13th June, afternoon: The first lines on the map

Edward tipped at the spot. "Here, if you please!"

---

Freddie grinned at Cotton and raised the mallet high before letting it crash down with a resounding bang onto the peg.

"The Pflock is better than your head; it will not move when he is in the earth."

His overly excited first knock had driven the peg deeply into the ground, but it was a bit off-centre, and Freddie needed several lighter knocks before it was in the position the Captain had indicated.

"Do you think it is good so?"

"The peg," Cotton said, wondering why German had to be so completely unpronounceable. "Any more o' that sort o' larkin' about, you young limb, an' I'll give you such a hidin'!" He was grinning as he spoke, though the younger Rifleman didn't seem at all repentant about teasing Cotton the way he had, judging by his own grin. "Aye, that ought to do it."

"You give him a hidin' and I'll be givin' you one back!" Pye called out, defending his friend. He surprised himself at that, but grinned still. He trashed his peg into the ground, trying to do it at the right angle and place as Torrington showed him.

He hammered it down for a good measure, then sat back right beside it and on the ground.

"Everything going according to plan?" Vickery asked, approaching the map-making group. He had been very curious about the whole exercise, and eventually that curiosity had got the better of him. He smiled at Torrington. "I will not distract your work-party, Captain, I promise."

Freddie's grin tripled. He had tried to follow Pye's example with teasing Cotton a little, and it had worked! And he had managed to get the peg in and even learned a new word. If this was how surveying worked, he would probably need it again soon.

Captain Vickery approached and Freddie sprang to attention, nearly knocking himself out with the mallet. He had to proof that despite their little adventure he was a good soldier.

"Careful there, Rottländer, we don't want you to knock yourself out cold," Vickery said. "At ease - as you were. I am only here to watch a little of what Captain Torrington is teaching all of you."

Edward made sure that Pye had the peg safely in the ground before motioning to Cotton and Roper to release the chain and roll it up again. Then he turned to Vickery.

"Yes, thank you. We are just measuring out a baseline for a little practical demonstration. You're very welcome to join us, should you wish."

He indicated the two pegs they had just set and spoke to the men as well as Vickery.

"Two pegs, at the end of a baseline of 66ft in length. This length is actually called a 'Chain', and it is one of the oldest units in which to measure land. Ten chains make a furlong, and eight furlongs make a mile. Now I will draw that line on the sheet of paper. Of course not in the original length, but on a smaller scale. Let's make it a fairly large scale and say that one inch on the paper is meant to represent three feet or one yard, so that the line on the map is 22 inches in length."

He brought out a ruler and pencil and proceeded to draw in the line, writing the scale and date in one corner of the sheet. He showed the still mostly empty paper to the group.

"Can you follow so far?"

Cotton looked at the paper. "Oh - I know 'bout furlongs, sir," he said, recognition dawning. He gave a shrug. "Used t'be a farm labourer, y'see, sir," he added by way of explanation.

Vickery looked over Cotton's shoulder. That seemed to make sense, of course. He knew about maps from the point of view of one who used them, but he had no real experience of map-making, although he knew the principles of scale from his school-days.

"Good. Then you probably also know a chain, because one acre is a stripe of land one furlong long and one chain wide. Since fields are usually measured out in this unit, the chain used to measure it - it's called a Gunter's chain - was made as long as one unit; that way you didn't need to do much mathematics."

Edward looked delighted that Cotton had made the connection. He hoped that most of the men would find some link to their life; it would make the learning simpler and increase the interest.

He motioned the men to gather around the tripod again and hooked a plummet under the head.

"Now you will please place this tripod over the peg beside me. The table at the head should be level and the plummet centred over the peg. Don't be shy, as long as you don't use enough force to actually break something, you can't damage anything. Just have a care that you don't get your fingers in between something while somebody else moves it."

If they couldn't puzzle it out by themselves or were going to rough, he still could give pointers.

Pye made no connection, being that he had not learned about it neither while at the orphanage, nor after that. But he still listened attentively to atleast learn as much as he could and try to simplify it for himself.

"Sir...why's it so complicated ter make maps?" It was a science of its own and Pye, who could not even write, was struggling with the concept that people not only wrote letters, but wrote numbers and also drew maps by doing calculations of which he understood even less. Counting was the basic that he knew and it probably went from one two three.. .to many when it passed a certain number.

"Like most things, the basics aren't that complicated, once you get the hang of it. Is there anything in particular you find difficult?"

Actually Edward had not much idea how much or little Pye knew about such things as numbers and letters; but, having found mathematics always rather simple and logical himself, he thought that it wouldn't be too hard to make those men not completely set against it understand the basics, if they hadn't worked them out for themselves already.

"He'm... he'm drawin' a picher of the ground, see, to show where things are. And he don't want to cover the whole place with paper, so he makes everythin' smaller in the picher so's it fits on one piece of paper. But it's all got to be... be made the same size of smaller, so's we don't think Captain Vickery's tent's ten mile away 'stead of ten yards, when we know that... that the fire's only six yards off."

He trailed away at the end, looking uncertain that he had understood it all, and nervous as he realised that he had very likely interrupted the officer. "Um, sorry for speakin' out o' turn, sir," he added hastily, biting his lip.

"And with a scale - a way of measuring, like Captan Torrington's one inch means it's really one yard - I know how far it is between here and the next town and won't expect to reach it in one day if it is three days' march away," Vickery put in, with an apologetic glance at Torrington.

Cotton seemed to have grasped the principle of scale quite well. If he could explain it to the others, that was even better. Of course he had forestalled Pye's answer, but as Captain Vickery had effectively done the same, he didn't comment. He wasn't quite sure how he should have reacted, anyhow.

Instead, he nodded, looking quite like a teacher who was quietly pleased that one of his pupils had gotten something right.

"Right now we are making a map where the distance you can cover with the width of three fingers is roughly equivalent to one step here on the ground. So if you see this map later and want to know how far it is to the next village, you simply measure it with your fingers, and you know that for every three fingers on the map you have to walk one step."

He hoped that in between their different explanations, Pye would find one he understood.

"Oh....." Pye studied the men who had spoken. The sizes were somehow diminished. ".....so...you decide....what compares ter one inch on the map an'..that is.. whether it's a chain length or, summthin' else.. and then from then on everything goes by that same comp...sameness?" What could he compare it to? He knew maps enabled people to be able to know how far something is. Atleast it helped the officers to know how much more they needed to walk to get somewhere.

The soldiers just followed. "...Is it.. right? ..like deciding that one chicken egg equals the size of the horse....and if you have ten chicken eggs... that makes for the length of ten horses !.." Of course you could just eat both the eggs and the horses! It was similar to what Torrington said, he thought, and to Vickery. He looked sheepishly at the captain, not willing to cast any shame on him because one of his men was just daft!

"Summat like that," Cotton said, glancing from Pye to the two officers and back. "Never heard o' anyone comparin' a horse to an egg, afore." He grinned, wondering what Captain Torrington had in store for them now.

Edward was startled into a chuckle by Pye's unusal, but actually pretty good example.

"Yes, like that. The nice thing about scale is that it works the same way for anything, be it map, field or animal."

He fought the corners of his mouth down again and pointed to the tripod and Rottlaender, who was trying to work out how to manage the three legs that seemed intend to go in different directions.

"And now you better help him. He seems to have gone into a melee with the tripod."

(OOC: In case you want to see what I'm talking about, here is a photo of a similar tripod. On this illustration you can see the way the legs are mounted to the head.)

Pye watched Torrington quietly when he chuckled, startled. When he saw that the man was not mocking him, and that he was right, he grinned. "Yes, sir!" He exclaimed with ferver, smiled wide enough to show all of his teeth and then ran to the other side of Rottlander.

"No, here.. I think it's like this. Like stacking up muskets to keep 'em standing! Remember? Need three not to have them tip over." Only that was where it all ended. The bottom was easy enough ,but the top looked so complicated. "One holds it and the other shifts it, eh?" He said, thinking that it would be the best way to set the thing to rights without having it drop. He knew the hides of both of them might be twice taken, if something of that sort happened. First by Torrington and then next by Vickery!

Roper crossed over. He had also slung his rifle across his back, like Cotton had, in order to have his hands free. "Looks to me like it jus' opens out," he said, though he had no idea about the top part of it. He glanced at the Engineer officer, hoping that he would explain further about his equipment and how he used it, because right now, Roper didn't have a clue - and he was willing to bet that none of the others had, either.

Edward noticed the questioning glances, and also the uneasy looks at the plate at the head of the tripod.

"Don't worry about it!", he called to the riflemen in melee with the tripod. "It can't break that easily. Just make sure it is more or less level when you place the tripod over the peg. It is nothing more than a fancy table and you don't want things slipping off it."

They seemed to have grasped the basics quickly. He hadn't realized that there was indeed an analogy with the way the rifles were placed together, but it was good and would make things easier to understand for soldiers, and so Edward was indebted to Pye for having found it.

"Tell me when you think it stands securely with the lead plummet hanging over the peg!"

That made more sense to Roper than that the officer might have let them loose on some expensive and easily damaged equipment. He stood back and looked at it critically. "Think it's right now, sir," he said after a moment.

Edward came gravely over and inspected what the riflemen had done. Not perfect, that would come only with practice, but it looked good enough. He tapped the tip of his boot against one leg to test the stability. It didn't collapse or move too much, so he nodded approvingly.

"Very good. Now I'll fix the drawing board on it."

He did so, showing them how the screw on the tripod's plate fitted into a hole in the board's mounting. The mounting itself was more complicated than that of the tripod and had three smaller screws, one on each point of the triangular base.

"Now this board has to be level. For this, one uses these three screws. There are spirit levels on the sides to show when it is ready. Simply take two screws and turn both either inward or outward until the air bubble in the glass is resting between those two lines. Then you proceed to the next side and do the same, and so on until the surface is perfectly level."

He looked around expectantly.

"A volunteer to do this, please."

(OOC: This one is a bit younger than the one Torrington uses, but the table looks like this.)

"Sir." Pye stepped forward sheepishly, shocking himself rather much by that. He would never have stepped forward and volunteered for anything back in the 33rd. Never.

He neared the board again and studied the screws. This was easy, wasn't it. Turn the screws so long until that bubble is where it should be. He looked at Torrington for permission or an outright No. Then he began to turn the screws. First one, then the other. At first he was leveling it by sight. What looked straight. Then, he began to glance at the little bubble.

His corrections became more fine. Just a little here. A tiny bit there. No, back. Then the he walked around, looking just as timid as he made the adjustments there. He was really going fast when he moved, but tried his best to be concentrated and slow enough, when making the adjustments.

"Careful there!" Cotton began, before cutting himself off. Pye certainly seemed to be aware of the trust that the officer was showing, and he was making the smallest adjustments at times. If he could do the same when aiming a rifle, Cotton was going to have to look out - Pye could easily be a serious rival the next time they had a target-shooting challenge of any description.

Edward looked over Pye's shoulder, but didn't comment. There was no need anyway. The lad seemed to work out the principle for himself quickly enough, and was certainly careful. And Cotton kept an eye on things, too, so there was little chance that something got damaged. Rottlander was watching his friend like a hawk as well, and Edward wouldn't have been surprised if he would have darted forward to catch things that might fall down before they hit the ground. When the lad had finished, he checked the gauges, then said approvingly:

"Very good, Pye. All three sides within the marks."

He turned to the group.

"Next time somebody else will please do this, until all of you know how it works. Now we need to find the exact spot of paper that is centred over the peg. That's quite easy with this U-shaped thing - a forked plumb bob."

He showed around the instrument and explained that the plumb line attached to one end was always in a vertical line under the tip of the other end. Hooking it around the side of the table, Edward arranged it until the plumb was right above the peg and marked the spot on the paper with an X. Discarding the fork, he then pulled another instrument from his pocket, a long kind of ruler with two upright sights.

"That's an Alidate. In essence, it does the same as the sights on your rifles. There is a wire in each one, and when both wires match with the object you want to look at, you know that the alidate points in a straight line towards it. So, if I place it on the table, with the hole in the centre of the bar above the point where we marked one end of our baseline, aim it at the other end and mark the direction - you can see that it has two pointy ends and the tips are in the middle, in a straight line with the sights - then we have our baseline. Not the length, mind you, but the direction."

He connected the two dots he had made in a straight line, using a steel ruler.

"And now we do the same again, only aiming it at the third point of our triangle. The tree is a bit big, and I wouldn't be sure to find the same spot on his bark again, so that target needs to be a bit smaller. That's why one of you will now please take one of those thin poles painted red and take it to that large rock there. Stand it upright on it and keep it that way until I call. If this was for real, I would send another man along to stand guard and keep his eyes open for signals, and I will do the same now. Who shall it be?"

He would prefer volounteers, but he looked at Roper to make the necessary decisions should no-one be willing.