The Stone Frigate

by Kate Armstrong

  “Who the fuck was that? Don’t tell me that anyone and everyone can stop us,” I whispered through barely moving lips after we set off.

  “It looks that way!” Meg kept staring straight ahead as we ran at full speed.

  “What a sadistic asshole. It’s like he’s already forgotten what a drag it is to be a recruit,” I moaned.

  The classroom was buzzing with more than two hundred recruits settling into university-style desks. I saw an open seat next to one of my guy friends from basic training, now a recruit in Seven Squadron, and went over to join him. I was looking forward to talking to someone else besides another A Flight member for a few hours.

  “This seat’s taken,” he said, placing his hand on the empty chair. He turned his back to me. Flummoxed, I scanned the room. I sought refuge in Holbrook’s and Fitzroy’s watching eyes. They glanced uncomfortably at each other and looked away. I spotted an open seat and rushed over to sit next to Meg.

  The moment I was settled quietly into my seat, I struggled to stay awake. Chronic exhaustion had settled into my bones. Now that I was away from the constant panic and adrenaline, my hundred-pound eyelids wanted to close. I resisted, but my head bobbed down as I drifted to sleep and snapped back up in the microsleeping display known at the college as depth-finders.

  At the first break, I walked over to join the Seven Squadron guys’ group in the hall, determined to ask what was wrong, but they closed ranks to shut me out.

  “What did I do?” I asked their backs. They just ignored me, and that cut me deeper than open cruelty.

  Heidi Gottlieb, another friend from basic and one of their flight mates, whistled at me from several feet away and motioned for me to come over to her. “Don’t waste your breath,” she said, nodding in their direction. “The senior cadets have gotten to them.”

  “What do you mean? We were all good friends at basic,” I said. A sense of panic gripped me by the throat, and deep down I felt the shame of trying to force my way into a place where I wasn’t wanted.

  “Not anymore. We’re the enemy now. We’re ruining RMC for them.”

  Study hours were my crash landing — nothing except homework was permitted from 19:00 to 22:00 hours. Meg and I shared comfortable silences, respecting each other’s need for privacy and study time. I had the first module of calculus to get started on, physics chapters to read, and chemistry questions to answer. Every other moment of our days was crammed, so this was our only chance to do homework. We had two hours each of drill and PT class weekly, as well as one hour daily of French language immersion. I continued to get circles every day for minor infractions. My rejection by the guys and fighting to stay awake in class had crowded out my ability to pay attention and absorb the material. A sort of academic entropy had seized my mind. I had no momentum. I couldn’t calm my thoughts and concentrate. I would continually catch myself reading material without a clue of the context and give my head a shake. At times, I’d have to turn back two or three pages before I found a section that I understood well enough to begin making progress on my lesson in good faith.

  One day, after calculus class, one of the guys from Four Squadron walked up to me and stuck out his hand. “Brad Boulter,” he said. Brad was an unassuming, stocky character with a hiccup laugh that seemed to come easily to him.

  “Hi?” His friendliness made me uneasy. I had already learned not to trust myself when it came to reading the intentions of male cadets, even my peers.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ve overheard you talking with Meg about being in first-year engineering. I want to help you with calculus.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I am bored shitless. The curriculum is stuff I covered in grade thirteen in Ontario and it bored me then. My degree program is honours math and physics. If you need help, I’m offering.”

  “I need help,” I said. We shook hands on it.

  Our first PT class was a fitness-level assessment that would be repeated in November and April. This was one challenge that did not give me anxiety. The PT test was a five-event test consisting of doing the maximum number of chin-ups possible, a timed agility run, timed sit-ups, a standing broad jump, and a mile-and-a-half run that had to be completed in twelve minutes.

  I excelled in every category until we hit the chin-up bar. I pulled up on the first chin-up with no problem and dropped down to straight arms. On the second pull-up, I could not raise my chin closer than halfway to the bar. I hung in mid-air, straining to canter my elbows the rest of the way, but it was like being paralyzed. I gritted my teeth and focused all my energy to my arms. Nothing. I simply could not do it. I dropped to the floor, defeated.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said to the PT instructor.

  “Don’t worry, it’s been happening to all the gals. You’ll need to train,” he said. “If you can get three, you’ll qualify for the crossed-clubs fitness badge.”

  I hung my head, flung myself down, and took my seat with the rest of A Flight. Holbrook jumped up and cranked off twenty chin-ups before the instructor ordered him down.

  “You’ve exceeded the necessary number of chin-ups, Recruit Holbrook,” he said.

  I felt hot breath against my neck and heard the whisper: “That’s because he’s not a girl.” I turned and glared into Colbert’s face. His head was broader at the top and narrowed down into a weak chin.

  8

  LCWB

  Thursday night, I ran over to the SAM Centre, a massive sports complex across the highway from the main college grounds, named after Sir Archibald Macdonell from the class of 1886, for varsity-team basketball tryouts. It was nuts to contemplate adding anything more to my schedule, but basketball had always been a refuge for me during high school — it was the thing that had sustained me. At practice or playing in a game, I was somebody. I belonged and was valued on the team. If I had gone to Simon Fraser University, I’d be in varsity-team tryouts now. For a split second, I felt that without basketball, I didn’t want to stay at RMC.

  “You want to try out for the guys’ basketball team?” Coach Jeff Winter asked me. No other women had shown up for basketball. I looked over at Mr. Samson, a fourth year from Eight Squadron and the team captain. He was nodding encouragement.

  “Have you ever played with guys before?”

  “Yes, Coach.” I had played with my high-school boyfriend, Gary, and his friends in pickup games; they were varsity-team superstars. I didn’t admit that their aggressive, faster play scared the crap out of me. “I was a high-school varsity all-star and MVP.”

  “Let’s give it a shot,” Coach said.

  I played hard, scored a few baskets, and tried not to show fear when the guys fought me for a rebound. After practice, Coach said that I had made the team, for practices only. I couldn’t play in the Ontario University Athletics Association as a girl on a guys’ team.

  I ran back to the college grounds with Kurt Samson and two guys from the Frigate, Second Year Jerry Stawski and Third Year Kevin Blackwood.

  “How’s recruit term going?” Kurt asked.

  “Fine, Mr. Samson. I’m finding it hard, but hope basketball will cheer me up.”

  “Yeah. I heard you’re getting a lot of circles,” Blackwood snorted.

  “You did?” I couldn’t believe he knew or cared.

  “Recruit watching is a source of entertainment for us,” Blackwood said.

  “Yeah, for people without a life,” Jerry retorted and gave Blackwood a shove with his elbow. They kibitzed the rest of the way. Kurt and I stayed silent.

  Kurt said goodbye when we reached the bronze statue of a cadet wearing the dress scarlet uniform with a sword at his hip, nicknamed Brucie the Fag Cadet because of his effeminate posture. Something about him reminded me of my oldest brother, Robert. It happened sometimes. More often than I’d like. I tried to push the thought of him away.

  I halted at the edge of the square as was mandatory for recruits, and the others ran ahead without me. Suddenly I was having a flashback of
Robert. I didn’t want to, but I found myself remembering. Our family had just moved to Fort St. John, into a new house with a finished basement. I was seven years old. Usually, Robert and I had to be home alone for him to play his game, but sometimes he’d call me downstairs while everyone else was upstairs. Those times were always the scariest. If we got caught, I’d be in big trouble, he said. I would listen to the TV sounds coming from the living room and for any sign of footsteps on the stairs. His favourite place to do it was in the downstairs bathroom because the door locked.

  “Have you had any blood down there?”

  “No,” I answered, wondering why he asked me that so often.

  “Kiss it,” he said. I said no. I always said no — I didn’t want to kiss him where his pee came out.

  Then he would hold out the tub of  Vaseline and I would take a scoop and spread it around the head of his penis. There was barely room for us on the tiny bathroom floor now that I was getting so tall. He rubbed  Vaseline on me, too. I would lie still and he would penetrate me. It didn’t hurt so much anymore, but I still didn’t like the feeling of it. I would stare at the holes in the ceiling tiles, looking for happy faces and recognizable shapes. He never took long.

  “I’m going to pee in you now,” he would say and then shudder, and it was over. I was always glad when he was done and I could get away.

  After he left the room, I would wipe myself with toilet paper, flush it, and hang up the towel to make sure everything looked normal. I knew I had to be careful; I had to do a good job. If there were any signs and we got caught, he wouldn’t be able to treat me special anymore. He was always paying attention to me, taking me aside, asking about my day and what I liked, listening to my stories. He would whisper in my ear, saying that he loved me, that he was the only one who looked out for me, his lips brushing against my ear, his hands pulling me down onto his lap in front of everyone, and grinding his groin up into me. Only letting go when I looked into his eyes, when I smiled.

  I didn’t understand yet what was happening to me or what was being robbed from me. The most terrifying moment was going back into the living room, feeling sure that we had been caught this time, but we never were. No one ever paid any attention.

  The white line on the parade square at the Frigate shocked me back into the present. No one would ever know. Robert had been gone for a long time. I didn’t have to think about him anymore.

  “Wake up, wake up,” someone whispered, shaking my shoulder.

  “What the fuck?” I lunged upright in bed. I’m going to kill this person.

  Two men were standing by our bed, and one of them was shaking Meg above me.

  “Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Be quiet. We’re second years. Get dressed in PT gear and sweaters. Take the fire escape and wait down by the boathouse. Don’t say anything.”

  “What is going on?” I whispered. This better be for real. If I don’t see any of our flight mates on the way there, I’m going to scream bloody murder.

  “You’ll see. Don’t worry.”

  I looked out at the clock tower. Midnight. We had only been asleep for an hour. We dressed silently, snuck down the hall, and tiptoed out onto the fire escape stairs.

  My eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw a crowd gathered at the boathouse. Arsenault was waiting in front of the group and I felt a wave of disgust. I didn’t want to go anywhere if he was going to be there.

  “We’re still missing two people,” Arsenault said in a normal talking voice. Just then, Leigh and Dahl came out the door and down the stairs. “Jesus. Let’s go, you slackers. You’re fucking lucky we didn’t leave without you.”

  We set out and ambled down the road in a gaggle, following the route of our morning run up Fort Henry Hill. I walked next to Jerry Stawski, from basketball, as he loped along like a jester from Monty Python, talking incessantly. I kept well away from Arsenault.

  “We have a surprise for you. It’s Frigate tradition for the second years to take the first years out on the first Friday after the start of classes,” said Jerry.

  When we got to the top of the hill, I saw a cooler overflowing with ice and beer on a picnic table, with bags of chips scattered next to it. The second years stepped back and gestured for us to dig in.

  I pulled a beer from the ice and a second year flipped off the top for me. I took a long, greedy chug and sidled up to Jerry and one of his second-year buds.

  “So, what’s your impression so far?” Jerry asked.

  “You have no idea what a miracle it is to see bags of chips and take a sip of cold beer. Thank you, I’m blown away,” I said.

  “I meant RMC,” he laughed.

  “Oh. It’s hard. And lately I’ve been more and more freaked out about the obstacle course.”

  His bud spoke up and stuck out his hand. “Bobbie Babineaux. Yeah. The only thing standing between you and the end of recruit term is our obstacle course.”

  I tried to wow him with the firm handshake I’d practised in etiquette class. “Kate Armstrong. What do you mean ‘our’ obstacle course?”

  “The LCWB builds the recruit obstacle course. It’s only five miles long and full of countless heinously evil obstacles. No reason to be freaked out.”

  “What’s LCWB?”

  “Last class with balls,” Bobbie puffed his chest and pumped his elbows out to the side.

  “Oh wow, good one. Did you make that up?” I asked dryly.

  “Nope. We got it from West Point. The LCWB graduated from there in 1979, before the first women graduated this spring,” Bobbie said with a sly grin.

  Holbrook and Maxwell walked over to join us.

  “LCWB. Last class with balls,” I said, thumbing in Bobbie’s direction. Richie and Nigel raised their eyebrows. I turned back to Bobbie. “Let’s hope you don’t fail and end up in our class. Sounds like it could be painful.”

  Jerry shot Bobbie a grin. Richie and Nigel laughed. The beer was delicious, and I felt bold. I swaggered toward the cooler for more. I may not have had balls, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from anything.

  Colbert stood near the table with Arsenault. Colbert snarled at me as usual. “Not as painful as having women here.”

  “What’s your fucking problem? I haven’t done anything to you. Why are you being such a jerk?”

  “Because of you girls, there’s no more recruit boxing.”

  “You look like a real boxer.” I looked up and down his frame: skinny as a heroin addict and head shaped like an alien.

  “Come on, Kate. Forget about it.” Jerry grabbed my arm from behind and pulled me away.

  When we were out of earshot, I asked him, “Did you box?”

  “Yeah, recruit boxing was a tradition.”

  “For what?”

  “For tradition’s sake?” He shrugged. “Boxing was a nightmare. I got pounded. They matched us by weight. I had never been in a fight in my life and ended up boxing against a rugby player. It’s a right of passage to be considered a real man around here. The guys in your class won’t get that.”

  Then he gave me some advice. “One suggestion. Steer clear of the French guys. Some of them are bitter because they did a prep year at CMR in Saint-Jean and then found out they have to do recruit term all over again when they got here. It’s the same every year.” CMR referred to the Collège militaire royal, the French feeder college to RMC in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.

  “That sucks. One of the things I was looking forward to the most about RMC was making friends with French Canadians.”

  “Good luck with that,” Jerry said with a smile.

  9

  SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?

  By the third week of classes, the atmosphere made it clear that even within our own year the women were outsiders. There was a core group of male cadets who did not hide their deep resentment toward us: ignoring us like we weren’t there; making snide comments; telling obscene stories; and finding ways to harass, ostracize, and ridicule. I had known there would be guys who wanted me to fail. To
cry. To quit. To rant. But I hadn’t expected that treatment to come from some of my own classmates. We’d been friends at basic training. I was fighting for my future, just like they were. It wasn’t their right to rob it from me. Their mean-spiritedness reminded me of my mother. She loved to put me down in similar ways.

  I had to succeed. I had no other plan for myself. I couldn’t go back home.

  “Outta my seat, sweat,” said one of the guys. I stared at him in disbelief. By now we had established a fairly regular pattern of who sat where, and I was in my seat.

  “Fuck off,” I said. “I’m not moving.”

  “Whooooaaaaa,” some of the guys nearby groaned at me. I stared straight ahead, flustered but unbudging.

  Separately, their behaviour would not have been overly distressing. I could accept that assholes existed. But collectively their treatment stacked up enough to erode my sense of confidence and forced me to face the reality that some of them truly wanted me gone — and were willing to help me along if I needed encouragement to leave. It was nothing personal. They wanted all the women to fail.

  At that moment, Mary Tyler of Six Squadron waddled across my line of sight, chest lifted and head held high. Her obesity sickened me. She was already on remedial PT and had been warned to get in shape or be kicked out. I lashed out in my mind against her. How did she ever get accepted here? I had heard her dad was a general and that she had been instrumental in the fight to get woman accepted to RMC in the first place. But it didn’t change the fact that she dragged down the impression of the rest of us girls, like Meg and me, who worked hard to prove we could be as tough as the guys. To prove we belonged here. I felt myself hardening against her, and against any woman giving an impression of weakness that reflected on the rest of us.

  One day, during a break, a group of guys broke out in raucous laughter. When I approached them, the laughter stopped short and they wedged closely together. I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze in even if I’d tried. Seeing the guys chum around together made me feel strange inside, but I couldn’t pinpoint the actual emotion. It was a mixture of feeling insignificant, unwanted, and jealous, all at the same time.