Requiem - Part 1
Camp Hesperus was a military installation nestled deep within Swiss Alps - a beautiful, rugged, nasty section of land that officially encompassed twenty square kilometers in area, but really had a greater area of influence due to the fact that the installation was at least a hundred kilometers from the nearest town or city, and only having one set of tracks for the high-speed trains that arrived and departed on the hour from reveille at five to midnight. The camp was cold in the summers and bitter during the winter. This was due to the arctic winds that constantly blew through the mountain valley that fanned out to a lake on the western side of the installation. Built shortly after the Invasion, Camp Hesparus quickly became known as the roughest training facility in the United Nations Federation, a training facility that was co-ed, integrated units of both humans and furs and prided itself in producing the toughest fighting units in existence. So, naturally, after I had been sworn in and had made a promise to, "uphold and defend the freedoms put forth by and for the United Nations Federation," I felt a thrill of honor to be assigned to Camp Hesperus - it was a chance to be distinguished, rough, and tough like my father was. I also felt a great amount of nervousness and dread, for the same reasons.
Bit that first morning, when we fell into ranks at the sound of revile, I no longer felt the nervousness. I felt the dread, the slight excitement, and above all, I felt the cold. The damn wind blew through the the camp at all times, drastically lowering the apparent temperature and leaving all of us with a feeling of sheer, raw cold.
Sergeant Halfenstehr was the only one who seemed unaffected by the cold, at least physically. Where the wind made our eyes water and our lips chapped, he kept a hard, fierce look on his face. He was a human, stood about six feet, four inches tall, and had a muscular, intimidating frame. His eyes were a bright, fierce blue in contrast to his short, black hair and sharp, clean-shaven face. He paced in front of us stiffly and agitatedly, glaring severely at us in ranks. There were about two hundred and fifty of us who had been recruited and placed here at Camp Hesperus, about seventy-five humans, and the rest furs. He never spoke to is - he either barked or shouted at us whenever he needed to say something. "So you want to be soldiers, do you?" He asked us rhetorically.
Wisely, nobody said anything in reply.
"Well," he assured us, "you're not soldiers. You're not even the usual types of recruits I usually receive. The others I see are rough, tough, soldier-type sons of bitches. But you," he spit in disgust, "you are the softest, wet-eared, mewling kittens I have ever seen."
This had the desired effect of hurting the pride of everyone in ranks and getting everyone's attention. But the sergeant did not stop. He described in lurid detail the incompetences of everyone in ranks before him. By the end of it, everyone was either sore at him or seething with malice and anger.
"Fortunately for you," he said, finishing, "there is hope for you all. You all will be soldiers one day." He paused his pacing as he said with a smirk, "well, perhaps, for most of you." I felt dread well up inside of me - he was staring straight at me.
"Human!" he barked at me. I quickly risked a look to see of there was someone else he was referring to. To my left was a gray wolf, male, and standing about five feet and six inches. To my right was a light brown lynx, clearly female, and the same height as me. Behind me was a fox, also clearly female, who was about as tall as the wolf to my left and flashed me an oddly flirtatious smile when I looked back at her. But it didn't matter to me at the time - what mattered was that I was completely surrounded by furs, which meant that there was nobody else he could have been referring to. Rarely had I ever felt so set up for something in my life.
"Human!" He still was addressing me.
"What do you want from me?" I snarled, sore at the sergeant for his talk, sore for him singling me out, sore with the whole goddamn escapade that he was putting me through.
"Human, you will answer me with 'yes, sir!' or 'no, sir!' Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir!" I growled.
"Speak up, human. The wind is loud in our ears," he ordered.
"I said yes, sir!" I snarled again.
"Tell is your name, human," he ordered harshly.
"Jacob, sir," I replied coldly.
"Last name, idiot."
"Dragonsfield, sir." I heard the sharp intakes of breath from many of the recruits. My father was well-known.
"Well, Dragonsfield, I'm sure your father would be disappointed to learn that his son tried and failed to follow in his footsteps. Seeing as he is not here, let me tell you for him - you are not a soldier. You never will be."
"Yes, I will, sir," I spat angrily.
"No, you won't. I daresay you will be the first recruit to wash out. I know soldier material when I see it, ad you do not have any of it."
"I will be a better soldier than you ever were," I shot back angrily.
Helfenstehr did not appreciate my sentiments. "Get on the ground and give me twenty!" he ordered venomously.
I fell out of ranks and did as ordered.
"Count them," he spat.
I pushed down all the way to the ground and then pushed up. "One."
I suddenly felt a sharp, hard kick to my side and nearly fell over fr the pain. "Down," he ordered coldly.
"Two."
Another kick to the ribs.
"Again."
"Three."
I could hear the kick to my ribs this time.
By the time I had gotten to seven, my side was numb, and my ears were dulled by the blood rushing through my head. I could barely hear the whispers from the ranks, but couldn't pick anything out as the abuse continued.
By the time number ten came around, I utterly and completely snapped.
Before he could kick me again, I tucked my body, rolled, and pushed myself to my feet, armed with a jagged rock. "If you kick me one more fucking time, I will kill you, sir," I spat in complete rage.
The sergeant simply beckoned me with his hand, a smug smirk on his face.
I charged him with a blind rage, wanting nothing more than to kill this piece of shit that had been kicking me while I was vulnerable. I then learned my first lesson of hand-to-hand combat: if you fail to execute a plan of attack, you will have your ass handed to you every time.
I woke up to a basin of ice-cold water being thrown on me by one of the sergeant's assistants, a corporal, and a throbbing headache. I barely registered pain in my side, as I snapped myself out of my daze. I was helped to my feet by the lynx and the fox.
"Take this - soldier - to the medic tent to have him checked out and fall back in line," he ordered, and they snapped to attention, on the bounce. "And you," he barked, addressing me, "need to learn how to fight before trying to lay a hand on me again. But rest assured, I believe you will make a soldier now."
"Thank you, sir," I replied, glad that my message had gotten across.
"Welcome to Camp Hesperus, soldier," he said with a smirk as I was taken away by the two female furs to the medic's tent.
It was the warmest welcome I could have hoped for.
"You've been bruised extensively on the ribs. Are you sure it doesn't hurt?"
I nodded silently as the medic, a male otter, looked up at me.
"Okay," he said quietly, continuing his examination. "Do you feel disoriented?"
"No," I said shortly.
"I expected as much. But one can never be too sure, can they?" he asked me good-naturedly.
"I suppose not," I agreed.
"I recommend you avoid getting kicked in the side for a few days." He stood, his examination complete. "You are cleared for action."
I left the medic's tent without another word.
My escorts were waiting for me outside the tent, speaking to each other in low whispers, which they stopped when they saw me. As we walked back to ranks, the two females did their damndest to coax me into talking, but I honestly have never felt secure talking to strangers. So, they tried, and I more or less politely refused. I can't even recall what they wanted to talk about. Any way that I look at it, it was an awkward, unhappy trek back to ranks. We fell back in line without a word as Sergeant Halfenstehr was chewing out somebody else.
"Ferret!" His voice rang out discordantly with the wind, a grating sound to the ears. "What is your name?"
"H-Hendricks, sir," the shivering fur responded, his teeth trembling with the cold.
"Why are you shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, Hendricks?" the sergeant demanded.
"I'm c-cold, s-sir," he said, his shivering stuttering his speech.
"Soldier Hendricks here is cold!" the sergeant beamed. I felt like som ething was wrong. "That can only mean one thing - you all are cold, you just want to deny the fact that you are Momma's children and pretend that you're not."
I ground my teeth in fury. He really knew how to rub the wrong way. And it was really starting to piss me off.
"Well, fortunately, I have the remedy for both," he said with a slightly unpleasant smile.
The sergeant's "remedy" consisted of strenuous exercise in the form of running. He led us in a very brisk trot all over the facility, shouting a military song at the top of his lungs. We ran and ran until we were as dripping hot as we had been shivering cold. Ten kilometers we ran, and still the sergeant looked as fresh as a colt ready to race, even his uniform being crisp and neat, and nary a drop of sweat on him. It was remarkable - and remarkably preposterous at the time, while we panted for breath and sweated until our uniforms were soaked and we stumbled in exhaustion, and the sergeant bounced around just as if he had gotten twelve hours of sleep! It was ridiculous - and looking back at it now, the sergeant was one tough son of a bitch. Hindsight is always 20/20, however.
Fortunately, the sergeant was never one to let us dwell on one thing too long - he always kept us on the bounce. He led us at a trot to the morning mess, our anticipation of enjoying food impetus enough for us to press on for another kilometer.