Lorcan woke up, considered moving, and froze. He didn’t wish to disturb his poor wife laying half underneath him. He had spent a nearly sleepless night. Or, perhaps he had slept but had woken so many times. And often when he did he felt his wife moving, his wakefullness no doubt disturbing her.
He was sore from the running and climbing, and had gone to bed exhausted, but the overwhelming noise and particularly smells from the great mass of people all living in this same tent had disturbed him all night. The candles they had lit hadn’t helped, but had merely added a sharp overtone to the other smells.
“Late for breakfast, no breakfast,” a voice called from the end of the tent and, underneath him his wife stirred, pushed him off, and sat up, hurriedly reaching for her clothes.
“I don’t know about thee,” she said, “but I am hungry.”
He hurried to catch up with her but she had left before he was dressed. Indeed by the time he was in the hallway it was full of men and women all pushing their way to the end flap and out into the open air. Which was chilly! These shorts didn’t provide any warmth at all.
He hurried over to the table and found his seat next to his wife, who was ladeling the same stew into her bowl as last night, and an equally large portion. “I don’t know how you manage to stay so thin, eating like that,” he remarked, when she passed him the pot.
“Thou thinkest I ate like this back home?” she asked. “Porridge mornings, when we were lucky, and only my share of it. Two meals a day, work the whole time.”
Indeed he was rather hungry, even for this boring food, and took a little more this morning than he had taken last night.
The prayer this time came after the meal, and Lorcan had barely finished his bowl before they had prayed and the lads instructor was chivviying them off to the cliff. His wife and several others had managed to eat two bowls in the same time, with appalling manners!
They climbed a different section of the cliff this morning, which had grass growing up it, and was wet from the dew, and Lorcan was freezing. His hands slipped on the wet grass every few paces. So even though he didn’t have that other lad climbing in front of him and dropping rocks on his head, Lorcan was still in worse shape, and much more miserable, by the time he got to the top of the cliff than he had been last time.
“Ah, my greenling,” he heard as he came up to the shooting station he had been on last night. “I noticed that you are going out for Far Colonist. Brave lad. You are going to need to shoot the long rifle and pistol well, so we are going to be concentrating on that. I’ve set up your practice rifle to give you feedback on your targeting, and I want you to just spend your entire time on the range today shooting at far targets. I will get your scores, but I don’t want you to panic. I want you to spend the whole time carefully firing and improving your aim.”
“Like yesterday, the practice rifle will have a message for you. Today it will be a long, boring, and repetitive message about how to breath and fire a long rifle. You should dream about it in your sleep.”
Lorcan took the rifle indicated, checked it, and went and lay prone in the spot the instructor showed him. Most of the other lads were at the assault rifle station, practicing with short bursts and closer targets.
But his was not to reason why and he carefully sighted down range, held his breath, and fired. The annoying buzzer told him he had not even hit the target and, indeed, a computer voice began to instruct him about breathing.
He was startled when, almost three hours later, he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Wow, you were in the zone,” his instructor said. “You did a good job today. Your scores are horrible, but they are improving. Tommorrow go to pistol.”
“Yes, Sir,” Lorcan said, getting up, checking the rifle, and putting it back on the table.
“Down the cliff by the far path, leave your blouses back at the assembly area, and run the red path!” the running instructor shouted. “Hydrate at every station!”
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von