Michael shrugged. “Sure. It’s always better to have something to do.”
Hugh looked beyond Michael. “And Mulryan, you assist. You, too, have nothing else to do until your balloon comes ashore with the stores.”
“Yes, m’lord. What’s the layout?”
Hugh smiled at the young fellow’s ready, unpretentious confidence. Mulryan had shown the same broad aptitudes at the University of Louvain, under the Franciscans. They had pleaded with the lad to consider a professorial vocation to show his love of Christ, but as soon as he had been old enough, Tearlach had signed on with O’Donnell to show his love of country, instead.
Hugh knelt to draw a rough map in the dirt. “We’ll keep the defenses simple: square palisade, one hundred feet per side. If the available wood permits, ten foot high, but no less than seven. Green wood only. Two foot of soil buttressing the base on the inside. Platforms at corners, another at the center of each expanse, two at the gate—one to either side.”
Doyle was adding details to Hugh’s dusty top-down schematic. “Where do you want the gate, m’lord?”
“Center of the south wall, on a straight line to the lake. We’ll be hauling pitch up here, before long. No reason to put curves in the pathway. Get up the walls before you start on the buildings, Doyle. We’ll make do with tents until they’re up.”
Michael looked at the diagram. “Buildings?”
Hugh drew a square in the center of the north wall. “From the main gate, a lane goes straight though the middle of the compound and ends at the back wall. That’s where we’ll want a small warehouse with double doors.”
Hugh’s engineer frowned. “A warehouse? Not a shed?”
“No, Doyle. I know it’s much work, but we’ve got to have a few hard points inside the compound. The storehouse will be one of them. Now, to the west, or left, of the storehouse, we put light sheds for storing and servicing the balloon. We keep those as far back from the gate as possible.”
Mulryan frowned. “Pity we can’t conduct all the balloon operations from inside the walls.”
“The interior space needed for laying out the envelope before and after flights is a luxury we can’t afford, Tearlach. It would double the perimeter, and therefore, the walls we have to build.”
Michael nodded. “Yep, sure would. Go on.”
“The blockhouse goes on the other side of the lane from the balloon sheds. So it’s toward the northeast, or right rear, of the compound.”
Doyle goggled. “A . . . blockhouse, m’lord? With respect, the time it will take—”
“I know, Doyle, so get to work on it right after the palisade. And double-time it, man. Do the blockhouse’s inner walls first, but prepare the ground for a second course of timber four inches out from the first walls—”
“—the space between to be filled with rocks and mud?”
Hugh turned to look at McCarthy. “Have you been studying ‘ancient fortification’ techniques, Michael?”
“Some. That’s going to take a long time to build.”
“To completion, yes. For now, I just want the outer walls, a solid roof with a low waist-works, and an observation tower.”
Doyle made his voice ridiculously respectful. “Is that all, m’lord?”
Hugh smiled. “We can leave the tower until last. We just need a light framework.”
“Oh well, if that’s all—”
“Doyle—”
“Pardons, m’lord. I’ll just be checking now if I’ve any miracles left mixed in w’ me pioneer tools.”
“I’m sure you’ve got at least one in there.”
“Without doubt, m’lord.”
Hugh looked up as O’Rourke came back, florid, sweating heavily in his face. “Water, O’Rourke: drink lots of it. Starting right now. This isn’t the Low Lands.”
“With respect, m’lord, I’ve noticed.”
“Then empty your canteen down your gullet. And after you do, get a water detail going.”
O’Rourke nodded, then turned to McCarthy. “Don Michael, if I might look at your map, again?”
McCarthy handed him the map-tube, then kneeled to look more closely at the evolving layout of the stockade. “And what are you going to put on the south side of the compound, near the gate?”
“Tents for the men, huts when we get the chance to build them.”
McCarthy scratched tentatively at the diagram. “I wonder: can I get a small work detail from the ship’s crew? Just for a day or two?”
Hugh leaned closer to Michael, keeping his voice low. “That’s problematic. As it is, it’s awkward, having to keep St. Georges and his half-dozen men here. The fiction that they are our guests is unconvincing, at best.” Then Hugh conceived of a strangely pleasant solution to the dilemma. “Michael, perhaps you can use St. Georges and his men, instead of a separate work detail.”