“Do you suppose that they’ll come back?” Mike asked.
“I really can’t say, Mike. If they do though, it won’t be nearly as easy to stop them. They’ll either try for a stealth blitz or come back with something so well-armored that they can just bull right in here with our bullets bouncing off of them.”
“There’s only one way we could stop something like that, and that’s some dynamite.”
“Well, Mikey, why don’t you put your thinking cap on and develop a plan to use some of your goodies in the basement.”
The next day, Nelson began the construction of his first fougasse, a sort of homemade cannon. He used some six-inch diameter pipe he found in the scrap heap behind the garage. All the material had been left behind by the farm’s former owners. It was heavy-gauge pipe. It looked like the same variety that he had seen used for water well casings. With Lon’s help, Dan cut off a six-foot length of pipe. Then, using some of the scrap left over from the window-plating project, they welded a one-half-inch thick cap on one end of the pipe.
With the help of several “stray bodies,” Mike moved the pipe down the hill to the front gate. Just inside the front gate there was a gently sloping grass-covered mound of earth six feet high and about fifteen feet in diameter. It sat about ten feet back from the road. It appeared to be soil left behind many years ago when a bulldozer was used to first cut the grade for the road up to the house. Using a pick and two shovels, Mike and his assistants cut away a strip of sod, and then dug a seven-foot-long trench across the top of the mound. They made the trench just wide enough to accept the six-inch pipe. Next, the pipe was laid down in the trench, with the open end facing the road. Mike ensured that the pipe pointed slightly downhill.
The next stage of the fougasse construction was the dangerous part. Mike went down to the basement and dug out the oldest of his three cases of Dupont 75 percent dynamite sticks. He found the dynamite to be in excellent condition. Mike pulled nine sticks of dynamite out of the case, and after thoroughly examining each of them, laid them in a cardboard box that was half filled with Styrofoam pellets. He handed this box to Rose, who with very wide eyes—it was her first time handling explosives—slowly and carefully carried them down to the front gate. “Get out of the way, I’m a suicide jockey!” she shouted, as she walked up the stairs from the basement.
Todd, who was standing at the top of the stairs, gave a hearty laugh. He quipped, “You can relax, Rose. There aren’t any blasting caps in those sticks.” From the other end of the basement, Mike gingerly opened his box of blasting caps.
He had a total of eighty-five caps. Fifty were of the electric variety. The rest were fuse type caps. As he examined them, he said to himself, “My little babies!
How are you today?” He selected two of his Ensign-Bickford electric caps for the fougasse. Holding the caps by their wires at arm’s length, Mike carefully walked up the stairs, out the front door, and down the hill to the gate. He then gently set the caps down, well away from the box containing the dynamite.
Mike went back up the hill to gather the materials he would need to finish the job. He collected ten pounds of scrap metal—mainly bent nails, rusty hardware, and the like; two pounds of broken glass; half a paper shopping bag of old rags; a reel of WD-1 commo wire; a pair of wire strippers; a roll of black electrical tape; a caulking gun loaded with a tube of clear silicone sealant; a box of plastic trash bags; a long push-broom handle; and a large plastic coffee can lid.
When he got back to the base of the hill, Mike began preparing his charge. First, he bundled the sticks of dynamite together with the electrical tape. He formed a circular bundle just over five inches in diameter. Next, he whittled a point on a wooden stick and used it to poke holes into the ends of two of the sticks of dynamite. Rose asked, “Why go to all the trouble of whittling a stick? You could use a screwdriver or a penknife.”
Mike replied, “I always try to avoid using metal. That rules out the risk of a spark of static electricity.” Rose frowned, and then nodded in agreement.
Next, with his hands trembling slightly, Mike inserted one blasting cap into each of the holes he had made. The caps were then securely fastened with several wraps of the black tape. He explained, “The second cap is just for redundancy. This could be buried for a long time before we ever have to touch it off.”
By now everyone except Rose and Doug were already back up the hill, hoping that they didn’t hear a big bang. They stayed to watch and get further instruction on the fine art of blasting from Mike.
Mike next cut off a fifteen-foot-length of commo wire, and stripped the ends of the pair of wires. In a few minutes, he deftly spliced the two sets of wire from the blasting caps to the commo wire, and covered the splices with electrical tape. He explained, “Again, I used two caps for extra insurance, just in case one is bad. It doesn’t happen very often, but for an application like this, it would be more than just embarrassing if it didn’t go off.” He then ran several loops of the commo wire around the bundle of dynamite and secured the loops with electrical tape. “This is so if there is any tension on the wire, it won’t pull the caps apart or out of position,” Mike explained. Next, he wrapped two thicknesses of plastic from one of the trash bags around the bundle, and sealed it with tape.
Then, with his breath held, but trying to appear calm, Nelson slid the bundle of dynamite down the metal tube of the fougasse. Once it was at the end of his arm’s reach, he completed pushing the bundle to the back-plate using the broomstick handle. “As you can see, I just left the commo wire dangling out the front of the pipe. I’ll deal with it later.”
Next, Mike began stuffing the rags down the pipe.
“What are those for?” Rose asked.
Still looking down at his work, Mike replied, “They act just like the wad in a shotgun shell.”
After he had lightly tamped in the rags with the broomstick, Nelson began tossing the rusty scrap metal and broken glass into the mouth of the pipe.
These, too, he tamped with the broomstick. An odd look came across Mike’s face, and he let out a chuckle. Turning to face Rose and Doug, he pressed the ends of his eyebrows upward with his fingertips. He quoted, “If propelled with sufficient force, they would make formidable projectiles.”
Doug began laughing uproariously. Rose didn’t get the joke.
Doug said, “What’s the matter, Rose, didn’t you ever watch Star Trek? Remember the episode where Captain Kirk has to duel with the captain of the Gorn spaceship, the giant lizard man?”
“Oh yeah, now I remember,” Rose said with a smile. “Is that where you got the idea for building this ‘foo-gas?’”
Mike shook his head. “No, the basic concept is the same, but the design for this is straight out of one of my Army Engineer field manuals. This sucker isn’t portable, like Captain Kirk’s. However, it’s also about ten thousand times safer to use.”
Mike was nearly finished with the job. Using his pocketknife, he poked a hole near the edge of the plastic coffee can lid. He then threaded the ends of the length of WD-1 through the hole. Mike then slid the lid down the wires until it fit over the end of the six-inch pipe. “An almost perfect fit,” he declared. Next a bead of silicone caulking was run around the lip of the pipe, and another dab was squirted through the hole through which the commo wire passed. He then shoved the lid onto the pipe. “Doug, can you hold this in place while I secure it with some tape?” Mike asked.