Part 11 --First Session--

*We prepared for training and just about 5 minutes later, we heard a bell ringing. Esther opened the door and we saw a man in the long hallway ringing an unusually large yellow handbell. Behind him where a lot of kids. It wasn't that hard to understand what we had to do. And so we followed the man. After quite a while when everyone gathered up behind him, he stopped ringing and told us to follow him. We where lead to a massive, massive field.*

*The field had many sections for many different types of training drills.*

*There where masts and sails that we had to pull, dummies for target practice, cannons for most likely learning how to shoot them, and a whole lot of other stuff.*

*The hundreds of future seamen where lined up in dozens of rows. I and Victor where in the very last row. That was obviously not good. We couldn't see anything in front of us. After a short while of standing in muddy, bug infested grass with shoes that needed repair. We pre-trainees at the very back heard a voice. It was most likely a man telling us what to do. I could barely hear him. He spoke to us in a very strong south Valkrestinan accent.*

*"Good mornin' lads. You are here for another bloody training session. Or your very first one, because there are a lot of new trainees in this session."*

*I was excepting him to speak in the most formal and gentle way possible, but he spoke in the very opposite way. The way that I like the most.*

*"First, and foremost. Discipline. Everyone must act like an idiot for us to laugh at".*

*"For what reason?" A random kid asked, while we where all acting like absolute creatures.*

*"Discipline, learn to always listen to the rank above you, even if it's something that you absolutely do not want to do."*

*I do not know who came up with this idea but I certainly do know that the guy who came up with the idea has to have facial features that resembles a donkey.*

*"Stop, alright, that was really entertaining. Now crouch!"*

*I don't think there was anyone standing just a second after he said "crouch", all of this already meant that you have to take orders very seriously. Or else you might be in heaven (or hell).*

*"Alright, now stand. Good, now sit." We followed his orders.*

*"Now jump and stand. Raise your arms. Now lower, quickly! Alright, that was very good, even the acting. Now everyone, we are going to do the second training. Which is rigging. I want all of those sails over there lowered in a minute, Go!"*

*I've never seen anything like this before, the sight of hundreds of kids running to the masts was completely otherworldly to my eyes. I ran to the nearest mast. And did the work. Along with a dozen other people. The work was done in just a moment of time. We ran to another free mast. And lowered the sails quickly. We did the same thing one more times until the time was over.*

*That was extremely stressful and tiring. Having to pull those heavy ropes while fighting time was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done. Then we where told to raise the sails, in the same amount of time. We rushed to undo all that work again. This time we did it a bit quicker.*

*"That was surprisingly quick of you all. Now on to the next drill. Cannon firing. Everyone, quickly go to the cannon area."*

*We, hundreds of people that previously acted like idiots ran to the cannons. I might have crushed a beetle or two in that process.*

*"For those who don't know how to fire and reload a cannon. I will explain. The first thing you must do is to use that twirly stick called the Worm and ram it inside the cannon and take it out. Then pick up that stick with a sponge at the end of it and do exactly what you did with the Worm. Throughout this whole process one of you - called the ventsman - will hold the touchhole with a thumb-stall, that thumb gloves thing so something bad doesn't happen. Then take a bag of powder charge and a cannonball and put it inside the cannon and use a stick with a big hard bulge at the end of it to push it as deep as you can. Now put one of those long things made of metal in the touchhole, called a "pricker". Then after that insert a quick match inside the touchhole. Then take that stick with rope soaked in potassium nitrate around it. And just touch the bloody quick match with it. And then repeat. Do this process 7 times in 5 minutes. It starts now!"*

*I didn't understand half of it so I just decided to be the ventsman. I held it until everyone where done ramming. Then I put the pricker inside the touchhole for a bit and took it out. Then I installed a quick match in the touchhole. Someone brought the igniting rope stick potassium nitrate thing and ignited the match. And at the same time all 100+ cannons fired. I forgot to cover my ears and thus I became temporarily deaf. Three words: It was bad. I still knew what to do so. Help in reloading the cannons. The process took very long and we finished late, firing 5 rounds in 5 minutes. In fact most of the other cannons finished late too. So we where all told to do this again. I still was the ventsman. I held the touchhole, inserted the pricker and touchhole. And then we ignited it. This time I covered my ears. And also this time we where a bit quicker. Firing 6 rounds in 5 minutes. The instructor told us to do this again. We failed one more time. Finally in the 4th attempt we finally managed to fire 7 rounds in 5 minutes. Then the instructor told us about the next drill.*

*"That took a really long time for most of you to fire the cannons. Extremely long. But now you've finally done it. That was the worst of you all by far. On to the next drill. Musket firing. In the land army you have to train on this for hours upon hours. In the navy you have to train on this for an hour. This is a really important drill. You are expected to fire at least 3 shots a minute. Pick up a musket and a bag of cartridges. For those who are new and don't know, reloading and firing a musket is pretty easy. First, you must take a cartridge from the bag. Then you tear it with your mouth. You should then probably just spit it out unless you are hungry. Remember to not go too deep or else you would have gunpowder in your mouth and it doesn't taste very good. So after that you must open the flint hammer and pour a portion of the powder in it. Then you must close the hammer, and then pour the rest of the powder and the musketball and the entire bloody cartridge in the barrel. Then take the ramrod which is attached to this musket and ram it in three of four times and take it out and put it in it's place. Now all you have to do is pull the hammer and then pill the trigger. Also have caution that your bloody musket may misfire. It has around a 1 in 5 misfire rate. And also if you don't ram the cartridge properly then your gun may explode. That's it and now begin your drill".*

*The thing is that I already know how to fire a flintlock weapon from that Yorkston incident. I picked up a musket and a bag of cartridges, reloaded the gun and fired it. In a minute I managed to fire 4 shots, which I heard is the average for a normal soldier in the army. I guess I must've done pretty good. When the time was over he told us to do it again as quickly as possible for the next three minutes. I managed to shoot more 2 times until my gun misfired. I didn't knew what to do when your musket misfires so I decided to load it again. Little did I know it was not a good idea and I managed to almost blow my face. Luckily the recoil of the blast managed to throw me away to safety. I saw that my left cheek and my right arm started to bleed.*

*I went to the instructor and told him what had happened and he said that I need a doctor. He brought two medics and they bandaged me.*

*I went back, picked up a new musket and this time I remembered not to be an idiot. I fired 3 shots and in the fourth shot my musket managed to misfire. Enraged, I threw the musket on the ground never to touch it again. Once everyone else who's guns actually worked where finished. We moved on to the next drill, which was the same drill we need a while ago. Discipline. The commands where almost the same. When we where done doing we had to work in the rigging, raising the anchor and heaving the capstan. Then we had to shoot the cannons again and fire the muskets again. And then repeat.*

*We did all those drills in repeat for the next, painfully long 4 hours. Until we where finally done and where told to follow a man in a line to the cafeteria.*