On the Rocks

by Peter Rhodan

  Chapter 12

  Slow progress

  The next day, Oween had still not returned so Arturo resolved to head down to Wern to see if there was any word there. But the first thing he did after an enjoyably good breakfast was to visit Ceri at the iron works. Ceri showed him the wooden master for the cylinder block they had designed and the simple but hopefully effective valve gear to go with it. Ceri rather thought that it should be ready in a couple of days, depending on how the casting went. Casting something so complicated was going to be very hit and miss at first Ceri assured him.

  Several lengths of the cast rails were piled up and about a dozen wheels were stacked near to a man who was checking them over and rubbing odd spots off on a large piece of the special stone used for sharpening swords. Ceri waved his hand at the track. “We have well over two miles of track laid now. That’s your new shorter miles admittedly but we have been planning the route to Wern and expect to lay another three miles in the next couple of weeks, possibly a little longer depending on the weather.” Given the gloomy overcast skies Arturo wasn’t surprised at the caveat. It seemed to rain here every second day and look like it would half the rest!

  Arturo had re-organised the local measuring system to an extent. A foot was now ten instead of twelve inches although each inch was slightly longer. It meant a Roman pace of five feet was about a meter and a half. A mile of five thousand feet was about a kilometre and a half. This Republican pace was also the chosen gauge for the new rail lines they were building.

  Arturo nodded. “Good. Eventually we are going to have to replace these rails with wrought iron or even steel ones. Preferably steel.”

  “Yes. You’ve told me that several times now." Ceri sounded aggrieved while complaining but the accompanying smile mollified his sarcastic tone. "But using these rails means we are building a team of men with the skills required to design and lay such tracks and we are also getting to work through the problems this new method of transportation is throwing up.” He shook his head. “Some of the land owners are embracing selling the land for the tracks but others are resisting.”

  “Hmm. Have you tried offering them shares in the Rail Road company instead of just money?”

  Ceri shook his head looking a little non-plussed. “No. Haven’t thought of that. Good idea. We can push the idea that they are still in a sense owning their land and are going to gain income from it. Yes. I like that. These companies of yours have some serious advantages.”

  Arturo smiled in acknowledgement. “I’m heading down to Wern today. I am getting concerned about Oween and thought I’d go and see if there was any word down there.”

  “While you are there, make sure Lewarth is going to build his rail line the same gauge as we are.”

  “Never fear. He has that second set of measuring rods we made. Speaking of which, can you run up say, oh another dozen sets?”

  Ceri looked puzzled. “That many? Whatever for?”

  “Future expansion. Everyone in the area needs to get used to these new lengths, not just the new number system. I want to have set in each main town so people can have easy access to encourage them use them. You might look at coming up with a cast measuring stick, say a foot marked with the ten inches and even the ten subdivisions of that. Lots of people would consider buying them I think, especially at a cheap price, plus we will need them in the schools. No rush though and now I am off to Wern. See you when I get back.” He clambered onto the horse he was still not comfortable riding and left Ceri shaking his head at this latest idea.

  The first place he headed once he got the coastal village was the house of the man Hwillam whom he had set to work trying to make some sort of usable paper. He encountered him in what passed for the main street of the town near the river carrying a large bag of something. “Greetings Hwillam.” He called as he rode up.

  “Primarius!” The man answered using Arturo’s new title with a smile.

  “How is it going?”

  “I am making progress Primarius. The local felter and I have been trying out various ideas and I think we have come up with something that will produce a material acceptable to you and which can be made in quantity for not too great a cost.” He patted the bag he was carrying. “Still needs more work at present but I am confident of having something worth showing you soon.”

  “Really. That is excellent. How goes the construction of the printing press?”

  “That is coming along nicely too I think. I won’t know for certain until I get the metal letters from the engraver. Gawyll initially had some difficulty understanding exactly what was needed but I think he grasps the concept now. He assures me the first set of letters, in what we decided to call size ten type, will be ready in a week or so. The larger set I want for headings will take longer but having the normal set will enable me to test out the ink and paper much more effectively.”

  “Good. You feel have a better grasp of the idea now?”

  “Oh yes. I had Bryain the carpenter run up a very small test box and put the first of the letter blocks Gawyll did up in it to test the concept out, mostly for his benefit, so he had a better idea of what we are trying to do. The main problem left is the ink. What we have doesn’t sit on the letters well.”

  Arturo opened the palm of his hand. “Show me.” And Hwillam led him to his modest house, yet another of the round houses common hereabouts. Around the back there was a shed in which various bits of wood and rubbish were strewn about. On a solid but very roughly made bench was a small wooden box and a collection of thin pieces of metal. Picking one up he could clearly see the letter T on the end of the metal piece. The work had been very nicely done, the letter having a serif look and being elegantly shaped, at least for such a small type size.

  Hwillam picked up a ceramic pot with a brush in it and applied some dark liquid to the carved letter on one of the metal plates. He then applied the inked metal to a piece of parchment and the result was not much better than a dark smear. Arturo looked at the ink and the letter and tried it himself and got either a similar smear or something too light to be seen clearly. He contemplated the materials in front of him without any real idea of how to overcome this problem. He knew the theory of movable type but had never had anything directly to do with printing so at first his mind was a blank.

  He tried to remember anything that would help but nothing came. He looked at the letter piece and the ink again and then an idea hit. “Try coming up with some way to thicken the ink. That should work. What you’d use I have no idea. The only thing that comes to mind is finely ground flour, but I doubt it would be what we actually want.” He said after a minute.

  “Hmm, I see what you mean, I think. making it thicker might make a difference, yes.” Hwillam said. “Not flour though. Probably. Hmm. I shall see what I can come up with to thicken it up. Yes. That might work indeed.”

  Arturo nodded and after another look around exited the shed. “You’ve done a good job so far Hwillam. Here is some money to keep you going. I’ll be back down here next week all being well. Right now I am trying to find out where Oween has got to.”

  “Ah. Dileen might know something but I doubt it. As far as I am aware the Moarciu hasn’t been back since it left with Oween so it’s unlikely Dileen will have heard anything.”

  Arturo grimaced. “I see. All right. Well keep up the good work Hwillam.” He clapped the man on the shoulder, remounted and headed for Dileen’s house. Dileen could offer no help but did point out that there had been no storms of note since the Moarciu had sailed south so there was probably nothing to worry about. Not really mollified, Arturo considered staying at Wern but there were so many matters needing his attention at Dervent he eventually gave in to his sense of duty and rode north once more despite the lateness.

  He spoke with the Mair of Dervent the next morning about a plan to get the main street of the growing town paved, conferred with the ceramic makers about making much larger pipes that could be used for drains and sewerage as well as large flat paving
blocks that could be used to pave the road. Briffet and Berwyn were doing a fine job with increasing the cloth manufacture, the holdup now was spinning the wool. Briffet was gradually taking over the operation as Berwyn was pregnant and would need time to have her baby. As he conferred with her he saw immediately what the problem was with the slow had done method of spinning and gave her some coins to hire more women. He felt more efficient spinning was something he would be able to solve once he had steam power up and running, or at least he hoped so.

  Arcadius still demurred at becoming head of his intelligence service unfortunately, which was annoying as there really wasn't anyone else suitable. Melwyn meanwhile had found an old rundown building at the edge of town he had acquired using Arturo’s money. It was round like nearly every other building, but he was getting it repaired and a rectangular shed like addition added on which would serve as the school room for the moment. He had three children already enrolled as students which somewhat surprised Arturo given the lack of generela schooling in the local populace. Radovas reported that they had picked up another two recruits and Valerius had spoken with two former soldiers of his from his time at Eboracum who had passed through and would maybe come back and join his cavalry after visiting their families.

  With the ‘help’ of the captured Scotti who had not been willing to join the army the inside of the fort was now almost totally refurbished. One corner had been converted into stables for the horses and the gate to the west was being re-done to allow easier access. While doing his exercise routine early the next morning Arturo had a brain wave and decided that the entire western wall could be knocked down and the material used to add more troop accommodation beyond the old fort area, perhaps as a series of standalone buildings for the married men to live in.

  As he exercised he realised he was being watched again, but ignored whoever it was and after finishing his self-designed sword practice he called a council of officers for just before midday meal time to discuss his latest idea. After explaining about knocking out the west wall and building houses for the married men he was met with very bland stares from the whole group and he realised he needed to elaborate somewhat. “We need more room anyway. This fort was only designed for five hundred or so infantry and the cavalry takes up nearly three times as much space per man, what with the horses and so forth.” Valerius at least acknowledged this point with a tightening of the lips and small wave of the hand. “We start with quarters for the married officers, then we work our way down to the senior nco’s and so on over time. We move the training area more to the north as well to give us more room to train in.”

  Radovas shook his head. “But, but it will make it almost impossible to defend with the wall knocked down like that.” He spluttered.

  Arturo smiled as the light dawned. “Ah, I see what you are concerned about. But you have to understand that if you must rely on fixed defences to defeat your enemy then the war is already lost. The real defence of the Republic will be the army. The best defence is a strong offence after all.”

  Radovas cocked his head slightly on an angle while he digested this. Valerius looked thoughtful, as did Meries. Con nodded. “I like the idea.”

  Radovas scowled at him. “Of course you like the idea Con, you’re the only married one here!”

  The others smiled. Arturo waved at Con. “Just because he is the only married one, at least so far, doesn’t mean he is wrong. You all understand the structure our fighting force is going to have in due course. Eventually there will be three thousand or more men based here, so making allowances now for future growth would seem to make sense to me.” He rubbed his fingers on his lips. “I know you are all worried about Maximus, as am I and I am freely willing to admit it, but he is too strong for us to last against just by defending this fort and besides I don’t want his men burning and pillaging Dervent.”

  Several of the faces grimaced and a couple nodded at this. “We’ve worked hard to build a good industrial base here, all things considered, and I don’t want to see it wrecked and our people killed or enslaved. In time I hope our technology will makes things easier but for the moment we will have to deal with Maximus by other means. On paper his force is too strong for ours should he decide to come south, on the other hand he is not a great general by all accounts. Hopefully we can outmanoeuvre, outfox and generally work things so that we don’t have to fight his whole force head on.” He paused then decided to be honest. “I have no set plan at this stage. It will depend a great deal on which route he comes south on and in what formation.”

  Valerius grimaced. “Does this mean you have finally given up the idea of trying to negotiate with him?” He asked.

  “Yes, I guess so. No one seemed to think there was any hope of doing so successfully and did not hesitate to inform that it would be a waste of time, so I am planning on having to fight. I’d still prefer not to but, well it is what it is."

  “Good.” Said Radovas and the others all nodded in agreement. “Makes things easier. Our new weapons will help against his forces. His cavalry are good but his infantry are little more than Limitani these days.”

  “Limitani?” Artuuro asked having decided he needed a better understanding of the word he heard used before, usually in a slightly derogatory way.

  “The name used for border troops. Often soldiers who are part time farmers or farmers who are part time soldiers, depends largely on if their unit is a direct descendent of an old regular unit or not. They have weapons and can fight but are not in the same league as the Auxilia and Legiones. I would expect our men to be able to beat twice as many of them or even more fairly easily once they are all fully trained.”

  “Really? And how many is he likely to bring?”

  Radovas and Valerius looked at each other. “Depends on how threatened he feels. He has two main units left, about four hundred strong each. With a few more scattered at forts on the wall although the one at Vindolanda does not seem to be all that keen on showing him due respect." They all smiled at this comment. "But even after leaving a garrison in Lugowalion I expect he could bring as many as six hundred infantry, perhaps a little more.” Radovas seemed rather despondent at this number.

  “And probably two hundred armoured cavalry as his main strike force.” Valerius added sounding very subdued, his face a worried frown. “One of the infantry units is commanded by a local, Coel, who I know fairly well and we might be able to get him to keep his troops out of any battle but he would need to be convinced we were going to win first.”

  “Hmm. I will consider that information. So we know what will be set against our forty or so cavalry and one hundred and fifty infantry. Not good odds gentlemen. But not insurmountable I think. From your description our men are on the whole better trained and better armed than his and as we proved against the Scotti the new manuballista give us an edge against superior numbers. Your estimate is that his cavalry are pretty good?”

  Valerius nodded at this. “The hard core are about forty men of Sarmatian descent although these days I think most of the cavalry based in Britannia have at least some Sarmatian ancestry. The best men will have horses wearing frontal armour and be armoured themselves on their arms and legs as well as mail or scale tunic. They also carry long spears somewhat like ours but lack our stirrups as yet so will not have the benefit of the advantages they bring. The rest will lack the horse armour and probably won’t have leg or arm defences either. Most of them will also be armed with the long spears although some will have javelins instead of the spears or in addition to the spear. These long spears are something new, introduced only this last decade or so. They used to be reserved for the heavily armoured Catafractarii but all the cavalry who used to be javelin armed have taken to them, well mostly anyway. There will probably be some carrying javelins, more so the local chaps rather than the Sarmatian descendants. Some will also sport small bows of Sarmatian design. They will carry shields but probably not when they charge with their spears as they will need two hands to wield them effectively.
That is something we can now do because of these stirrup things. It is a small advantage but should be a real one in the right circumstances.”

  “So you know most of the infantry commanders?”

  “Not that well apart from Coel. Any of you?” Valerius turned to the others but they all shook their heads in negation.

  “Oween probably has some idea. He usually does.” Meries said at last. A silence then fell as they contemplated the absence of Oween. Arturo found himself feeling rather hollow as he forced himself to accept that something had possibly happened to Oween or the ship or both and that his aide, who had also become the one close friend he had in this place, was probably not returning. There was still hope of course, but given the small size of the ship Arturo had visions of a storm or even just a sudden hard gust capsizing the thing quite easily.

  He tried to return his attention to his officers. “Anyway, until Maximus actually decides to march against us we will go on as we have been. I want you all to consider my idea of knocking down the western wall so we can expand the accommodation area and let me know any thoughts you may have regarding the concept. Now Valerius, have you given any thought to that idea I put to you the other day? About the scouts?”

  “Yes. I spoke to my son about the idea and he seemed quite interested in the concept. I must admit having scouts out two or three days in front of an army is quite a good idea. I think the Parthians use to do that in the old days but I'm not sure. Anyway he is organising a squad of twelve fellows who look likely prospects. I have promoted him to be the ensign as well, I presume that is fine with you?”

  “Yes. He seems level headed enough. What I want is for his men to practice observing from a distance, while memorising their location so they can send reports and still find their way back to the rest of their group afterwards. As soon as I can find someone who can make and work with glass I will hopefully provide something that will help dramatically with being able to see the enemy at a distance. In the meantime they can practice against some of Radovas’ men.” He looked over at the grizzled Centurion, the proper Roman title having become the normal usage now in place of the local word. “I want to start sending patrols down to Wern and perhaps another day’s march south, then they can march back up the coast to Alauna before returning here.”