by Chris Hechtl
Roy blinked as people around them laughed. “Um...”
“Say, yes Ma'am, or you're in for it for sure,” Eliza said in his ear.
He nodded. “Yes Ma'am,” he said as Eliza put the spoon in his hand. That got another chuckle.
“FYI, we're doing good with the grenades. We've got quite a stockpile going. I was wondering though about how big a charge we can go. And the corporal asked if we can make something called a claymore mine,” Eliza said, wrinkling her nose. Roy nodded.
After he ate Roy blearily moved off to work on his grenades. Klinger intervened, “Professor, I admire your dedication, but you are in no condition to play with explosives,” he told him firmly, hands on his shoulders. “Bed,” he ordered.
Roy nodded, went about his business in the latrine area and then went to bed.
~~~~~O~~~~~
At dawn he was a bit stiff but eager to get back into things. He checked in with Quinn and the smiths, but they had their tasks under control. Walter had another batch of gunpowder processed, dried and ready for testing. Together they finished the first two batches of grenades quickly. They took one off down the beach a bit to test one with Quinn and the curious smiths, “Fire in the hole!” Roy called, lighting the wick. He tossed the grenade into a nearby hole they had prepared then turned his back and covered his ears. It explodes nicely, but the raining fragments of ceramic and rock made it clear to them it was dangerous to be near. “We aren’t sure about the wick time length, going to have to test it,” Walter said.
“Every five-second grenade is actually three seconds,” Quinn said. They looked at him. “Something my grandpa said. He learned it in Korea. The other men nodded.
They finished the grenades by crating them up and putting them in a sand pit, encircled by a grass rope warning line. He told the camp to warn people off that area, then as Walter went to his various chemistry project Roy turned his attention back to the radio project he had been neglecting.
An hour into that he was interrupted by Chloe. The girl softly asked for her IPod to be charged. He made a deal with her to climb up a tree next to the shack and hang a wire antenna. While she did that, he charged the music device and then helped her as she ran the wire line back to his radio. When the girl shimmied down the tree he plugged the antenna in and gave it a shot. He frowned, then adjusted the solar blanket. He'd have to wait for the batteries to recharge he realized. He'd thought the laptop would work, but the power from the amperage from the USB port just wasn't enough to get much of a signal through. No, he needed direct power from the batteries.
Chloe smiled when she took possession of her IPod, then put the ear buds in her ear and went off to work with a happy dusting of her hands and a skip in her step. He snorted as she pirouetted around Walter but kept going.
He set up the batteries to power the radio, charging them with the solar blanket. While that went on, he used bits of rope to better secure his wiring and even rigged the lights with a switch. Then he turned his attention to rigging a couple of flashlights up from a pile of batteries, LEDs, and bits of wire someone had thoughtfully left for him nearby.
About an hour after he started the recharge, he decided that was long enough for a test. The jury-rigged radio worked, causing his phone to squawk in Morse code as he hit the transmit button.
“Now on to the hard part,” he said. He pulled up the laptop to finish the design. To do this he would have to salvage additional electronics and then created a circuit.
“How is it going?” Quinn asked, coming over to check up on him.
He showed him the radio, then had them test it at distances. “I need parts,” Roy said.
“Give me a list,” Quinn said. “I'm not busy now,” he said, waving a hand. “Mind if I charge my phone?” he asked. Roy nodded. “I'll go get it. Then I'll test your phone around the camp. See what kind of range we can get,” he said.
Roy nodded. The welder went off to pull the parts, so Roy went to make the tools he'd need. When Quinn came back, they used a piece of metal as a soldering iron, salvaging solder from other parts.
Eliza brought them lunch, chuckling about being a caterer. They thanked her, and she waved it off as she left. They absently ate and looked over their work.
~~~~~O~~~~~
That evening he used LEDs and cabin lights to light the shack, making a few people pop in to see what was going on. They were excited, but annoyed by the alien moths that were attracted to the light as well.
“At least with the fires, if they get too close they get burned up,” Quinn said, batting a couple away that kept fluttering at the light, casting shadows all over the work area.
Once the curious had departed, they finished the circuit and gave it a try. “Testing, one two three,” Quinn said over the radio. He grinned when the phone went off, echoing his voice.
“The radio works!” Quinn said. They heard a few people cheer outside.
“We'll have to test the range again,” Roy said. So they moved out to test the range. Walter sat in the shed with the guard as Roy moved out. He was restricted to the camp perimeter though, the corporal had wisely denied anyone the authorization to go outside the camp walls after dark.
“Can you hear me now?” Roy said, and the response elicited chuckles from the tribe. He put the phone on speaker phone, and they gasped as Walter replied. “Well well, Alexander Graham Bell would be proud,” Lita said with a grin.
“I should have known our resident genius would figure it out eventually,” doc teased.
“So? They'll break eventually,” Catrina said snidely. “It's just a monumental waste of time,” she said.
Roy waved that off and shook his head. “Keeping them charged will be an issue. We will have to test the range outside of camp too, but this should give us a way to communicate with the teams out of camp,” he said.
Dawning comprehension on some faces brought smiles of understanding, and eyes lit with hope. “Fine, your toy works, so it's time to eat,” doc growled. Cookie nodded, fists on her hips. That got a laugh.
Roy smiled and used the phone to have Walter join them to eat. There were chuckles around the group, and comments of Alexander Graham Bell, with the story of the first phone to the kids. Dennis listened as Lita described the first phones and how they worked. “You young snots take it for granted, but back in my day, we had cords that made you have to stay in the same room as the phone. We didn't have fancy smancy cell phones! And when they first came out they were a suitcase!” she said. Roy nodded as Dennis looked at him for confirmation.
“Times change,” Roy said between spoonfuls of stew. “We get better with time. The same goes for here,” he said indicating the camp. “Remember what it was like a week ago? When we first crashed?” The blond boy nodded. “Well, we've come so far in a short time. Give it a while longer and just imagine how far we'll get?” he asked.
The boy grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. “TV and playgrounds here we come!” he said.
“Well, we'll work on it,” Walter laughed.
“You know, we have those screens that had been built into the seats, plus the big one for movies. Well, it cracked, but we've also got tablets, laptops, and phones,” Roy said thoughtfully. That earned another laugh and a playful shove from doc.
Everyone turned in their phones for charging, as well as the electronics from their packs and the packs of the dead. Roy had rigged a USB charger from his USB hub; now that they could store energy in the batteries not in use, keeping the devices charged wouldn't be too hard. They even had a few of the devices he'd salvaged from the plane.
“What's with them?” Allen asked, indicating the pile of electronics.
“Well, the radar is pretty messed up, most likely shot. But there were all sorts of other electronics in that bird. Stuff to measure weather and to communicate. If we can get them working…” Roy trailed off as Allen nodded.
“Good idea, Professor,” Allen said, patting him on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work,” he said. “Le
t me know if you need a hand, I've got some electronics experience too,” he said. Roy nodded.
After dinner Klinger and the hunters had him show them the grenades. He passed out two to each and eight more to the gather group, with the remaining four to the fishers. “You are holding a live grenade in your hand, so treat them gently he cautioned. They nodded warily. “Make sure you put them back in the armory crate when you return to camp,” Roy urged.
“Yeah, I don't want to tuck one of these under my pillow,” Harris quipped.
Klinger agreed after he demonstrated a grenade to the watching tribe outside the main gate. It went off with a bang, showering the area with shrapnel. “It probably won't go off if it gets wet, and if you get the wicks wet…” Roy shook his head.
“Good tip,” Harris said. “Keep them dry. Right,” he said. The grenades were returned to the armory for the night. Eliza and Walter offered to make more wicks with more materials.
“We're about out,” she said. Klinger nodded. “Harris, Elsa, you two can handle that. Tomorrow run them to the marshes and wherever the professor here needs to go to make more.”
Harris and Elsa nodded.
“Okay, people, back to camp; show’s over,” Klinger said. The group turned about and went to bed.
~~~~~O~~~~~
The next day the gatherers follow Roy to the marshes where he had them harvest more cattails and sulfur, then the rookery for more dried guano and clay too. They take large smelly loads back, along the way stopping to gather fruit and veggies and dried wood.
He made several additional trips with them to stockpile the material. Each trip took about an hour. The fourth one started with Chloe putting her hand on Roy's chest blocking the way. “Not you, Professor, we've got this,” she said.
“I can help,” Roy said.
She smiled. “I know you can. We can do this now, Professor, we don't need you holding our hands,” Chloe said. A few of the others with her nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You've got work to do here. Other stuff. Quinn has been asking for you.”
“Okay.”
Quinn and the other smiths were bored. “We're tired of making lances, weapons, nails, and pots. We want to do something else. I mean, I know we can,” Quinn grumbled. “After seeing what you did with the radio…” he shook his head.
“Well, we're a long way off from making a truck, but…” Roy said, pausing expectantly as the others looked at each other and grinned.
“Something tells me he's got more work for us,” Roger said.
“Yeah, but I think we'll like it,” Allen said expectantly.
“We'll start off slow. Crawl before we can walk,” Roy said. “And yeah, we'll still have to make stuff for the camp. But...”
Roy showed them how to build wheel barrows. They used parts from the dumb waiter, struts for the frame, and the aircraft skin beaten into shape for the container. Once two guys had that job in hand he turned to Allen and Quinn. Both were good at small items, so he had them experiment with making medical tools and hand tools.
A scavenger came forward in the evening; he had found small tools from the deceased flight engineer's kit. “We could have used these a week ago,” Quinn grumbled.
“Yeah, I know. What's done is done.”
~~~~~O~~~~~
Hetty admitted to making fireworks in her youth. Two other girls volunteered as well to make gunpowder with Elisa, Walter and Lita, so he set them up in an assembly line, showing the volunteers how to make the gunpowder grenades step by step. Once they had the system down, Elisa waved him off to other things. Together they made another forty grenades, then broke for lunch.
Roy checked on Quinn and the other smiths, his stash of stuff, and then updated his notes and map. He took a little while to go over his plans, including using the CAD program to draft up blueprints of the cave, turning it into a fortress. He'd spotted what looked like limestone cliffs a few miles away, those would be perfect as an ingredient for a lot of things, including cement.
There was a lot they could do, he thought, going over his mental image of the aircraft. He wasn't sure about vehicles, but they could do other things. Many of the parts would serve multiple purposes. He really liked the idea of the generator and the alternators. He wasn't sure if they were salvageable though…He frowned and turned. The other wing had partially washed up on shore a half mile away. He knew it was already corroded with the salt water exposure, but it would still be a handy source of metal and material. He made a mental note to check it out as soon as he could. Though he didn't like the idea of going into knee deep water to look.
He was so deep in thought he missed Elisa's approach until she kicked his shin. He looked up as she put a bowl in front of him. “Complements of Cookie,” she said over her shoulder as she walked off. He snorted and picked at the stew.
They were eating a lot of stew, salted with sea salt, with a bit of herbs. It was smart of the cook and nutritionist, it took full advantage of their limited meat and root supply to feed the maximum number of people. The broth alone was great, and he knew it was being fed to the injured to help keep them going.
After lunch as the others made more powder and grenades, he gathered materials and returned, this time with sticks, a pot of resin, and a couple segments of bamboo. He sealed one end, then packed each gently with gunpowder around a wick, then sealed the other end with the wick out. Using resin he glued a stick to each making five rockets.
He tested one far down the shoreline away from camp, even taking the precaution of making a berm of sand and using a long wick. The rocket took off with a shush, arching up about fifty feet but was unstable. It fluttered in the air before it reached the top of its arch. Roy watched the smoke trail, frowning thoughtfully before he snapped his fingers. “I knew I was forgetting something, fins!”
The campers came to see what was going on. He waved their curiosity off. “Oh, it's just the professor playing around. Move along folks,” a guard said, waving the others back to work.
Roy snorted. He pulled out his machete and cut off a branch of needle palm. He cut off a few pieces, then glued them to the sides as fins. It was agony waiting for the damn thing to dry, he wanted to try it right away. Instead he made a couple variants, then went back to his laptop and notes.
The next launch was much better with a more stable flight. People who had come out to watch cheered. “Can we help?” Chloe asked, indicating Flower and a couple other girls.
“Sure,” he said. He put them to work making bamboo bodies while he packed the bodies and sealed them.
Hetty saw what they were doing and came over. She helped the girls, showing them how to better make the fins and pack the bodies. “We need a mortar,” she said. “That way we wouldn't need the fins,” she said.
“We'd probably still need the fins, at least to keep them spin stabilized. They'll still tumble. But I see your point,” Roy said. “Can you sketch me something later?” he asked, offering her a piece of bark he was using as paper and a piece of charcoal. She took both and nodded.
One girl made a mistake, sending over a double rod, so he got an idea and cut one part in half. He got a grenade and a longer wick and rigged them with the charge on the cut end.
After dinner they lit three of the rockets off on the beach just before sundown. That made people ooh and ahh in appreciation. Klinger grinned. “Trust the professor to turn a couple pieces of bamboo into a rocket. What's next, a nuclear reactor out of a pair of coconuts?” he demanded.
That earned a hearty laugh from the group and an embarrassed blush from the professor. Klinger patted him on the shoulder. “Good work,” he said.
Roy nodded and turned to his left to see what was going on beside him. His eyes widened at the sight. One of the girls had accidentally lit the wick on one of his grenade rockets. “Down!” he bellowed.
“Hit the dirt!” Klinger said as the rocket took off in a whoosh. The rocket arch up about fifty feet over the ocean and then explode
d, raining debris down onto the water. Klinger winced but nodded as he got up and brushed himself off. “Damn good job, Professor,” he said. He looked over to Flower who was staring off at the rocket. “But next time, be a bit more careful,” he said. Flower nodded dumbly.
~~~~~O~~~~~
The next day they stockpiled the remaining gunpowder ingredients since they didn't have quite enough for a full day of production. The girls helped him rig a shelter over it all, then rope it off. Then they went back to their usual chores.
Eight-year-old Wendy Wilson was put in charge of the radio with Matty, her seven-year-old friend. The eleven-year-old Dask twins were given the afternoon shift. Just before noon Wendy got a call from Klinger about finding red rocks Roy had been looking for.
Wendy sent Matty off as a messenger to find the professor. He came back at a trot. “You said you found red painted rocks, Corporal?”
“Yeah, like you said.
“Can you bring back some samples?” Roy asked.
“Um, sure,” Klinger replied, sounding dubious. “Just as soon as we figure out how to get some,” he said.
“Be careful, it's raw, but if I'm right that is iron. The red is from the rust oxide. Don't cut yourself, a tetanus shot is not in the cards here,” he warned.
“Gotcha,” Klinger replied and then signed off.
Roy turned with a smile to the girls. “Matty, can you let Quinn and Walter know Klinger is bringing back a sample of iron?” She nodded and took off. Roy ruffled Wendy's hair and then went back to work.
Roy made a claymore mine with rock pieces for shrapnel and a piece of metal for a backing plate, curved in the desired concave shape. It was like making a sandwich, with the back plate, a layer of dried gunpowder, the shrapnel all held together with strips of tightly wound leather. He knew that gravity would make the gunpowder fall to the bottom of the form, but he couldn't help that. He used two sticks as legs, and resin to seal the thing up.