From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 14 Rainy Night
Closing the lid of the axe box, Chen Zhou couldn't help but think.

"During the years that followed, did Robinson Crusoe regret the poor quality of his axe?"

Unfortunately, Robinson is dead, so this question will never be answered.

Leaving the cargo hold, Chen Zhou came to the independent storage room next to the kitchen. This room was located almost directly below the stern building. It was slightly more spacious than other storage rooms, and the door was also equipped with a bolt.

The room contained large barrels of brown bread and a small number of special provisions for senior seamen, including white bread wrapped in oiled paper, cheese that tasted and looked better, and air-dried meat.

A few empty sacks were stuffed in the gaps of the black bread barrel, with some wheat bran and rice grains remaining at the bottom of the sacks.

Chen Zhou knew that the rice and barley seeds in the sacks could germinate, so he took the sacks away and prepared to put them in an upper wooden box for safekeeping to prevent them from getting damp and moldy.

As we explored along the way, there were always unexpected surprises on the boat, and before we knew it, it was already dark.

It has been a long time since I was so busy. I hardly stood up from morning to night. When the corridor became dim, fatigue quietly crept up Chen Zhou's body.

As the sun sank into the distant mountains, the light of the oil lamp seemed brighter.

With his face enveloped in the warm dim light, Chen Zhou stretched his stiff limbs and decided to end his work for the day.

Before that, he would have a hearty dinner and then have a good sleep to greet tomorrow in the best condition.

He dragged his heavy feet to the storage room, took out a piece of clean white bread, returned to the kitchen to pour a large cup of hot water to warm up the remaining cheese stew batter, took out two pancakes and threw them to the big dog, and then closed the lid of the tin can.

Accompanied by the slow dragging sound of leather boots, Chen Zhou stepped onto the stairs.

The big dog was happy to receive the reward from his owner. He held the bread in his mouth, raised his head proudly, and stepped on the wooden floor with his paws making a clacking sound. He followed closely behind him.

The sound of rain is continuous.

Millions of silver threads rippled in the night sky, dripped onto the deck, and splashed a series of transparent ripples.

There was a light mist around the oil lamp, dimming the light and casting a hazy filter over everything.

Natural white noise brings the world back to a primitive silence.

After putting away the sack, I returned to the first mate's room, closed the window, and lit the chandelier.

The slight warmth of the candlelight warms the lonely heart of the stranger.

Pull out the armchair, sit at the nautical table and make a hot cup of tea.

Next to the aroma emanating from the silver cup, Chen Zhou stirred the batter with an exquisite silver spoon and chewed the white bread in small bites.

The big dog lay lazily on the carpet beside the table, curled up into a "C" shape, and soon began to snore.

The sound of rain was getting louder and louder, hitting the roof of the poop with a crackling sound. After a moment, muffled thunder joined in the commotion.

The sound of Chen Zhou chewing was drowned out by the pouring rain.

He paid no attention to it, but took off his wet coat and hung it on the hanger to dry.

After finishing his meal at a leisurely pace, Chen Zhou cleaned up the dishes, took out a pen and ink, and recalled the knowledge shared by those industry leaders on the forum, whose authenticity he didn't know, and wrote it down on paper to avoid forgetting it later.

Then he took out the notebook for recording the quantity of supplies and wrote down all the discoveries of the exploration ship today, including the can of grease he had thrown away.

During the process, he would stop writing from time to time, quietly thinking about whether there were any details he had missed, until he was sure that it was complete and the ink had dried before closing the notebook.

Finally, Chen Zhou took out several large sheets of kraft paper and began to draw the blueprints of the raft using the ruler on the table.

He didn't know whether the scale on the ruler was feet, inches or meters, which greatly affected Chen Zhou's calculation of the size.

Thanks to the countless CAD drawings he had made in college, he had a very precise grasp of the proportions. Although there was some impact, the structure of the mortise and tenon raft was simple after all, and with a little more thought, he was finally able to complete it successfully.

With the drawings, I will be confident when I officially start work tomorrow.

When doing things for others in the past, Chen Zhou always tried to save steps as much as possible and would never do anything unless his leader asked him to do so.

At this time, Chen Zhou concerned about his work efficiency. He not only drew a blueprint, but also made a simple schedule, stipulating the progress that must be completed every day to motivate himself to work hard.

"As expected, only when you work for yourself can you be ruthless enough to exploit others, and you won't get mad or complain about being tired no matter how much hardship you endure."

After about two hours of busy work, it was already completely late at night on the sea and the rain stopped.

When I opened the window, the dark clouds were blown into a mess by the wind.

The sky is clear, the stars are shining, and the moonlight is bright.

After closing the empty ink bottle and blowing out the light, Chen Zhou lay on the hammock with a sore back. He didn't have the energy to think about anything else and fell asleep in the blink of an eye.
-
October 2nd, this is the third day after the challenge began.

It didn't rain again in the second half of the night, so Chen Zhou slept until dawn. When he woke up early in the morning, it was another sunny day.

Before going to bed, he vaguely remembered to observe when the tide would rise. After lying down in the hammock, he became so sleepy that he lost consciousness without even taking off his clothes. He only remembered it when he woke up.

But the opportunity has been missed and we can only wait until tonight.

After a night of fermentation, the fatigue from yesterday's busy day turned into sore limbs and tight muscles, making Chen Zhou feel very uncomfortable.

But there is still much to be done.

There are less than 23 days left.

To be on the safe side, he had to leave the ship that was destined to be torn apart two days before the storm, move all the supplies to the island and build a shelter that could protect him from the wind and rain.

The raft plays a vital role in this.

According to the data on the drawings, the raft Chen Zhou needed to build should be three meters long and two meters wide, with a double-layer structure at the bottom to prevent seawater from wetting the cargo.

In order to make the raft sail more smoothly, he also plans to install a simple anchor and sail on it.

After all, he had never used a paddle before, and Chen Zhou doubted whether he had the skills to row the raft away successfully.

Under this premise, it is undoubtedly better to have more power options.

A rough estimate shows that after completion, excluding the weight of Chen Zhou and the anchor and sails, the safe load range of this raft is about 150 to 200 kilograms.

During transportation, the cargo on the raft cannot be piled up on the same side. The weight on the left and right sides and front and back must be kept consistent as much as possible to avoid capsizing.

When loading cargo, it is also necessary to estimate based on the safe load range to prevent accidents caused by overloading, while also avoiding wasting time due to insufficient cargo capacity.

Chen Zhou planned to build the four main frames of the raft using the two spare sail booms stored on the boat.

In fact, the thickness of the mainmast boom is more suitable than the spare crossbar, but Chen Zhou did not have the courage to climb up the mainmast and saw off the mainmast boom.

If we use another method and saw off the main mast directly from the root, it will not only waste time but also create unnecessary danger.

After weighing the pros and cons, it was better to use a spare crossbar. After selecting the frame materials, Chen Zhou moved all the tool boxes, crossbars, planks, and spare midmasts that he would need to the spacious middle deck, and then began to make a rope ruler for measuring length.

During the last physical examination at work, Chen Zhou's bare feet height was 1.84 meters.

Now he had to carve his height on the wooden wall close to his scalp, then find a rope long enough, cut it into 1.84 meters, and then fold it in half repeatedly and cut it to determine the length of 1 centimeter.

This 1 centimeter may not be accurate, and there may even be an error of 1 to 1.5 millimeters, but it is the quickest and simplest way Chen Zhou can think of to determine the unit of length.

With a reliable ruler, Chen Zhou used a dagger and ink to mark the two horizontal bars and began to cut them into four sections of appropriate length.

These four wooden pillars are the front and rear cross beams and the left and right side beams of the raft.

The length of the left and right side beams should be 20 centimeters longer, because a square wedge should be chiseled out at the front and rear ends of the two pillars and inserted into the front and rear beams. After assembly is completed, these 20 centimeters will be integrated into the front and rear beams.

After placing one end of the sail boom on the pile of wooden boards and stuffing two triangular wooden blocks under the round wooden pillar to prevent it from moving, Chen Zhou began his monotonous physical labor.

A carpenter's toolbox has everything from long saws to short saws, and they are all kept sharp.

With a fearless spirit, Chen Zhou pulled the long saw frantically.

The sound of the horizontal bar being torn apart caused wood chips to fly everywhere, and his heart rate rose rapidly as his physical strength was consumed.

In the end, Chen Zhou only held on for a few minutes before he put down the long saw, panting heavily, and sat down on the ground leaning against a wooden board. He felt like his heart was about to jump out of his chest, and soon his forehead was covered with a layer of fine beads of sweat.

"Hu~hu..."

Chen Zhou even felt dizzy as he opened his mouth wide to breathe in and out air. He didn't expect his body to be so weak.

From this perspective, his schedule with the progress plan was a complete joke. He would not be able to finish the project on schedule even if he worked himself to death.

Staring at the long saw clamped in the wooden stake, Chen Zhou missed the chainsaw and electric saw very much, and missed all the products of modern industry, but these things could not appear in this time and space.

It is even more impossible to expect help from others while being lazy yourself.

He was the only one on the entire island. Unlike the cement factory, if you didn't work, there would always be someone else doing it. You could smoke a cigarette, go to the toilet, play with your phone, and slack off. Then you would either go off work or the work would be completed inexplicably. There was no need to work so hard and without any laziness.

I rested motionless for a while, and when my heartbeat calmed down, a feeling of hunger came over me.

There was no choice, so Chen Zhou spent some time preparing a simple breakfast, filling his stomach and satisfying his physiological needs, before returning to the deck reluctantly.

There is no excuse for being lazy this time, I have to keep working no matter how tired I am.

Throughout the morning, Chen Zhou kept cycling between crazy tug-of-war and collapsing to rest.

Because he had not done heavy physical labor for a long time, his weak muscles were unable to be used. When he was eating lunch, the fingers holding the handle of the spoon were shaking constantly, like an elderly Parkinson's patient.

But so what?

Chen Zhou had no one to complain to. There was only a dog here who couldn't understand him.

He did get the power to manage his working hours freely and take breaks whenever he wanted.

But the storm was like a slave master holding a whip, staring at him closely. If he slacked off even a little, the whip would strike him hard in his heart, making him unable to find peace.

Only by working hard could he briefly escape the suffocating feeling of guilt.

Before starting the afternoon work, Chen Zhou checked the cut beams.

He found that although the saw blade was almost perpendicular to the surface of the crossbar when he started sawing, the cross-section was not flat after sawing the crossbar, but was severely tilted, and needed further adjustment.

Fortunately, Chen Zhou remembered to leave some material when carving. In order to avoid unexpected situations caused by poor skills, he deliberately left an extra four centimeters for correction. Later, he could use a chisel and an axe to slowly smooth the cross section.

Working like this on and off, Chen Zhou finally finished cutting the four frames around four o'clock in the afternoon.

The heavy physical labor and the unfamiliar sawing skills made him realize what he was like. He couldn't even saw a piece of wood, let alone carve a mortise and tenon joint that would fit perfectly.

He would have to find some nails and adhesive to help him with his work, so that the raft would not be out of service as soon as it was put in place, which would have made him a real clown.

Yesterday, we had gained a general understanding of the situation on the ship, except for the second floor stern building and some rooms in corners that had not been explored.

Under the pretext of looking for something, Chen Zhou gave himself a short vacation and began searching for adhesives on the ship.

Due to the unpredictable winds and waves during sea voyages, in order to deal with possible accidents such as collisions and groundings during the voyage, the ship stored not only wood for repairing breaches, tar and resin paint for sealing and waterproofing, but also several barrels of fish bladder glue.

This artificially extracted biomass glue has extremely strong adhesion and is natural and environmentally friendly. It can be opened with boiling water after bonding. Unlike modern chemical glue, it cannot be opened once it is bonded. Even if it is opened with brute force, it will damage the wood structure and even tear off the wood fibers directly.

However, fish bladder glue has one disadvantage which is that it emits a foul smell similar to that of a rotting dead fish.

When Chen Zhou opened the barrel, he was choked by the smoke.

But he had smelled many kinds of odors in the past few days. After being bombarded by the bow toilet, drainage room, and pickled meat and cheese in the kitchen, he had developed a strong tolerance to odors and got used to them after a little adaptation.

Chen Zhou used a wooden stick to stir the whitish and solidified fish maw in the bucket. Although he didn't know what this thing was called, he could see that its properties were similar to glue, so he closed the bucket lid and moved it to the deck.

After carving the tenon and installing it into the mortise, he would apply a layer of glue between the gaps to make them bond more firmly.

Then paint the surface of the raft to make it waterproof, which also adds two layers of insurance.

However, while moving the glue, Chen Zhou discovered a new problem.

After the raft was made, it was too heavy, roughly estimated to be about four or five hundred kilograms. He had to think of an appropriate way to put the raft into the sea smoothly.

This success does not mean that the raft does not sink. The density of a raft with a pure wooden structure is lower than that of sea water, so it is easy to keep it from sinking.

But this raft is not like a bamboo raft. It has a front and a back. The sail and anchor are installed on the front. Chen Zhou has to ensure that the raft is facing up when it is thrown into the water and not upside down.

Looking at the railing on the side of the ship, he considered the feasibility of slowly lowering the raft using the rigging.

After simulating in his mind several times the process of moving the raft, tying the rigging and lowering it into the sea, Chen Zhou felt that without the help of the lifting pulley block, his own strength would not be enough to complete the project.

Then he thought of the huge winch drum at the bow of the ship that dropped and heaved the anchor, a lifting device.

So, can we use it to lower the raft?
In order to verify his idea, Chen Zhou went to the bow cabin and observed the drum from top to bottom for a while. He also personally held the handle and pushed it half a circle, and finally confirmed that he could use this heavy anchor winch.

But he didn't rejoice too soon.

Because he knew that in order to hang the raft on the end of the cable, two prerequisites were required: one was that the cable was long enough, and the other was that the anchor could be removed.

Walking to the bow and looking down, Chen Zhou saw the huge anchor locked by an iron chain as thick as his arm, and he completely gave up on this matter.

Obviously, this approach is not feasible either.

(End of this chapter)