Traitors (Damned of the 2/19th - Book Five) - Finished

Iron and Blood

2/19th Special Weapons Group Barracks
Restricted Area - Western Germany
Early Winter - 1986

Day: Nine

Nancy was on all fours, my legs over her back, her left arm looped back to hold onto my ankles. Bomber was sitting on the weight bench we'd reassembled sipping a beer and watching the two of us intertwined together. I grunted and pulled another five situps out before collapsing back, breathing hard. Nancy let go of my ankles and I rolled off and onto all fours, still breathing hard, and let Nancy throw her legs over me, looping my arm back and around her ankles. She started pumping out the situps while I struggled to get my breathing to slow down. The light flickered for a second and then steadied, while a crash sounded out from above us.

Bomber sipped the beer slowly, watching the two of us do PT. While I held Nagle's legs he set his beer down, laid back on the bench, and did another group of reps on the weights. He was staring at the ceiling during the reps, and except for the breathing and the clink of the weights, he was silent. Silently, Nagle switched to being on all fours and I put my feet on her back and began pushing out the pushups. A low moan sounded from the bathroom, but we ignored it. I switched from diamond pushups to widearm pushups, doing 20 of each, then got down and got on all fours so that Nagle could take her turn. Sweat was dripping off of us and onto the floor as we kept going.

The weights clinked as Bomber added another 20 pounds to the bar and went back to doing steady reps, and I glanced over to see if he needed a spotter. He shook his head, and I nodded. If he got in trouble we'd know pretty quick and could move to spot him before anything happened to him.

I'd bought the weight bench back in March, before we left, so that if we got trapped in the barracks we'd be able to hit the weights and stay in shape. Pumping iron could help pass the time, and Bomber and I had figured that we'd use the winter to see if we could keep in shape so that we didn't end up out of shape from not being able to do our normal jobs. The weights had cost me about a half month's pay, but it was worth it, having the equipment for the leg work as well as barbells to do arm curls, which was something that Nagle did more than us.

A glance at the clock showed me that we'd been at it for about an hour, meaning we would keep it up until we hit the two hour mark, something we'd all agreed on three days prior. For one thing, it kept us from just sitting there staring at one another, for another we it meant we'd burn off energy and maybe some of the aggression that was the biggest threat we'd be facing in the room. We'd finish PT, take turns showering, then eat our dinner of MRE's before kicking back and continuing our AD&D game.

When we weren't pumping iron, doing PT, eating, or playing AD&D, we'd spent a long time talking. About our pasts, about our childhoods. We had already known a lot about each other, but now we knew more about each other than anyone else. We knew how each other had lost our virginity, why we'd joined the military, knew about our school time, and even know about the darker stuff, the nastier stuff. Stuff that you normally never talk about had come out during the long discussions we'd had in the dark.

PFC Oakes liked to come in and take away our light bulb at about 2200 hours, not giving it back until the next day when she'd come in and yell at us to get up at various times. Over the last four days she'd come in at widely varying times to tell us to get up at any time between 0400 and 0800. She seemed to be reveling in her power of us more and more, and Nagle had commented after she had left that morning that Oakes was probably going to get worse before anything got better.

The rattling of our lock brought the three of us up on our feet, Bomber dropping the beer into the drawer and closing it real quick. We'd been ignored for four days, except when Oakes came on duty. She'd broken the knob off of our door lock the day before, telling us that the LT had ordered it done. It wasn't exactly a surprise. She'd come in the room, march around smiling at us, and making sure we could see that she was packing while we were just standing there. She hadn't done anything more than just walk into the room whenever she damned well pleased and strut around despite breaking our ability to unlock the door, but I had a feeling that sooner or later she'd start feeling brave. That she'd move from strutting to outright trying to smack us around.