17th July 1574
After all of my troops outside of the people required on the ships to protect them from potential raids finally moved on the dry land, the worst part of the entire event was in front of us. With only a single shovel per entire squad of twenty people, filling up the bags with dirt dug out directly from the ground, finishing this one vital part of our war preparations took way longer than I would like to.
At this point, one might ask, why didn't we take more shovels? Or why wouldn't we fill those bags directly on the site where the fighting would take place?
As smart as those questions would be, the reality was unforgiving. With all the troops that I had to gather on the limited number of ships that I could use, all the ammo, weapons and rations, there simply wasn't enough space to fit additional shipful of shovels!
