Evelyn's Tale

-Three-

Four weeks later

It was midday and the scorching sun was beating down on Easy Company as they stood at the beginning of the assault course, waiting for the torture to begin again. And this time they were being timed.

"You have three minutes to complete the course," Sobel was saying as he walked up and down the line, smirking at a number of the men who he knew struggled to make it in that time. It made Evelyn sick just how much of a kick he got on pulling people down and making them feel as though they were failures.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her legs to try and ease some of the tension out of them, and at the same time she wished she could ease the tension from her mind. During the last few weeks, she had tackled this assault course more times than she could count and the first few times she had failed completely due to the fact that the high wall she was expected to climb over by herself was almost twice the size of her. After much perseverance, and a few tips from the guys, she had mastered it. Just about. And much to Sobel's complete and utter annoyance. Then there were other issues. As a complete beginner, she had about as much strength as a gnat, and whenever she tried to do the horizontal bars or the twenty push ups then sit ups at the end of the course, her arms would just turn to jelly. After weeks of training though, that had soon changed and her arms were now toned and supported her weight easily. Well alright, not easily but it was easier at least. It was quite a feat for a girl who used to struggle to carry her own suitcase when she arrived at Toccoa.

The final hindrance that had stopped her completing the course within the three minute time allowance in the past had been her speed. At just under five feet tall, she was by far the shortest in the company- even after Frank Perconte- and her legs just didn't seem to go as fast as the others could. In their spare time, Bill and Joe Toye had taken to all kinds of extreme measures to help her with that, like chasing her around with a huge spider they had found in the barracks or teasing her with chocolate. At the time, she had found their colourful ideas absolutely ridiculous, but in hindsight they had actually done the job.

"Any man or woman..." Sobel fixed her with a pointed stare. "...who fails to complete the course in the allotted time will be out of the training programme."

"You got this," Malarkey squeezed her shoulder reassuringly once Sobel had walked past.

"I sure hope so, Don," she gave him a grateful smile.

"Go!" Sobel suddenly shouted and with that they were off.

The horizontal rope ladder was first, and not wanting or needing any distractions, Evelyn mentally shut herself off from everyone else around and concentrated solely on the task in hand. Designed for speed and agility, she lifted her legs as she manoeuvred through the boot sized holes. Almost at the end, her boot got caught in the rope and she tripped but without missing a beat she quickly jumped back up to her feet and dove through the wooden tunnel in front of her, shimmying through it as fast as she could. Next was the horizontal bars. She wiped her sweating palms on her shorts and jumped up, grabbing hold of the first metal bar with both hands. Crossing her legs at the ankles, something that she had discovered made her feel like less of a dead weight, she gritted her teeth and swung from one bar to the next until she eventually reached the end. In her peripheral vision, she was aware of figures running past but she kept her mind focused solely on herself. Eyeing the wall, she took a running jump and with the tips of her fingers took a hold of one of the small wooden grooves about two thirds of the way up the wall. Wedging her boots into another groove lower down, she pushed herself up until she could reach the top of the wall with her hands. Swinging herself not so gracefully over the top, she jumped down the other side and at last the end was in sight. The sit ups were first, and she got them out of the way fairly quickly until all she had left was her twenty push ups. She had no idea if she was within the time limit but she could hear some of the guys cheering her on, and she grinned as she counted the push ups in her head. One, two, three... eighteen, nineteen, twenty. She jumped up and ran to the end of the finish line where Sobel and his little pet, Sergeant Evans were waiting with a clipboard and stopwatch.