Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 62 - Shaving Off The Knoll

Since the engineers would take off soon for the covert operations arranged by me with the guise of meeting their spouses, we decided to speed things up and by then lunch was served 2 inches before midday. ( in simpler terms, it is 10 in the morning)

That's the only prediction for us to show the time as we do not have any means of a device for indication. Thus we called everyone to gather around the 10 dining areas as piping hot lunch was served in several large serving bowls. Everyone sat around and started to commence when the last citizen had sat down.

After lunch, everyone assembled around as I made a short announcement. Thanking everyone for the presence and emotional support, I reminded everyone that life has to move forward as the priorities have to be met. "Engineers you may be dismissed to proceed to your respective destinations."

The said engineers moved towards the windmill to collect the personal effects and Done their archer's hood and load their burlaps onto the only wagon which they arrive in. They retrieved their horse from the stables and hooked it to the wagon.

The remaining 4 engineers that was assigned to stay behind, waited alongside for their future deployment. "Respective Ministers please resume the meeting," I called out for the ministers turn to take over from me as I went back to the study table.

Jack called out to the children and all 12 of them followed as they headed to the clay brick production area. The initial fires had burnt out from the firing place and was soon relighted. Since there was not much firewood left and not much earth to work on, Jack called out to Sir Blackie and whistled.

The dog heard its name being called and the familiar whistle was being blown, Sir Blackie ears perked up as it stood up, ready for my permission. "Sir Blackie, go to Jack's" and off it went barking excitedly in response.

Once Sir Blackie is with them, would Jack advance with the children to gather fallen branches after Jack had chopped into smaller pieces or broke underfoot. This made the children's efforts easier. Some carried while some dragged the branches behind them and arranged it at the collection point designated near the firing place for the clay bricks.

Both Ben and Frank team had completed the total of 17 defensive structures including 2 of the samples they had done so far, so their priority was to use 3 wagons to load the earth back to Jack. Once the 3 wagons load of earth had been filled and sent back, they would resume the remaining work in the defensive structures production area.

A total of 12 men and 3 horse-drawn wagons filled with shovels and hoes proceeded to the knoll a quite a considerable distance away from the residential lots. Upon arrival, the engineers observed and reported to the 2 ministers that the knoll had a slight elevation and would not be a problem for a horse to trot on top minus the wagon.

Sir Hope was assigned to plough the topsoil and fortunately, the knoll had no trees but mere scatters of wild bushes that were easily dealt with. After the initial plough had been done, all 12 worked fervently to slowly 'shave' off the knoll.

"Count off the spadeful of load each time it was loaded into the wagon," instructed Frank to everyone to ensure the equal load was distributed for each horse and wagon. In this way, they would know how much work was put in and how much earth was 'shaved' off.

Frank can't help but smacked his lips as he saw trees beyond the knoll they were 'shaving' and would be their next project once this knoll and the defensive structures had been completed.

After the 50th spadeful of earth had been counted off, Ben brought Sir Hope back with the plough towards clay bricks production area. He traversed the wagon in a wide arc past the defensive structure production area before it could be parked with the horse facing the courtyard and the wagon next to the collection for the earth.

Ben performed his job alone and when Jack saw that Ben had arrived, he patted Sir Blackie's head and set it back to me while Jack ushered the children to the mud pies area to start making the moulds.

"Children, today we would make 20 sets and Grandpapa would give you a treat, all right?".. This was the second time the children had heard about the promise of a treat and cheered as they hurriedly return with the firewood and places it back to the collection point before they proceed to make mud pies.

For those children that had gone to classes earlier knew what was 20 like and Jack pointed to where the spot they need to fill up first. The day before, the children had made 12 sets for half a days work. Since there are an additional 2 hours on top of the usual 5 after lunch, Jack calculated that this simple job would easily produce 20 sets of 16pieces of clay bricks.

Jack advised the children to work properly as he would helping Uncle Ben after he had started the fire in the firing place. He advised them to ensure not to use too much water and use the soil and clay plus the hay and crushed rocks sparingly each time.

Since there were 3 mud pie pits, the children chose which pit they wish to occupy as the eldest one helped Jack with the moulding part.

Jack went to offload the earth with Ben when the following wagon entered and parked in the courtyard near the riverbank at the thriving banana shoots. Sir Resolute was released from the wagon and led back to the stable by one of the engineers and then proceeded to the clay bricks production area to help the duo to offload the earth.

After the three had offloaded the initial wagon, the third and final wagon had reached with Frank and the 9 other men. Someone parked the wagon alongside the second wagon, unhooked Sir Justice and brought it back to the stables. Two men volunteered to clean the mud from the equipment and stores them back at the tools shed.

Once their first task in 'levelling' the knoll had been completed, and the offloading of soil had been done, they set about assembling the remaining defensive structures by means of stages.

Ben brought the wagon out of the place and parked it alongside the rest of the wagons before placing Sir Hope to the stable to rest. Water had been replenished and now waiting for the special bread treat for the horses.

The special bread treat would consist of overripe peaches (without the pit), banana skins (without the banana, of course), and edible plants (discarded stalks of celery, onion and garlic skins with some sweet potatoes, tapioca including its skin and flesh ) was mashed together.

4 pounds of plain flour or wheat flour with its crushed hull could easily make 24 loaves for the horses, where the first 4 loaves would be given to them for their contribution to the job well done. Subsequently, they would have 2 of these bread daily in between of their feed.

The horses would be able to get these bread anytime because it wasn't really a chore at all to prepare the bread as we now have our own mill and it costs mere nothing to produce the feeds for the horses.

However, horses should not stay cooped up in the stable for long as they would need to have some exercise. The idea of having pasture for the horses to prance around occurred to my mind but in the meantime, hope the horse won't mind standing around before a simple pasture enclosure would be erected.

After the men returned to the defensive structure production area, the 4 engineers were briefed slightly on the job scope. "There are 3 stages here and they fall in the following sequence"

"Stage 1 is for the measuring, cutting of the base made on a 3' by 6' dimension but these sides would have a foot of extension so it is a 5' by 6' in length. 2 would be doing and measuring and cutting while the other two would be doing the assembling."

"Stage 2 is for fixing the cross beams that will be of 4' length. The height of the top would be 3' high. Secure two ends first and then the crossbeam. Each of these defensive structures would have 6 stakes, 1 foot apart and have 3 vertical stakes 4' high. Once the stakes had been secured, sharpen the vertical stakes before inserting to secure."

"Stage 3 is for sharpening all the stakes, push them out to their designated place and secured down using these rope and stakes. Since we have nothing to start on, 3 would start to work on the 4 feet vertical stakes and sharpen them, 3 would be working on the 3 feet base and 3 would be working in the 6 feet horizontal base while another 3 would be able to work on the 4 feet cross beam stakes."

"Once at least 2 base frames had been completed, it goes to the second and subsequently to third. After the completion of stage 1, would advance to stage 2 to assist and then once finish everyone would be at stage 3 for completion."

"This is called overlapping and it works like a charm. Alright, let's get started, the wild boars can't wait to kill themselves over these defensive structures."

=*=

The bamboo had completed its stripping and those air-dried ones were bundled off to the loom for Chadwells to prepare the first sunshade. She was handed several 12 feet reed stalks with a diameter between 1 Inch and a half to 2 inches. It was placed closed to her and secured with a foot protrusion each side.

She paused and found something missing. Then she remembered that the cloth around her c.h.e.s.t had been lifted and the burdened weight in her heart and shoulders lifted as well. She clasped her c.h.e.s.t and continued but the loss of her infant child was still fresh in her heart as tears clouded her eyes.

Even though her blurry visions, she managed to pass the first strip of bamboo through the rows of string successfully. (In this particular loom, a string is made up of 3 threads that were entwined. Outside the loom, a twine would be 5 strings and a rope would be between 5, 10 to 20 twines).

Leaving a clearance of 1 inch on one side, she would individually trim and bond with hide glue. She then began the process towards making the 10' by 10' bamboo sunscreen shades.

Her neighbours were amazed to find how strong her willpower to perform her task as a loomer despite her recent loss of her infant daughter. They respected her for overcoming her grief and to start moving forward immediately. They knew because of the meeting with the young master that gave this kind of driving force.

=*=

Meanwhile, the team in charge is removing the bark of the bamboos had completed their tasks. They bundled up the strips and soaked them in the water near the station that they had moved next: the residential structures.

There, a small team had gathered earlier to make the walls, floors, doorway, and even the thatched roof using a mixture of reed as the frame and woven screwpine leaves as walls and doorways. The earlier team was happy when they managed to form a larger group to work with.

=*=

There were three 5-pounder sacks filled with wheat while Crystal and Heather worked on the mill to produce special feed for the horses and some for the pigs. Crystal fed the wheat into the millstones while Heather collected the flour along with the crushed hulls in a large 25 pounder sack.

It took them just a little while to complete the job as Crystal fed a bit of grain to ensure there's no residue of crushed hulls inside and only stop feeding the millstones when only plain white flour trickled down the chute.

The brake was applied, Heather positioned the blade accordingly to indicate a mourning signal and shouted "LOCK" to inform Crystal to insert the choke. They both exited the windmill each grabbing the two ears of the sack and dragged it towards the flour shed.

Once they had done so, they went in search of Kayla to prepare the high fibre bread with fillings for the horses.