Suffer in Silence Read online

  “Stroke through it,” Grey yelled. “Don’t stop paddling.”

  The whitewash hit them, and for a brief moment Grey felt the claws of the wave dig in, pulling them backward. But the crew kept paddling, and with a jolt they popped over the frothy breaker and continued their journey through the surf. Grey surveyed the wreckage that the last wave had left behind. At least a dozen students were swimming toward shore, riding high in the water in their bright orange life preservers. Grey picked Rogers out of the crowd.

  “Having trouble, comrade?”

  Rogers was clearly out of breath. He simply shook his head.

  “Let’s move,” Grey shouted as another swell approached. The mound of water grew in size exponentially, and the crew paddled furiously to clear it before it broke. Grey estimated the size at about seven feet—big enough to hurt. The lip started to curl over as they surged up its massive face. Grey realized too late that in an attempt to keep the bow from drifting starboard he had overcompensated, digging his paddle in too hard. The bow swung to the port side. Instructor Baldwin’s muffled laughter echoed from the truck loudspeaker. Grey looked down and yelled a warning to his crew: “We’re going over.” For a moment Grey experienced the exhilaration of being weightless. Bodies and paddles floated in the air next to him, spinning in slow motion. Grey rotated backward and found himself staring at the clear blue sky. Shit. With a crack, his back broke the surface. The huge black form of the boat bore down on him. Grey instinctively ducked below the surface, and the boat slapped the water above his head. In the next instant he was tossed like a rag doll, his body crashing against hard rubber, other bodies, an unforgiving paddle. Finally the force of the whitewash passing overhead plowed him into the bottom, mashing his face against the sand. Out of breath and disoriented, he popped to the surface. All hell had broken loose. The boat was nowhere to be seen, and several unattended paddles bobbed ominously next to him. Grey grabbed as many paddles as he could and kicked for shore.

  A group of instructors madly dashed about the beach, apprehending any boats that drifted into shore unattended. Grey thrashed his way out of the ocean and joined his crew as they ran toward their boat. A scowling Instructor Redman kneeled over the rubber craft, releasing air from the main tube. Grey’s heart sank as he watched the rigid hull slowly collapse.

  “Want your boat back?” Redman’s eyes gleamed like obsidian. “Come get it. It’s all yours.”

  Grey threw his armload of paddles into the boat and took a muster. Ramirez, Jones, Wallace, Stevens, and Tate. He was down one.

  “Missing someone, sir?” Redman asked. “You better have a full muster.”

  “I’m down one.”

  Redman’s chest muscles twitched under his blue shirt. “That’s fucking unacceptable. Never leave a man behind.” He violently snatched the paddles from the bottom of the boat and hurled them one by one far out into the surf. Jones and Ramirez dutifully sprinted after them like fowling dogs chasing fallen birds. Grey was fumbling with the valve caps in an attempt to save any remaining air in their sadly sagging craft, when Murray limped over. Redman finished flinging the last of the paddles out to sea and stood with his hands on his hips, watching the wild antics of Jones and Ramirez with undisguised satisfaction.

  “Sorry for the delay, sir,” Murray sputtered, his sides heaving violently. “I got my ass kicked coming through the surf.”

  Redman spun around at the sound of Murray’s voice. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Drop down, fuck stick.”

  As Murray dropped into the push-up position, a putrid stream of salt water poured from his mouth. It pooled in the sand below his pale face.

  “You don’t belong here.” Redman kicked a flurry of sand toward Murray. “Your boat crew doesn’t need you. Hell, Ensign Jackass over here has enough trouble leading this worthless boat crew. And you—you’re the icing on the cake.”

  Jones and Ramirez emerged from the ocean, their arms laden with wooden paddles and amber strands of kelp. They rushed to the boat and dumped their loads.

  Redman pointed a finger at Ramirez. “You’re in charge now. Ensign Grey and Seaman Murray have some business to attend to. They’ll join you later.”

  Ramirez gave Grey a questioning look. Grey nodded, then subtly jerked his head toward the surf.

  “Get your ass in gear!” Redman boomed. “And don’t lose your boat this time!”

  Ramirez dropped two paddles onto the sand as the crew portaged their limp craft toward the ocean. Redman snatched up a paddle and handed it to Grey. “Here’s your task, sir. I want you to dig a nice little hole with this paddle. Make it about the size of your worthless friend’s body. I want him buried. That means I only want to see his ugly face. When you finish you can catch up with your boat crew.”

  Grey started clumsily digging away at the beach with his paddle. Murray remained in the push-up position, salt water dribbling from his nose, eyes fixed blankly on the sand. Redman watched stone-faced as Grey’s crew floundered in the surf. Grey occasionally slowed his pace to look over his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of his boat. Ramirez obviously had no experience as a coxswain, and the four paddling crew members barely wielded enough power to move the deflated boat. Wave after wave battered them and swamped their craft.

  “That’s good enough,” Redman barked, surveying Grey’s hole. It was about two feet deep and six feet long. The burly instructor nudged Murray in the ribs with his foot. “Get in.”

  Murray lay on his back in the hole. He gave Grey a wink.

  “Bury him.”

  Grey started shoveling, quickly covering Murray in a loose mound of soft sand.

  “Pack it in.”

  Grey gently pressed the sand flat over Murray’s chest. Redman shook his head in disgust and snatched the paddle from his hands.

  “I said, ‘Pack it in!’” Redman yelled as he whaled at the sand. Murray winced slightly with each crack of the paddle. The instructor worked himself into a rage. His skin glistened with sweat as he hammered away, oblivious to the world around him. With a snap the wooden paddle broke in two pieces. Redman stared at the handle in his hands for a few moments, then hurled it over his shoulder.

  “Get out of here,” he yelled. “And hurry the fuck up.”

  Grey picked up the other paddle Ramirez had dropped and started digging Murray out. With a groan, Murray pried himself from his hole. Redman strode away, headed for a group of instructors gathered in a conspiratorial cluster down the beach.

  “You all right?” Grey asked.

  “No problems here, boss.”

  “See our boat anywhere?”

  They both scanned the frothy ocean. The surf had died down, a result of a rare lull between sets. Murray pointed slightly to the south.

  “There.”

  Sure enough, Ramirez sat alone in the virtually submerged raft, yelling at a cluster of students who sloppily swam toward him.

  “Let’s go.” Grey handed Murray the functional paddle while he carried the bottom half of the broken one. He could at least try to steer with it by holding the blade below the surface. They took off at a run. Farther down the beach two other crews sat next to their boats. Apparently they were the only students who had successfully paddled through the breakers and around the buoy. The rest of the class still floundered in the surf. Grey and Murray waded out into the ocean and started stroking awkwardly out to sea. Suddenly the ocean sprung back to life: the swells picked up, and huge breakers started thundering toward the beach. Because of their buoyant life jackets, Grey and Murray had a hard time diving under the waves. The charging whitewash constantly carried them backward. To prevent themselves from separating, they linked arms each time a wave approached.

  “We’re screwed.” Murray nodded toward an unusually large wave forming offshore. Ramirez was still alone in the boat, paddling furiously in an attempt to keep the boat perpendicular to the shore. The wave continued to grow. A frustrated Ramirez hurled his paddle into the sea and raised a defiant middle finger toward the
approaching monster. The wave curled just as it swept the boat into its grip. Ramirez made no last-minute effort to dive overboard or get a better grip on a handle; he simply sat motionless, his gesture of defiance unbroken.

  “Fuck me,” Murray whispered reverently as he watched the scene unfold.

  The boat surged up the face of the wave and then flipped over, launching Ramirez headfirst into the impact zone. He disappeared below an explosion of whitewash.

  “On my count,” Grey commanded. The wave rumbled toward them, flinging the empty raft ahead of it. “One, two, three. Dive!”

  They both took a deep breath and struggled beneath the surface. The wave flung them flat against the seafloor. A split second later it peeled them away and sucked them into the whitewash. Grey lost Murray’s hand as he tumbled toward shore. Never lose your swim buddy. The world rotated wildly as the surf pummeled the air from his chest. Finally the whitewash deposited a breathless Grey in waist-deep water.

  “Murray!” he yelled.

  “Right here.” Murray swam over and pointed farther out to sea. Ramirez kicked feebly toward shore, and as he got closer, Grey immediately noted a large wound on his head. Blood trickled down his face in thick rivulets. He appeared dazed.

  “Let’s bring him in,” Grey said.

  Together they sloshed through the shallows until they reached him.

  “You don’t look so good, compadre,” Grey noted. “What happened?”

  “What?” Ramirez looked at him blankly.

  “What happened?”

  “Hit bottom.” Ramirez touched his head. “Hard.”

  Grey and Murray each slung an arm over their shoulder and helped Ramirez toward shore. A siren sounded from the beach as the ambulance’s red lights whirled. Two corpsman instructors were waiting on the beach with a backboard when they arrived.

  “Get your boat crew together and give me a muster.” A lean instructor with spiky blond hair named Heisler waved them off. “And get the hell out of our way.”

  “Hang in there,” Murray said quietly.

  “We’ll see you soon,” Grey added.

  “Ay,” Ramirez moaned. “My fucking back.”

  Grey and Murray reluctantly stepped away and directed their energy toward assembling their boat crew. Training would stop until the ambulance returned from the medical clinic. Gradually students stumbled into shore and formed into boat crews. A long ten minutes later, the ambulance returned without Ramirez. The rest of the morning slipped away in a blur of overturned rafts, lost paddles, and bruised bodies.

  * * *

  “He’s here,” Felicia whispered as she handed Grey his change.

  “Who?”

  “Him.” She nodded toward a table teeming with instructors. “You know, the big one.”

  “Oh.” He stuffed his change into a ziplock bag and slid it into his shirt pocket. “It’s okay, Felicia. You don’t have to worry so much. He’s supposed to be mean.”

  “Maybe, but why is he staring at you now?”

  Grey felt his skin prickle. “He’s staring at me?”

  “Saying bad things, I think.”

  “Do you do this to me just to make me paranoid?”

  “No. I do it because I like you. You deserve to make it.”

  “Thanks.” Grey grabbed a tray and some silverware. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Mr. Grey.”

  Grey began his meal in silence, stuffing forkfuls of macaroni and cheese into his mouth. Rogers sat across from him, carefully removing a long black hair from his mashed potatoes.

  “Do you think Redman has a thing against me?” Grey asked.

  Rogers looked up. “Of course.”

  “What do you mean, ‘of course?’”

  “It’s obvious. He looks over here all the time.”

  “Maybe he’s looking at you,” Grey said. He turned in his seat, and his eyes locked into Redman’s for a brief second. “Or maybe not.”

  “He hates you. He hates Murray.” Rogers shrugged his shoulders. “There’s not a lot you can do about it. Besides, we all have our enemies. Instructor Furtado and I aren’t exactly chums. I wouldn’t care to run into him in a dark alley.”

  “Yeah. He might rape you.”

  Rogers raised his eyebrows. “You think it’s funny. I think it’s a legitimate concern.”

  “Give me a break.” Grey threw part of his roll at him. “You’re absurd.”

  Rogers threw his head back and poured a glass of water down his throat. He always drank the same thing for lunch—three glasses of water and a glass of milk. Any variance in this routine was sacrilege. He was halfway through his glass of milk when a thought struck him. He lowered his glass, leaving a thick milk mustache above his upper lip.

  “Where’s Ramirez?”

  “At medical.”

  “He should be back by now. Something’s wrong.”

  Suddenly Grey felt like a lousy boat-crew leader. He resisted the urge to run back to medical and check on his friend.

  “You could always ask Instructor Heisler what happened.”

  Grey stood up. “Good idea.” He pushed his chair back.

  “Are you crazy?” Rogers asked. “Not now. At least wait until he separates himself from the group.”

  Grey didn’t acknowledge Rogers’s suggestion; he was already marching toward the instructors’ table. They all turned and watched him approach.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Redman demanded.

  “I was hoping I could have a word with Instructor Heisler.”

  “Go ahead and talk. He’s here, isn’t he?”

  Grey looked at Instructor Heisler and started to open his mouth but was cut off by Redman.

  “Speak or get out of here, shit-for-brains.”

  The instructors stared. A brief, tension-filled silence followed. Grey couldn’t seem to start a sentence. Heisler pushed back his chair and stood up. He motioned toward the door. Redman shot his fellow instructor an angry look.

  Heisler stepped outside and turned toward Grey. “He won’t be coming back.”

  “Who?”

  “Ramirez. He’s finished. That’s who you came to ask me about, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but…” Grey felt his stomach drop. “What happened?”

  “Probably a cracked vertebrae. He’s lucky he wasn’t immediately paralyzed. He’s at the hospital right now getting X-rayed.”

  “Fuck!”

  Heisler gripped Grey’s arm with a strong hand. “Hey! It wasn’t your fault. This is BUD/S. Shit happens.”

  “Yeah, well shit doesn’t happen to my boat crew.” Grey felt nauseous. A series of images swept through his head: Ramirez posturing as an officer in his borrowed helmet, defiantly giving the finger to a huge wave, and lastly, lying helpless on a spinal board, his face contorted in pain.

  “It’s a reality of life here, Mr. Grey. Most of your friends won’t make it through this program. Most will quit. At least Ramirez can live on knowing he never gave up.”

  Some comfort. Grey turned to walk inside.

  “Sir.”

  “What?”

  “This accident doesn’t reflect on you as a leader. You realize that, right?”

  “Sure.” I could care less. “Thanks.”

  On the run back to the compound, the class broke into song. Grey didn’t appreciate the high spirits. He shuffled along in mental isolation as rough voices belted out a SEAL version of “Winter Wonderland.”

  Through the woods, we’re a walking,

  The VC, we’re a stalkin’.

  One-shot kill, oh, what a thrill,

  Walking in a sniper’s wonderland.

  Grey watched the pavement slide by below his feet. The ocean breeze started to pick up, and the cool air caressed his damp uniform, sending chills down his back. A gray pall fell over the street as the sun slid behind the eastward-moving coastal clouds. The traffic light separating the amphibious base and the BUD/S compound glared a defiant red. They were runnin
g late.

  “Moving out!” Smurf yelled. “Road guards, post!”

  Two students wearing orange vests charged onto Silver Strand Boulevard and planted themselves in the way of oncoming traffic. The sharp squeal of brakes pierced the air as several cars skidded to a stop. The class sped up their shuffle as they crossed the street. A few students waved at a pair of high school girls waiting impatiently in their VW bug, hoping to solicit a smile or maybe even a flash of forbidden, creamy high school skin. Nothing but icy stares. Grey pulled his T-shirt up over his mouth as they jogged down the beach; the air was saturated with airborne sand particles that crept into every moist part of his body. Their eyes watering, the trainees of Class 283 finally turned into the compound and fell in step. After they sprinted across the grinder, a glut of terrified students clotted the doorway to the classroom, leaving them wide open for instructor harassment.

  “Drop.”

  The students dropped in place, falling all over one another. Grey found his face inches from the butt of Aniston, a generally unpleasant kid from New Jersey.

  “Push ’em out.”

  Grey started cranking out push-ups, timing them carefully so that his nose wouldn’t break as the bony ass in front of him jerked up and down. At twenty they stopped. Safe. Smurf was wedged between two students several feet away. He looked over at Grey pleadingly and mouthed, Who was it?

  “Furtado,” Grey said quietly. As he shifted his weight from one arm to another, his body jerked forward, and his nose unwittingly plowed into a hard butt. Aniston slid forward and sprang to his feet.

  “Instructor Furtado,” Smurf yelled. Aniston dropped back into the push-up position as the class called out the instructor.

  “Recover.” Furtado strolled into the room, quickly scanning the pathetic array of students before him. “Except you.” He pointed at Aniston. “You recovered too early.”

  “That’s only because Mr. Grey was sniffing my ass,” Aniston protested.

  You will die, Grey thought. I will finish you. He briefly toyed with the idea of sweeping Aniston’s legs out from beneath him. He could barely contain his rage. To be singled out was one thing, but to drag someone else down with you was unforgivable.