Out of the Fire

Part 8 - First Recon

It was cold, it was still dark and Little Joseph was awake. "I need to go to the potty," demanded Little Joe pulling at Mary's sleeve.

Mary struggled through the clouds of sleep to awareness, looked one eyed at her baby and growled. "It's still dark".

"I really need to go," the young boy stressed.

"Wee or Poo?" asked Mary. She sat up and reached for her warm dressing gown, the cold bringing goose bumps to her skin.

"Poo," was the unwanted reply. A wee could have been sorted by a sneaky walk to the end of the tent line, but the other required the longer trip to a toilet behind the shower block. Digging under the bed for socks and boots, Mary swung her legs out of the bed, deliberately bouncing it in an unsuccessful attempt to stir the snoring Joe senior, pulled her dressing gown on and tied it tight.

"Come on then, darling" She spoke gently to the young one as she took his hand and unzipped the tent door. Stepped from the decking floor of the tent out onto the dry dusty pathway, hand in hand they made the now familiar trek.

Squinting at her watch, she cursed, it was almost five thirty and hardly worth going back to bed. As Little Joe finished his business, Mary wondered how much longer the toilet paper situation was going to last. There had been talk that the civil administration was predicting that toilet paper would be the first of the twenty-first century luxuries to run out. The possible alternatives had led to some interesting speculation at the Thermae, especially now that the weather had turned. Mary wished she had had the forethought to pack a chamber pot or even a bucket for these moments, especially as it looked like they could still be in the tent when the snows arrived.

Back at the tent, she tucked Little Joe in and draped her dressing gown over the top of the doona, climbed in and snuggled her cold naked body against Joe's to steal his warmth. Joe recoiled and released an expletive in protest, then relenting, rolled back and pulled her in tight.

A short while later, Mary, Joe and Little Joe all made the short trip to the Thermae for their morning ablutions, it was cold and their breath steamed the air. The walls of the shower tent were now tied down and they pushed past the overlapping curtains at the entrance into the steamy interior. The tent was well populated, and even though more than half the colony had now moved into houses, the town plumbing wasn't connected so the communal facilities were still fully patronised.

As the civilians moved from the tents into their newly completed houses, the single military personnel were able to move from their simple tent lines into the relative comfort of the tent city. The soldiers with families had always been accommodated in the tent city so Mary, Joe and Little Joe hadn't needed to experience the pleasure of a Military Lean-to, well at least not as a family on this deployment. Joe finished dressing first and set about getting Little Joe ready for the day.

"Ok Joey, hold still," he instructed as he struggled with doing up Little Joe's over sized coat and getting his shoes and socks on. "Are you ready to go to Aunty Jean's and Little Elle's after breakfast?" he asked.

Zipping her 'Jacket, Cold Weather', Mary retrieved her hat and buckled her pistol belt, then scooped up Little Joe's day bag from the bench. Giving a last look around for any forgotten items she followed her men to the new Mess for breakfast.

The new Mess had only been in operation for a couple of weeks. So far, it was the major achievement of the colony, the frame and cladding had been constructed from milled local timber and roofed with Zinc Aluminium sheets carried through the portal for the purpose. The Mess building was a large rectangular weatherboard clad barn with an East to West aspect. It had solar electric and solar hot water panels on the South facing roof and the main entrance was a set of double doors opening onto the town square. The Mess roof space and walls were insulated by glass fibre sheets, and it had double glazed windows. Two wood burning, pot belly stoves, provided heating for the dining area, so it was the perfect space to escape the coming winter. The dining area itself was quite huge while the kitchen occupied the Eastern most end. From the Kitchen, a covered walkway led to the huge solar powered refrigerator that had magically appeared from within a container unloaded from one of the trucks.