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From
Chapter 7:
Setup: After five years of civilian life, Gil is back in training. The first big test is to march through the unforgiving Western Sahara in Algeria.
Five years of civilian life made him soft, and he hated it.
Rocks. Gravel. Scrub brush. That’s all Gil saw for miles once Fort Ste. Terese disappeared behind the hills. The singing had long since stopped, replaced by the low-level grumbling of soldiers on the march. They reached the top of a low rise that felt mountainous. When the call for a five-minute break came, he could barely speak. His tongue felt two sizes too big for his mouth and dry as jerked beef.
Gil reached for his canteen, but Dupre’s big hand stopped him. “Not yet.”
“Come on, mate. I’m dry as a nun’s—”
“When he drinks, you drink.” They watched as Sergeant Martineau stood with hands on hips, eyes darting around, assessing the men. “He knows how far we’re going and how to make it last. Not like them.” Dupre nodded to the rear of the line. They saw several of the men gulping from their canteens. The paler they were, Prussians, Germans, Swedes, the redder their faces and the more they chugged the warm water until the precious fluid dripped down their chins.
“The two Prussians, or whatever they are, will be out of water before we reach the turnaround. You need to be smart, right?” Dupre reached down and picked up a small, round pebble. Taking it between two thick fingers, he rubbed some of the loose dirt on his jacket, then popped it in his mouth and moved it around with his tongue. He waved his hand under his chin. “Gets the spit going. See?”
With a mouth that felt lined with gauze, Gil obeyed. He placed the pebble into his mouth and swished it around with his tongue. His reward was a single drop of moisture that he greedily sucked down, coughing as the stone almost went down his throat with it.
The rocky ground reflected the sun's heat back up at them. Good boots made the marching manageable, but it was so very different from the hot but grassy expanses of the African Veldt. The tall Spaniard, Gomez, put his hands on his knees, panting. “I expected I don’t know. More sand?”
Dupre laughed and pointed south. “Keep walking about two days that way. You’ll get all the sand you could ever want. Stretches for hundreds of miles in either direction. It goes up your nose, down your boots, up the crack of your arse. Marching in it is no damn fun. Tell you that.”
Jean LaForce whined. “How far have we gone?”
“Ten miles or so, I imagine,” Gomez.
Gil shielded his eyes and looked at the sun’s position. Then he shook his head. “They said twenty miles, so we turn around at mile ten, and we’re not there yet. We’ve been out about, what, two hours? I figure three, four miles an hour, right?” Dupre nodded, and Gomez groaned from the bottom of his soul. Proud of his calculations, he had to rub it in. “We’ve gone seven miles at best.”
The perfectly pressed and infuriatingly fresh-looking sergeant shouted, “On your feet. We’re getting to the hard part, so be ready.”
Gil watched as Wilmer opened his canteen and looked inside, sloshing what little remained around. His eyes widened, and he put the lid back on. “Getting to ze hard part? What in Christ’s name have we been doing?”
Dupre laughed. “Just getting started, you pretty little cornflower.”
The sergeant spun the lid off his canteen and took one solid gulp, then replaced the cap. Gil and Dupre mimicked him. “I think he’s half camel,” Gil muttered.
Dupre stood straight and adjusted the pack on his shoulders. “The front half is a camel. The rest of him’s a horse’s arse. Allons-nous.”
With hands on his hips, the sergeant’s lips curled into a fake smile. “We are a little behind, my brave ones, so now we march double-time. Non?” He turned and, without looking behind him, set off at a faster clip than before.
“Oui, Sergeant.” The group let out a collective groan and followed, struggling to keep pace. A feeble attempt at “Le Boudin” led to a good-natured threat on the singer’s life.
Gil closed his eyes and took three cleansing breaths. He allowed himself to think about nothing but the tromping of boots on gravel and keeping himself upright. In his mind, he counted the beats of leather on stone. His brain shut out everything but the blue jacket at the front of the line. The reverie distracted him from the heat and sweat and the flies it attracted.
HUP, hup, hup, hup, HUP, hup, hup, hup.
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