"Dave Freer - A Lineman for the Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

And I organized their phone, dammit. I jumped 'em over the waiting list. I must have sixty of these New
Americans yattering at me for phones. I haven't got the instruments even where they're inside the existing
line network. Anyway. Name's Tanner. Len Tanner, Scotsman. What's yours?"
"While you're buying the beer, ye can call me Dougal."
By half past eleven, on a week night, Dougal could have found a fair number of seats at the
Thuringen Gardens. But few tables with as many empty pitchers. It had been Len's idea to keep count.
There were a fair number.
Len stared earnestly at him over his glasses and wagged a finger. " 'S not guns or newspapers or
pol'tics that win wars, no matc . . . matter what Stearns says. 'S communications. The telephone . . . the
net. God I loved the net."
Dougal knew what the telephone was. Even though Len had made this speech, at more length, six
or seven times that evening, the net part was still a mystery. But it had been Len's social life. He had fixed
telephone systems by day and spent his nights with this net. Beer was poor substitute. But Dougal had
ridden through firefights and across country with messages too often not to agree about communications.
He nodded. "This telephone now, and the radio . . . they could save a lot o' horses." He had a feeling that
he'd said that earlier too.
"Ha!" Len snorted so explosively his moustache stirred in the breeze. "I tol' them. But they din'
listen. I sh . . . said: Where we going to get replacement telephones from, huh? Like gasoline . . . 'sential
supply. Said they couldn't take 'em away. That we'd jus' have to fix. Y'can't fix 'lectronic and plastic
crap. Jus' throw it away and get a new unit."
***
Quentin Underwood was tired and irritable. Grantville needed that coal mine. He gave it his best for
sixteen hours a day on a lot of days, and the committee took up more time. They could at least let him
have a few hours sleep. But the trouble was that some of the equipment they'd brought through the Ring
of Fire was beginning to reach breakdown point.
The German "new Americans" were good miners, all right. But specialized technical staff was still
primarily "old American," or "up-timers" as some people were starting to call them. And in some cases
they were few on the ground.
Sure, they were training up new kids, but some things took a long time. So at 11:30 p.m.x c—when
they had a goddamned problem, they still called the mine manager. This time they'd had to send a runner
up from the blast-face, because the phone system in the mine was down again—and the shift boss
couldn't find the telephone tech.
Underwood ground his teeth. He'd love to fire her. Of all the people on the mine payroll, Ellie
Anderson would be at the top of his personal downsize now list. And thanks to the Ring of Fire it wasn't
even an option. She was literally irreplaceable. And she knew it. They'd tried new American trainees with
her. The men had left saying they wouldn't put up with being spoken to like that. Quentin couldn't blame
them.
He drove down the empty street towards the Thuringen Gardens. Tanner hadn't been in his trailer,
but he'd been in the beer hall earlier. Quentin just hoped he wasn't too drunk to be of any use. Well, even
stone cold sober, Tanner wasn't a patch on Ellie "the terror" on the mine's exchange. Tanner had worked
for the local phone company. The town switchboard was electronic. Safety regs had meant that the
mine's switchboard was an old electro-mechanical setup, bought from Bristol when they'd upgraded to
electronic systems.
 Ellie had come with it. And God help them if ever she went. So the mine management shut up and
put up. She'd order what she pleased—and they'd have to find it. Mind you, she was really amazing with
the damn thing. She'd stand there, in among the clicking switching stacks and turn slowly like a terrier
sniffing for rats. Then she'd lunge off, heading straight for the problem. She claimed she could hear when
something was wrong.
The Thuringen Gardens was nearly empty, but yes, Len Tanner was still there. Sitting at a table full
of pitchers with a lean, weathered looking fellow. One of Mackay's troopers at a guess. By the looks of