We woke to a freezing cold dawn that day. The first ones to get out of the bed were Kati and Petra, just as always. They were already making their bed well before six, while the rest of us were busy digging ourselves deep under the blanket. Kati was your typical average bimbo, who spent most of her time in front of the mirror. She was the one who had to wear full make-up even during the combat training sessions. Maybe I would've liked her more if she wasn't an egotistical see-you-next-Tuesday who didn't have any other topic than herself.

To her, on the other hand, I was just a loud-mouthed, low-life chick whose morning routine scandalously consisted of only regular cleaning things instead of going for the hot girl looks. Don't get me wrong, usually, I'm not against using make-up but in a military base during a basic training wasting even a single precious second on anything else but sleeping? No. Friggin'. Way.

Petra was a much more curious case. From the moment I saw her, I was relieved that I wouldn't be the only lesbian in our room. If I've ever met a walking, talking butch stereotype, that was her. Buzzcut hair, buffed muscles, male clothes, and such masculine manners that terrified even many men of our platoon. You could ask if she was so clearly a lesbian, knowing the stance of the militaries about homosexuality - especially around then in the mid-2000s - how could she be here. The truth is, as homophobic as Hungary was generally, the Army didn't have regulations against homosexuality. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with a progressive way of thinking. The rules of the military were partially written during the communism, and naturally, during those times, homosexuals didn't exist in Hungary as this disease only affected the decadent West. And if something doesn't exist, why would you need rules against it?

Needless to say, the non-existence of such rules didn't save Petra from being avoided by every other woman. While I was unhappy about the treatment she received, I was secretly relieved that I wasn't its target. Then came the first Friday afternoon of the bootcamp, when a guy arrived to take Petra home, and she became a purring little kitten in his arms. As it later turned out, she wasn't even bi, but what did I know about such things back then?

Besides the two of them, Hajnalka and Mariann lived in our room. Hajnalka was the most invisible person I've ever met in my life, and Mariann was the room mom, whom we all instinctively considered our superior.

Lastly, Adri and I got out of bed. Adri, this celestial creature, who had taken my breath away in the first moment, and annexed my entire mind ever since. Probably it would've been much easier if I loved only her looks, but the more and more we got to know each other, the more I fell in love with her. I loved everything about her. Her ever-smiling round face, her joyful brown eyes, her long maroon hair, even her adorably chubby shape that she hated so much about herself. I was all over her for how she spoke, how she tucked her hair behind her ears, how her laugh jingled when she heard or saw something funny... We had known each other for five weeks, and I still couldn't find anything I didn't like about her. My whole body was tingling when I was around her, and I couldn't do anything about it.

We went to the bathroom together to do our usual morning routine.

"I look like shit," I observed as I was looking into the mirror.

"What are you talking about?" replied Adri. "I'd love to look as shitty as you do."

I looked at her with dopey eyes. I really wanted to reply with something flattering, but given what I planned confessing to her in the evening, it would've been a huge mistake.

"If you ask me, it looks like you slept much better than I did," I assessed as I turned back to the sink to sprinkle water on my face. Not like it changed anything. My problems had much deeper roots at the moment. My eyes looked like I cried all night long, it was almost impossible to tell they originally were brown. My face lost its oval form and turned into some amorphous Picasso painting. Even my hair looked messy like I didn't a mere eight hours ago wash the Csobánkan mud from it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my looks, but at the moment I looked terrible. Maybe only because my goal has never been to be loved for my looks, but I never had problems with it... Well, I mean okay... The battle for the people's attention between my breast and face has always been undisputedly won by the latter, and not because it looked better, or worse than the average. But... you know... whatever.

"I can't remember how I slept last night. It was lights out for me as soon as I went to bed," yawned Adri.

"Oh, you won't get away so easily today" I laughed. "Tonight we are gonna party in the HEMO."

"Please! You can be such a drill instructor sometimes," she laughed.

"Maybe, but if I wasn't here, your sad ass would be sitting in our room alone all night while everybody else is out partying," I explained while I took my toothbrush out of my set.

"Fanny, there is a fifteen klicks march waiting for us this afternoon. The last thing I'll want after that is to go dancing."

"Who talked about dancing? That's for the weak!"

"Sure," she raised her eyebrow. "I forgot, tough metal chicks like you go to parties only to get drunk, and make fun of people who dance."

"Yup," I nodded with a wide grin on my face.

"Oooh, how much more believable it would be if when drunk, you wouldn't dance like everybody else."

"I deny that outrageous claim!" I swung the water from the head of my toothbrush at her.

"Too bad I have photographic evidence," she answered smugly as she wiped the drops off of her face.

"Nobody would believe that's not a fake."

"Maybe, but would you really risk ruining your fame?"

"Are you trying to blackmail me, miss?"

"I'm a good Catholic, I would never do such thing," she was pretending to be offended.

"Good. Then I have no reason to fear of retaliation. You'll come, and that's an order!"

"Acknowledged, sarge!" she saluted with the most serious face she could manage, then started to laugh.

"Good," I looked at her with my meanest death-stare. "Know your place, soldier!"

"You are so silly," Adri said with shaking head. "And to think back that, at first sight, I thought that clown tattoo doesn't match you..."

"Clown tattoo???" I turned my left lower arm toward her. "How dare you? She's not a clown. She's the fabulous, one and only Harley Quinn."

"You mean one and only as not matching your other tattoos at all?" She asked with tongue out.

"Oh, if you knew who she is, you'd fear her more than the skulls, beasts, and monsters from my other arm. But I'm willing to pardon your ignorance because you're such an adorable little thing."

"Oblique reference on my height?"

"Oh, no. Not at all... oblique."

"You are mean."

"Nope, just adorable and crazy liiike..." I said pushing my Harley Quinn tattoo under her nose.

She shoved me away laughing.

"Now leave and let me prepare because we'll be running late again."

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet."

"I said, out," she said still laughing.

"And now who's the drill instructor-y?" I shot back at her before I stepped out of the bathroom.

As smart and observant girl she was, it's still a mystery how she never sensed my feelings toward her. Sure, I tried my best to hide my feelings, but I caught myself several times watching her with "those" eyes.

To tell the truth, I would have a hard time describing the feeling that whirled me in her presence. On one hand, yes, she was homophobic, but then with no exaggeration, the same could be said about 80-90 percent of the country, so I got used to that already. On the other hand, she was the sweetest, kindest girl I've ever known. Even during the first week, when just like the others she was distant toward Petra, she helped her in every way she could. Maybe that made it so hard to understand for everyone - me included - why the two of us became so thick as thieves in a mere few days. She, the sweet, mildly introvert bookworm, and me the blatant metal chick who felt physical pain when she couldn't run her mouth.

We were such a strange contrast, yet, for some reason, we gave each other exactly what the other needed the most. And unbeknownst to her, she gave me much more than just that.

***

At first sight, nobody could tell about the Csobánkan hills that it wasn't a national park, but a training ground for the Hungarian Army. The valleys were covered by vast green undergrowth, while from the hillsides, dense dark woods, with autumn color foliage loomed over you as far as your eyes could reach. It wasn't the whole story though. The lovely scene hid quite a few minor details that don't belong in a tourist zone, and I mean more than just the signs that warn people of the Army grounds. Trenches in the hillsides, blank ammo shells that got away without being collected, used up smoke cartridges, imitated machine-gun nests... Many minor details that easily slip your notice, but if you know what to look for, you can't unsee them.

Still, these hardly ruined anything about the picturesque scenery. Especially in a morning like this, when the thinning last remnants of the dense dawn fog covered the orange-green landscape with soft pillowy whiteness.

The camp in the roots of the hills, beyond the asphalt road leading here, was a much less romantic sight. As a matter of fact, even calling it a camp was a vast overstatement. It looked much more like a dirt parking ground, which was an adequate place to set up a camp, but at the moment they had time to establish only the most important support facilities. And to put it in perspective, a lavatory that's available to trainees wasn't considered as one of those.

After we left the bus that took us here from the Szentendrean base, we assembled so our platoon leader Sfc. Szabó could hold his morning briefing.

"I felt delighted when it came to my attention, soldiers," the Sfc. explained walking up and down in front of the platoon, "that after the yesterday exercises, a few of you had enough energy left to visit the HEMO." He stopped for a second, so he could take a long meaningful look at his herd. Even if we hadn't known him well already, it would've been clear where his monologue was heading. "I've always been known for my humaneness, so I think it's understandable why I felt so overjoyed when I learned we didn't fully exhaust you yesterday. Our job here is to make you feel good, so I would've taken it to my heart," he actually put his hand on his heart to emphasize it, "if your combat training caused inconveniences in your partying life. I find true solace in the thought that you enjoyed the exercises yesterday so much, that you felt it needs to be celebrated."

He stopped pacing and turned toward us with such a lovely smile that you would see on the face of a hungry wolf when he looks at the soon to be devoured lamb. "Of course, I reassure all of you that me and my squad leaders understood your message loud and clear. Therefore to everybody's satisfaction, we decided to swap your morning CQC class to a light tour in the woods. This time on a little longer and a little steeper trail than yesterday, because that doubles the fun, am I right?

Without having the ability of mindreading, I knew exactly what the whole platoon was thinking at the moment: "A grenade in your mouth would be more right, you sonofabitch!"

Until this point, we believed that we would hate only the afternoon. The CQC training was part of our basic training only as a curiosity, so we would have had only four theoretical classes about it. As according to our instructors we weren't real soldiers who would ever be in any actual combat situation, mastering firearm combat in buildings was said to be unnecessary for us. They put this in our schedule only because it would've been a light meet-and-greet with the basics, so we wouldn't exhaust ourselves before the afternoon marching.

The not real soldiers part probably needs a little explanation. At the time the Army was low on professionals who were experts in anything else but combat, so they tried to fill the gaps with recruiting civilians and giving them military ranks immediately. Sometimes such soldiers served years before they received their basic training. Aircraft mechanics, IT professionals, engineers, accountants, so people whom they wouldn't want to chase away with the humiliations of a true basic training. Such people and me, the girl with no skills whatsoever, but the pull of a friend. Could I belong here any less? Nope.

Sure, while we climbed through the dense woods of the steep hillside with burning pain in every single muscle-fiber, neither of us thought it wasn't a true basic training. In exchange, we thought about the dear mother of the Sfc. rather lot.

We got to a rather steep and narrow trail that we could cross only one by one. We formed a line and thanked every higher being that we could rest for a bit.

"I'm sure it all thanks to Burka once again," Kati's voice reached my ears from about ten meters behind. "She pisses off the Sfc. all the time and we got screwed because of it."

Now, you would probably think if there was any truth in her words - and yes, I had a history of pissing off the Sfc. - then I would stay quiet. And oh boy, you would be wrong!

"I didn't go out yesterday," I called her out, which made her flinch, as probably she didn't want me to hear her complaints. "And you would know it if you were there when we went to bed. Maybe you were in the HEMO," I said smugly.

"It's none of your business where I was last night," she shouted back.

"It most certainly is if you were in the HEMO and try to make me take the fall for it."

"Like I need such ruses against a ran-down bitch like you."

"Oh, against this ran-down bitch all the ruses of the world couldn't help you, but..."

"Fanny!" Adri called out from above us at the other side of the trail. "I thought we talked about this."

"What?" I asked while I looked back at Kati. "That I'll be nice to Lady Whore?"

The guys around me burst out laughing, which made Kati sullenly march further back in the line.

When I got through the trail, Adri waited for me with hands on the hips.

"Sometimes I just can't understand you," she said scoldingly.

"But why?" I asked as we began to climb further on the hillside. "Everyone has a type they can't stand. To you it's the gays, to me it's the likes of Kati."

"Okay, but Kati isn't a dyke, just a dumb, arrogant goosey-gander."

"You say it like that was better."

"Weeell..."

Whoa, this reaction certainly held forth with wonderful expectations for the night. Had I not been planning to come out to her, I would probably try to learn more about if she actually meant that seriously. This way I just let it go. Even if she hated lesbians, she must've liked me enough to realize the errors in her logic when she learns I was a lesbian. Yeah, looking back I know it perfectly how stupid this reasoning sounds. As a matter of fact, I think I knew it even back then. Never underestimate the power of self-deception!

Not far from the hill peak we reached a clearing, so Sfc. Szabó ordered ten minutes break. The son of a bitch didn't even pant, while we trainees tried to recollect whether our medical training had anything about transplanting a new lung into ourselves in unhygienic conditions.

"Burka!" barked the Sfc. after a few minutes of resting. With all possible variations of swearings in the Hungarian language, I forced myself to get up from my duffle-bag. Of course by this time I murmured this swearing only under my nose, careful not to make the Sfc. hear it. I'd like to say I didn't know by experience how he would react on that, but...

"Yes, sir!" I stated as soon as I stood before him in tenshun.

"At ease, sergeant! I hear the rumor has it I punish the platoon because of you."

"Sir, I don't care about the rumors, because I know it isn't true."

"For once."

"Yes sir, for once."

"Would you like to know to whom you could thank this walk in the park?"

The good old "should I play stupid, or tell the truth" dilemma. Last evening we did consider going to the HEMO, but in the end, we didn't get further than the community room of our floor. The whole platoon spent their time either in the community room or relaxed in their own. The only one who wasn't in either place was Kati, but everybody knew all too well where she spent her time when she disappeared and that wasn't the HEMO.

"Sir, I don't!"

"Huh!" He looked at me surprised. "How come?"

"Sir, because I know it already!"

"And what would it be that you think you know, sergeant?" he raised his eyebrow.

"Sir, we are touring here right now, because you wanted to fuck the platoon up one last time before the final exams next week!"

"Well, that's a bold assumption, sergeant. What makes you so sure about that?"

"Sir, I accounted for everybody from the last evening, and all the HEMO regulars spent the evening in the building."

"Really?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"Well, then it would be the first time. Regardless, you are right, sergeant. But you are aware that the capability of substantive thinking isn't necessarily good for health in the Army ranks, right?"

"Why sir? Would they appoint me as a drill instructor in Szentendre?"

His mouth formed to an amused smirk.

"God save us all from the moment when you become a drill instructor, sergeant." He looked at his watch. "I would say that you could leave now to rest, but as I see, we chitchatted your resting time. So go, assemble the platoon! We are heading out!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

As a proof that our Sfc's heart was made some less rigid mineral than stone, instead of attacking the summit, we turned our way around and headed back to the camp. And he let us use actual trails, instead of the ones that even animals wouldn't choose. It still meant a more or less two klicks long walk downwards which is often worse than upwards, but it was better than the same would've been after climbing to the peak.

We weren't even halfway through the day, yet we collapsed lifelessly around the huge cauldrons as soon as we got back to the camp.

A mere month earlier probably all of us would've been picky about this environment, but at this point, sitting and having a warm meal were such royal privileges we could kill for. It's true despite as a sitting place we could choose between ground, and our duffle-bag and warm meal meant tinned food they heated for us in cauldrons of hot water.

"Would you like it?" Adri showed her can as she was sitting down next to me. "I see yours is full of cabbage, while this is almost entirely meat."

"No, thank you" I smiled at her. "Kitten, you'll need that energy too, believe me."

"Well, I have my reserves, unfortunately," she grabbed her stomach, "while you look like someone who didn't eat properly for a month."

I laughed.

"What is it?" she looked at me puzzled.

"I just realized that you'll be that granny, who doesn't let her grandkid leave the table after a three-course lunch until he ate the dessert too."

"I'm a Nógrád-county girl," she said, affronted. "I would never starve my grandson with a lunch less than four courses."

"Oh, my apologies."

"An apology is the least," she said with a grin on her face whilst she exchanged her can with mine.

"You're surprisingly assertive today," I mentioned as I took my fork out from my set.

"Maybe I just spend too much time around you."

"So you imply that I'm a bad influence on you."

"I will admit you are not, as soon as you find anyone here who thinks that."

"Nah, I'm in not in the mood for looking right now," I waved like I didn't care, then I pierced my fork into a small bit of food.

"Sure, that's the only reason." Adri bumped me with her shoulder, then she started to eat too.

***

The launch was followed by a shorter theoretic class so we wouldn't start the marching with a full stomach. Though it's not like one can of food could fill your stomach after you burned a week's amount of calorie demand in a single morning.

After that came the grand finale we all waited for so eagerly. The marching. Fifteen klicks through woods, fields, bushes. At least that's what we thought before. Then it soon turned out, our instructors wouldn't find deserted areas humiliating enough for us. The vast majority of the path led through roads surrounded by farms, and after a while, even small villages too. This ragtime army looking platoon of ours most certainly didn't do any good for the public opinion on soldiers. But it's also true, I don't think we came here to enhance the civil-military relationship.

At the time almost all of us had just enough energy to drag ourselves on the puddle paved dirt roads. While it obviously wasn't the first time soldiers marched here, the locals watched us as they've never seen soldiers before. Or they just enjoyed watching pathetic failures suffer. My guess would be the latter one.

The fifteen kilos duffle bag on our back, the tactical vest with five magazines, the assault rifle, and the handgun on our side would wear even rested, average fit men down on a longer distance. And neither of use had been rested in a week, many of us weren't even men. Do I need to say how demoralizing it is for a woman when even men slowly loose pace behind the platoon commander at the front of the formation? There was almost nobody, who even tried to look like a soldier at the end of the second kilometer. Of the girls, only Petra could keep the pace, she marched right behind our leader, competing with four guys in who could keep the speed longer. Except for their merry group, the other parts of the platoon spread on an approximately hundred meters long line, formed into small two-three person sized supporting groups.

"Do you know," I panted as we marched through the second village "how could one engrave a message into a grenade? Asking for a friend."

"If the gift was for Sfc. Szabó," answered Adri with heavy breathing, "I'd like to know that too."

That was when Petra joined us from the front.

"Don't give up, guys and girls, it's merely half the distance left!"

Adri's eyes started to spit angry sparkles.

"Petra! I've never violated anyone, but I'm gonna stick this rifle in your ass if you don't cut it out!"

Petra grinned back at her.

"You should be able to keep the pace first, Kitten," Petra replied as she increased her speed, just to join the group in the front a minute later.

It's not like we should've been ashamed. We were indeed behind the leading group by more and more, but of the girls, only Petra was in front of us, and we were ahead more than half of the guys too. Sure it's cold comfort when the duffle bag strap bruised your shoulder, and you can barely lift your feet off the ground, but looking for a silver lining can't hurt, can it?

We crawled in complete silence for what felt like an eternity when probably someone from our platoon made the mistake of saying, the situation couldn't get any worse.

Gilligan cut. It could.

It started to downpour. We hadn't seen rain like this in our first five weeks of basic training. Large, heavy raindrops commenced their attack on us from the sky, further reducing the already inadequate range of vision. Despite the flashlight that was dangling on my tactical vest, I could barely see further than the raindrops that were dancing down from the brim of my boonie hat. Only the flickering flashlights in front of us meant any life sign that it wasn't just Adri, me and two boys with us tried to wade through the ankle-deep mud road. The only reason why the situation didn't feel worse, is even the rain couldn't turn our clothes any wetter. Despite the late-November cold, we were bathing in our sweat for the last hour now.

"Come," Adri looked at me. "Stop for a second, and wait for Hajni. She won't be able to finish this in these conditions alone."

Hajnalka was in the worst shape from our room, and her general lack of fitness was made even worse by her height. She was half-head shorter than Adri, who wasn't even 160 cms tall. But helping her had its own risk to us too.

This marching was just as compulsory part of the training, as the shooting- and combat practice. Only those, who successfully got through these three could participate in the final exam next week. We completed the shooting training last week, and the practical combat test a day before, so only this marching stood between us and the exam. The exam that was merely a formality to those who got that far, as anybody who completed everything the prior five weeks, knew enough to pass.

And we risked that to stop and help Hajnalka. Of course, Adri was too kind-hearted not to think about others even in this situation, and unbeknownst to her I was too receptive to her wish to say no. Don't get me wrong, if I saw that Hajni was struggling, I would've stopped to help her, but I was too selfish even to think about checking in on how she was doing.

We stopped at the side of the road and watched the platoon passing us by. First a squad leader, then our room mom, Mariann, who was clearly fighting for her own survival at the moment. Not far behind her a group of five guys who were the jokesters of the platoon, but at the moment they just marched in complete silence. We got passed by our mates one after another, only Hajni didn't seem to arrive. The last to walk us by was Kati. Surprisingly, she didn't seem that tired, clearly just tried to save her energy with this slow pace. About five meters behind her finally Hajni showed up too, supported by one of the squad leaders, Sfc. Vucskovics.

"Sure-sure!" I yelled after Kati. "Why would you stop to help your roommate? You'll be late for your daily dicksucking!"

She looked back at me with disgust.

"You're just jealous because the general wouldn't even look at a ran-down metal slut, like you."

"Oh, no! I couldn't be the cumdump of a fat, fifty-year-old man? What can I do with my life then?"

Adri despite all of her politeness, laughed out loud, but Kati just answered with a grimace and increased her speed to get as far from us as she could.

"Did you see?" I asked Adri. "She looked like she did during the camouflage painting classes."

"Yup, apparently she's not paid well enough to buy waterproof eye-shadow."

"I truly must be a bad influence on you. No scolding for my bluntness?"

"She left Hajni behind while she saw she needed help. I won't defend her now."

She barely finished her sentence when Hajnalka and the Sfc. got there. They stopped, and the bald guy looked at us.

"Would you ladies take her from here?"

We nodded, so he went forward to check on the others from the squad.

"How are you?" Adri asked from Hajni.

"Exhausted," she said on the verge of crying. "I don't know how much further I can go."

"We will take your duffle bag."

"No! Don't do it! You have enough to carry. Don't give your chances up for me."

"Hajni!" I joined the conversation. "You suffered through five weeks of this crap. This is the last obstacle. You can't give up this close to the finish line."

"No... I can't walk that much. I simply can't. And I don't want to drag you two down with me."

"You won't," Adri said while she was removing the duffle bag from Hajni's back.

"What do you think? Will this be enough for you, to keep up until Szentendre?" I asked.

"Maybe. But you shouldn't..."

"Yes, we should. And if we can't keep up any longer, we just put the bag back on your back," I said with a grin.

Hajnalka's face went even more pale, which resulted in a dispraising look at me by Adri.

"Fanny! It wasn't funny!"

"Was she joking?" Hajni asked looking at Adri.

"Yes, she was. She just has a stupid sense of humor."

As I said, I didn't really know Hajni, so I wasn't aware she couldn't understand even the most obvious jokes.

"Sorry-sorry," I said with defensively raised hands. "Relax, we won't put the bag back if we get too tired. We'll just drop it in a puddle."

"FANNY!"

***

From that moment on, Adri and I carried Hajnalka's bag. One strap on my shoulder, the other strap on hers, trading places after every two- or three hundred meters, so both of our shoulders could hurt from the extra weight. Without the bag, Hajni could keep up the pace a little better, while we got slowed down by it just enough not to be able to walk faster than her. That's how we walked the last six kilometers of the march.

When around 7 PM we arrived at the base, we were so exhausted that death seemed like a promising alternative. Of course, even that wouldn't have saved us from the fun chores like weapon cleaning and storing, boot cleaning, and platoon assembly. If there is a thing that's eternal in the Army, it's the ideology of maintaining the look of operability, even for the cost of actual operability. And if there was a noun, I would never for a second consider using about our state at that moment, it's "operable."