Elliott actually smiled. “Our own personal hell.”
The LT worked on site layout. As the bivouac resolved, Spencer was impressed. Elliott wasn’t doing badly, now that he had his head on, and to be fair, they’d all been pretty fucked up the first couple of days.
Elliott was an engineer officer. He’d laid out a camp with sticks stuck in the ground. Alexander and Trinidad were standing as markers while he walked a line back from them and placed another stake.
Then it was back to chopping trees. The ditch was running out of timber fast. There might be another twenty good trees if they were lucky, though the slimmer ones would work for Barker’s tepee. Then there were some smaller straight ones they could stack up for hooch construction or such. They might as well take them all.
“Hey, Sergeant Spencer,” he heard Dalton call from atop Charlie 9, and turned.
South and uphill, a lioness stared at them from the dappled shadows of the ditch.
“Okay, no one move fast, keep your eyes open, and have rifles ready. If she attacks, it might take a dozen shots to put her down even with the machine gun. Which means you have to hit. Is everyone out of everyone else’s line of fire?”
“Hooah,” “Yes,” “Yup.”
“Do we have any rocks we can throw also?”
Barker said, “No, and I’m going to cut some saplings for spears as soon as she’s gone.”
Shortly, the graceful beast turned and padded away.
“She may come back. Might have smelled lunch. But we smell like a dead goat, which means we’re a predator. Keep eyes open, whoever’s watching the fire.”
The palisade was a joke to start with. They really didn’t know how to do it. It sounded good—wood ash for an alkali base to protect the wood, dig a hole, set a pole, pile up dirt. Then you realized you had to put them side by side in a trench, and keep them upright, not sagging. They had to be lashed to each other and to cross pieces. Logs weren’t machine cut, so there were gaps, and each one took twisting until it fit right. The ditch in front had to be evenly deep and wide. They had to dig around rocks, and dig some of those out then refill. They had two shovels and an E-tool, and some buckets for hauling. Barker tried to lash a shovel together from split wood and a sapling, but it might only be good for shoveling snow. It wasn’t usable for digging.
The logs piled up faster than they could set them. Three days in they had a dozen uprights buttressed in place, looking pathetic.
The tepee was easier. Barker and Trinidad did it with machetes in an afternoon. They chopped and set a tripod of sapling poles, more poles around that, some tarps and ponchos, all lashed with parachute cord, and they had a mostly dry place to sleep. That was easy. It gave them something to point to as an accomplishment. The covering flapped in the wind gusts. It was crowded and dank, but it was overhead cover. Between it and the trucks, everyone could sleep flat.
Spencer was glad they had Barker along. He was the go-to guy at this stage. Higher tech would be Spencer’s, but the burly old sailor knew his primitive craft. His spears were straight saplings, peeled and scraped, with large nails embedded in the tips for now.
“I’ll knap flint later, or we can saw some metal bar from the seats to use.”
Dalton asked, “Won’t it need to be tempered?”
Spencer said, “It doesn’t for what we’re doing, and it would have to be carburized first. Stone will work just fine, or those hypodermic-looking bone points the natives use.”
Five spears, a rack to hold them, a tepee, a fire place with hot rocks to cook on. It was the barest bones Army camp he’d ever seen, but it was something. Then a lot more sticks got stuck into the ground to serve as clothes hangers and boot trees, and a couple of logs got rolled over by the fire as seats.
Midmorning on the third day on site, September 6 by their calendar, late into the local summer, Barker showed them a crude screen.
“The latrine has a wall. It’s on this side only so far, but we can piss in peace, and not be ogled.” He grabbed the structure. It was two saplings set into the bank, wedged and buttressed, then woven with boughs. It would also be a windbreak.
“Here’s the seat.”
He’d peeled three thick limbs and lashed them in a triangle. They were set on posts that ran to the rocks. Underneath it was flowing water.
“Ortiz and I diverted a channel. It’s rock lined. That slab is safe to stand on,” he pointed at a flat chunk of limestone. “It may dry up in summer, and ice may be a problem, but for now, we have a place to sit, and it’ll wash downstream.”
It wasn’t even as good as a porta-potty, with no roof. They also didn’t have a paper substitute yet. Wiping with rocks, Afghan style, wasn’t appealing.
Devereaux said, “Everyone needs to designate a cloth or an old T-shirt as a wiping rag, and wash it after use. You can hang it on a stick to dry. Eventually we’ll make soap or vinegar for sterilizing.”
That wasn’t really any better than rocks.
In the morning, Sean Elliott awoke to the rising orange sun to find Barker frying something on the fireplace rocks. It was goat.
“Thanks,” he said, as he took a skewer. “Though I’m hoping we can get something else soon.”
“Should be able to, sir. We can get fish in a day or two. Likely some big trout and some kind of sturgeon analog, and it’s spawning season soon. There are antelopes, but those will take a brain shot. There’s some kind of big cow, Spencer called it an aurochs. We’ll need nets or blunt arrows for pheasant and such. We’ll have variety, it’s just going to take a while.”
“Good. I’m also thinking about some kind of vegetable for the nutrition, though.”
Caswell came back from gathering green stuff. He’d never missed vegetables until he didn’t have any.
Between the two NCOs, they’d put together a fairly effective kitchen. One ammo can had been scoured clean and was kept full of water, which was boiled and dumped into the cooler, to reduce future infections. Another was used for each day’s leftover bits, which were simmered with bone, blood and fat into a broth. It was greasy to the palate and fairly bland, but it was probably nutritious. He could manage a bite a meal, no more. They had skewers for roasting, flat rocks for frying and baking, and a couple of thin knives, close enough to kitchen knives to work. One had been Spencer’s, one Alexander’s. They used leftover drink cans for steaming and roasting small vegetables. Those would burn out eventually, and he wasn’t sure about ingesting aluminum vapors. It probably didn’t matter long-term. The cans were well blackened already.
Oglesby looked hungover as he rolled out. Spencer groaned and creaked, but seemed alert once up. Dalton looked fresh from the get go.
Caswell came over and said, “I found a few things, sir. Besides cattails, there’s dandelions, wild plantain, garlic, mustard, various sunflower type things, and some pine nuts or needles maybe.”
“Do any of those make a nice biscuit?”
She shrugged. “Maybe the cattails, if we can find a way to grind them.”
“Damn. Not much variety.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Most of what’s edible here is animals. That’s why I gave up being a vegetarian for the duration.”
“I’m glad for your knowledge.” Yeah. Not having to move in with the stinking locals was worth the work, and all the knowledge helped.
She said, “Also, everyone needs to be careful with nuts. There are probably almonds here, and they’re probably toxic.”
“Toxic?”
“Cyanide.”
“Then how did we make them edible?”
Dalton muttered something about God, and she said, “I don’t know exactly. Early agriculture was just encouraging plants that were edible. Cultivation came later.”
Barker said, “I’m hoping there’s wild rice in the river. We can see about pudding at least.”
Something would be nice. “Please. But how long is all this going to take?”
Barker shrugged as he poked meat with a stick. �
�Yeah, we have ten people, sir. I don’t know what we can do.”
Spencer said, “I’d love to trade for some stuff with the Paleos, but I don’t know what we have.”
Trinidad said, “Sir, I can trade some stuff from them.”
“Without a common language?”
“I managed with Chinese, Indonesians and Koreans without a language in common.”
“Okay. What are you thinking?”
“Trinkets. We have tools to make them.”
Barker said, “We can make some nice wooden beads using sticks chucked in the drill.”
Trinidad said, “You can, but not even that. Metal blades and files make carving much easier. Wooden spoons are better than those spatulas they use. We can also eventually make alcohol in better quality and quantity.”
Barker said, “Hah, I get to feed firewater to the natives. Awesome.”
“I expect the salted meat would prove popular.”
“You think that’s enough?”
“They have hides from every animal, and an existing industry to tan them.”
Barker said, “I’ll teach them bark tanning. That’ll give us more variety of leather, too.”
It was so frustrating. They had more than enough skill and knowledge. They had too few tools and not nearly enough people. With a company, or at least a couple of platoons, they’d easily build everything they needed in a year or two, and be at least at colonial levels of technology. As it was . . .
“What about bows?”
“What about them?”
“We’re going to be using them. They’ll figure it out soon enough. We swap an apprenticeship for more goods.”
Trinidad twisted his face up. He said, “I may need Oglesby for abstract concepts. Though I think I can pantomime that.”
Spencer said, “Next problem is that winter is coming. It seems to be September here.”
Devereaux said, “I said it was. Once equinox hits, I’ll know exactly.”
“Awesome. But I’m worried about having dried food on hand, and firewood. The food will need to have a lot of fat. We’ll need to dry berries.”
Barker said, “Pemmican, jerky, and smoking. We’ll need a smokehouse. It can be a small tepee.”
“It never ends,” Elliott said with a sigh.
Alexander said, “My charger can keep the truck batteries up, while we have light, and we can feed off the inverter there. Anyone else got solar?”
“Small one for my phone,” Caswell said. “If you bring me your phones, I’ll keep them charged for you. I have the universal jack kit. I won’t loan it out.”
Barker said, “Got one in the tool box. It’s good enough for phones, not laptops.”
“So we’ll be using phones as nightlights, notepads, entertainment.”
“But not GPS,” Oglesby said.
Dalton held his up. “I have compass and a weather setup with a small probe. And the compass I used to get to the trucks.”
Spencer yelled, “Yes!” then “Sorry, sir. All I have is this.” He held up a basic phone, and a pocket compass that was second rate at best. It would find north, but wasn’t going to work for actual navigation. “But my flashlights are both rechargeable. One USB, one via charger, which I have here.”
Damn. That was good.
Elliott said, “I’m reluctant to commandeer personal possessions.”
Spencer grinned. “I’m reluctant to let you, but since you’re letting me borrow your shaver, I’m okay with letting you use one of the flashlights.”
“Thanks. And yes, I want to keep the truck batteries charged so we have night vision. Also, I don’t mind if you listen to music while sleeping, but keep the volume down in case you have to react, Hooah?”
“Hooah, sir,” people replied.
Sean Elliott had a schedule, but the troops kept varying it. Usually, they had good ideas, but it did slow down the wall.
By the eighth day, Alexander and Caswell had lashed together a hut with a slant roof. There’d been some amusement, because the saplings were cumbersome, but he’d made the guys heel. He asked if they wanted help, only to be brushed off with a curtly polite, “We have it, thanks.”
It wasn’t bad. They’d used twisted bark instead of paracord, thatched the roof and reinforced it with MRE packets and cardboard from water flats with the plastic still wrapped around. It should keep them mostly dry. It also reduced crowding in the tepee and gave them some privacy.
By the tenth, the site had forty feet of palisade along the west.
He observed, “Well, that’s half of one side, then we need to do two more sides, then figure out what the hell we’re going to do on the stream side.”
Spencer said, “It makes a good block to anyone on foot.”
“Sure. But it won’t stop arrows.”
“Our armor and the range help with that. We can fix that later.”
“Agreed. But eventually I want us buttoned up.” He was much less sanguine than the older NCO.
Caswell said, “We can make a wattle fence over there and use it to pen goats. That means a steady supply of meat. It also slows any attacker a bit, and they’ll make noise coming in.”
“I like it.”
“I’d really like a roof and more windbreak on the latrine. Can we use some goat hides? They’ll cure in the sun.” They already had ten hides drying and getting stiff. Barker and Caswell assured him they could make softer leather, too.
“For now use the hides,” he said. “Eventually I want to split some shakes.”
The Army loved formations, but Sean Elliott didn’t want to get in the way of work. They met around the fire in the morning, and at night, and stuck to field conditions. There was no reason to stand around in groups. They did calisthenics to warm up, and a response exercise to potential threats.
After breakfast, he walked up above the kitchen area, down the path they’d already worn through the brush and between two trees. At the stream, he opened the lid on his Camelbak, and plunged it into the cool, clean water. Once they had gotten past the “intestinal distress,” the water here was pretty good. It was tasty, though occasionally earthy, clear and clean enough, and ran right through the camp. That made it easy to stay hydrated. He wondered why this area wasn’t occupied by locals already.
That done, he went back to Charlie Nine to go through plans.
He seemed to always be looking at plans. At least he could have them on a laptop, and Alexander even had Photoshop, PowerPoint and AutoCAD. That and the solar charger meant saving paper, and the ability to create substantial maps and documentation. Which meant he was stuck here, not out digging in poles. They had little enough manpower, and it wasn’t kind, but true, that the females just weren’t up to the heavy lifting the males were.
Onscreen, he adjusted a vertical for one of the lodges they planned to build, letting the worries run on their own mental channel. The weather was decent enough that he was quite comfortable in the back of the vehicle. He wondered how long that could continue. They’d need firewood soon, and that meant fireplaces in each hut. Crap. There was some way of doing them in wattle and daub, he recalled. Maybe Spencer knew. Oh, right. Caswell had mentioned that. But he’d feel a lot better with stone or sod. There were enough rocks here. They kept finding them while digging the ditch.
Dalton came up to the rear, knocked on the side and said, “Sir, do you have a moment?”
“Yes,” he replied. It would be good to take a break. He stretched. There was just no way to be comfortable in the back of these things.
Dalton climbed up and sat across from him.
“Tomorrow is Sunday. Do we have any plans for worship service?”
“I hadn’t planned on any, sorry.” Yeah, they needed at least a little down time, and a chance to talk to the Lord. No one else was going to get them out of this.
“Would it be okay if I hosted something?”
“Please do. Keep in mind the Catholic members may want to do their own thing, and I suspect Alexander and Spencer wi
ll not want to participate.”
Dalton said, “Yes, sir. I don’t want to be pushy, but I do want to hold a service.”
“I’ll put the word out tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“No problem.”
That evening, they had goat for dinner again, but it was a little different.
“Mushrooms?” he asked.
Caswell said, “There was some tree fungus in the ditch. I made sure to do a spore test. And I’ve eaten some.”
Barker said, “I sautéed them in suet on the rock.” He pointed at a flat chunk of slate set on four stones. There was a bed of coals underneath. They’d gone from a rock next to the fire, to a griddle over it. “There’s a little bit of kidney mixed in for salt. I rinsed it well. Unrinsed kidney is nasty.”
It didn’t sound that appetizing. He lined up gamely, though.
Instead of skewers, they had more flat rocks to eat off. The slate worked well enough, as long as you didn’t have too much liquid. One dribble of grease ran off and over his wrist and cuff.
He wondered how long MRE spoons would last. Otherwise, it was pocket knives. He assumed they could whittle spoons from wood, or at least chopsticks.
The mushrooms weren’t bad. A bit mild, but it was good to eat something other than meat. They were a little salty tasting. There were some kind of grassy herbs mixed in. They tasted surprisingly good. The goat was just goat. It had been interesting for a couple of days. Now it was just food.
Barker said, “We’ve got some cattail we can turn into flour. We’ll see how that goes. We also need to start looking for eggs, and birds we can clip and keep as layers and roasters. I’m sure there’s some kind of wild rice down there.”
“No wheat, I assume?”
Caswell said, “Any grass seed is edible. It’s just not really worth the effort, and it won’t taste like much. That’s a Neolithic Revolution development, sometime in the next five to ten thousand years.”
She kept her eyes down on her platter, but he could see her tearing up. She didn’t have close family, that he was aware of, but that didn’t make it easier.
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