C.R.O.W. (The Union Series) (7 page)

6: True Colours

You couldn’t
be any more isolated than when you were in the void, there was no more law and
order there than that which we brought with us in our tiny ships. The captain
of Challenger had the authority of the President of the Union himself - the
power of life or death over her crew and her infantry cargo. Beneath her and in
charge of our company was the officer commanding, who with the company sergeant
major oversaw everything from discipline to the planning of future operations
on the ground. They were all busy, with far more important things to deal with
than issues within the platoons themselves.

‘What goes
on ship stays on ship,
’ was a saying I had first heard aboard Fantasque and
one I would never forget. To me it meant you kept your mouth shut, and you
never grassed on your mate. It meant if you had a problem, deal with it,
because nobody was going to be able to help you in your tiny prison surrounded
by infinite vacuum.

‘
What
goes
on ship stays on ship
.’ The golden rule of the trooper - it was a lesson I
was to learn hard.

The first
punch connected with my cheek bone, taking me by surprise and knocking me off
balance, but it was the second punch that took me down, striking me so hard on
the eye socket it created a flash of white on my retina. My body collapsed like
a sack of potatoes, my limbs limp and useless.

Woody wasn’t
finished with me, though. He never wanted me to forget what a beating from him
felt like, and with sharp hisses of exhaled air he drove home a flurry of
punches into my unprotected abdomen. I was so dazed I was barely even able to
choke, much less breathe.

‘Think you
can mess with me, eh? Think you can gob off?’ Woody spat through curled lips.

We were in
our room but we weren’t alone. Climo and Brown merely stood by and watched
without a word as my helpless body was savagely beaten in front of them. I
could swear Brown was smiling.

My confused
mind tried to understand why Woody had turned on me so suddenly and viciously.
How
had I gobbed off to him
?

When me and
the other new lads had returned to the platoon from our tour, they were moving
ammunition boxes from the lock room where they had recently been unloaded by
shuttle to the ship’s ammunition store. They were under the direction of the
screws and lancejacks, and they were almost finished.

Woody had
asked me, ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

And my only
answer had been, ‘I’ve been getting my arrival brief, haven’t I?’ Was that
gobbing off? Perhaps I had used the wrong tone of voice and had been
misunderstood, but did that warrant me being set upon in my room, just before I
was about to go to eat my lunch?

I tried to
slap at Woody with feeble, weakened arms, but he straddled me and held me to
the ground. God he was heavy! He grasped my neck in his hand and pressed down
against my Adam’s apple.

‘I’m the
senior bod in this platoon, do you know what that means?’

I tried to gulp
for air but couldn’t, and only managed a gasp, ‘No.’

‘It means you
don’t mug me off, you don’t gob off and you do what I tell you to do, you
little weasel!’

I couldn’t
speak, my cheeks were burning and my eyes were watering as my lungs struggled
for air.

‘What do you
say?’

I didn’t
understand.

‘You say
sorry
.’

‘S….sorry,’ I
managed.

‘Sorry, Staff.
From now on you call me
staff
, get me? Like a PTI.’

‘Sorry…..Staff.’

Woody smiled,
with that sickening smile of his that I had come to loathe in less than six
hours, ‘Good. Mess with me again and I swear on my mum’s life I’ll have you out
the nearest lock!’

With that, he
released me and my lungs sucked precious air back into them, my heart pumping
hard as it tried to return oxygen back into my organs. I clutched my throat and
my eye which was already beginning to swell.

‘I’m off to
scoff,’ Woody said to Climo and Brown as they watched me with blank
expressions, ‘You coming?’

‘Yeah,’ Brown
replied instantly, but Climo hesitated.

‘You coming?’
Woody repeated harshly.

Climo looked
at Woody, then at me, ‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t worry
about that little prick,’ Woody said as the bulkhead slid open for them, ‘He
needs to learn. That’s how it works.’

The door was
shut and I was left alone on the floor in my room, my body slowly recovering
and my breathing coming back under control. As soon as I was able to, I dragged
my bruised body to my bed where I cried for what seemed like forever.

After a while
and without warning the door slid open. Startled, I quickly wiped the tears
from my eyes.

A corporal
frowned as he looked down at me. He was so tall that he appeared to fill the
entire doorway, with sharp chiselled features that made him appear almost
god-like, ‘What are you doing down there?’

My eye was
half closed already and I could feel it swelling. There was no way he didn’t
know what had happened. My skull throbbed in pain.

‘I just…,
um…, fell over, Corporal.’

The Corporal
screwed his face up into a quizzical expression, ‘Right. Who did you fall over
onto?’

‘Nobody,
Corporal,’ I insisted.

He nodded
slowly, ‘Right. Tell the lads in the room Corporal Evans says thirteen-thirty
hours back up at the stores.’

‘I will,
Corporal.’

Corporal Evans
continued to stare at me, ‘Do you know what you should do when you fall over,
lad?’

I shook my head.

‘You get back
up.’

I realised that
I was still hunched up against the frame of my bunk bed. I quickly picked
myself up off the floor, tucking my shirt back in and brushing down my
trousers, ‘Sorry, Corporal.’

‘Don’t be
sorry.’

‘Corporal.’

‘It’s Private
Moralee, right?’

I nodded,
uncomfortable in Corporal Evans’ steady gaze, ‘Yes, Corporal.’

The NCO
nodded thoughtfully, ‘Okay. Watch your step next time, Moralee, this ship is
littered with trip hazards.’

He knew I had
been beaten up, I thought as Corporal Evans disappeared behind the closing
bulkhead, but he chose to say nothing. Senior troopers were part of military
life, I had been warned, and were responsible for much of the discipline behind
closed doors. Unfortunately it was just my luck that I had managed to find the
worst of the bunch.

I didn’t go
to eat, instead I washed my face in the sink and nursed my half-closed eye. It
was already beginning to change colour, but it was still working and I assessed
that no bones appeared to be broken. Under my shirt my body was black and blue
with the bruises from two separate beatings received in a single day. I longed
for somebody to reach out and help me but there was nobody, not even Peters
could help me. I resisted the urge to cry again, clenching my fists until my
nails bit at the skin of my palms.
Damn you for being so weak, Andy
, I
said to myself,
what if Corporal Evans catches you like that again?

#

‘What the
hell happened to you, boy?’ Sergeant James scowled at me as the platoon arrived
at the stores, a warehouse almost as large as a dropship hangar stacked with
crates of ammunition of all sizes and natures.

I said
simply, ‘I fell, over, Sergeant.’

He spluttered
and then frowned, ‘Onto a fist?’

‘The floor, Sergeant.’

The burley
platoon sergeant rubbed his forehead stressfully, as the platoon set about
their work amongst the ammunition. Woody eyed me threateningly as he walked
past and disappeared into the maze of crates.

‘You silly
prat,’ he said after a pause.

‘Yes, Sergeant,’
I agreed, with little other option. I had enough bruises for one day.

He drew in a
deep breath and sighed resignedly. Behind those blazing blue eyes I think he
could sense the predicament I was in. I wasn’t going to tell him that I had
just been filled in by a senior bod and earn myself another hiding for grassing
him up.

‘If you fall
over, Moralee, you put your hands out, know what I mean?’ He looked away, ‘Get
out of my sight. Go on.’

I followed
the platoon to where we were unpacking crates containing smart missiles. They
needed to be checked by an armourer before reloading them onto pallets to be
lifted by forklift onto huge shelving systems a good ten metres high. Most of
the lads noticed my black eye but chose to say nothing about it, I was sure
they would be talking about it when my back was turned.

Greggerson
and the other new lads all noticed and were keen to find out what had happened.
‘I don’t want to say,’ I said to them all in turn, ‘Let’s just leave it, yeah?’

It was hard
to lift things when I could hardly see out of one eye and my body had been used
as a punch bag. I pretended I was fine and that I wasn’t struggling with my
injuries, I didn’t want anybody to think I was a soft target or I suspected
things would only get worse for me, plus I think a little part of me wanted to
pretend it hadn’t happened and wanted everyone else to pretend it hadn’t
happened as well.

A couple of
times I passed Climo as we worked and he looked away from me awkwardly.

In the end I
found myself carrying out the solitary task of cutting open the seals to the
crate lids with a knife, before the others emptied the half-metre long missiles
for the armourer to inspect them. They were well sealed and it took a good five
minutes to open each crate - and there were a seemingly endless supply of
crates being delivered by the forklift - but I was happy to be doing something
that gave me a good excuse not to talk to anybody. Instead I listened to the
other lads in the platoon who were working nearby chatter about their exploits
on shore leave in the Uralian capital, Forsta Byn, glad to keep myself to
myself.
Be the grey man
, Andy, I told myself once more,
watch the
platoon and learn your place
.

The day had
been such a whirlwind of emotions and information that I had barely even had a
chance to work out anything about my platoon, who its NCOs were, the names of
anyone outside of my room or even which of the three sections I was to be
placed in.

Every platoon
in the dropship infantry was divided into four distinct groups, much like the
company was divided but on a smaller scale. First of all there were the three
rifle sections which were the fighting units within the platoon, each one being
eight men strong with a further six man headquarter group.  This group included
the platoon commander and his signaller, the platoon sergeant with his runner,
and two smart gunners. Each section also included a section commander who had
the rank of full corporal, or ‘full screw’ as he was known, a word carried
through the centuries which supposedly originated from prison inmates - no
surprise there, then.

The full
screw was in charge of the section and made all of its decisions, managing the
men beneath him both in and out of contact with the enemy. I suspected that I
was in One section, because I could overhear the lads in my room sometimes
referring to themselves as One section whilst they talked. It was often normal
practice to put all of the section men in rooms together so that they developed
the distinctive bond that only existed between troopers, or in my case so that
they beat any new blokes senseless.

Corporal
Evans was likely to be our section commander, I presumed. He wasn’t working
with us in the stores, but then I didn’t expect him to, being a full corporal
with far better things to do than lug crates. There was something about full
corporals that filled me with awe and wonder and Corporal Evans was no exception.
They were god-like men; fit, tough, tireless troopers with years of experience
serving the Union, and they were only ever over-shadowed by the overpowering
presence of the platoon sergeant. They would likely be away with the platoon
commander, probably planning our training and discussing whatever the future
might have in store for us all. Or perhaps relaxing in Challenger’s modest
recreation room probably, I figured.

Each section
was divided further into two smaller teams of four or ‘fire teams’ as they were
known, one of which was called ‘Charlie’ and commanded by the section
commander, the other was called ‘Delta’ and was commanded by a lance corporal
or ‘lancejack’ as they were known. Overall control of both fire teams still
came under the section commander, however. Every platoon in every regiment in
the Union used the same basic breakdown, although they might use different
words to describe the same thing.

The
lancejacks were  second in command to the section commanders, and they took
control of the sections in their absence. They were often in charge of
administration within the sections, ensuring ammo states were correct, that the
men were fed and hydrated and overseer of any other minor trivia that might
otherwise distract the section commander’s attention from the bigger picture -
the battle itself. They worked under the platoon sergeant, who was to them as
the platoon commander was to the section commanders. In the stores it was they
that were in charge, as the commanders never got involved in the platoon
sergeant’s administration.

I had never
worked with lance corporals before, having never had any within my training
platoon on Uralis. Instead we had been expected to practice the role of section
second in command ourselves under the watchful eyes of our instructors, as
every rank in the Union army was always trained to be able to carry out the job
of the man at least one rank above him. We were, after all, only one dart away
from having to step into their boots, or further.