On Her Majesty's Secret Service ~ H.S.

Chapter 12

"Into the water! Let's go!" General Sanders screams from one side of the pool. The rest of us recruits have already chosen a lane and are getting ready to do laps.

On my right stands Sarah, on my left resides Mac. Although they're both partners and I'm not a part of their group, I'd rather hang out with them than Harry. I don't even know which lane he's chosen to swim in.

I drop my towel to the side and hit the water smoothly. The stitches on my leg are now exposed, but since they've been in a couple days the skin has almost healed and I'm not worried about them coming out. Luckily I only needed four. The same cannot be said for Harry, and I find myself wondering how his leg feels.

I shake the weird thought from my mind- I don't need to be distracted, and definitely not by Harry, so I plow ahead and clear my thoughts. The adrenaline takes over and every stroke I take becomes more forceful. Before I even realize, my five laps are up and I'm surfacing. I survey the pool and find that once again, I've come first. I also realize that once again, Harry is going to come last.

He finishes about 45 seconds behind everyone else. An improvement over last time, but still pretty shitty. After seeing him freak out in the flooded gray room the other day, I yearn to know what exactly his problem with water is and why it's so debilitating.

After everybody has completed their laps, the General introduces us to water tests we haven't done before. He says we're not expected to be able to complete all of them fully yet, but we should be able to by the end of training.

The first assignment is bobbing up and down 20 times, hands behind our backs.

On his whistle, I clasp my hands together behind me, take a deep breath, then submerge my head underwater. In order to drift to the bottom, I find I need to exhale all the air from my lungs. Once my feet touch the cool tile of the pool floor, I bend my knees and push up. In a few seconds I surface, take a deep breath, then repeat.

By the end of my 20 sets I'm gasping for air, exhausted. I could do it, but barely. Everyone else around me looks about the same- dying of exhaustion- but not everyone has finished yet. I watch Harry in the corner of the pool.

Every time he tries to let himself sink down to the bottom, he freezes and jerks back up so his head is above the water. There's no way his feet have come to touch the bottom of the pool, which lays 9 feet beneath us, even once.

Once everybody except him has completed their set the General blows his whistle. He must infer, too, that Harry will not be able to finish- at least not for a very long time. I watch my partner across the pool grit his teeth and tense his jaw. I've seen this expression many times before- he's angry.

For the next test, we're told to float, face up, with our arms behind our backs for 5 minutes. I get off to a good start, and find I'm able to float relatively well for about 3 minutes. I'm light enough that my weight doesn't drag me under the water. After a while, though, it gets hard to keep my head up. I'm forced to kick my knees from time to time to keep myself afloat, but manage to (barely) get through my 5 minutes.

I don't have time to observe the others during this test, but I see the same tired look on all their faces. Well, all but one. Harry's brows have knitted together even further and his cheeks are a deep shade of red. I'm assuming he wasn't able to complete this test either.

The General gives us challenge after challenge: dolphin swimming, somersaults underwater, retrieving all sorts of knick knacks at the bottom of the pool- all without using our hands. Although I, along with a couple others, manage to scrape through each test without failing, Harry does not.