“Fine. We’re having dinner at the diner tomorrow.”
“So you like Anna.”
“She’s sweet, she’s got a solid head on her shoulders. She wants a family and would like to go back to farming, just like I would. But when she stops and thinks about it, the long hours, the backbreaking work, the weather and all the other things that can go wrong, she changes her mind, just like I do. We’ve got it good here, Kaapo.”
“That we do, Ari. That we do.”
****
“So,” Kaapo asked, “How was dinner at the diner?”
“Anna likes pizza. So do I, but not like she does.”
“And?”
“I brought the topic of marriage up. After all, I’ve got a good job and better prospects. It would get us both out of the dorms. We’d have to wait to get married until more married housing is finished, but so far we’re just talking about it. It seems strange talking to her about it. Back home, I knew who I was going to marry from when I first knew what marriage was. If I hadn’t left when my wife died, I know exactly who I would have married next. But here I’ve got to ask and she might say no. It’s not at all like asking her father.”
****
"Kaapo, I've been thinking," Ari said one day out of the blue.
"Yeah?" Kaapo asked, only half-listening, which was pretty much the only way to work with Ari.
"Anything over a four-inch pipe they make out of a dozen wooden staves held together with iron hoops like a barrel."
"Yes."
"Kaapo, the sky is falling?"
"Yes."
"Kaapo!"
The sharpness of the tone caught Kaapo's attention. He looked up and made eye contact. "Yes?"
"You're not listening. I said, I've been thinking."
"Did it hurt?" Kaapo asked.
"No," Ari replied, "but if I have to start this over one more time, I promise it is going to hurt you more than it hurts me. Why aren't they boring out the six-inch pipe instead of making it out of staves and hoops?'
"Because," Kaapo said, "if they did, it would be a ten-inch exterior diameter. No one would want to work with a log that size the same way we work the two- and four-inch pipes. You would want a block and tackle."
"I'd do it."
"No ordinary, sane, person would." Kaapo said.
"You would."
"I would? Why would I?"
"Because it would pay more?" Ari reasoned.
"Okay. But, there would be a lot of waste, boring it out to six inches. Why would they?"
"For the same reason they bore four-inch pipe instead of making it out of staves."
"Why's that?" Kaapo asked.
Ari shrugged. "I don't know. Save on iron strapping maybe? Leaks less, maybe? I've never asked. But if it is better for four-inch, why isn't it better for six-inch?"
"Hm." Kaapo did not have answer. "I don't know, either. So, write it up and put it in the suggestion box."
"You know I can't write," Ari complained.
"So? Do what I did. Sign up for the classes and learn."
"The classes are in Finnish. I mostly use the German I picked up from the aunt who raised me. My uncle brought her with him when he came back from running off to be a soldier. You write it up for us," Ari said.
"For us? It's your idea. Your bonus, if it works."
"I could use the bonus to set up housekeeping with Anna. But I still can’t write. If you write it up, it's our idea."
****
Two weeks later Ari and Kaapo were told, "If you fellows want to try running six-inch pipe through a boring machine, the company has decided to let you try, since they already have the tooling for it to run the joints."
Ari started to ask something but the foreman cut him off. "Yes, Ari they will pay a premium."
A week later a smiling foreman facetiously asked if they wanted to try their hand at running eight-inch pipe.
Kaapo, not realizing the man was joking, looked at the foreman, cross-eyed in disbelief.
Ari looked at the foreman and said, "I don't think so. First, you'd have to build a special rig for it. These stays were made to hold the cradles for two- and four-inch pipes. They are too high to center an eight-inch bore. The stays which aren't too high, aren't set up for stock ten feet long. I don't know if these stays would hold up to the weight and stress of boring an eight-inch bore. So if you do it, you would have to have new, special-built stays. Second, we had to get the mechanic to put a smaller drive wheel on the overhead shaft to slow things down.
"So . . ." Ari ticked the points off on his fingers. "One, the stays won't hold a cradle for eight-inch pipe. Two, the drive probably would not be up to it, and three, are you crazy? You must be. No sane person would want to handle twelve-inch logs at ten feet without a block and tackle. No crazy person would either. Not even Kaapo, no matter how much you paid him."
The smiling foreman turned to Kaapo. "Does he always tell you things you already know?"
****
Second Chance Bird, Episode Five
Chapter Twenty-Four: Aftermath
Captured Oriental Junk, South Coast of Mauritius
Pam watched while the sailors cleaned the blood from the decks of their prize. The flickering light of the torches made their shadows leap and dance, lending the scene an eerie, otherworldly quality. An hour had passed since their success in capturing the junk, its original, presumably Chinese, merchants having perished at the hands of an organized gang of what she thought must be Arab pirates. She based that guess on their clothing and behavior, but most of the denizens of the seventeenth-century Indian Ocean were still a mystery to her. She had a hunch that she would be learning a lot more about this part of the world in the days to come and, based on what she had experienced so far, doubted it would be pleasant.
Just twenty minutes ago she had watched her men cut down the severed heads of the junk's former owners from where they had been hung as trophies, a gruesome display courtesy of the pirates of the Indian Ocean. It was a grisly task. Pam felt pity that they had died in such a horrible way. She had asked that they be wrapped in a sack and given a Christian burial at sea. No one had any idea what their religion in life might have been, so Lutheran would have to do. Having borne witness to that brief but dignified ritual, she now waited to be returned to their beach refuge.
The uncomfortable feeling that none of this was real that sometimes swept over her came again. She felt as if she had wandered into some live-action period drama, a terrible tale of fighting seamen and ruthless brigands of days gone by and that any minute the lights would come up and the actors would shed their costumes. She closed her eyes hard for a moment, wishing with all her might that she would wake up back in the future age she had been born in. But when she opened her eyes, she was still there on the blood-splattered deck. Damn! Forcing herself to stay calm and make the panic subside she thought This is not "days gone by." This is now days! These are new days, these are my days and I must live them, like it or not! Gritting her teeth, she felt her head begin to clear. The scene came back into focus. Although lacking somewhat in sophistication, the current age certainly brimmed with action.
A watch of what she thought of as "the Marines," under the command of LojtnantLundkvist was assembling on deck. All the sailors could fight, and fight well as she had seen, but these men specialized in it. They would stay aboard to guard their new ship, a bizarre and brightly-painted three-masted vessel that dwarfed lost Redbird in size and complexity, while the rest of the tired crew and Pam's personal staff returned to the beach camp. There was a lot of clean up left to do, but once the gory decks had been swabbed, the rest could wait for morning. The slain pirates were to be thrown as they were into the sea with no wrapping or ceremony.