The leader, in this queer obstacle race, was a big black fellow, knotty of muscle, sleek of thigh. He leaped a seven-foot wall, writhed easily hand-over-hand up a rope, scrambled over a log breastwork, pawed up one side of a big rope web and down the other, snaked through a culvert pipe and broad-jumped a trench.
The big fellow stopped, wheeled around to see how the others were coming along. A chief petty officer yelled, "Keep going!" He kept going. So did the men behind him. They went like mad, clear to the end of the "Commando" physical-training course.
When it...