Until the last day of the deadline he wasn’t sure what to choose, but in the end, he took the artillery. The last point which brought the decision was that the salary of a gunner was five silver royals higher than that of a hunter.
With his decision, the rigorous training began.
A cannon needs five people to operate it, and to Van’er’s team were assigned Jop, Cat’s Claw, Nelson and Rodney. Since Van’er was previously a vice captain within the first militia team, he was also chosen as the gunner.
Compared to guns, this cannon gave ten times more trouble! Since the beginning of the previous month, Van’er had secretly observed how Iron Axe operated his gun, making it able that he even was able recite the process fluently from memory. But the cannon had to be always switched from the limbered and mobile state into the ready to shoot state, always having to go through the tedious work.
Stop the horse, pull out the pin, pull the hook, move the cannon cart, push it towards the shooting spot, prevent it from dropping, these processes needed five people to cooperate in tandem. Such as when pulling the hook, the other people have to push the support cart away from the cannon, turning it from a four-wheel vehicle into a two wheel vehicle, without that the cannon’s barrel would drop to the ground.
When the barrel is finally filled with the ammunition, it’s ready to shoot. The shooting is quite similar to the gun and the cannon, but the clean-up of the cannon with its usage of two different mop is much more complicated. When using a gun, the ammunition can directly be put into the barrel. To start the cannon they had to ignite the fuse,but when it’s raining, it could be quite difficult to use this weapon, Van’er had thought.
Fortunately, as a gunner most of the time he had to order the others around, and so he didn’t need to spend too much effort.
For the first three days, the four newly selected artillery teams had only one cannon to train with. So under Iron Axe’ command, the groups had to go through the process of stopping the mount, unloading the cannon, preparing it to shoot, loading the cannon on the cart and then restart the whole process. These four steps were always repeated, Van’er even suspected, that under the uninterrupted cleaning of the cannon, the cannon became even much cleaner than his own face.
Chapter 81 Artillery training
Every day Van’er’s group had to train for two to three hours with the new weapon, and even after the training was finished, Van’er had to return to the wall to continue his old, boring job. One of the men from Van’er’s dormitory had signed up for the new firearms squad, and now he had a brand-new firearm and stood behind him to show off the weapon. If the discipline didn’t forbid infighting, Van’er would have already sewn up his hateful mouth.
However, Van’er also thought that there was something fishy.
Didn’t my compatriots join the firearms squad only several days ago? Yet, they were allowed to directly start their shooting training through fighting against the demonic beasts, but what about our artillery team? We aren’t even authorized to shoot. Moreover, the cannons are so heavy, it’s impossible to transport them onto the wall.
When he looked at the top of the wall, he could see that the wall-walk was almost full with people standing side by side in pairs. Usually, everyone was used to running on the inside of the wall-walk. Even if it was steep, it was still better than interfering with teammates’ fighting movements. As for cannons… the two wheels alone were wider than the whole wall-walk, and using a cannon to shoot downwards didn’t seem very practical.
Could it be… this cannon wouldn’t be used to fight against the demonic beasts?
The next exercise confirmed his conjecture.
Iron Axe brought the four artillery teams to the river. There, Van’er discovered- though he didn’t know when it happened- an actual, huge “ship”! No… he wasn’t sure if it was right to call it a boat. The shell looked to be made out of the same gray stone that was used for building the wall, and its dimension was very wide but short. So in addition to two bare masts, was there any other similarity with a ship? Regarding this point, he and his teammates had a heated discussion.
“This is clearly a pontoon bridge,” the first one who came up with a conclusion was Jop, who belonged to the team that followed the ships transporting the ore to Longsong Stronghold. Because of this, he often thought himself well-informed. “They built the deck so wide to make it more stable! During my travels into the south I saw many of them, and if this is a ship, then how can it be moved by the wind? Previously, the river was too wide to ford, and a decade ago the former bridge was washed away by a flood. Now the former bridge should be replaced with this pontoon bridge. They will just place several of them side by side and connect them with an iron chain to make it more stable!
“The furthest place you have traveled to is Longsong Stronghold, yet you call yourself knowledgeable,” Rodney sneered, “If this was a pontoon, why would it have two masts? Wouldn’t they need to worry about it being blown away by the wind?
“And when you look towards the end, don’t you see the steering wheel? Pontoons don’t need this.” Nelson directly jumped into the frying-pan to help Rodney. These two brothers would take every given opportunity to vent some anger, “In addition, look at the construction between the two masts, doesn’t it seem to be a cabin? it’s just not finished yet. This is a ship, no doubt.
To Van’er this discussion was of little interest, he was only concerned about the next training’s content. To his luck, he soon got his answer when Iron Axe asked them to drag the horses that pulled the cannon towards the Small Town — yes, this was the ship’s name, personally appointed by His Highness. After listening to Iron Axe’s introduction, Jop’s face became suddenly stiff, while the two brothers showed a triumphant expression instead — and then they began to drag the cannon onto the deck of the ship.
On the deck were two groups of stopping poles, each group consisting of four poles. These stopping poles were located in the middle of the deck, with one group behind the other. This apparently indicated that one ship could store two cannons.
Well, with this, Van’er was sure that they wouldn’t be needed to deal with the demonic beasts — the Redwater River flowed from the North to the South, and there wasn’t a large river hidden in the demonic-beastinfested forest.
When they embarked for the first time, they immediately discovered the outstanding stability of the ship. Even though the river flowed quickly around the ship’s hull, the ship was still motionless; it just felt like standing on solid ground. Only when the horses came on the ship did they feel a little swing.
Van’er also noted that when a team finished their firing practice, Iron Axe would count the time and note it down. When Van’er saw that there were only two places for cannons, it was clear that only the two fastest would get a place on the ship. So, Van’er secretly told his discovery to the rest of his group, which immediately gave rise to their strength, with each person putting at least 10 percent more effort into the training. If they weren’t chosen for the artillery team, upon losing much face, their life would become more trifle, but the most important matter was that they wouldn’t get improved pay!
Van’er had to wait until the seventh day, but he finally received his first live shooting training.
On this day, His Royal Highness the Prince also came to visit the scene, watching the artillery exercise. Everyone in the four groups walked with a broad chest and large steps.
Because of their training, his group became quite familiar with the loading of the cannon, so it didn’t take long until the first shot was fired by Van’er’s team.