by Benson, Tom
The after-dinner discussion was a morale booster for everyone.
Glen was delighted with how much restraint he’d demonstrated as he’d reduced the two tractors to little more than a chassis and several organised groups of vehicle parts. “Now that I’ve stripped down the tractors I can’t wait to help Josh build his energy-saving contraptions.”
“I’ve selected and laid out all the parts,” Josh said, at least for the first of my inventions.” He looked around at the smiling faces. “Thanks to Glen’s efforts, we’ve got sufficient screws, nuts and bolts to start assembling one of our new machines.”
“Which of your designs will be first?” Emma asked.
“A geared assembly to turn the grindstone in the gristmill.”
“Will it still require two people?”
“If I’ve got my calculations right, it should be easy for one person.” Josh grinned. “We have an all-terrain bicycle in the barn which has no tyres, but Glen is going to help me bolt it onto my new device and connect the gear assembly.”
Glen laughed. “We’re all going to have some serious muscles in our legs if we don’t get the gear ratios right.”
Bill laughed. “Josh, that sounds impressive. What’s the second device you want to build?”
“Again, it’s based on gearing but to enable two people to use a double plough blade with ease.”
“I look forward to seeing both of them in action sometime. I admire anyone with the brains for coming up with such great ideas.”
Josh laughed. “Even when we use one of the cows to tow the double blade, it takes one of the two guys with muscle to get the job done.”
“Josh,” Quincy said. “We all knew early on that we had to learn to play to our strengths if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Everybody laughed. When they calmed, among the younger people in the group was a general murmur of agreement. The Auchcarn team recognised the strong, underlying camaraderie of the others.
Victoria said, “How did the shopping team get on because you’ve all been sitting with self-satisfied grins since you got back?”
“We did well,” Helen said, once again speaking up when only two days before she’d appeared more of an introvert. “I did a little bit of selfish shopping to get what I needed for my trip to Auchcarn, but the police station was the gold mine.”
“Come on,” Emma said, “don’t tease.”
Bill said, “We located radio equipment. There are also antennae, and Helen found the manuals, so we’re hoping to test, then relocate and reassemble the equipment.”
Victoria said, “You mean we could communicate from the police station to the farm here or farther afield?”
Cherry said, “They mean that if we can locate and gather what we need, we’re going to try to establish communications from the farmhouse to Dalwhinnie or maybe even Auchcarn.”
There were several gasps.
Bill said, “It’s a bit of a long-shot at the moment. If our two teams work together, I’m pretty damn confident we could come up with communication—even if it was only for part of the distance.”
Amber held up a small handset which looked like a large mobile phone with a stubby, rubber-coated antenna. “We’ve brought four of these back and a charging unit. If we leave the unit plugged in overnight we can check these in the morning.”
“Are they not solar-powered?” Josh said.
“They’re dual-powered,” Helen said, “according to the little label on the back.”
“This is exciting stuff,” Josh said. “What about that Morse code idea using the trip-switches and lights that you showed us, Cherry?”
“We’ll still need a couple of you guys to know how to use it,” Cherry said, “but hopefully, it will become a standby. You and I will be working closely on the communications system, mate. We still have to get all the bits and pieces together first, so you’ve got plenty of time to continue with your two farming inventions.”
“Come on,” Jay-Dee said, “there has to be more.”
“Laser rifles and pistols,” Quincy said, “and I found some tools and spares. Apparently, Cherry is a whizz at fixing the weapons, so that’s another important project.”
Amber said, “Bill has taught me how to use a laser rifle, so I’m sure a couple of you guys will master it too. It means we’ll be even safer when we venture away from the farm.”
Helen said, “Like when a team goes out to search for the relay equipment for the radios?”
Amber, the adventurer, held up a hand. “I want to go along with the search party.” Her eagerness to head into the wilderness was no surprise and caused more laughter.
Unlike the premise of a single speaker with an audience, as used back at Auchcarn, the friends were content to openly discuss plans before the mountain people departed for home. Emma produced a pad to make notes and lists, while others spread out the map to circle specific high points worth searching for the relays.
When the early planning was done, Emma trimmed Cherry’s hair to just beyond her shoulders and then spent half an hour sculpting Bill’s appearance. She cut his hair until it was short and tidy, uncovering his neck for the first time in a few years. Instead of removing his beard, she suggested a close trim to leave him with a ‘sexy stubble’ as she described it—he accepted.
Jay-Dee, like the others, was impressed but wanted to keep his marooned sailor look.
.
Tuesday 9th August
Helen joined Josh and Glen in the big barn. She was eager to observe and help where she could with the assembly of Josh’s pedal-power driver for the gristmill stone wheel. The teacher’s interest and opinion still meant a great deal to all of her adopted family of ex-pupils. Having been brought up in a farming environment, she was keen to see how the relatively modern equipment was being stripped and adapted for new roles.
Josh said, “I’ll be marking up a few parts to be drilled, Helen, so it would be useful if you could help Glen to locate the appropriate nuts and bolts for the assembly.”
“Consider it done,” Helen said and winked at Glen as she approached and got down to the task of separating suitable items.
Cherry checked through the specialist tools ready to begin work with the laser weapons, and she was accompanied by Amber. The younger woman was keen to learn all she could about the rifles and pistols.
Amber said, “Bill was telling me that when they salvaged laser rifles from a wildlife reserve, you were able to check them over and get them working in a couple of days.”
Cherry laughed. “Believe me, this ought to be easier and much quicker if these weapons can be made operational.”
“Are these different in some way?”
“Apart from them being dark blue in colour instead of camouflaged, they’re pretty much the same, but I’d never stripped and assembled one before when I dealt with the first ones. I was also working with regular hand tools, but this toolbox that Quincy found has some custom tools for working with these weapons.”
“I’ve checked the power packs and the charging unit, but everything is still showing red lights—is that okay?”
“Yes, the red light on the unit is simply the power supply, but when the power-packs are fully-charged, the green light below them will come on. After the overnight charge, they can be plugged in to the mains, and it takes very little time to boost them.”
“I’m confident with the shotgun,” Amber said, “but it will be nice to know I can shoot something and not necessarily have to kill.”
Cherry grinned. “That, my friend, is the only reason I was happy to be taught how to use one of these things.”
The two women got along famously, and Amber stripped the second laser rifle to check it over, guided by Cherry at every stage.
Bill, Quincy and Victoria went to Aviemore, ostensibly to check the radio console but with the promise that if all went well, they’d pay a visit to the outdoor shop. Victoria was keen to collect more hiking boots and socks to take back.
The tri
o arrived at the police station without incident and went in via the back door, still secured from their previous visit. A flick of a switch provided all the light they would need because they’d left the mains active. Five minutes later, they were in the reception area, and Bill was making a note of the settings on the radio terminal.
Bill said, “I hope Jay-Dee doesn’t get into any trouble with the livestock this morning.”
Quincy laughed. “He’ll be fine. Imogen is keeping an eye on the children because Emma is a bit more patient when it comes to moving the animals from one field to another. Emma is calm under pressure so as long as Jay-Dee does as he’s told, and doesn’t suffer a panic attack when a cow or a sheep looks at him, he’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” Bill said, taking a seat at the console, “let’s see how this goes.”
“Fingers crossed.” Victoria leant forward on the reception desk to listen to the radio.
Bill left the frequency selector on Channel Two, which it must have been at last use. He pressed the transmit and spoke into the handheld mic.
“Hello Eagle’s Nest, this is Bill at Aviemore, Hello Eagle’s Nest, this is Bill at Aviemore, over.” The sound of static was heard briefly.
After allowing two minutes, there was no response, so Bill tried the call again. Still nothing.
“What next?” Quincy said.
“We’ve got five channels on this radio, and it had been on number two, so I’ll flick to the first one and then try each one in order.” He turned the selector to the left and made the call again. Nothing happened. Bill glanced at his companions and raised his eyebrows. “We can’t expect miracles.”
“Perhaps we were a bit optimistic,” Victoria said.
Bill flicked the control to the third position, took a deep breath and called. “Hello Eagle’s Nest, this is Bill at Aviemore, Hello Eagle’s Nest, this is Bill at Aviemore, over.” The same feedback and high-pitched static sounded as he ended the call. He checked the clock to wait two minutes.
“Hello Bill, this Imogen at Eagle’s Nest ….”
“Imogen, you’re loud and clear.”
“You two, Bill. The children are happily staring at me, so what’s next?”
“You have a channel selector on your handset which must presently be set to three—correct?”
“Yes, it is, and there are five positions.”
“Okay, what I’d like us to do is use that radio to check the five channels.”
“Got that—you want to check all five channels. What should I do now?”
“Switch to the first position and call me—if it doesn’t work after two minutes, switch back to this channel.”
“Okay, got that—two minutes on the first position and if no good come back to number three.”
“That’s my girl,” Quincy said. “She not just a pretty face.”
Victoria rolled her eyes theatrically and laughed.
Bill also laughed as he flicked to Channel One.
“Hello Bill, this is Imogen—now on Channel One.”
“Imogen—loud and clear. Go to the next position and same routine.”
“Okay, got it.”
Bill flicked the control.
“Hello, Bill, this is Imogen—now on Channel Two.”
“Okay, once again,” Bill said. “Now, we’ll do the final two channels on that radio, before we check the others. When we finish with that one and all is good, flick it back to Channel One and leave it handy just in case we need it.”
“Understood—we’re going to finish all channels with this one and then leave it on One while we test the other three handsets?”
It took a while, but the simple strategy proved that the central console was working okay and so were all four handsets back at the farmhouse. While they were checking the final channel on the fourth handset, the sound of other voices came across in the background.
“Imogen, who is with you?”
“Emma and Jay-Dee have just got back from the fields.”
“Okay, let’s try another experiment. Give them a handset each and make sure that you’re all on Channel Five. Ask them to take the radios into different rooms, and then you guys call each other. We’ll keep quiet and listen in.”
“Okay, got that—will speak to you soon.”
For a few minutes, nothing came from the speaker in the station, and the three people looked at each other and at the silent speaker grille.
“Hello, Emma—this is Imogen.”
“Imogen—this is Emma, you’re loud and clear.”
“Hello, Jay-Dee—this is Imogen.”
“Imogen—Jay-Dee, loud and clear.”
“Hello, Jay-Dee—this is Emma.”
“Emma—Jay-Dee, loud and clear.”
For a moment there was silence and then:
“Hello Mummy … this is Kelly … and this is Gary.”
Laughter came over the airwaves followed by:
“Hello Kelly and Gary, this is Mummy.”
“Imogen, this is Bill—we’re closing down here now, and we’re shopping on the way back. We’ll see you soon.”
“Okay, bye, Bill.”
Quincy was grinning and nodding. “This is great news, isn’t it?”
“It’s excellent,” Victoria said. “Bill, do I understand that the next phase is to find one of those relay things?”
“Yes, and what we do after that will depend on the installation, how much equipment is involved, and how easy it is to transport the stuff.”
Bill made a few notes, and then they visited the outdoor shop on the way back to the farm.
Bill took Helen and Imogen out for weapon handling and shooting practice with a laser rifle. They used the same field on which Amber had been so successful, and it offered standard distances with woodland and long wooden fence as the mid-range target area.
Josh and Glen returned to the barn and continued with the pedal-powered device for use in the gristmill.
“It’s going to be too bulky and heavy to set up and carry up the narrow stairs inside the mill,” Glen said. “It would be best to get all the main parts up there and then we can begin the final assembly tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Josh agreed instantly. “We’ve got a metal arm and pulley fitted above the window upstairs, so we could loop a rope and hoist the parts up.”
“Now, I like that idea.”
After the evening meal, the massed group of friends got together to discuss how things had gone for them over the day.
During the various discussions concerning the radio equipment, it had been agreed that it would be easy to dismantle everything. The base unit, antenna and cabling could be transported to the farm by using the small, easily-pulled trailer. Although not involved in the visits to the police station, it was Emma who highlighted a possible issue for the relocation of the radio equipments.
She said, “I can see that we’re going to bring the base unit here and set everything up, but what about transporting the relay equipments?”
Imogen said, “We’re not against the clock, so once we’ve located one to see how difficult it might be we can make a couple of trips if we have to.”
“Yes, I understand that,” Emma said, “but I was thinking of transporting the relay stuff on the next leg of their journey. For example, Bill has suggested setting one up at Dalwhinnie. We must remember that the Auchcarn team are already carrying bergens and weapons and so on. The radio equipment might prove to be too much.”
“A boat,” Imogen said, turning to Victoria.
“Wow,” Victoria said, “that’s brilliant—what made you think of it?”
“Didn’t you say that you guys noted the rivers had all swollen, and some were now in a sort of aquatic chain connected by various lochs?” Imogen nodded to Amber. “Amber, here, is our action woman. However, like Amber, both Emma and I were in the college sailing team, and I recall Emma suggesting that we go and look for a boat sometime.” She grinned. “Obviously, we haven’t done any sailing for a few years, but it wo
uldn’t hurt to check out what is still afloat and serviceable down at the river.”
“Imogen, you’re hired,” Jay-Dee said, and everybody burst into laughter.
“A job for tomorrow morning,” Bill said.
“I’d be up for that,” Emma said. “I need to get out and have a look around.”
It was agreed after a brief show of hands that Bill, Imogen, Emma and Jay-Dee would go.
.
Wednesday 10th August
Victoria and Helen volunteered to occupy the children, which would allow the others to set off on the tasks agreed on the previous evening.
Cherry and Amber wanted to get out to test-fire the repaired laser rifles and pistols, and also to check the pulse packs. Quincy went along to learn how to use the laser weapons.
Josh and Glen went to the barn. It took them half an hour to set up the rope and pulley. They hoisted tools, an extension cable, and the parts of the mechanism up and into the mill. They worked together to assemble the strange contraption made from a bicycle frame and tractor parts. The pedal-driver, as they called it, would have to be built and bolted to the floor for stability before attaching it to the wooden cogs of the grindstone mechanism.
Bill, Imogen, Emma and Jay-Dee strolled down to the main road and headed to Aviemore. Three of the people in the small group were excited at the thought of perhaps finding a suitable craft for their purposes. One person was already preoccupied with thoughts of a particular boat, the one with Adventurer roughly painted in red on the prow.
They went through the station, over the railway tracks and then the embankment to the riverside. Bill wondered if he was paranoid regarding Patsy, the wild woman, and her daughter.
When they arrived beside the riverbank, Bill and Jay-Dee continued with their alert posture, surveying everything around them. Imogen and Emma meanwhile were eager to check out the few vessels which were still moored nearby.
Bill said, “What are your first impressions, girls?”
“Looking around, there is a chance we might find something worthwhile,” Emma said.
