Chapter 87: Royal Engineers Part 4
"We will be working to improve your riding as we go." McAllen set his horse into a trot and Cal followed suit.
"A Navy officer riding a horse?" Cal found the rhythm and settled into it. Her legs were going to complain.
McAllen slowed to a walk. "There are tales of ships so big the captain rode a horse from one end to the other." He laughed at Cal's eye roll. "No skill is ever wasted."
After a pleasant ride with him pointing out sights on the way they arrived at a towering wall. It looked even higher than the roof of the Shed.
"This is where we teach the climbing and rappelling. You'll be fine with the clothes you have. No dresses on the wall, don't want to give the men heart trouble." He winked as he turned Cal over to a Petty Officer who towered over her.
"Unfortunately, I won't be able to ride with you every day. The blighters expect me to work, but I have a good man who will instruct you." He waved and rode away.
"I'm told you want to learn to climb and rappel. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing."
"Good enough." The man waved to someone working on a tangle of ropes. "Clarke. Work the Commander through the ropes and knots she needs."
"Aye." This man looked hardly old enough to be in the Navy, but he was an efficient instructor. "Most think you just tie a rope around your waist and set off. It's a good way to get dead." He showed her how to make a harness which wrapped around her waist and between her legs. "When you have this one down, I'll show you how to make a bosun's chair. You can sit in mid-air with no fear of falling."
After an hour working the ropes, tying and untying knots until her fingers blistered, Cal was allowed to try the wall.
She tied her own harness, with Sailor Clarke double-checking her work. She then tied it to a safety rope which ran up to the top of the wall. Petty Officer Danson braced the rope while Clarke pointed out the first few handholds.
"You need to think ahead of where you are, plan what you're going to do next. Some of the stretches will be too far for you. Plan to go around them. You won't make the top today. Don't worry about it. Focus on getting comfortable, find your balance, then think how to move. If you fall, we'll catch you. That's what the rope is for. If you get tired and can't go higher, lean away from the wall and we'll lower you as you walk down the wall."
Cal swallowed and started up. She made it no more than ten feet before she couldn't reach the next handhold. Her foot slipped as she tried to move sideways. The harness caught her. Following Clarke's instructions, she got her feet on the wall and returned to the ground.
"Let me try again."
Petty Officer Danson nodded.
Cal planned her route better and made it past where she'd got stuck the first time. By the time she reached the twenty-foot mark, her arms shook from exertion. She sighed and waved to the ground then leaned back. Walking down the wall was a new experience for her. On the ground, she shook her arms.
"I'd hoped to do better."
Clarke laughed. "No one does as well as they want the first time. You didn't panic, so count it as a success."
Cal arranged to join a class which met early in the morning. She could climb, then go to work at the Shed.
She rode back to the shed and handed the horse off to a man who met her there. He introduced himself as Able-seaman Twost, and informed her that he'd help her with her riding. He nodded when Cal told him she'd need to be at the wall early in the morning, then led the horse away.
***
"The boiler shouldn't have failed so soon." Digney sat in Cal's office a month into their work. "I looked at the pieces." He dropped a twisted chunk of steel on her desk. "See here where it failed, looks like someone ground a groove in the shell. I'm putting as much of the thing together as I can, but I wouldn't be surprised to see grinds on parts of each layer."
"Manufacturing mistake?" She asked hopefully.
"Not if the grooves line up to make a weak point."
"You're suggesting sabotage." Cal's gut twisted. She couldn't understand the mentality of someone destroying things. "Watch for problems. Keep track of who works on each piece of the boiler. Keep your ears open for someone whose talk is off. I will get O'Brien to check into the background of all the people on the project. It's time we started to take the secrecy of our work seriously. I'd suggest you paint each layer of new boilers a different colour, it will help to assemble the pieces. It's not a bad idea to study the cause of failure more closely in any case, so that can be your reason for the change in process."
The work moved forward again with each team leader warned to be on the look-out for problems. They switched to working in pairs which changed around daily. The reason Cal gave was that she wanted to get everyone familiar with all aspects of the project they worked on, but it made it harder for any one person to damage anything.
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