14: Basic Basic Training (JP)

Jamie wasn't sure if he had what it took to be helping out with the training, but he knew that Noah De Haan was the right person to help him. Noah was sixteen years old and skinny as a rake, but he was an expert in three martial arts and he had a ruthless streak a mile wide. “Remember,” Jamie whispered, as they crept down a dark corridor of the boys’ dorm rooms. “We've got to scare him shitless, but we can't actually hurt him... Not badly anyway.”
'I know,' Noah said. ‘I'm a peaceful person, Jamie. I might have finished fifty or sixty violent brawls, but I've never started one.'
The two boys wore boots, combat trousers, black jackets and black gloves. Jack Cooper, who was duty carer for the dorm that night had told them that he didn't want all the other students woken up by screaming, so they had to take their victim silently.
As they stepped through an open door into the bedroom of David Bond Jamie and Noah pulled furry werewolf masks over their heads.
“On three,” Jamie whispered, as he stared down at the peaceful face of a sleeping Korean boy. “One, two three.”
As Jamie swung his knee across and pinned David to his bed, Noah pinched his nose. The youth's scream was muffled as Noah crammed dirty sock into his mouth, but his eyes shot open wide, clearly petrified at being woken up by two wolfmen.
'Time for walkies, squirt,' Noah said, as Jamie picked David out of bed and slung him over his shoulder. David kicked and screamed into the vile tasting sock as Jamie carried him along the hallway, down the stairs and out into the night air. After a two-hundred-metre jog across muddy ground, Jamie ripped the sock from David's mouth and dumped him into a deep puddle.
'On your feet, scum,' Noah shouted, as he and Jamie switched on head-mounted LED lamps.
David almost sobbed as he scrambled up, barefoot and with nothing but a vest and boxers to protect him from the cold.
‘Too slow,' Noah shouted, as he kicked the back of David's legs. He crashed face first into the puddle.
“Get up again,” Jamie yelled.
'Quickly this time,' Noah added.
David was frowning and shivering.
'Look at the little baby,' Noah said nastily, as he pressed his boot down on David's bare foot. Jamie closed up behind, so that the shivering boy was sandwiched with the white lights blazing down on his sodden hair.
"What do you want?” David asked weakly.
Jamie didn't answer the question. “You're now the property of the wolfmen,” he grinned. “Mr Bauer has told us that you're a little snot-nosed scaredy-cat. He says you'll never make it through basic training because you're afraid of heights and won't go over the obstacle course. Well, until you pull yourself together and stop acting like a pussy, we're going to make your life a living hell.” Michael Bauer was the head physical training instructor, no one liked him or the way he treated people, but basic training was optional so you could put up with the pain or you could quit.
'If you run away, we'll catch you,' Noah said. 'If you cry, we'll laugh. If you even think about taking a swing at us ...' Instead of finishing his sentence, Noah placed his black gloved hands around David's neck.
“Leave me alone,” David screamed.
Noah produced a length of paracord from his pocket and held it in David's face. ‘If you don't start showing me some respect, Mr Bond, I'm gonna tie this around your ankles, hitch you into the nearest tree and leave you hanging upside down until morning.'
They knew from the file that hanging upside down was David's worst nightmare.
“Nooooo,” David squealed, as Noah grabbed his ankles.
Jamie didn't know what to feel as David stood pathetically in the puddle. He knew exactly how miserable being bullied like this made you feel, he had been through a fair bit of the public school system in the UK. Odd that they called it public school when it was almost exclusively private. But on the other hand, Jamie never would have made it to the rank of X if he hadn't been through it himself.
The boy was was soaked in near freezing water and his teeth were chattering as Jamie grabbed the back of his vest and hitched him out of the mud.
“You need warming up,” Jamie barked. “Start running towards the basic training compound, quickly.”
David tried to control his sobbing as he started running into the darkness, with Jamie and Noah a few paces behind him. The basic training compound was the island between where the school stood and the mainland, the bridges for the access road were anchored there.
'There's only one way to get away from us, Sumner,' Noah said, as they ran towards the first bridge. 'We're gonna be on your case until you make it across the obstacle course without me or Jamie giving you one finger of help.'
Jamie looked angrily at Noah. “Don't use my name. I'm wolfman number one.”
David looked back over his shoulder. “I know who you are,” he said defiantly. “You are two of the X-Men, everyone knows your accents. I'm fourteen years old, I'm not complete moron.”
Noah ripped off his mask and scowled at Jamie. “I told you the wolfman thing was stupid.”
“I really hate grey-shirts,” Jamie moaned as he tried to peel off his mask. “They're all lippy little smart arses.” Jamie's mask was stuck half on and half off. He couldn't see where he was running and had to stop. “Give me a hand, Noah.”
'I guess that proves you've got a big head,' Noah grinned as he eased Jamie's mask off, but his mood changed when he realised that David had cut into the trees and was out of sight. 'Come back here you little kak, or I'll break every bone in your body,' Noah snarled.
They could hear David's feet splattering in the mud less than twenty metres away. Then the noise stopped.
“He must be hiding in the trees,” Jamie whispered. They fitted their lamps back on their heads before throwing the masks away; then switched off the beams before creeping into the trees.
'I'm giving you until ten, David,' Noah shouted. 'We're working for Mr Bauer, so you're gonna have to face us sooner or later or give up on the idea of going any further in training.’
Many of the students wanted to become what was known as X-Men, the active service unit of the secret organisation that helped mutant kind, simply known as X. There was advanced combat training, both hand-to-hand and firearms, covert action training aka espionage, and of course Basic Training. This last one taught you physical fitness and extreme mental endurance. Imagine you are on an early level of a video game. It seems hard. Everything happens too fast, but you eventually make it through. You progress through the game to much higher levels. One day you try the early level again. What was once fast and difficult now appears easy. This is the principle behind basic training. You will be asked to perform difficult tasks while under physical and mental strain. Both Noah and Jamie knew they had achieved things far beyond what they dreamed possible during basic training, they had been the first to pass. Minds and bodies were able to perform at a higher level than before.
There were qualifying criteria before anyone got on basic training, and fear of heights was not one of them.
‘If you come out before I reach ten, you won't have to spend two hours hanging upside down from tree.'
“Fuck off,” David shouted, as Noah started to count. Unfortunately for David, Jamie was less than three metres from where he had shouted and made a lunge at him. Unfortunately for Jamie, David had found a thick branch, and he swung it at Jamie as he approached. The piece of wood hit Jamie's knee with such force that it cracked in two.
“You little bastard,” Jamie yelled, clutching his leg as David sprang out of his position huddled against a tree trunk. Jamie managed to grab David's muddy foot as he tried to escape. The pain in Jamie's leg made him angry and he mercilessly twisted the ankle. As David wailed in pain and crumpled on to the ground, Jamie let go of his foot and knelt over him. “I could splat you like a bug, you little shit,” Jamie shouted.
'Let's tie the little kak up,' Noah said enthusiastically. 'I reckon he'll show us more respect a after a few hours dangling in the freezing cold.'
“Please,” David sobbed, as Jamie watched the boy's desperate expression and fresh tears welling up in his eyes. Jamie realised that he absolutely hated doing this.
“Do you want to pass basic training?” he said, eyeballing David.
“Yes,” David sniffled.
“And you're not going to do it until you get over your fear of heights, are you?”
“No.”
“I'm here to help you get over that fear,” Jamie said. "I know this works, because I've been on your end of it myself. OK?”
David nodded.
“So get your arse out of the dirt and we're gonna get you through this.”
As Jamie hauled himself off the ground using a hanging branch for leverage, Noah grabbed David out of the dirt.
'You're lucky he got to you before I did,' Noah growled. 'If you'd whacked me with that stick, it'd be half-way up your arse by now.’