Chapter 95: Dead End Race 85

Feeling the ship sway with the movement of the ocean, Bill sat at his desk and was pouring through enlistment contracts, still barely believing that so many people accepted his terms.

Due to his circumstances, he had announced at the last Town Council that he would only accept 8-year service contracts instead of the standard 6-year deals.

His reasoning for this had been that the great majority of Ruluka Soldiers had no practical skills outside the firing range. In a lot of ways these people were the inverse of those who came from Clockwork Island, and while they would bring a degree of martial prowess, Bill did not need 217 Gunners added to his Department.

At most a couple dozen would become Snipers once they returned to New Haven, but Bill decided to have Masterson make that judgement. Until then he had to assign these young adults some job they might could learn while at sea.

And this was another thing, which somewhat irritated him, they were all young adults.

The oldest person to enlist was 25, and the youngest was 17. This was a big issue for Bill because that meant he’d have a couple hundred extra young people who were mostly men on his ship.

Due to various factors, until now there hadn’t been a single serious disciplinary action that had needed to be taken, but Bill knew that wouldn’t necessarily stay the case now.

A couple hundred hormonal young men meant he would have to train and promote a handful of Master-at-arms. These were Naval Police on board ships and the role had currently been filled by himself and his Lieutenants.

Because the gender differences were smaller in this world than they were on Earth, the biggest issue he foresaw was not with women but was instead with gambling and drunkenness.

It seemed that beer and dice were universal, on Bill’s ships he only allowed light beers, but it was highly likely that some in the crew would sneak aboard stronger spirits.

Putting these concerns aside for now, Bill rubbed his eyes, and he knew he had to make these assignments quicker.

Bascud had said the Dead End Race was starting in just over two weeks and getting to Hannabal was a twelve-day sail even if they didn’t hit any Sea Kings or storms, and even though Bill couldn’t confirm this, he was able to easily confirm the identity of the traitor Marine Gasparde.

This conformation, coupled with the apparent unity between Bascud and his spirit, made Bill more or less believe the Bounty Hunter’s story.

But of course, once this information was accepted it had meant that if Bill wanted to make the race, and therefore profit from the arrests, he had to leave Ruluka immediately.

During those last two day’s he had done what he could and thought he had done quite well.

Firstly, he took care of Henzo and was assured that the eccentric inventor wasn’t going to be ran off the island. Then he oversaw the establishment of a permanent Council whose duties were what Wetton used to do, and finally he had sent Ranse to the nearby base of G-8 to imprison Wetton and the sixty core supporters he had.

This last bit had been a headache since he couldn’t allow for any of the former Ruluka Soldiers to be in contact with the prisoners, and so his entire crew had to be reorganized.

Currently, the Victory was holding all 217 recruits from Ruluka and 100 of the old crew. The Frontier Run had increased its crew from 40 to 80 and while transporting prisoners Bill had told Ranse to conduct interrogations, offering freedom to those who seemed remorseful and capable of contributing.

In the coming days the strategy on Hannabal would be gone over in more detail, but Bill knew this was going to be a major operation and had to account for local resistance.

Even if that resistance didn’t come from the population, surely local officials were aware of the Dead End Race and they may not be too found of Bill tipping over their cash cow.

Thinking this, Bill finished up his last assignment and used the same system he saw Captain Hina use all those years ago.

Each of the old crew would lead a team of two or three individuals and they would train those new recruits on the day-to-day duties they had.

Most of the former Ruluka Soldiers could not read or write, in addition none of them had experience on sailing ships.

Although Bill could not train Carpenters, Cooks, Surgeons, Sailmakers, and the like in just a few days – he could have them all get used to handling rigging and getting used to terms that they would have little experience with on dry land.

With his stack of papers in hand, Bill left his office and was greeted by the sun.

It was midday, and they were far from any island.

“Captain, I thought you had gotten lost in there. Blimey, I almost sent a search party in for you!”

Turning his head, Bill laughed and said: “Well, thanks for worrying about me, Nelson. Tell me, what do you think about our new recruits?”

Seeing the former Commodore give him a stair, Bill wasn’t surprised when Nelson stood up and waddled to the ships railing.

“Captain, these recruits are not sailors. I’m certain that every single one of them is touched in the head, probably dropped too much as children, and that’s why they were pushed on us to recruit!”

Since Bill could tell that no one was around he gave a laugh and shook his head.

“It’s not that bad, I’ve seen them do fire drills. They were well drilled.”

Hearing Bill say this, Nelson huffed – this time not from exhaustion – and answered sharply: “Captain, I know you aren’t featherheaded but… listen, I watched for hours yesterday as 200 former island soldiers stared in awe as that big Beetle made its rounds over the ship.

Blimey, you should have heard them hollering when it blew fire over the water!”

Nodding his head, Bill had heard the commotion but since it didn’t seem like danger had ignored it and kept working.

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Waddling back from the railing to his wheelbarrow, which had gone from being barely big enough to now being comically too large, Nelson stopped his negativity and said seriously: “The real issue is, Captain, these recruits have never been exposed to real power.

I watched their drills too, tsk.” Nelson said as he shifted his weight.

“Those movements were for forward actions against standard humans; they shoot and reloaded their weapons in tandem and rely on the single burst of firepower.

This tactic is popular in the Blue’s but isn’t taught on the Grand Line because a sufficiently fast person will cut through the rank and file like butter while the men reload.”

Nodding his head, Bill didn’t know what tactics were taught at Marineford Academy, but he did recognize that Nelson wasn’t exaggerating.

The truth of the matter was that firearms posed a danger to most people in this world, but that was only if they hit. A sufficiently quick person could outrun the bullet or, as Nelson had said, kill all the gunmen before they could reload.

Leaning his tall body on the railing, Bill watched Yoko on the other side of the ship, she jumped several meters in the air and landed on Boss’s back to the whooping of dozens of new recruits.

“Have any of them tried to ride Boss themselves?” Bill asked and was immediately met with a laugh.

“From what I’ve seen, those illiterate halfwits would be more likely to ride each other than touch the Beetle. Even before they knew the bug could breathe fire, they weren’t bold enough to get close.”

This was a problem, Bill thought, though perhaps not a dire one. He had outlined only four pirate crews they would need to be cautious of.

The most dangerous was the traitor Marine himself, Gasparde.

And the others were a pair of giants, an orca fish-man and his crew, and finally the ‘Hanged Man’ crew which was led by a sadistic killer named Bigalo who apparently had survived two official executions.

Thinking this, Bill tapped the railing and suddenly getting an idea, turned, and said: “Nelson, I’ll have you train them up.”

Seeing the shocked look the former Commodore gave him, Bill pressed: “We have about ten days until we arrive at Hannabal, and I need to know that these recruits can be counted on to not run away.

I’ll have Bascud accompany you, and together with him you will gather the new recruits and whip them into whatever shape you can.”

The Bounty Hunter was somewhere on the Victory, his small single-sail skiff having been loaded on board too.

Although Bill had said this offhandedly, the more he thought about it the better idea it was.

Nelson may never have the practical skills of Masterson and given his attitude would probably never be a very good Instructor, but in the realm of tactics he was a great option to teach these raw recruits how Marines conducted operations.

Given that these people were already soldiers, Nelson wouldn’t need to train them from the ground up but would instead act more like a military advisor.

Going over this in his head, Bill missed the look on Nelson’s face, and only took notice when the large man stood up and walked over to him.

Nelson was tall by normal standards standing around 7ft in height, but against Bill’s 9ft the former Commodore had to look up.

“Are you serious?” He asked, in a determined voice which momentarily caught Bill off guard.

Looking at the man in front of him, Bill nodded his head and told Nelson exactly what he needed from him.

He needed the new recruits to know the basics of tactics taught by his Department. Those tactics were Indirect Approach, Feigned Retreats, and Defense in Depth.

In addition, he needed them to understand the many general rules that were drilled into new recruits at New Haven. Such as attacking from a distance and not attempting to rush into combat against extremely powerful foes.

Marines were in a constant battle around the world for the safety of the oceans and Bill believed whether it was attacking, or being attacked, high casualties couldn’t be lightly accepted.

Nelson listened quietly to Bill and gave him an odd look when Bill spoke so lightly about retreat being a primary option.

What Bill couldn’t know, as no one had ever questioned his training method, was that the key motto for nearly every Marine Officer was ‘Justice Above All’ and ‘Justice’ for them did not account for the lives they had to spend on attaining it.

And in this moment of being presented with the opportunity of leading again, Nelson would follow in the footsteps of Masterson and not contradict his Captain. Instead, he resolved himself to think of ways to reduce casualties while not losing too much fighting power.

After a while longer of speaking, the former Commodore said he understood, and Bill watched Nelson walk down the steps leading to the ships main deck.

Seeing the round man not stumble or even seem tired, Bill got the feeling he had unintentionally done something grand.

It was a peculiar feeling, but one he couldn’t dwell on.

After all, he still had much to do.