A Coy 2 Platoon Detail 1

Reveille at 0500. First time there was dew. We didn't leave until it was actually light, which was about 0620. Walked along the cliff, a beautiful sunrise view. We stopped for a moment, during which I looked around and up, to realise that we were guided by the light of both the moon and sun, under a coloured sky which had only 3 visible stars, 1 of which was possibly Venus. It was very bright.
Step descent, then steep ascent, as we made our way to the powerlines and along the road back to Area 8, our Nightloc.
There, we dumped our packs at 2 Platoon's common area, then headed off at a fast pace to the gates for our transport to the Live Fire Range.

Got to fire 10 rounds at first, then 20 rounds the next time. The first 10 rounds, I got 35/50. The instructor (gun 2) said it was the best score he'd seen yet. I was quite pleased. The next 10 rounds I fired were totally off; the gun/computer (number 7) had been calibrated wrong. I had to actually aim so that the black circle was totally off the scope; had to aim the crosshairs totally off the target. When I did that, all 10 hit the bullseye. Ironic. However, since the computer was calculating all 20 shots into a score out of 100, I only got 55. I'm pretty sure that my second round of 10 were what got me the 50. So I'm pleased with that too. Some guy in my detail got 99. Later that day, I heard someone else had got 100. There are some damn good shots in Tier 3. Not too surprising. Most of us were from country units.
If only I'd stayed behind, though. The ADF personnel didn't want to bring back any unused rounds (they'd have to be counted, and they didn't like counting them) so the last people got up to 60 rounds in total - an extra 30 rounds on top of the 30 that everyone else got. Angus was boasting about it when he got back into Area 8 Nightloc.
Ah yes... 1 bullet = 1 round. Cadets aren't allowed to fire more than 10 rounds at a time (some bs about it being too traumatic). So what the clever man who was running the range that day did for us was bend the rules. They only loaded each clip with 10 rounds, so that we had to pause after 10. (No, if the magazine has no bullets in it, the gun will not fire. Duh. The trigger won't even press down. I know because I kept losing count of how many I'd fired, and was always surprised when the trigger wouldn't move.)

There were showers today, we had to walk all the way out to the gate by ourselves. They told us to go to the road, we weren't sure which road they meant, so we hung around on the road near A Coy's Nightloc until we got yelled at to hurry up and get moving. I went with Lewis (her name's Louise, but she calls me Prisc and Zugai Seb, so we decided we had to call her something else too!)
The hot water ran out about two minutes after I got in. At least I managed to myself washed. Stood under the cold water for a while, trying to get more dirt off myself, until it got too cold.
Were supposed to help cook fresh rations, but since we were the last to get out, we just ended up carrying stuff onto the mog. Some of the stuff were boxes of 1 man rations. They're heavy, but not so heavy that I couldn't carry a box on my own. They had the blue hard plastic strips, and I picked one up by the plastic. It cut into my finger, and it hurt, but the light was wrong and I couldn't see it. It just felt sore. I didn't find out it had cut until the next morning when there was actually light.
We went back to Nightloc in the same truck we'd taken to get there, only Lt Love managed to fit 6 girls in the actual truck compartment, rather than just 3. We all ended up singing to Look What You've Done, by Jet. It started raining.

Luckily for me, one of the guys, Hanslow (sp?) had taken my pack and echelon bag and put it under his own hoochie.
When we got back, we got fresh rations (they were still hot! w00t!) in the way of meat (beef?), salad, hamburger bun (yes, just bread; I was so hungry I'd taken about three bites before someone said I'd be needing it to make a hamburger with), and juice or milk. I got given a leaky Breaka, though I didn't realise it until about 10 or 15 minutes later, because I thought it was just ice/condensation running off the side. My torch ran out of battery.
The female lines had all of two hoochies set up, and there were 11 girls. 2 ended up near the main area (not in female lines; something about some girls going schizo at each other), and they fit 8 girls into the other 2 hoochies. That, of course, left me without anywhere to sleep, so I went to CUO Bettice and told her. Our exact words,
"Do you have mates in the male lines?"
"Yes."
"Then go. We trust you. Go."
I'd been looking for my pack before, (wandering in the dark -_-;) so I knew Dunkling was sleeping alone that night. We extended his hoochie. I was in my sleeping bag, boots off, getting warm and drifting off to sleep, when a whole bunch of officers (and I think it was CUO Cleggs, though it might not have been) come through the male lines looking for someone. Turned out it was me.
"You should say something. You're going to have to, or they'll do a total lockdown."
So when they came to our hoochie, "Have you seen the small asian lance corporal?" I sat up and answered.
Turns out Biele called the MP over. I heard the MP saying, "You called me out for this?!" Dunkling said something, I don't remember what, but one of the officers snapped back, "Just shut up. You're making it worse for yourself," in a tone that I thought was rather uncalled for. Someone also said something about the both of us getting into trouble, not just me, even though it was I who'd asked Dunkling if I could hoochie up with him. (Not that the officers knew that. I didn't tell them that I'd been told to go to the male lines either; didn't want Bettice to get in trouble too.)
"Well, if she goes back now, I won't file anything," the MP said.
They made me go and sleep in the already crowded hoochie with Selby, Kelly, and two others. On the way back, I was given the advice, "You should have had someone covering for you. When we asked for you, if someone in the female lines had said, 'Yes, she's here,' we wouldn't have looked any further." It never occurred to me that they'd actually look for me. I guess I don't think too well in the cold.
I don't know how long I cried for. Probably 1-2 hours. I slashed my arm twice, and that helped some. It didn't hurt, I think it was too cold for that, but it brought me back to my senses, since I didn't want to get tetanus; nor did I want blood all over the sleeping bag. (Actually, fear of tetanus was what had kept me from cutting before this.)