January Dawn Read online

  “Distraction. We get their attention on one of us, then the rest take’em from behind. They never said we couldn’t fight back.”

  “Colton, that’s genius. We can take their weapons and use them to fight our way back to base,” Alex said. He used my first name, which was odd. We had always referred to each other by our last names. I didn’t mind though, I never liked my last name to begin with. It’s just a name with no history. It didn’t mean a thing to me.

  “What about their radio and tactical communications tablet?” Shannon asked. His young face and small frame barely visible in the darkness.

  Shannon lied about his age when he enlisted at age sixteen, contrary to his father’s wishes. The platoon treated his youth as a liability. We saw it as an asset. Shannon had a ways to go to mature both physically and mentally, but the one thing he had going for him was his high intelligence.

  “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  “If we get their radio, I can jam it. That’ll block their communications for a little while and make them go haywire, buying us some time. And every unit out here has to be outfitted with a GPS locator, per Army regulations. If we get the TC Tablet, then we will have direct observation of the locations of every patrol out here. If we get those, then we won’t be blind anymore. We could weave in and out of their patrols and be the first ones back to base.”

  Smart kid.

  Alex loved the idea. He immediately went to work framing a plan. He gave us all a role and we split up to take up our positions. Pike, Shannon and I scurried across the road and hid behind some pine trees a few feet off the curb. Alex stayed on the opposite side of the road. When I left him, he was on his hands and knees groping the ground in the dark.

  I waited with my back against the tree and massaged my ankle. I was wearing a compression brace that the doctor gave me. I could walk on my foot just fine, but every so often I’d do something to aggravate it and I’d feel a slight tinge of discomfort.

  Before long, a pair of headlights approached. I unsheathed my knife from my chest holster and drew a deep breath of the crisp air. The truck rolled closer at a lazy speed, its searchlight sweeping the forest around it. We waited.

  When the truck was directly in front of us, a slew of rocks catapulted from the darkness across the road, pummeling the driver side window and bouncing across the hood.

  The Humvee screeched to a halt. The searchlight sprung to life, scanning the far side of the road. Alex followed up his rock assault with his most violent scream. I had heard the boys in the barracks practice these wild calls before. They called it the rebel yell.

  I could see the turret gunner up top swivel toward Alex’s side of the road. The driver and passenger exited the vehicle and quickly leveled their weapons in the direction of the howling madman in the woods.

  Our turn. I made a quick hand gesture to the others and the three of us sprang into action. I scampered to the back of the vehicle where I could get my foot on the tire and spring myself up on top of the Humvee behind the turret gunner. As I brought my foot up onto the wheel I was startled when I caught a quick glance of a face in the backseat watching me. The referee. Phew.

  I launched up, took two quick steps, placed my knife under the gunner’s throat and declared, “You’re dead.”

  Pike and Shannon almost simultaneously did the same thing to the other two soldiers. The backside passenger door opened and the referee stepped out. It was a young Lieutenant with the Eleventh Armored patch on his shoulder. Oh boy. We’re going to get chewed out. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “Three enemy KIA. No casualties. Nice job.” He said, without any emotion.

  We didn’t waste any time. As the three patrolmen grumbled and played dead in the places they were “killed”, we ransacked the vehicle for the radio and the tablet and grabbed the rifles off their “dead” bodies. This whole operation lasted less than two minutes. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as we disappeared into the woods, dashing through the underbrush to get as much distance between us and the road as possible.

  Alex took point, followed by Shannon with the tablet and Pike and I in the rear. As we trekked, I caught myself looking over Shannon’s shoulder at the tablet. It was an intriguing item.

  Cased in hard plastic and protected by rubber corners, the rugged machine was about a foot long with a small keyboard along the bottom of it, a handle on the side, and a cloth flap that could be rolled over the screen to cut out any illumination. Like a wizard, Shannon swiped, flipped, and rotated his fingers on the screen, giving us updates on distance and patrol locations. He barely even looked up to see where he was walking.

  “This is great. A couple of the surrounding units are converging on our ambush. The rest won’t have a clue what is going on. I clogged all radio channels,” Shannon said with a touch of pride.

  “Which way do we go?” Alex asked.

  “That way,” Shannon pointed to the northwest. “We should be clear for a little while.”

  Knowing the locations of all the patrols allowed us to move at a faster rate, but it was a few hours before sunrise and we still had a ways to go.

  After forty-five minutes of silent hiking in the frigid weather, Alex suddenly stopped in his tracks and held up a fist. The sign to stop.

  “You guys hear that?” he asked.

  We perked our ears up. All I could hear was the wind rustling the branches of the trees above me and then…a faint moan in the distance, almost like a voice.

  “Another patrol?” Pike asked.

  “No, can’t be. Nothing’s showing on the screen.” Shannon double checked the tablet and gave us a confused shrug.

  There it was again, a grunt and the resemblance of a word being screamed.

  “Coyotes?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Let’s keep moving.” Alex waved for us to follow.

  The noises got closer. We could hear bushes rustling now and multiple hushed voices.

  It might be other recruits. Someone else had to have made it this far. But why the weird noises? Was someone injured?

  “Hel…Help! Get off of me.” It was a woman’s voice. As we moved closer we could make out several figures. Two stood about watching two others wrestled on the ground in front of them.

  “Stop! Get your hands off me damn you. No.” That sounds like Carrigan!

  The crouching man drew his arm up and brought his fist down on the trapped victim. The moaning stopped.

  “Come on, Teague, do her and let’s scram. That bitch screamed pretty loud. Someone could have heard that,” said one of the other men.

  I should have known it was Teague.

  A furious rage thundered inside of me. Carrigan was a tough girl, but right now she was outnumbered and outmuscled.

  Before Alex or anybody could say anything, I took off at a dead sprint not knowing what I planned to do. I came upon the shadow that I knew was Teague, and at full speed drove my shoulder into him, tackling him to the ground. The roles reversed on the attacker as I sat atop him with my hands around his neck. I could feel the muscles in his throat tighten as I squeezed. There were more screams and shouts as Alex, Shannon and Pike moved in to secure the situation.

  Teague placed several painful punches into my side before rolling me off of him. He stood, took a step toward me but got cut off by the sharp sound of blank shot discharged from Alex’s weapon.

  “Don’t move, Teague,” Alex said, blue smoke listlessly drizzling from the yellow muzzle break of his rifle.

  “You think you can scare me with a couple of blanks?” Teague took another step toward me. Alex fired three more shots.

  Teague stopped in his tracks and didn’t say a word. He stood there glaring at me with his shadowy eyes. He had blood on his lips. In the midst of the tussle, the two other men ran off into the woods, but a third materialized from the shadows and approached us, the bright white beam of a flashlight in hand.

  “What do we have going on here?” It was Drill Sergeant Quinn.r />
  “Drill Sergeant, we just came upon Corporal Teague sexually assaulting Private Carrigan,” Alex said, still pointing the gun at Teague.

  Carrigan was on the ground with her pants hallway pulled down to her ankles. She was semi-conscious and mumbling something under her breath.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, Drill Sergeant. It was him and a few others. I saw two of them run off that way.”

  I used my sleeve to wipe the blood from underneath Carrigan’s nose and I signaled for Shannon to help me pull her pants back up. After sprinkling a little water from my canteen on her face she regained full consciousness. She looked up at me, but only saw my shadowy outline. She immediately started fighting back, pushing the palms of her hands against my chest while trying to crawl backwards away from me.

  “Leah, it’s me. Stop. It’s Tennpenny. You’re okay now.”

  She recognized my voice and threw her arms around my neck. I held her close as she sobbed uncontrollably. I looked at Shannon in disbelief. He shook his head in equal astonishment. How could this have happened?

  Through the pale back glow of the flashlight I could just make out Drill Sergeant Quinn’s face. He had a placid demeanor, neither happy nor unhappy, and his movement didn’t seem pressing. Something seemed off. If this was Elroy, he’d be popping veins in his head screaming right now.

  “I don’t know anything about a sexual assault, but I did see Private Tennpenny there physically assault Corporal Teague.” Quinn shined his light on Teague’s face, blinding him and exposing the crimson blood on his lips and chin.

  What? We didn’t attack Teague. We were stopping him.

  I helped Carrigan get on her feet. Her hands shook wildly as she buckled her pants.

  “Did he…?”

  “No,” she said, her voice quivering.

  She was bleeding more from her nose. I wiped it away with my sleeve again.

  “With all due respect that’s not what happened, Drill Sergeant. Corporal Teague here was…”

  “Save it, Redman! All five of you are declared KIA. You stumbled upon an enemy patrol and failed to correct the situation. Teague, you’re dismissed. You may continue your mission.” I couldn’t believe it.”

  “What patrol, Drill Sergeant?” Shannon asked.

  “Me,” Quinn said. “You failed your mission Private Shannon and in the process of failing, you managed to steal valuable military property.” Quinn snatched the TC tablet out of Shannon’s hands. “I ought to write all of you up for insubordination.”

  “Insubordination?” Alex said, still shocked.

  “Redman, you will shut your mouth or I’ll throw your ass in the stockade for the next week. Do you understand? Good. Now proceed one click east of here where you will wait on the side of the road to be picked up and brought back to base. Dismissed.”

  I could see in Alex’s face that he had more words to say, but I put my hand on his shoulder and shook my head. There was no use.

  Alex was lividly cussing out Drill Sergeant Quinn as we sat on the curb waiting to be picked up, but brooded silently during the ride back. Carrigan was still shook up and didn’t say anything. I wanted to comfort her, but didn’t know how.

  The whole ride back felt eerily disappointing and confusing. One minute, we were passing with flying colors and the next, we stumbled on a sexual assault. And we got stuck smack dab in the middle of Drill Sergeant Quinn’s sick cover up.

  “We ought to tell somebody when we get back,” Shannon said.

  “Who are we going to tell, Shannon? In case you missed it that was Drill Sergeant Quinn back there. For all we know, the other drill sergeants could be in on it too,” Pike said. “It’s not exactly a secret that the majority of First Platoon wants to see Carrigan fail. She’s the last girl. All the rest already dropped out.” He had a point.

  “Yeah, but trying to rape her during a field exercise, come on Pike, that’s too far,” Shannon said.

  “That prick! When I see Teague’s face again, I’m going beat his ass for what he did.” I could see Alex grinding his teeth in the dull red glow of the interior light of the APC.

  I sat back against the armored siding with my hands in my lap. This was the first time I really had to time to think to myself all night. The field exercise had me on some form of autopilot adrenaline rush. Stumbling through the woods, the Humvee ambush, the sexual assault, everything happened so fast. We were out there for hours, but I don’t remember having time to feel anything.

  As I replayed the events in my head I remembered how my hands shook before the ambush and how I could feel the cold sweat running down my sides after I confronted Teague. If this was real combat, would I do the same thing I did tonight? Would I react with the same courage?

  Two hours later, the entire company found itself standing at attention on the parade ground in a cold pouring rain. A massive rainstorm moved in just before daybreak. The parade ground floodlights flicked on with an electric click.

  The rain was icy and the wind hard as General Gammon, with his hands clasped behind his back, moseyed up and down the ranks in a black raincoat. For a while, he didn’t say a word. He eyed the recruits up and down. Zero emotion on his face.

  Finally. “Men…tonight’s exercise was created for one purpose. For you to experience failure. Every one of you was given a mission and every one of you failed in that mission. It doesn’t feel good, does it? You won’t forget that feeling anytime soon. Right now, our country is experiencing failure all along its frontlines. We are being pushed back on our heels. The enemy is in our backyards. They are torching our homes, eating our food and destroying our culture.” It didn’t take long for him to get fired up this morning. His voice dropped almost to a growl. “The future is uncertain, that is a fact. For the military, the only certainty is uncertainty. From grunts to the top brass, uncertainty haunts us all. How will I perform in battle? Will I get shot as I go down this road? Will my men survive? Will we win this battle…this war? These are questions that haunt thousands of our soldiers at this very moment.”

  Gammon began pacing down the ranks of First Platoon.

  “Uncertainty is a bitch, yes, but we can take that bitch by the hand and lead her in the direction we want to go. All it takes is a little ingenuity,” he said, placing his hand on Shannon’s shoulder as he passed. “A little courage,” this time patting me on the arm. “And a little leadership,” pausing in front of Alex.

  He must have heard about our so called, “insubordination”.

  A mixture of sleep deprivation and icy, wet weather took a toll on everyone. You could see the lines of men shivering and rocking back and forth on their heels. I was cold and tired, but something about listening to Gammon speak made me feel like I could stand there for hours.

  “In a few weeks, you all will graduate right here on these parade grounds. After that, most of you will be sent to the forefront of this war to reclaim our lost land and push the invaders back. Some of you will die. This is an uncertain certainty. As a leader of men this is something that I must deal with personally. But, let me ask you, what could be better than dying an honorable death? There is no better feeling than knowing that you gave blood, sweat and tears for a cause you deemed worthy of fighting for. Now, you must look inside yourself to find that cause. For me, there is no cause more worthy than that of our great country. The Confederate States of America needs you now more than ever. The only thing standing between your families and the invading hordes of Yankee vermin is your will to do what is necessary when the time comes. You are our last line of defense. Take your successes and your failures and use those to sharpen your instincts, so that you may go forth from here and kick Uncle Sam’s ass.”

  The Confederacy needs me now more than ever. Just give me the chance. I’m ready.

  Chapter 7

  March 13

  After Gammon’s early morning call to arms, we expected to be allowed to go to bed, but that was wishful thinking. Much to our chagrin, the drill sergeants led us
in a day chalk full of exercises.

  Basic Training used to be a twelve week long program, but because of the war, the Army cut back to eight weeks to get soldiers to the front quicker. The drill sergeants didn’t have time to give us the chance to relax.

  Exhausted and dreary-eyed, we complied with every command the drill sergeants gave us. They even marched us through the obstacle course once more, this time with full eighty-pound packs on our backs. During all this, the weather never let up. The rain soaked us, adding a few more pounds to our already heavy load.

  While on a six mile run in the afternoon, Alex and I tried to convince Carrigan to report the sexual assault to Drill Sergeant Elroy. She eagerly resisted. She didn’t want to add any more humiliation to what she had experienced already. Only after threatening to go to Elroy ourselves did she finally promise to say something.

  I was sitting with Alex during chow that evening when Carrigan came back from her meeting. Her eyes were puffy and red.

  “How did it go?”

  But before she could answer, Elroy’s booming voice silenced the mess hall.

  “Tennpenny.” He had his normal scowl on. “Front and center.”

  I hustled out of my seat on the double and stood at attention in front of him.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  I matched him step for step as we walked to the main officers building, a large, rectangular brick structure with dark windows that reflected the gray sky.

  Elroy was only in his early forties, but his hair was already an ashy gray. I always wanted to ask him how he got the scar that ran down the left side of his face, but I thought it was a question best left unanswered.

  To the platoon, he was a hard man, but exceptionally fair. Heaven knows he had seen his fair share of war. That’s why I knew that what he was teaching us could save our lives in the long run.

  We approached a door at the end of a long corridor. The windows were frosted and had bold lettering on it that I couldn’t read it. Elroy knocked.

  “Enter,” A gruff voice answered from inside.