Furthermore, it doesn't matter how well your walls are insulated if you have to open a window to the wind when you want to see. In the winter, without artificial lights or window glass either you are cold or you are blind. I began to see why architects are such a conservative bunch. But I get ahead of myself.
The carpenters objected and were vocal about it. But not one of them mentioned the shrinkage problem and I chalked up their complaints to stick-in-the-mud conservatism. I paid the bills and got my way. As the old capitalist saw goes, "Him what pays, says."
It's remarkable, some of the things you have to do to build socialism.
They objected even more to the climbing spikes. These are the things that strap to a man's legs and feet and let him, with a sturdy leather belt, quickly climb a tree to cut the top off. A big tree has to be topped, otherwise it will shatter when it falls.
But my people were lumberjacks who had never left the ground. They thought being fifty yards off the ground was scary.
Of course, they were right. Hanging fifteen stories up while trying to saw through the tree you're hanging from is scary. But I couldn't let them think that, or we'd never get the place built.
When the first of the teams flatly refused to climb more than ten yards up a tree, I called them down.
"Come on down, you cowards!" I shouted, tossing my sword to a bystander. "Yashoo, let's show these little boys how to do their job."
The foreman came to me and whispered, "My lord, I've never, I mean I can't! I've never done anything like this before!"
"I'll let you in on a secret," I whispered back. "I haven't either."
"Then how-"
"If these people can't do the job, I'll have to send the lot of you back to Cieszyn and find another batch. But if you do it and I do it then they'll have to do it. Now, what say we both go up there and pretend like we have more courage than brains?"
He thought a few seconds. "If I die, you'll take care of my wife?"
With the rig we were using, if one of us came down, the other would come with him. But Yashoo needed assurance, not logic.
"On my honor."
"Then let's go."
It was a huge tree and even fifty yards up it would take two men to pull a saw through it.
With a two-man rig, each has spikes strapped to his legs and feet. Each has a hefty belt around his waist, and a long, thick belt goes across each back, around both men and the tree. The long belt fastens to each personal belt twice, with sturdy loops. It's really two shorter belts end-to-end, with a buckle by each right hand. The big belt has to be shortened periodically as the tree is climbed.
Technology is not a single thing. It's a lot of little things that add up. Things as simple as a new way to climb a tree, something we've been doing since before we were human.
I'd watched men topping trees at a lumberjacks' festival and I'd thought out how it had to go. The men had to work as a close team, taking two steps in unison and hitching the big belt up together.
To make matters worse, they had to be on opposite sides of the tree, where they couldn't see one another. If either moved without the other, they'd come down. Maybe not the whole way, since you shorten the belt as you go up. if the belt is too short to let you slide all way down the tapering trunk to the ground, you just might get to live.
But the least you got was a faceful of bark and a bellyful of slivers.
Seeing something and thinking about it is a far cry from actually having done it. Having to do something dangerous the first time in front of an audience doesn't help much either.
As we strapped on our gear, with the thick new leather squeaking about us, we rehearsed our moves and discussed each step. Yashoo's hand was shaking, but I figured he'd steady down once he was actually up the tree.
"I'm frightened, Sir Conrad," he said desperately, as we passed the belt around the tree.
"Of course you're frightened. Only a fool wouldn't be. But a man does his job for all of that." I took a few steps up. It wasn't bad. Sort of like climbing a ladder.
Yashoo made an elaborate sign of the cross, which ruined the effect I was trying to create, started up, and then seemed to slow down.
"Come on, Yashoo! Just like a dance! Stomp your spikes right into the tree. Left foot, right foot, raise the belt! Left foot, right foot, raise the belt!"
"But I can't dance either, my lord!",
"What 'either'? You're climbing! And I bet Krystyana could teach you how to dance." We were maybe ten yards up. "Maybe I could ask her. What do you think about throwing a dance Saturday night? Do we have any musicians?"
"Please don't talk about dancing. I fell down on a dance floor, too." He talked like a coward, but he was keeping right up with me.
"Cut that out! We're almost there."
The saw was tied to my belt by a measured length of rope. When it started lifting, we were high enough. I leaned around to where I could see my partner. He was white, bone white.
"Yashoo, I think there's enough of a breeze blowing so we won't have to take a wedge out. We'll do a back cut on my left first."
Yashoo didn't answer, but I could hear him praying. He took his end of the saw and did his part. We worked in silence, getting the feel of each other's rhythm. After the blade started binding, we cut from the other side.
When we were most of the way through, the tree parted with an explosive crack! It leaned way over as the top came crashing past us, then snapped back like a released bow.
It was like being on the end of a whip half the length of a football field that was snapping back and forth fifteen stories in the air. The trunk now came only to our waist and I could see Yashoo digging his white fingertips into the bark. Mine were pretty white, too.
My mother told me I should have gone to the beach.
"Well, Yashoo, what do you think? Should we walk down, or shall we have the men saw down the tree so we can ride?"
He stared at me but didn't answer.
After we got down he said, "Do I have to do that again?"
"Not today. Go back to supervising. I'm going to see how the masons are doing." I swaggered away, stopped at a latrine and vomited my guts out.
Eventually, we had four good topmen. They considered themselves to be something of an elite, strutting around and wearing their spikes constantly, even to church.
Chapter Seven
After the first few days, I put myself on a schedule which I have tried to stick to ever since. Mornings, I played manager and was available to anyone with a problem. Afternoons, I was a designer and your troubles had to be serious before I was bothered. Natalia did a good job keeping me from interruptions.
I had my drawing board set up in my hut and went through parchment by the bundle, drawing the buildings and making detail drawings of every sort of board in them, a job made easier because I used a lot of standard parts. That is to say, many parts were identical and the same design could be used over and over.
I had a few dozen sticks cut to exactly the same length and as long as I remembered Lambert's yard to be. These became our standard of measurement. A lot of the men had difficulty with the concept of standards. They were used to cutting each piece to fit as they went along and all this measuring and looking at plans struck them as a stupid waste of time.
As the weeks went on, there was a growing pile of finished parts, but that was not as satisfying as watching the buildings going up.
I delayed assembly of the buildings for a good reason. Wood set directly on the ground rots and I wanted our buildings to have masonry foundations and basements.