Ring of Fire(40)

"Herr Tanner," said the miner. "Here is the plier of the . . . liddy Anderson. It must have falled."





Len Tanner reached a hand down. "Yeah. Better than the knife. Pass it up."





Dougal saw that the light ladder could actually take the weight of two men.





A minute or two later Tanner came down, dusting his hands. "No point in testing it. No one in the switch-room. Ellie will be in the hospital by now. Let's get outta here."





Dougal was glad to oblige.





But, some fifteen minutes later, when they got back up to the switch-room they discovered he was wrong. Ellie had a bandage round her head, but she was very present. Her foot was up on the desk and she had a militant look in her eye.





Looking at her in the light, Dougal thought she was a fine figure of a woman. She'd cut and stook peats all day, he reckoned.





"I can hear you got it fixed," she said, cocking her head at the relay-stacks.





Len shrugged. "Yeah. Simple job. Why don't you get them to take you home, Ellie?"





"And leave you and your boyfriend with my exchange?" she sneered.





Tanner was principally interested in telecommunications. "Ha. What the hell would I want with this old dinosaur?"





The other part of her statement penetrated to Dougal. "Ye daft besom! We just gave up a guid nights drinkin' tae pull your tail oot o' the mess ye made. I'm minded tae put ye o'er my knee an' gi ye guid hidin'. Have ye no brains or no manners?" He was quite angered and that tended to make his English a lot thicker than usual. Just about impenetrably thick, actually.





"I think I just got cussed out by a master," said Ellie, looking impressed. "What'd he say, Tanner?"





The telephone technician tugged his moustache. "Damned if I know," he said. "Ol' Doogs here can sound off in about six different languages," he said proudly.





Dougal was quick on the uptake. He realized that the way to deal with this particular woman was to be rude right back to her. He'd met a few troopers like that, but never before a lassie. No wonder the mine manager had sounded so uncomfortable about her.





The subject of his thoughts jerked a sardonic thumb at him. "Thought you didn't approve of all these foreigners. That we Americans should keep to ourselves."





Len Tanner looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, well. Dougal is a Scot. And I got used to it."





She snorted. "Realized you made a goddamn redneck fool of yourself, you mean."





Tanner's moustache began to bristle. "Ha. So where is your 'new American' assistant, Ellie Anderson? You can't handle the Krauts either."





Ellie laughed. "More like they can't handle me. I've been through three trainees. I don't mind Krauts, as long as they jump when I say frog. They bitch about my language to the boss."





"Ain't they figured out that your bark is worse than your bite yet?"





She raised an eyebrow. "That's what you think, walrus-face. And you watch your mouth about my switching gear."





He snorted. "You want me to be polite about stuff that came out of the ark? I work with state of the art electronic equipment . . ."





Now, by the flames in her cheeks, he'd really gone too far. "Tanner, you're so goddamn stupid! Your electronic rig is so superior. This is 'an old dinosaur.' Well, let me tell you this, walrus-face. Within three years that piece of plastic and electronics of yours is going to be nothing but fucking scrap. Something goes wrong there . . . you toss out the whole circuit-board and plug in another. Only you can't make transistors and circuit-boards. And you sure as hell can't buy 'em. But Ollie or Nat Davis's shop can make the mechanical switches here, if they have to. This ol' lady is gonna be the switchboard for the town. Hell, for the whole new United States. We've got ten times the capacity we need for this mine, or even this rinky-dink town. This is where it is gonna be at. So you better goddamn learn," she snarled.





"So your switching gear might outlast my switchboard. So what?" Len held up the telephone. "See this? Do you know what I do every goddamn day? Cannibalize broken phones, crap I'd have thrown away before, and try and make one working instrument outa two pieces of scrap. An instrument has an average life span in normal use of maybe five years. Ain't that many new phones around. In three years the network will be half the size. And in ten you might have three telephones working. But your 'ol' lady is gonna be the switchboard for the town,' " he mimicked savagely. "Big deal. Big fat hairy deal, Ellie."





Ellie stared at him. In silence. "You know, walrus-face, that's the first time I've heard you speak any sense."