Free C.R.O.W. (The Union Series) by Phillip Richards

return to my platoon.
    After the
brief me and Peters promised to meet for evening meal – it would give us the
chance for a chat and to catch up.  We then made our way back to the
accommodation. Woody’s sickly smile haunted my mind, his words repeating in my
head. You won’t last five minutes here . I hoped he was wrong.

 
     
    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,