Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume IX

The discussion continued for several hours that night and then broadened over the next several days. Eventually, it included every member of the cabinet and many members of the Assembly of the Land. It was pointed out that the institution of this system would probably mean fewer taxes would be needed, at least for now. Which made it quite popular.

Fall, 1633

The Fresno Scrapers left Filip Pavlovich Tupikov wondering what they really needed Bernie for. It wasn't that he was unhelpful. "Yes, da," Bernie said. "The handles let you control the depth of the cut. Push down for a shallower cut, let them rise just a bit for a deeper cut."

Filip translated.

"How deep can you cut?" Petr Stefanovich asked.

Filip translated.

"It depends on the ground," Bernie explained. "If you loosen the earth with a drag board, you can usually cut a couple of inches. You get a feel for it with practice. You start to notice when the scraper is pushing up hard. Then you have to push down and shallow the cut."

Filip translated. Bernie had indeed been of help to the blacksmith and carpenters in making an iron reinforced wooden version of the scraper in a matter of days. That wasn't the reason Filip wondered why they needed Bernie. Filip had seen the design for the scraper, the drag board and a couple of other pieces of road construction equipment. They were all quite clear. Written and drawn to make it easy for a village smith and carpenter.

The horses, small steppe ponies, were hitched and Filip followed along as Bernie demonstrated. A cut, about half an inch deep grew quickly to a length of about twenty feet.

"Whoa." Bernie pulled the horses up. He turned to Petr. "You want to give it a try?"

Petr Stefanovich took Bernie's place. At first the scraper slid along the ground. "Lift the handles." Bernie gave directions as Filip translated. Filip stepped between Bernie and Petr Stefanovich to see. Petr Stefanovich lifted the handles about three inches.

"Gently," Bernie shouted. The next thing Filip Pavlovich Tupikov knew he was being jerked back by his collar. He saw a blur.

He turned on the uppity outlander but Bernie wasn't there. He was checking on Petr Stefanovich, who was holding his arm and looking surprised. The scraper was turned over and the ponies were looking back in confusion.

"Look, dude." Bernie's voice was harsh. "This stuff is heavy equipment even if it's run by horses, not a motor. Gentle does it. At first, until you get to know it. I don't give a fuck how big you are, you're not stronger than two fucking horses working together with leverage on their side. You empty the bucket by lifting the handle, too." Then Bernie turned to Filip Pavlovich, eyes flashing. "Dude, the handles on the scraper are like the end of a lever. You just came within an inch of getting your head busted, big time."

Filip Pavlovich looked at the scraper, remembered the blur and decided that perhaps Bernie wasn't totally useless after all.

Bernie wasn't sure whether to be elated or scared shitless. He had just repeated almost word for word the two lectures he had received the first day he worked with the scraper after he joined the road crew. The combination of his wrenched arms and the fear in the supervisor's eyes had impressed the lecture on him. Petr Stefanovich was a big mother, and proud of it. Bernie should have figured that he would push it, but he hadn't. Worse, Bernie hadn't even considered that Filip Pavlovich, the Russian nerd, would stick his head in the way of the handles. Somehow, it hadn't occurred to him that someone could get killed using the stuff he helped the Russians build.

"Look, dudes. This stuff can be dangerous. I guess most of the stuff we brought back in the Ring of Fire can be dangerous, even the medicine." Filip was looking at him funny and Bernie sort of ran out of steam, not really knowing how to say what he wanted to say. He really didn't want to be responsible for getting someone killed.

"I understand, Berna." It was the first time Filip had called him Berna like Boris did. "You came to help us, not to get people killed. It's all right. People get killed using shovels to smooth a road or dig a canal, too. Believe me, this will help."

As soon as the test was finished, Filip sent a message to Boris in Moscow. He also sent one to his cousin who worked in the bureau of roads. Boris didn't know it but by the time he arrived at the offices of the bureau of roads, the place was abuzz with the news of the scraper. Boris was surprised at how easy it was to arrange a meeting with an assistant to an assistant bureau chief. Still, things have to go through channels. It was almost a week before they could arrange for a viewing of the scraper and the drag board.

In the mean time, both devices had been put to use. The primary purpose of that use was to familiarize the crews with the equipment. But the still small dacha team also wanted to show off.

Boris was riding beside the assistant underchief of roads. Yuri Mikhailovich was in charge of assigning crews to specific roads in the area around Moscow. When the man suddenly pulled up his horse, Boris pulled up, too. Yuri was staring at a ridge in the road-path, rather-they were riding on. About a hundred yards from the dacha, the road suddenly rose about six inches and became quite smooth. There were bare sections on either side, where the grass and an inch or two of top soil had been scrapped away, clearly where the new surface of the road had come from. Slowly, Yuri approached the road. He paused again and gave Boris a look. Evaluating.

Boris looked back and shrugged. I tried to tell you, the look said, as plain as words. Boris had seen roads like this before, near Grantville. Truthfully, he hadn't expected to see one here. Not this soon, anyway. There was no way he was going to admit that, though. Not even with his expression.

Yuri snorted. They rode on, carefully getting a feel for the road. "Where is this scraper, Boris? I would have expected it to be working on the road."

Boris shrugged and they continued on.

They were greeted at the dacha by Filip Pavlovich. And Berna, who clearly wanted to be somewhere else.

"Come, come." Filip Pavlovich waved pompously. Then led the way around back, where the scrapper was in use.

The drag board was just a board with spikes sticking out the bottom. It was used to cut the ground and loosen the soil. In combination with the scraper, two men and four small Russian ponies could do a phenomenal amount of work, more than twenty men with shovels could accomplish.

Boris paused and stared. So did Yuri.

"You see?" Filip Pavlovich waved at the project. "You see what can be accomplished?"

The trench was about seventeen feet, just under three scrapers wide. It was a hundred feet long and about three feet deep, not including the mounds on either side of it. It had ramps on either end which allowed the horses to get in and out of the trench, which the team pulling the scraper was doing now.

"It will take planning for proper use." Filip Pavlovich waved at it again. "With that planning, a team can cut a six foot wide trench at a rate of approximately one mile in four hours in this sort of soil. The trench will be approximately two inches deep. The second pass is actually slightly faster than the first because the ground is smoother. Three teams could do the same but with the trench seventeen feet wide. Or a six foot wide trench six inches deep could be cut. As the depth of the cut deepens, it gets harder to do, of course. You need a ramp about every hundred feet."

Yuri nodded, still watching the scraper as it dumped a load along the side of the trench. It had climbed the ramp then gone around to the side of the trench to dump the load. He finally pulled his eyes away from the scraper and looked at Filip Pavlovich. "I am impressed with the scraper, Filip Pavlovich. Considering your comments about planning, why haven't you taken your own advice and planed the placement of this trench to serve some purpose? You could have made a fish pond if nothing else." Yuri was a relative of Filip Pavlovich's and enjoyed twitting him a bit. While Yuri was the more politically astute and of higher rank, both within the family and in the bureaus, Filip was the more intellectual of the two and had never gone to any effort to hide it.