First to Fight by Dan Cragg, David Sherman Read Free Book Online Page A

intently trained on Singh. Dean stood aghast with his mouth hanging open. For the first time he thought that maybe he should have stayed with the army’s female recruiter instead of following Riley-Kwami and Bildong down the corridor.
    Carefully, very carefully, McNeal nudged his new friend and, braving the wrath of Corporal Singh, whispered ever so quietly into his ear, “You trying to catch flies, your mouth open like that?” Dean’s face turned beet-red for the second time that morning.
    “You!” Singh shouted, and pointed his finger directly at McNeal.
    McNeal’s eyes widened, and he looked around. “Me?” he asked.
    “Yes, you, recruit! Get over here! Now!”
    McNeal stood at attention before the table.
    “What is your problem, recruit?”
    “I have a big mouth, Corporal!” McNeal answered immediately.
    “Yes, you do, young man,” Singh replied in a fatherly tone of voice. “Now assume the position!” he shouted, pointing at the floor. McNeal just stood there, uncomprehending. “Get down on the floor, on your belly, hands flat on the floor under your shoulders,” Singh said in a patient, schoolmasterly tone of voice, “and do push-ups. Count each one off as you do it. Now begin. That’s right, that’s right. Good.”
    To the sound of McNeal’s steady “One, two, three, four,” Singh addressed the remaining recruits. “You will form up in ranks there.” He pointed to the side of the large room, where there was a bare space, bereft of tables and chairs. “From here I will march you to the bus that will take you to the shuttle that will lift us to the CNSS Private Thomas Purdom in docking orbit. Do you understand?”
    A few voices said, “Yes, Corporal.” A few more voices quickly chimed in. Singh looked at the group expectantly. Someone got the hint and shouted, “Yes, Corporal.” This time more than half of the assembled recruits echoed the reply.
    “Let’s try it again. Do you understand?”
    This time nearly all of them yelled out, “Yes, Corporal.”
    “The Purdom is in a stable orbit. It can wait up there for a long time if it has to. Now let me hear it. Do you understand?”
    Everybody shouted back, “Yes, Corporal.”
    “All right, then, do it. Over there, four ranks. Tallest to my left, shortest to my right.”
    The cafeteria erupted into a chaos of movement as all fifty-five recruits scrambled to get to the open space Singh ordered them to.
    “Not you,” Singh snapped to McNeal, who had joined the scramble. “You’re doing push-ups.” McNeal groaned and rubbed his already aching arms before dropping back into position.
    Many of them knew how to line up in ranks, but the concept of lining up by height wasn’t familiar to all of them, and that caused confusion in getting lined up. More important, though, nobody wanted to be in the front row, where they’d be close to the corporal with the fearsome voice. Instead of getting into something resembling a military formation, they wound up huddled in a mass against the wall.
    Singh looked at them with an expression of amazed pain and lightly dropped off the table. He stalked toward them with slow, deliberate paces, stopped a few feet in front of the middle of the mass and drew himself up erect, facing them. “What are you trying to do to my Marine Corps?” he began softly. “Are you all political appointees? Is that it?” He began moving with brisk steps and sharp movements, bent forward at the hips, head jutted forward, sticking his face into the faces of the unfortunates in the front of the mass of recruits. His voice rose in volume as he paced and spoke. “Are your daddies and mommies influential? Influential enough to get around the law and have you enlisted into my Marine Corps even though you aren’t qualified? Did they even manage to get some politician to promise that you’d get commissions, even though the law requires that no one be commissioned an officer of Marines until and unless he’s proved himself as an