Chapter 4: Setting up home

I drove the truck back to the van, but stopped on the way to pick up the vanity case. I got down and the most wonderful aroma of cooked meat hit me. I walked to the back of the van, placed the vanity case inside, I was going to give Jane a surprise with it later.

When I got to where Jane was working, she had made use of the pots and pans we had found, and had them all boiling with various vegetables. Where she had got them I couldn't tell, but there was wild turnip, and something that looked like carrot and a few greens. Over the fire she had a hindquarter of the deer roasting, there was two forked sticks either side of the fire and a stick driven through the meat that she was turning every so often.

She started talking in her gibberish again. I had tried to associate what she was doing with the words she said but I could see no association now, and I just couldn't understand what she was saying.

"This evening I am going to teach you to speak English," I said to her. Whether she understood I had no idea. She only smiled.

But I did understand when she signalled to come and eat. She had put the vegetables into the mess tins and I didn't want to upset her by getting the plates, as she looked so proud to produce the meal.

She had cut off a large piece of meat and was sitting on her haunches scoffing away at it, holding it in her hands. I cut a large slice off and did also. It tasted fantastic she had cooked it so it just melted in your mouth. I still did not recognize the vegetables, but since I was hungry I ate them all up, and I had to agree the taste was unusual but nice.

The vegetables must be growing all around here and I had never noticed them. Once I get her to talk English or we had some way to communicate, I must find out a lot more from her, as she can surely produce a tasty meal.

After I had finished, I thanked her for the lovely meal. She looked up and gave me a wide smile, not understanding a word I said. So I lent down and give her a kiss full on her lips. Messy hands and all, she threw her arms around my neck and returned the kiss. After a couple of minutes we disentangled and Jane was still all smiles.

I was going to fill the Jerry can with water but when I went to lift it up I found it was full. She must have filled it up during the morning. These, when full are heavy and her so small. I would have thought it would have been a struggle, but as I said before, for her size and weight she was strong. So I left it, and went to try to install the lighting.

Tools were the problem, and I know that most people carry some basic tools in their vehicles in case of breakdowns. Without tools everything that I had planed would be impossible. I took the trolley with me, as I was finding that this was handy for collecting the items we discovered to take back to the van. Looking in the boots of the cars and the smashed trucks I found enough tools that would make any engineer envious, but no saw.

While at the smashed truck I removed the batteries. There were four of them! I then removed the headlights from the cars that hadn't been broken, and cut as much wire as I could, to allow connection to the batteries. In the small van where we found the Solar panels there was a roll of single core cable, it was thick (looked like house wiring cable) but it would do for what I wanted it for.

In the wrecked truck I removed a small supplementary panel with switches that had been added for what reason I don't know. I just pulled as much wire as I could and cut it off.

I took the whole lot back to the van site and stowed the lot under the van. I'm no electrical wizard. I discovered the solar panels were for 12 volts, and the two wires coming out of the small box was clearly coloured red and black. I took four panels, a pair of pliers, the roll of cable and climbed on to the roof of the van. The panels had metal stands on them so they were easy to place on the flat surface, but I would have to get something heavy later to hold them down in case the wind blew them off. I joined all the red wires together and all the black wires together. Then attached lengths of cable to the bare wires of the panels and wrapped the joints with the electrician's tape I had found in one of the toolboxes. Led the cables over the side of the van, the lengths I cut were long enough to reach the ground. I faced all the panels south then got down off the van roof.

I then linked the entire negative and the positive terminals and attached the correct cable to the terminal by baring the wires and twisting them tight with a pair of pliers. Maybe there was a better way, but as I said I'm no electrician.

I knew the batteries were all flat since I had tried the lights on the truck, and only got a small glow that lasted only a few seconds. This was a trial to see if any would charge up.

I removed the batteries from our van and separated them, because the van was 24 volts, like most trucks and large vans. There was definitely some power in the batteries as I had started the engine with them, and drove the van to its present position before it went dead. I tested the headlights both the dip and the full beams and found they both worked. So I now had a switch, the wire, two partially charged batteries and four (fingers crossed) under charge, also the two from the van when I connected them up, and more in the other vehicles. Two lights with built in spare if I only use the dip or full at one time were in each sealed headlight. Plenty of power to last a few hours if the batteries charge!

I led the cable through the small broken window in the cab and ran two cables down the roof under the roof supports. I attached two of the headlight cables to each wire in parallel. One headlight I placed over the table and tied it to the roof beam with coat-hanger wire, through the spring clips that holds the reflector to the rims. The switch unit I placed by my side of the bed by cutting one wire and placing one of the switches in line. I went outside and attached our vans batteries to the two wires, returned to the van, and turned on the switch. Even though I say it myself, and self-praise is no honour, I was pleased. But within a couple of minutes they started to fade. I then attached the wires to the four-battery bank and left the solar panels to do their job.

If I manage to get this working, I would collect all the batteries in the other vehicles and make as big a bank of 12 volt that I can. Meanwhile I will see how the four-unit bank would work.

I then went and had a good rummage on the wrecked truck, as there was quite a lot of stuff loaded on to it, and I just had to see what was there.

To really get to see the lot I removed the tarpaulin. Stacked up at the front were six frames, which the truck could use to create a covered back that usually fitted in slots along the side of the tray. I knew right away how I could use them and the tarpaulin that I had removed. Much the goods looked as though they had been intended for a building site, as with the paint I mentioned earlier. I could see a slatted crate with stainless steel sink units stacked inside one another, another with some bathtubs.

Plus the large roll of plastic pipe there was also another crate, which had smaller drums, which when reading the labels I found, contained industrial detergent. That I could use, as I was wondering what I would use to wash my clothing, and could also be used for washing the cooking utensils. I would have to experiment with the amounts though, as I knew that some detergents could be pretty powerful. If not rinsed out of clothing right could cause nasty rashes. I broke open that crate, took out a drum, and put it on the trolley. I broke open the crate holding the sink units, I took one. I was definitely going to take a bath, but I had to rig some way to heat a lot of water.