“Because that would make too much sense,” Jenou mutters back.
In just a few short weeks they’ve already perfected the art of speaking without moving lips, between beats, and pitching it so only those nearest can hear. They are evolving the fine art of military grumbling.
“Hands laced behind your necks, deep-knee bends, twenty-five and . . . HUT!”
“One! Two! Three!”
“I hate this one,” Rio says.
“I hate them all,” Jenou shoots back.
“Quiet in the ranks!” the sergeant yells.
“Four! Five!”
“Plenty fun if you have my view,” Tilo says, managing a leering sound in between gulps of air. He’s behind Rio and Jenou.
“It’s fine for me, Suarez. You look at us, and we don’t have to look at your skinny butt,” Jenou says.
“That’s a win-win,” Rio chimes in.
“Nine! Ten! Eleven!”
Week three. Friendships have formed; dislikes as well. There are still lewd remarks and many passes made and the occasional grab or clutch, but word has come down to the NCOs in no uncertain terms that they are not to tolerate any nonsense. Many of the male soldiers have made peace with the idea of the women being here. Some, like Jack Stafford, the cheeky Englishman, took a chivalric approach and shut down the more obnoxious of the men.
Others were nowhere close to accepting females, and that number includes officers and NCOs as well. And the hard truth is that despite the army’s reluctance to send anyone home who might carry a rifle, females are washing out at a higher rate than the males. Many of the girls and women simply lack the physical strength and endurance. The females still left tend to be taller and stronger than average, many from farms or ranches. Even Jenou is solidly built beneath the feminine curves, and her jumping jacks have the requisite snap and precision. As for Cat, she could probably best some of the men in a fist fight.
The integration of men and women is far from easy or settled, but is still more advanced than the integration of the races. Rio has learned that the camp across the river is for colored soldiers only. From time to time she glimpses them over there, doing much the same things that the whites on this side of the river are doing, but always over there, and never over here.
Rio is curious about that other camp and the colored soldiers over there, but she seems almost alone in her curiosity. They are seldom spoken of, those others. Only Jack has remarked on the irony that America is going to war against a white supremacist enemy with a segregated American army. And when he made that remark he was hooted down, especially by GIs from the south, male and female alike.
They jump, squat, sit up, and perform a complicated move called the Army Stomp, until each of them is sweating and shaking with exhaustion. But there is no doubt that they are already stronger and fitter than when they had first arrived. The fact that they are able to complain is evidence of that, since in the early days they’d all been busy gasping for breath. No, although they complain more, the pain is far less, and pride in her own physical strength has begun to bubble up within Rio Richlin.
“Push-ups! Twenty-five! HUT!”
I can do this.
“One! Two! Three!”
This is the one exercise that always left the women behind. The men can all do it—all twenty-five push-ups. But none of the women has gone past seventeen.
“Twelve! Thirteen! Come on, Castain, push it! Fifteen!”
Rio is strong to fifteen, but then comes the lethargy, the burn, the inability to control her breathing.
No, I won’t stop.
“Seventeen! Eighteen!”
Rio’s shoulders and stomach muscles tremble from the exertion, like she has fever chills, all the small muscles shaking while the big muscles burn.
“Nineteen! Twenty!”
Jenou collapses, facedown on the matted grass.
Sergeant Mackie join
s the noncom who is leading calisthenics. Rio catches a sweat-blurred view of her and feels Mackie’s eye on her. Mackie takes over the count.