Bett’s bed was closest to the door, and Jo Archer had claimed the bunk below her where she was stretched out, filing her nails. “Hey, Sarge,” Jo said companionably.
“When a noncommissioned officer enters,” Rains began patiently, “you are to call out Attention! so that your squad knows to stand at the foot of their beds and be prepared for instructions.”
“Okay,” Jo acknowledged pleasantly.
Sergeant Rains waited.
“I mean, yes, Sergeant,” Jo tried again.
A small sigh escaped Rains.
“Oh—you mean, like, now?” Jo asked. Rains nodded. “Attention!” Jo tried to stand as she spoke, the top of her head narrowly missing the top bunk rail. That, and perhaps her sudden responsibility, made her so jumpy that only a squeak came out.
Hopping down from the bunk across the aisle, Minnesotan Phyllis Kendrick came to her rescue. “Attention on deck!” she called out loudly. “Officer on board.”
Rains paced quietly down the length of the barracks as the girls scrambled into position and held their poses of attention. Returning to Phyllis, she said, “Very good, Private Kendrick, but this is not the Navy. A simple Attention will do.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Phyllis replied, and was rewarded with a slight nod.
“Ladies, your next activity will be to dress in your exercise clothes and meet me on the parade ground in fifteen minutes.” As they started to move, Rains froze them with the sharpness of her single word, “Not”—everyone waited and she continued—“until you are dismissed. And before you do that, your first order of business is to elect your squad leader. This private will be the spokesperson for your group, and the person to whom I will sometimes give orders for your behalf.”
“Queenie!” Jo called out, and a murmur of assent swelled in the room.
“Oh no,” Bett said, barely daring to sneak a glance at her sergeant whose message of discretion had been clearly delivered only a short time before.
“I’ll leave you to your democratic process,” Rains remarked, not meeting Smythe’s eyes as she left the room. As she stood outside, Rains tried to figure out which was the best solution. She could already tell that Smythe was going to be augmentative and problematic. Spoiled, Rains thought, or willful. Or both. Whatever it is that too much money does to people. Whatever the case, she would be hard to manage as she was probably accustomed to giving orders, not taking them.
Just then, Jo appeared. “Sergeant Rains, we need to know what other duties the squad leader has,” she requested. Rains gathered that the election was not going smoothly. Perhaps Smythe was attempting to remain inconspicuous after all.
“This is the private who will meet with me weekly or as needed,” explained Rains, “to discuss the problems and progress of your squad. There is also talk of possibly forming a kind of council, on which she would be your squad’s representative.”
“Got it,” Jo nodded. Rains cleared her throat. “I mean, thank you, Sergeant,” Jo amended, and turned to leave.
“Private Archer?” The firmness of Rains’s tone held no criticism. Archer turned back immediately. “We haven’t gone over this yet, but when your conversation with an officer has ended, you are to salute before withdrawing.” As Archer’s shoulders slumped a bit at this latest gaffe, the sergeant added reassuringly, “If you wouldn’t mind demonstrating with me when I show the rest of your squad, I’ll teach you the procedure now.” Steadily, Rains taught her the correct form for saluting and they practiced twice. Then she drew herself to attention and announced, “Dismissed, Private.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Archer said saluting proudly. “Thank you, ma’am.”
A good one, that, Rains thought as she watched Archer return to the barracks. Kindness inside, and willing to be taught. We’ll see if she has the ability to teach others. With that and a little more confidence, she could become a good leader. She had met several recruits from New York, and most of them had a proud kind of boldness that she appreciated. She felt it in Archer as well and thought that the young private would only need a bit of reassurance to make a good way for herself in the WAC.
Sergeant Rains turned her thoughts back to the matter of her new squad’s leader. Should the recruits select Smythe, those weekly meetings would give Rains a chance to make sure that Smythe’s cover was holding and to try to handle any problems before they got bucked up the line. When Colonel Issacson had given her this assignment, her contemptuous tone for this incoming private had not led the sergeant to expect the very attractive, confident woman whose image now came fully into her mind: a genuine smile and those amazing eyes—a blend of blue and green that Rains didn’t think she had ever seen before. Did they show her true spirit? In that moment Rains could hear her mother’s voice: Certain things may catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart. Then Rains shook her head briskly. This was the Army. They didn’t care about spirit. And there was no place for her heart here. Why were her thoughts wandering this way? She began pacing, trying to refocus. She had a feeling that these were going to be the hardest eight weeks of her career.
*
Inside the barracks, Jo was in full election mode. “Yes, Queenie,” Jo insisted. “You can talk better than the rest of us put together.” Others chimed in with shouts of agreement.
“No, Jo,” Bett objected. “I simply can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Well for one thing, I don’t think Sergeant Rains likes me,” Bett suggested, groping for a plausible excuse.
“Oh, come on. You don’t know that,” Jo countered. “She let you play that game of figuring out where we were from. Can you imagine Sergeant Moore letting that go on?”
The room filled with various moans and shudders at the mention of Moore’s name. “We sure were lucky to get Sergeant Rains instead,” Maria commented and there was agreement all around. After a few seconds she added, almost in a whisper, “But Sergeant Rains is kinda scary too, only in a different way. Not ’cause she’s harsh and mean like Sergeant Moore, but she just seems so…” She groped for a word while several of them supplied their own description for the tall, dark-haired woman who would control much of their lives for the next seven weeks—intimidating, forceful, commanding, decisive, strong—but Maria finished for herself, nodding slowly. “Like—like a superhero.” There was an almost equal reaction of agreement and laughter to Maria’s musings and she blushed and smiled, her hand measuring with descending heights as she added, “What can I say? I have three little brothers who read those crazy comics all the time.”
Archer jumped in again. “Well, hey, Queenie has her own superpower. She can see…well, hear where people come from, so she’s the right one to meet with our Super Sergeant.”
Bett tried to speak over the sounds of approval. “But she told me after you all went in to get your gear that I’d better not try any stunts like that again.”
“Oh, really?” questioned Phyllis. “I wondered what she was talking to you about.”
“Well that’s okay. You won’t be doing anything like that anyway,” Jo persisted. “You’ll just be speaking for us and meeting with her sometimes. And you can do whatever she wants then.”
Looking at the faces around her, it seemed obvious to Bett that no one else wanted the responsibility of facing their formidable sergeant on a regular basis. She threw up her hands in defeat and the room cheered.
Chapter Two
On her first Sunday afternoon in camp, Bett spent her free time writing to her friends. Her decision to enlist had been so spontaneous that no one outside of her immediate family knew she had signed up for the WAC. The idea of their friend Bett in the military service was so absurd that none of her friends were likely to believe it without hearing the news directly from her. She couldn’t begin to predict the responses she would get by return mail.
As she was finishing her outgoing letters, faint shouting drifted in the windows from the parade grounds. Bett had noticed that there weren’t many people in th
e barracks, but she had been enjoying the relative quiet. Standing to stretch, she decided to walk over to see what was happening after finding her way to the PX where she could drop off her correspondence. On a grassy section of the field, an impromptu baseball game was under way between two groups of officers, and fans of each team were cheering from the reviewing stands. Bett scanned the faces and found Jo Archer sitting in the second row. She squeezed in next to her and asked, “Who’s playing?”
Just then Sergeant Rains came up to bat. Like the other women, she was wearing her exercise clothes, but unlike some who were playing bareheaded, Rains still wore her khaki uniform hat. Jo pointed at her and said, “I don’t know if these are official teams, but we’re rooting for Rains’s group. She stood and yelled, “Smack it, Sarge!” The noise level all around increased. “Notice how the outfield has faded back?” Jo pointed out as she sat back down. “Sarge must be a good hitter.”
Bett had no idea what Jo was talking about, but she was interested in watching her new drill instructor in such a different environment. After taking a couple of practice swings, Rains did not move as the first pitch came in very low. “Good eye, Sarge,” Jo yelled.
“Is there a score?” Bett asked as Rains stepped back into the batter’s box.
Jo shook her head. “This is the bottom of the first with two outs. Rains is the cleanup hitter,” she added as Rains’s bat cracked against the ball. Bett followed the long arc of it with her mouth open. But the ball seemed to be curving away from the field and bounced well away from the left field player who was running to get it. The player who’d been on first trotted back to her base.
“Foul ball,” the umpire yelled.
“Does that mean she’s out?” Bett asked.
Archer looked at her with disbelief. “Don’t you know anything about baseball?”
“No, not much, actually.”
Indulgently, Archer began to explain. “Well, a foul ball counts as a strike until the third one. Then it would have to be a swing and a miss or a tip that the catcher gets.”
“So she gets another chance?” Bett asked.
“Yeah. That’s only one strike and one ball. It sure traveled though, didn’t it?” Jo added, admiringly.
On the next pitch, Rains adjusted her swing and connected with another solid hit that went well over the head of the center outfielder and almost into the road. Rains circled the bases quickly, but without much effort. Archer and at least half of the bleachers were on their feet cheering. “Home run!” she yelled to Bett, who stood, too. “And an RBI.” After Rains crossed home plate, Bett saw her glance into the stands. Archer was pumping the air with her fists and yelling. Without fully turning in their direction, Rains touched the bill of her hat very briefly and went to sit with her team. One more run was scored and then the inning was over.
When they took the field, Jo pointed out Rains’s position and explained to Bett, “Some people think you can’t win a baseball game without a good shortstop.”
“How do you know so much about this game, Jo?” Bett asked.
Again, Archer appeared astonished as she looked Bett full in the face. “Are you kidding me, Queenie? Haven’t you ever heard of the New York Yankees?”
Bett smiled. “Yes, I suppose I have.”
“Well, there you go.” Archer returned to watching the game while keeping up a running commentary on the players and their skills for Bett’s benefit.
Bett had never been a big fan of sports but she did appreciate grace and form, and watching Sergeant Rains move around the infield was more than enough to keep her entertained. She was amazed by the way the sergeant seemed to have absolute control of her body, leaping to catch a ball hit in the air, charging a ground ball and pivoting in midair to make a throw, or sprinting into the outfield for a cutoff. Rains was clearly the leader of her team, and she showed uncanny accuracy at repositioning the outfielders to make an easy play on the ball as each new batter came up.
There were two outs in the top of the second inning when Sergeant Moore came up to bat. Bett suppressed the desire to boo, although she heard some rumbles from her squad mates. Clearly some of Moore’s friends or previous squad members were sitting on the other side of the bleachers, as they cheered and yelled encouragement for a hit.
“Those are all veterans,” Jo murmured to Bett, glancing admiringly at the group opposite them. “We talked a little as the teams were warming up. They all made it through basic and are working on the base.”
Bett looked over at the uniformed women, reflecting on whether anyone would ever point to her and say the same. Thinking of the eight long weeks stretching ahead of her in this place, she asked herself, Will I be able to do this? She’d always asserted her independence, fought for it—even against her own family members at times—and now her impulsive decision to join the WAC had led her back to a situation where her life was not her own, where she was subject to the commands and control of others. She looked for Rains on the field, watching as her sergeant signaled to the outfield players, all of whom then moved back a few steps. Sergeant Rains was very much the unknown element in this equation, but Bett felt quite sure that had Moore remained as their sergeant, her chances of making it through basic training would have been greatly reduced. But it was also true that once genuinely committed to something, she’d always followed through, even if she did make a point of putting her own stamp on things as she’d done when they arrived for their squad formation. So is this really what I want?
She swept her eyes past the players, across the well-manicured field, to a line of elegant, two-story Colonial structures with wide verandas. “That’s Officers’ Row.” Jo had followed her gaze. “Those houses have upper and lower apartments. Some of the male officers and their families live there and the rest are for WAC officers.”
Bett tried to imagine herself as an officer, living in one of those apartments, working on the base. Her ambivalence wasn’t due to the unfamiliarity of it all. She’d lived away from home for more than half her life, starting new courses each year, classmates coming and going, and at her all-girls boarding school they’d worn uniforms, too. She sighed pensively. And what if I don’t make it? Even though her family’s wealth gave her more opportunities than most other young women had, her options were still quite limited. Besides, her country was at war. In fact, the whole world was at war. If she did indeed want a part to play, then perhaps this was the place for her.
Jo sensed her mood and patted her shoulder a bit awkwardly. “Don’t worry, Queenie. That’s gonna be you and me in just a few short weeks.”
They both looked back over at the other group, and one sergeant, whose nameplate said Edwards, caught the serious expressions on their faces. Boisterously, she chided, “What’s wrong, rookies? Worried you’re rooting for the wrong team?”
Unaccustomed to sports banter, Bett looked to Jo. She needn’t have worried. Jo had already turned to face the big talker on the other side of the bleachers. “Nah, we’re just thinking how boring it’s going to be when Sergeant Moore strikes out.” Thinking of one last taunt she added, “As usual.”
The sergeant leaned toward Jo. “I don’t suppose you wanna put your money where your mouth is?”
Her friends laughed, and one commented, “Oh no, Mae. You know these babies won’t have anything to bet with, other than some nasty cotton stockings.”
Bett tugged on Jo’s sleeve. “Go ahead, Jo. I’ll cover whatever you think is right,” she whispered.
After studying Sergeant Moore for just a few seconds, Jo turned back to their antagonists. “Whatcha got in mind?” she asked coolly.
Edwards’s friend hooted. “You got a live one here, Mae. Don’t hurt ’em. Just make ’em pay.”
The sergeant looked around cautiously, then huddled with her fellow veterans. Several offers and counteroffers were made before the two sides settled on their wager. If Sergeant Moore got on base, the recruits would pay for the veterans’ drinks at Sweetie’s, a local club in town that was
famous for its hospitality toward WACs. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to accompany them, since they wouldn’t be allowed off the base for another eight weeks. But if Moore stuck out or was thrown out, the veterans would spring for an equal number of drinks at the NCO club on base—and provide escorts so the recruits could get in.
“Good.” Bett turned back to Jo after they’d sealed the deal with a handshake. “Feel like doing some drinking tonight?”
Jo grinned. “Now you’re talking.”
Rains had been speaking to the third baseman while Moore took a few more practice swings. The umpire called, “Batter up!” and Moore stepped in.
“She’s a power hitter, Queenie,” Jo explained. “Just look at her swing and her stance. But power hitters strike out more often, too, so we’ve got a good chance here.”
Bett didn’t particularly want to look at Sergeant Moore, but she did notice that the catcher for Rains’s team had a wrap on her right ankle.
After Bett pointed it out to Archer, the New Yorker commented, “Oh yeah, I wondered why she had such a weird stance. She probably won’t make any plays at the plate.”
After taking two balls, Moore got off a long hit to right field, which dropped in just over the glove of the right fielder. The first baseman went out to be the cutoff and Rains headed to home, waving the injured catcher aside. As Moore came charging around third, Rains got the throw. Bett watched things happen as if in slow motion. Moore continued coming hard and Rains braced for a collision. At the last moment, Moore went down to slide in, but Rains dropped in time to tag her leading foot before it hit the base. They were both engulfed in a ragged screen of dust as the umpire yelled, “Out.”
Basic Training of the Heart Page 3
