Chapter 38

I would rather take over the world through trade than through war.”

“Take over the world? Are you serious, John?” Numa was flabbergasted at such a proposed venture, starting from a tribe only months old. “Why would you want to take over the world, anyway?”

John was clear about his reasoning.

“I was thinking long term, my love, nothing immediate, but we should have an objective for our lives, instead of just surviving and prospering here. Discovering that some forces wanted to conquer by war and terror, I can’t stand by and do nothing about it. I am trained for warfare, which means I am trained to STOP warfare, just as much.”

“But taking over the world? That is a massive undertaking, even just thinking about it.”

“I don’t envisage any drastic change, my pet. I would work at spreading the ideas of peace, harmony, trade, and sharing of information about the world. Occasionally that might mean stopping a warlike community from pursuing its aims, but that is the only need for warfare on our part. Even then, I would hope we can employ subterfuges such as we managed recently, and persuade those pursuing war that they are on a hiding to nothing if they persist.”

“Very well, but only on those conditions. I want our children to grow up in a world of peace, where our rules are respected and our new traditions take root and grow. I don’t want to ever see anyone act like that dead Shaman!”

Numa changed the subject back to the store room. “Now, I believe we have done enough with that store room for today. Normal life has to continue, but we can have one or more visits there tomorrow, and bring out the start of what is there. John, you talked about cabinet things; what are these?”

“Oh, of course that would not mean anything to you. Think of them as a series of shelves inside a box, with the shelves able to slide outwards to some extent, so that it is easy to pick out items you want. The cabinets – boxes – may come out of the store easily by just pushing and pulling, but not, we will have to lift them and carry them out. That will need several people to do the carrying. In fact, I think most of the contents will have to be carried.”

“Can you not use a travois, such as you have used for carrying other things?”

John sighed at his own stupidity. “Damn; you are right, Numa. We can make a very sturdy travois, to take the additional weight. The hide seating in the middle will need reinforcement with crosspieces that will have to be lashed in place, and a sturdy piece positioned at the lower end to provide a grip for whatever is on the frame. I had better start on that construction task today.”

Raka asked, “Can I help you with that, John? The whole structure will need to be stronger than before, so the poles will need to be thicker than usual. I’ll go and see if I can find suitable poles.”

“Thanks, Raka. That will help.”

Vickie pursed her lips, then spoke. “John, when are you going to invent the wheel?”

John stared at her for a moment then said, “I had thought about it, but you need a fairly flat surface for a wheel to be effective, and the forest is not conducive to that. I didn’t think a cart would work well in these circumstances.”

“Perhaps not, but there are other applications, such as a water wheel, a grinding wheel for grain, and a simple wheelbarrow. If you think back to the Vietnam war against the French, the locals used bicycles to transport huge loads of weapon parts and ammunition through mountainous, tree-covered territory. You don’t need to restrict your thinking to what we were used to having.”

“Good God! I keep forgetting that you are an educated woman, Vickie: I apologise. Why don’t you work on ideas for use of the wheel, and how practical it might be here?”

She replied, “If the cabinets are on casters, we could use these as an example of what a wheel might achieve.”

“Great start, Vickie! Work on it, my darling woman, and we can kick your ideas around later. I look forward to what you can suggest.”

The morning saw the completed travois laid down where the sunlight started to fail, ready to be pulled or pushed or carried to the store room. Numa positioned herself in the entrance to the darkness, standing erect with her feet apart, to deliver her verdict to the others arranged before her.

“I have decided that we should transport the cabinets to the light, and examine them here. What remains in the store room will remain there for future examination. We must deal with the contents in a sensible manner, one at a time.

The three cabinets will have enough items to absorb our attentions for some time. Only when we have completed our deliberations of the contents of the cabinets; only then will be start to consider the next section of the store.

Is that understood and agreed by everyone? I need a response from each of you.”

She quickly got that assent from all those present, and she issued her next order.

“John and Raka will enter with the travois, to see if they can manage to remove a cabinet by themselves. If they cannot, they will return and collect more helpers, sufficient to achieve the same task. Right, lamps ready?”

Raka held up several lamps. “Filled, ready to light, Chief.”

“John, have you got your new moccasins on, to give you a good grip of the rock?”

“Yes, Chief. Vickie made sure I was prepared.”

“Then go.”

Raka lit two lamps and John picked up the travois to follow her into the blackness. John patted his hip to make sure his survival knife was there. It was.

Once they had reached the storeroom frontage, John inserted his knife and unlocked the door then swung it open. This time he looked up to gauge the height of the doorway; thinking ahead to pulling out taller items, though he hope these could be angled for coming out. If they could get in, then they should be able to come out, he reasoned.

Having got that detail clear in his mind, he concentrated his efforts on the cabinets. He tried to move the nearest one, and found it moved smoothly, but whether on casters or glides, he was not sure. He would have to see the underside of the unit; but that could be done later, after it was out in the daylight.

Returning to the door, he manoeuvred the travois inside as best he could, but found there was insufficient space to work around so took it back out. Instead, he opened the top drawer of the middle cabinet and used the underside of the top to pull it towards him, until he could get a good grip of the back of the cabinet.

He then asked Raka to pull from the front while he gained a purchase at the rear of the unit. Between them they slid it out from the adjacent units. This made moving it together much simpler and they pushed it out of the door.

The next trick was to angle the cabinet and the travois so that it would nestle on the framework and not slide past the grip edge. Raka lifted the travois to the angle John wanted, and he then tilted the cabinet for pushing it into place.

Unfortunately it was too heavy for one person to lift in into position, so John amended his plan.

“Put the travois down flat, Raka, and we will lay the cabinet on its side, then slide it sideways onto the travois just beyond the grip piece. When we lift the top end of the travois, the cabinet should easily slip on to the grip and stay there for moving it.

I would have preferred to just run the cabinet along the floor on its casters, but there are too many uneven parts to the floor surface for that to work well.”

They heaved the cabinet on to its side, then John was able to lift the edge nearest the travois and sort of ‘walk’ it over the travois until the centre of gravity was aboard. The remainder of the move worked better, then it would be a test of the travois construction to see it it would lift the loaded cabinet without collapsing.

It worked. The travois took the load, but both John and Raka were needed to move the loaded travois. John stepped into the front of the frame and lifted it up to an angle where he could push the crossbar, while Raka stood at the back and pushed the rear of the cabinet to reduce the load John was carrying.

Once the load started moving, it was important to keep it going as the momentum would help the process. It felt a very long effort before the came to the light and other hands eagerly assisted with the load.

Completing the move, John asked for help in lowering it down to the ground, still on its side.

“Phew! I don’t think we can do that again with just two people. We will need to reassess how we get a cabinet from there to here.”

He was ignored by Vickie and Sheila, who were anxious to get the cabinet erect and get access to the drawers and find what was there for them. They got everyone within reach to move the cabinet to the vertical, and within moments of that they were pulling open the top drawer.

It was full of woodworking tools: chisels, hammers and small saws, packet after packet of sanding sheets in a variety of grit sizes; and packets of smaller woodcarving tools. The drawer was swiftly slammed shut and the next drawer opened.

This was the one with feminine products of all kinds, and it was soon ransacked, with Vickie, Sheila and Jean explaining to the local ladies how each product was used by women.

Numa insisted on stopping this depredation, saying, “Ladies: these have to last a long while. Leave some in the drawer!”

When she had closed that drawer, John asked for the next drawer to be opened. It proved to be a mini-pharmacy, but possibly extending to two drawers, if the bottom drawer contained the same range of items. A quick look proved this assumption to be correct.

Vickie declared that she would look after the feminine supplies, and asked that all should be returned to the drawer in the meantime. She announced that fair shares would be allocated to every woman of the tribe who need the items.

John was busy looking at what was in the pharmacy supplies. Much of it he recognised as being no use to the tribe, as the nanos within their bodies were killing off all the inimical microbes and viruses. He only hoped that the nanos could differentiate between those and the useful microbes in the human gut that helped with digestion.

He was pleased to spot several medications to help with headaches, including paracetamol and codeine, and in particular migraine treatments, for such headaches were caused by imbalances in the body rather than bugs of any kind.

There were also bandages, ointment and skin protectors, which would help with accidents of any sort. Healing assistance for muscle strain was also there in the form of ibuprofen, both as tablets and the gel form for surface application.

For bad pain caused by spinal ailments, surprisingly there was some tramadol. John knew it was a painkiller only prescribed by a doctor due to side effects and addiction risks, so someone was stretching the rules to have this included, but there should be a leaflet with warnings about its use. He remembered it was never prescribed for a pregnant woman, as it could harm the baby.

So it looked like some expert had been briefed where this was going, with no possible repeats, so that had allowed some leeway in what was included. There would be no comeback on the pharmacist for breaking the rules.

Having found all the pharmacy pills and potions, John wanted to see the woodworking tools, and opened that drawer again. The tools were compartmentalised to keep them separate, but all the sizes of chisels were together. He noted that there were no screwdrivers; that made sense as there were no screws that he could see. Hammers came in a number of sizes, with a lump hammer being the largest. He could not see any nails until he pulled the drawer out further. To his surprise, to the rear he found many small compartments with plastic packets of nails, plus other compartments with packets of screws! There must be screwdrivers somewhere, he concluded. A further look revealed them in a crosswise section at the back of the drawer: a full set of head sizes; flat heads and star heads. Along with those items, there were packets of sewing needles and dozens of bobbins of thread, which should please the women. Even better, there was a range of scissors of various sizes.

Nowhere did he find a plane, so he guessed that one of the other cabinets would hold a set of planes.

There were other tools not present here – axe, vice, clamps, spokeshave, awls, adze, sharpening stone, so these must be in another cabinet too.

He was becoming as keen on emptying the store room of whatever other goodies were there, as the ladies had drooled on that drawer of feminine products. He was wondering about how Brando was going to react to all these tools. The man would go ballistic with all the things he could do with these tools.

“Numa?” he asked, “Can I go back inside to see what is behind these cabinets? I didn’t get a chance to look when we were moving this cabinet out.”

“Provided you don’t bring anything else out today,” she allowed. “We have enough to go through with what we have here.”

He accepted this restriction, and took himself back inside, oil lamp in hand. It was only after he had disappeared that Raka noticed he had gone, but Numa told her to stay put. She grumbled but obeyed her Chief.

Inside, John got the door open again, and waited until his eyes got used to the interior lighting. When he entered, he saw the other two cabinets and set about moving them forward, ready for taking out later. It was what was behind and to the sides that he wanted to see. It was at this point that he noticed that the shelving was not fixed to the side walls, but was free-standing steel shelves, and that there was a wall-type surface behind the shelves. The odd thing about the wall was that it did not reach the doorway wall; there was a small gap all the way up and at the top as well, at about the eight-foot level, leaving a sizeable gap to the roof. Thinking about what he was seeing, he looked along the wall to about four feet, and there was a vertical join there. What could be four feet by eight feet? The only think he could think of were wall panels of some kind.

He climbed on top of the nearest cabinet and stood up so that he could get a hand over the top of the panel, to get a feel for how wide it was.

When he had done so, he was sure at was at least six inches thick. John mused, The only reason for such a thick panel must be it was well insulated, possibly with polystyrene foam or similar. The idea must be to provide us with a good sheltered home for the winter. They probably had no idea as to the weather conditions thousands of years back, so were assuming the worst and doing their best for us. The cave might be cold in the winter, so perhaps Brando could put some of this together for us, with my pair of hands helping him.

Returning to the shelving, John tried to see what was on these shelves.

Much was housed in cardboard boxes, with a paper sticker on the side of the box, detailing the contents. The first box was labelled as epoxy resin glue. The next was tubes of sealant of various kinds. These would not last long for any extensive sealing, John considered, so the donors must have been guessing at this. Another box was of jointing mesh tape for the links between panels. The next box was full of paint brushes, and the one after that was of smoothing trowels, so presumable somewhere was a supply of paint, and tubs of plaster for smoothing over the joints between boards – not that anyone in this era was going to quibble over visible joints!

Was all this stuff related to buildings, on the assumption they needed shelter of some kind? That meant that they were being assumed as expanding out of the cave, and having to construct their own dwellings.

He directed his attention forwards, instead of the sides. He was faced with blank boxes with no indication of contents. By squeezing a box to one side, John caught a glimpse of a label. He squinted down the space. He could make out the words ‘workwear fabric’, so guessed that it was a bolt of material for making into clothing.

That would make a change from animal hides, John was pleased to note. A quick scan by eye of the piles of boxes made him think that there were at least twenty bolts of cloth stacked up. That should be enough to makes clothes for all the tribe and more. He wondered if there was a manual sewing machine somewhere in the room. If so, would there also be a hand knitting machine? It would be worth looking out for such equipment hidden in here. They had better come with manuals and spare parts for bits that might break easily.

So far John had no seen any sign of weapons such as could be useful in arming his troops for any fighting they had to do in the future, but how far back did this room stretch? He made a guess, based on his traverse of the exterior before. His guess extended to forty feet, but that was the exterior. It would have to be reduced by the thickness of the wall, and he did not know that. Whatever the length, it was enough space to accommodate much more in the way of tools and weapons, as well as the more mundane items useful to a softer life. He could do with weapons for an expanding military force; weapons that were superior to the local spears and bows that he knew of. Perhaps the locals had other weapons that he had not seen yet. Perhaps, perhaps; too many perhaps, so ignore them until encountered.

What he did want was knowledge of the actions of the invader army following the attack he and his warriors had made on their local leaders. All he has was the fact that they had suffered badly in the encounter. He did not know what their reaction was going to be once they assessed their damage. News of the attack would spread among the soldiery, even if they were told it had to remain secret. Secrets of a disaster seldom remained secret for long; a disaster affecting their leaders, even more so.

He got his answer the next day, when a teenage runner from the fisher village appeared with a message from Corvo, his scout.

“High Chief: Master Corvo says to tell you that an emissary from the invaders is looking for the opposing army, to talk about the future. I have to return with your reply.”

John took a moment to consider the question, before giving his answer.

“Say to Master Corvo, ‘High Chief John is willing to speak with this emissary, for the army he speaks of does not have soldiers occupying any tribes in this or any other area. Local leaders are empowered to speak for themselves and later pass on these decisions if they have military relevance. High Chief John is the leader in this area.’ End of quote.

Have you got that message, young man?”

The boy had been listening intently and was able to repeat John’s message back to him. John was impressed.

“Well done, young man. Report that message back, and ask for a time when the emissary will appear here. Have you need for food or drink before you leave?”

The lad looked hungry, and shyly admitted it. John saw Numa observing, and he asked, “Can the lad be fed, please, Chief Numa?”

She smiled. “Certainly. We always reward our messengers. Come over to the fire, my boy. The ladies will feed you.”

Once he had got his fill, the teen set off again, his mouth silently repeating his message over and over to imprint in in his mind. That boy is an asset to his village, John mused.

Numa gestured to John, to come and speak with her. As he did, she pointed to her seat where they could speak privately.

“What are you doing, John? What is that tale you were spinning out there, and what are you going to say to that emissary when he comes?”

John grinned at her. “Naturally I am going to tell him that I am simple man, amazingly empowered to make decisions for military people I hardly know. They are so powerful that they don’t need a permanent presence among the tribes, just an information link back to them. When asked what sort of power do they have, I will say that they have weapons I have never seen before, and methods of war fighting that are astonishing. For example, some use very long lances and large shields, and move in closely organised groups that cannot be broken by any means that I have seen here. It is very impressive, I shall say.”

Numa frowned. “When have you ever seen such soldiers, John? Is it your imagination overspilling your head?”

“My darling, such warriors with such weapons and tactics existed in my world a long, long, long time ago. They were known as hoplites. They were able to defeat forces three times their own size with ease.”

“Oh. Do you propose putting together such forces now?”

“No. Those fabled soldiers were all men, and were effective in their own time. Our warriors are effective in their own way, with weapons that are not so heavy. Imagine a spear that is twice the length we use, and much thicker in the handle end. That was what those men used, and their very large shields made for a defence from all side and above, including against arrows. Such weapons are too heavy for our ladies to wield, and not good for throwing either, as I am sure you appreciate.”

“Yes. The girls are getting good at throwing them at enemies, but not as accurate as they are with their arrows, now that they have had practice and experience.”

“Exactly. It is not so much the weapons you have, but how cleverly you can use them. There were once things called ‘tanks’ which were heavily armoured and could throw explosive missiles a long way, so were very effective at what they did.

There was an occasion when they had to be landed on a beach from the sea, but the boats could not come close enough without getting exposed to attack, so the ‘tanks’ were fitted with flexible extra sides to allow them to float from the ships and get to the shore on their own.

The designers explained that they had to be offloaded not far from the shore so that the waves would not be a problem, but some of the leaders were afraid to take them closer to the beach, so offloaded them too far out to sea. Most of these particular ‘tanks’ were swamped by the waves and sank, rendering them just as useless as being hit by the enemy.

That was a case of effective weapons not being used correctly. It was a waste of effort through misjudgement by leaders.”

“So less effective weapons, used properly, can overcome more powerful weapons used badly?”

“Yes, but note it is not the weapons themselves at fault, but how they are used. Archers firing arrows accurately can easily overcome archers who are inaccurate or who cannot fire arrows far enough. That was why I wanted archers who could fire arrows a specified distance, and it worked. Those who could not match that specification had nothing truly wrong with them, just an inability to match the specification for the particular task. In other fights where distance is not so important, they will be fine.”

“I must tell my archers that, for those who were not chosen to fight felt bad about it at the time.”

John tried to change the subject.

“Can I go back again to the store room today, to take the other cabinets out and see what is hidden beyond?”

“What about your intention to give Brando some of the tools?”

“Ah, yes. I had better send someone to the Farfarers to ask him to call here when it is convenient for him.”

“Once you have done that, you can go back there, but not alone. If you have to move things, you will need at least one other person with you.”

“I’ll go!” Vickie volunteered, and “I’ll go as well,” came from Sheila. Sheila went on, “We are the ones most able to recognise things we find there.”

Numa nodded. “There is much truth in what you say. All three of you should go.”

The trio were soon at the door of the great store room, where John inserted his knife and opened the door, letting the light spill out from the interior. Vickie and Sheila held back to let John enter first, despite their own desire to rush in.

Once at the remaining cabinets, John called for them to come in.

“I need to move these two cabinets out the door and to one side, so that we have a free run at the cloth and whatever is behind.”

The two women stared at each other. Vickie was first to speak.

“I think we would like to see what the cloth is like, before we shove it aside, John. You are so impetuous; always wanted to get further ahead. You need to look at what you have, my man.”

“Okay, but after we get the cabinets out of the way.”

The three of them were able to run each cabinet on it’s casters through the doorway and out into the blackness of the cave. John was pleased that there was no ledge at the threshold to slow them down. Fortunately the girls were more interested in the cloth than examining the contents of the cabinets.

Between them they were able to manhandle the highest package down to the ground. John took most of the weight in the last of the move downwards.

As soon as it was on the ground, Vickie was down beside it to tear off part of the wrapping to expose the cloth.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed. “Look at the colour of this!” It was a brilliant cherry red. “Just think of the dresses we could make with this material, Sheila.”

John brought them down to earth. “Where would you expect to wear that dress, Vickie? The local ballroom, perhaps?”

Her face fell as she remembered they were in a stone age society. The dress she was envisaging would not fit here at all.

“Why send us such material, if it is no use to us, John?”

“Pure decoration, my love. Instead of painting a background, you could drape the walls with cloth of various colours and make a vivid impression.”

“I get you. Still, I hope we have enough cloth that we can make a few dresses for special occasions, when we want to impress somebody.”

John hurried them on. “Why don’t we get down a few more bolts of cloth, and I can get to see behind the cloth?”

They saw the sense in his suggestion, and shortly had nearly ten more of the packages down on the floor. Of course, each just HAD to be opened enough to see the cloth’s colour and pattern. This move exposed another light fitting farther in, and it illuminated more boxes.

John stretch in to see what the boxes claimed to be. The illustrations caused his face to fall.

“Damn and blast!”

The women frowned, not at his curse, but at his obvious disappointment.

“What’s wrong, John?” Sheila wanted to know.

“These boxes seem to be all power tools! What the hell did they think we were going to do with bloody power tools?”

Sheila asked, “What is wrong with power tools?”

“Simple: no power!”

“Oh. They don’t run on batteries, then?” she remarked, picking up on John’s shock.

“Batteries? Don’t be silly. For that, the amount of power needed for such tools would need a rechargeable battery and you would have to be be able to recharge it frequently. Where do you do that? You can’t even plug in a charger. We are back to the same basic fact of no electricity, Sheila.”

“So,” Vickie concluded for them, “This means you need to have a generator to produce the electricity to let a charger recharge the batteries?”

“Exactly!”

Vickie was trying to be helpful. “If I was packing power tools for an age with no power, I would make sure they were battery powered, and include a generator to produce the power. Wouldn’t you?”

John glared at her for a minute, then muttered: “batteries”, and grabbed at the nearest power tool box. “Powered by 18volt battery. So...” He turned inwards again and started pulling out boxes of power tools in a search for a generator. He talked to himself as he went.

“No. No, not that one; no, no; more blasted tools. Ah, what’s this? Battery charger! A step in the right direction. Now where is there a generator?”

A few moments later, “Aha! No, dammit: another charger! Where is that generator?”

It took a long time to shift all the boxes of power tools out nearer the door, to clear a path forward, and then John exclaimed, “What sort of generator is this?”

He was faced with another box, but it was nothing he had seen before in his experience.

Reading the box, he discovered that what was inside was a water turbine which could produce the electricity to charge the 18-volt batteries used by the power tools. It would mean constructing some sort of framework to hold the turbine in place, in the flow of a fast-running stream. The charger powered by it would need to be protected from rain and from water splashes.

He relayed this information to his wives, and they seemed confused. He soon realised why, when Vickie exclaimed, “This whole thing is crazy. Didn’t the letter say that they were sending you some items to help you cope with the stone age? All these power tools and a water-powered generator for electricity seem hardly the way to do that, do they?”

Sheila agreed, “Yes. It is much more like the sort of supplies the terrorists would be pushing, to impress the locals, plus speed up your technical advancement.”

John stopped abruptly, to think about what they were saying, and it struck him that they were on the ball. This technology was not what one would expect as mere touch of assistance with survival; this was offering him power in the social sense, as well as the electrical sense.