barnard…”
To get everyone into the compartment meant crowding around the lieutenant and Staff Sergeant Barnard in a huddle. The Marines behind Faith quickly learned another use for their helmets and face shields. Packed in the way they were there was no room to dodge when Faith found something she didn’t like and it went flying over her shoulder…
“Did I miss anything, Staff Sergeant?” Faith asked, handing back the staff sergeant’s pinless bolt.
“Not that I caught, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said.
“There’s still items that were not planted that did not meet my standards,” Faith stated. “Deal with that this evening. There will be another inspection, with all weapons and ammo, at zero five thirty. Dawn is at zero six forty-seven. We are scheduled to go ashore at zero seven hundred. To make sure that everyone is aware of the plan, we will go ashore and form a perimeter for the off-load, by Navy and civilian personnel, of the five-tons. Once we have secured the five-tons, Naval ground landing personnel will take over the security position while we will sweep the island looking for additional infected and survivors, oorah? Survey and salvage personnel, oriented on the hospital and medical school, are scheduled to land at eleven hundred hours. We will accompany them to the target facilities, clear them if necessary and provide security for the extraction of any high value materials. Back to the docks to reverse it all by sixteen thirty. We are to be off the island by sunset, oorah? Anchors are to be aweigh by nineteen hundred and we are away to sunny Saint Barthelemy to lather, rinse and repeat. Everybody but the staff sergeants rack your gear and fall in on the troop bay. Fall out.
“Staff Sergeants. We were going to do an after action review on this but the inspection’s run late, oorah? Don’t focus on this tonight, we’ve got the action tomorrow which is more important. But start thinking about how to draft this as an SOP, oorah? Other than that, make sure the troops are fed, watered and bedded down by twenty one hundred, oorah? We have an early first call, chow and ammo draw before the inspection. Tomorrow morning, concentrate on ammo quality and proper mag loading, oorah? Only NCOs will carry grenades. Ensure that all shipping clips are off the grenades. Keep the shipping clips handy since we’re probably not going to use up all our grenades. Questions, comments, concerns?”
“Fuck a freaking duck,” Sergeant Weisskopf said, racking his gear. “I know you want to have her babies but I am getting sick and tired of Barbie telling me how to be a Marine. I mean, she went from ‘Hi, I’m Faith!’ to Hitler. What the fuck is up with that?”
“I will say that something’s crawled up her ass,” Sergeant Smith said, checking again to make sure he’d put his bolt back. “But the way I’m looking at it, we’ve got two senior NCOs, one of which is a clerk and the other’s a tanker with…flexibility issues. I think the skipper’s just trying to make sure every fuck-up she can prevent is prevented.”
“What?” Weisskopf said, sarcastically. “Like somebody’s going to leave their firing pin out of their weapon?”
“One little mistake,” Smith said.
“Seriously?” Weisskopf said, snorting. “You really did that?”
“We were supposed to have the crossing as an easy cruise,” Smitty said, shrugging. “After clearing liners in Tenerife we needed the fucking break. Kick back and relax for whatever horrors awaited us in the sunny Caribbean. Instead we spent practically every damned day in fucking Zodiacs going a hundred miles an hour across the middle of the fucking Atlantic. Clear a boat, either head back to the Bo or sometimes doss on one of the small boats. And we’d have to get all our gear cleaned up whenever we had the chance and the time. Which wasn’t much of either. We got to where we were clearing in our sleep, okay? We cleared four liners on the crossing. We’d end up covered in blood. I had to pull my weapon all the way down I don’t know how many times. And I mean all the way. Washing out my fucking action was a daily thing. Sorry, Sergeant, but you know you’re a post-Fall Marine when rinsing down your magazines to get the blood and hair and brain matter out of them after an op doesn’t make you puke.
“So, yeah, I forgot to put in my pin one time and didn’t find out till I’d opened up a hatch with about two bazillion screaming infected on the other side. And do you know who saved that from turning into a scrum? The fucking lieutenant, okay? ’Cause while I’m cycling my weapon over and over and forgetting that I’m in everybody else’s way, not to mention I’ve got a backup, the LT’s firing past me and nailing fucking infected. Tomorrow is probably going to be easy as shit. Clearing an island like this is a walk in the park. This cruise is a fucking vacation so far. It’s clearing liners that’s a nightmare.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to,” Weisskopf said, shrugging.
“You want to think about that?” Smitty said. “You were in a warehouse. You could see the sun. You had plenty of air. You knew how long your water was going to hold out. Try being in a pitch-black compartment thinking ‘Hey, the Coast Guard or somebody is going to rescue me any day’ and any day turns into ‘any week’ or ‘any month.’ Before long, for the few who’re still alive, it’s going to be ‘any year.’ And we’re going to be driving right past them ’cause that’s the mission, right? I still gotta wear sunglasses on a cloudy day. There are people dying in those liners. There’s women going to give birth in those compartments. And we’re going to drive right past.”