The Lazy Walrus was a large three-masted merchant ship that traveled from port to port laden with barrels and spices, and was incorporated into the naval sequence of the League of Nobles when the war began.

A month ago, the large merchant ship was converted into an armed merchant ship. Her bow resembles a realistic walrus wood carving, which, according to an older boat owner, is the real thing, taken by an expedition from the mouth of a walrus that inhabits a glacier in the far north.

On the dock on the side of the ship, a battalion of the noble allies was forming a dense column, and the junior officers ordered the soldiers to sit down and rest on the spot, and wait for the supplies to be hoisted before leading the team to board the ship. The battalion commander, Major Horst, was talking to the captain of the "Lazy Walrus", who were smiling and seemed to be in a good mood.

Dali Einfurt wears a military uniform representing the sappers and collar badges and armbands. Unarmed with guns and cold weapons, and his backpack was stuffed with surveying tools and drawings, he joined the voyage as a civil engineer under the Engineer Corps, whose task was to build fortifications after the landing force seized control of the island.

Dalí sat on the stern side of the boat, a no-brainer of the docks, a native of Tagarwi Harbour as part of his childhood and several voyages to the sea as an adult.

Dalí was a half-seafaring expert, especially in the knowledge of ship construction.

When he was still a noble young master, he often stayed in the family library all day. He had read many books and picture books related to ships, and Dali was able to memorize the content he was interested in, and his memory was a talent he was proud of.

Dalí took a closer look at the armed merchant ship he was about to board, and the sailors in the cabin could be faintly seen in the two rows of firing ports on the side of the ship, and the exterior features showed that the ship was a three-deck structure.

The towering aft tower, from top to bottom, houses the captain's quarters and the ballroom, where patterned stained glass and relief decorations in the corners give the stern an artistic look.

As a merchant ship, in order to carry more cargo, her hull is wide and pot-bellied, lacking the streamlined hull necessary for a new warship, and presumably without the design of multiple hulls and closed outer compartments. The lack of speed and protection can only be compensated for by firepower.

Judging by the size and number of firing ports, the skilled shipbuilders at Port Tadjavi modified several large gun emplacements for her, ideally carrying more than forty heavy naval cannons. This newly converted armed merchant ship, if fully armed, should be comparable to the new frigate in terms of firepower.

However, the mission of the Lazy Walrus was not a naval battle, but a landing on an important island controlled by the Principality's forces with heavily armed soldiers and supplies.

Her cabin was almost fully loaded with a battalion of soldiers and all sorts of baggage, and several flat-bottomed boats for landing were towed in the stern, so she had to reduce her firepower to prevent overloading.

Sure enough, Dalí saw the words "Twelve-pounder Solid Shell" painted on the ammunition box being hoisted, and did not see the ammunition box of other large-caliber cannons, presumably only equipped with twelve-pounder cannons. For artillery on land, a twelve-pounder gun is considered a heavy artillery, but for the navy it can only be considered light artillery, and it is difficult to cope with the task of fighting large warships.

At the same time, three old frigates with a shallow draft were hoisting supplies and preparing to set off, and they served as escorts during the voyage.

After a whistle, the commanders of each company shouted the order to stand at the end of the column, and after regrouping, all the soldiers stepped on the planks with neat steps and boarded the "Lazy Walrus".

Before entering the cabin, Dalí looked back at the city of Tagarvi, which was the direction of home, and said to himself:

(Forgive me for not saying goodbye, for I know you will not allow me to risk my life to join the war.) When I return and win my freedom, and win my position as an officer and my pension, I will feed you so that you can live a decent life again, Mother, Jane...... ）

The landing fleet left the port a day later, at midnight.

Every time he went to sea before, Dalí lived in a high-class warehouse, and the food and rooms were no different from those of a high-class inn on land, but this time the living conditions were even worse than when he was in prison, with more than 300 soldiers crammed into several warehouses at the bottom of the ship, which were filled with the smell of mold and sweat, and fleas were rampant. In order not to interfere with the work of the sailors, the soldiers were forbidden to move around freely during the day, and could only wait until the evening to get to the deck to breathe.

During the day, Dali did not get together to gamble like other soldiers, he had been lying on the ground to rest, not even eating, the recruit training a few days ago had tormented his physical strength, he had just suffered months of prison and hard labor, his body had not yet recovered and entered the harsh recruit camp, the daily queue practice made his feet almost unconscious, and finally he gritted his teeth and passed the recruit assessment with perseverance.

When he woke up, he found that the other soldiers in the battalion were asleep in their hammocks, and Dali felt that his physical strength had recovered a little after a good day's sleep, but he was hungry and uncomfortable, and made a gurgling sound.

Then he remembered the three fresh oranges that the quartermaster had given each of them before departure, to prevent scurvy, which was common in sailing.

He took all the oranges from the sapper's backpack and peeled them one by one, greedily chewing the sweet and sour flesh, and for the first time in a year he ate fresh fruit, which was a luxury for him, and could not tolerate a little waste, and at last he swallowed even the bitter orange peel, and then took out the hard bread in the backpack and nibbled on it, and finally he uncorked the water bladder and poured a large gulp with satisfaction.

There was also a special person to supervise the recruitment of recruits like him from prison when he was training on land, but there was no need for this when he was at sea, because he had nowhere to escape.

(First I slept until I woke up naturally, then I got oranges, bread and water, and now I feel the freedom to be watched by others, this is life!) I'm almost at the end of my life. ）

Dalí thought happily as he stepped up the stairs, and at night the sailors had also rested in shifts, and he chose to climb out of the cabin to breathe, the foul air in the cabin was suffocating and a headache.

Ascending the narrow and gloomy staircase to the deck, he felt the fresh sea breeze, and his breathing was much easier. There were only a few sailors on deck who were on duty at night, and no one paid attention to the little man in the sapper uniform.

Dalí walked to the side of the boat, holding on to the railing with both hands and looking into the distance, the soft moonlight shining on the sea, and now they were far away from the land, and all they could see was the vast ocean.

In the case of previous trips, he would spend the evenings in the spacious banquet cabin listening to musicians and drinking with other noble children. Now he can only drag his tired and thin body, standing here hungry and looking into the distance, silently listening to the sound of the sea, his heart is full of thoughts of his family and confusion about the unknown future.

Suddenly, Dalí noticed a suspicious shadow in the distance, and at first he thought he was mistaken, until the shadow became clearer and clearer, gradually revealing its outline.

The observer on the roof of the ship noticed the situation almost at the same time, and he banged the alarm bell vigorously before looking down and shouting to the people on deck:

"Suspected enemy ship, go and wake up the captain and first mate!"

As soon as the observer's words fell, Dali noticed a myriad of orange-red fires blooming at the same time in the suspicious shadows in the distance.

Dalí remembered the famous "Diary of a Sailor", which recounted the author's five years of service on a battleship, from his first landing to the time when the battleship sank and escaped for his life. He remembered that the book had described scenes that were exactly the same as what he saw, and he quickly realized what was happening.

Dali quickly lay down on the deck, his hands covering his eyes, and he loudly reminded those around him to do the same:

"The enemy ships fired a salvo! Get down! ”

A young sailor next to him ignored his warning, and stood still and continued to observe.

As depicted in the book, he soon heard a series of sounds, first the sound of objects cutting through the air, then the cracking of wood, and the screams of the sailors beside him.

"Oops! My eyes! My eyes! Something the damn stuck in there! Help me! ”

Dali felt the violent shaking of the ship, waited for it to settle down before standing up, and found that a guardrail had been shattered, and the deck around him was covered with sharp pieces of wood of various sizes, and the young sailor beside him covered his eyes and cried hysterically, and then fainted.

After the shelling, the originally empty deck quickly became crowded and chaotic, and the sailors did not have time to get dressed, and rushed to their posts shirtless.

The captain himself also ran to the deck to command, brandishing his binoculars and shouting at an artillery officer:

"On the deck, under my personal command, go and let the gunners on the two floors below concentrate on the starboard gun emplacement, prepare solid and chain shells, and let them fire freely at the target! Fast! ”

The artillery officer received the order and ran back to the cabin. The captain pushed away one of the crew members and took the helm himself, keeping the starboard side of the ship parallel to the other side for maximum firepower coverage.

The shadows in the distance were clearly discerning, and it was a whole fleet, with two large three-masted ships at the front, and an unknown number of ships behind.

The enemy ship fired another salvo, a huge solid shell shattering the guardrail, and then hitting the guns on the deck, and one of the gunners who was loading ammunition became a blur of flesh and blood.

Dalí had seen the dead, but never seen such a horrible death, and in the minutes that followed, several more crew members were killed in the line of duty, and blood was spilled all over the deck.

Dalí vomited in disgust, for this aristocratic young master who was afraid of even slaughtering livestock, it was really difficult to face the hellish scene in front of him, the cowardly and timid side of his character was undoubtedly displayed, all the knowledge about naval warfare in his mind was forgotten, he knew how to operate the artillery, but he did not come forward to help the gunners, just cowered in a corner in a panic and shivered.

At the same time, the three frigates responsible for escorting the "Lazy Walrus" were also exchanging fire with the enemy ships, one of which seemed to have hit the ammunition depot, and soon there was a violent explosion, someone was blown up into the sky by a powerful shock wave and then fell into the sea, and then the ship began to tilt and sink, and the desperate cries of people could be faintly heard in the billowing smoke.

The sudden sinking of the escort ship made the captain of the "Lazy Walrus" begin to retreat, and after seeing the number and firepower of the enemy ships, he began to hesitate, whether to fight or to flee? He's not a coward but he's not a fool either, and it's just a waste of his life to fight an impossible battle.

He handed over the rudder to the rest of the crew to control, and he picked up the diameter measuring tool next to a corpse and began to measure a solid cannonball embedded in a wooden plank. After putting down the measuring tool, the captain cried out in despair:

"Damn! It's a 36-pound shell! With this kind of super-heavy artillery, the opponent must be a battleship.

If I continue to fight, I will definitely die, and the loader will replace me with chain bullets to hit the mast of the enemy ship!

Listen to my orders, after the next starboard salvo, the left rudder will be full, and the sails will be raised!

Let's go to the dinghy and paddle it, let the dinghy drag our boat faster, we have to get away faster! ”