Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

LII

Two rivers to be blocked. It was therefore necessary to make two blocking thingies, plugs, whachamacallums. Things.

The idea of how to do it came from Mac. It feels weird writing it, but she took inspiration from women's tampons and we improved on it to come up with a temporary solution. So, weirdness apart, let me explain.

Cook made sections of spun sugar of about 20cm long and 2cm in diameter. He managed to include as many air bubbles as possible – which is not easy feat with spun sugar – so they would quickly melt. He had to try a few good times and ended up supplying us with the four cores for the plugs.

Then, pieces of compressed – using the vacuum packing machine – cotton were glued with sugar on them. We had shredded what felt like tons of cotton into long thin strips. That's what it felt like anyway. A kind of flour-based glue prevented the cotton from resuming its shape once out of the machine. This glue would be the first thing to dissolve in the water, allowing the cotton to swell.

With the computers, we had made a calculation to get an idea of the size of the conduits based on the power of the water jet and the drop of the stream course. We therefore made four long plugs of 20cm in length and about 4 in diameter. The wet cotton should be able to stopper a duct up to 10cm in diameter, so we should be good.

To get then in the right position in the duct and not across – which would make them less efficient – we glued sugar fins to them, which would keep them in the direction of the current until the width of the duct would prevent them from getting sideways.

For temporary plugs, it was pretty damn elaborate, though.

So the idea was to drop them into the torrent, then they would get stuck as they swelled, thus stopping the water from reaching the fountains and thus diminishing the strength of the water flow in them. Then their sugar heart would melt, the pieces of cotton would separate and spring into the fountains through the pipes. This, unfortunately, was unavoidable. If the gardeners of Durrani made the connection between the little pieces of cotton (not bigger than hazelnuts) and the lack of water, well, congrats to them and we would have to see how things go.

So, the plugs were ready and we gathered in the mess hall for a strategy meeting. It was quickly decided that the plugs would be released in the early hours of the morning, so that everyone, Durrani included, would be able to see the fountains dry up. However, we didn't agree on who should go there. In fact, the first ride went so well, despite meeting the Pashtun's patrol, that everyone wanted to go.

The three Icelanders quickly withdrew from the debate and sat in a corner, chatting at full speed in their mother tongue. I glanced over to their side. Erk didn't seem to agree, but he looked like he was in the minority. Lin gave a sharp hand gesture, Erk opened his mouth, shut it promptly and said nothing more. He would, as usual when he disagrees, forget his disagreement and follow Lin without asking further questions.

They came back and we still hadn't reached an agreement. They had done it for us, since Lin announced that Curly's and Mac's patrols would resume their previous role, as they knew the way.

And so, once the plugs were ready, Curly and his patrol, Mac, Stig and their patrol, set off again, in the middle of the night, to be up and running in the wee hours of the morning.

This time it was Stig who told me. I have to say that Curly was well and truly shaken. I questioned Benji to find out, but, actually, the whole of Curly's patrol is pretty shaken. I'll have to wait.

Stig told me that their outward trip went quite well. They had positioned themselves in the same place as last time, with the super camera, and had waited for the signal from Curly, which had come on time. They had started counting down and, a few minutes before the plugs reached their destination, they had started filming.