Chapter 10
After Father walked off with my stack of papers, nothing happened for three days.
I kept watching nervously whenever someone in uniform passed through the hallway, wondering if they might be one of the people who made guns.
But the only people who came were attendants, the nanny, and my French tutor.
“Do I have to do this again today?”
“It will make no difference whether you do or not. Let us begin today’s lesson.”
The tutor opened the book, pretending not to hear me.
My mind was full not of French verbs, but of how my drawings were progressing. Father had said he would show them to a military engineer, but whether the soldiers would take a ten-year-old princess’s scribbles seriously was another matter.
‘Did they just look at them, laugh, and leave it at that?’
Every time I thought of that, my stomach tightened.
I hadn’t even been this anxious waiting for a reply after sending research materials to a professor in my previous life. At least back then, if the result was bad, I could revise them and submit them again.
This time, I might not even get the chance to start.
On the fourth day, an attendant came in after the lesson ended.
“His Majesty the Emperor requests your presence.”
I closed my book and jumped to my feet.
“Really? Where?”
“The small conference room.”
The words small conference room made me a little nervous. It wasn’t a room where the family drank tea, but one Father used for brief meetings with soldiers or officials.
When I opened the door and went in, Father was standing by the table with two officers in uniform and a gray-bearded man.
The man wore a black suit, not an officer’s uniform. He wasn’t very tall, but he stood straight, and he held the scribbles I’d made in his hands.
Father saw me and beckoned.
“Bessie, come here.”
I walked over obediently.
Father looked to be in a rather good mood.
“Let me introduce you. This is the president of the Mauser company, Paul Mauser.”
My steps came to a halt.
‘The real Mauser?’
The man I’d known only as the name of a rifle was standing right in front of me.
I held out my right hand, as I’d been taught.
Paul Mauser stepped forward and bowed deeply. Then he carefully took my fingertips and briefly kissed the back of my hand.
“It is an honor to meet Your Highness.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
I smiled as innocently as possible, but my mind was racing.
The head of the company that made the Gewehr 98—and its designer—had come in person. Either Father had called him in while taking care of some other business, or he’d summoned him to show off his daughter.
On the table lay a Gewehr 98 and my drawings. Beside them were far more detailed part drawings than the ones I’d made.
Paul Mauser picked up one of my drawings.
“I was told Your Highness drew these herself.”
“Yes.”
“Was this bolt handle your idea as well?”
“Yes. It was hard to reach when lying prone, so I lowered it.”
He nodded, then immediately asked,
“How far down would you like it lowered?”
I roughly indicated an angle with my hand.
“About... this much.”
“I’m sorry, but could you tell me exactly how many degrees you mean by this much?”
“…Degrees?”
“By how many degrees do you intend to bend the handle downward from the centerline of the receiver?”
I fell silent. I’d been thinking only about looking like a child, so I hadn’t settled on any precise measurements.
Paul Mauser picked up another sheet.
“How much clearance do you intend to leave between the end of the handle and the receiver?”
“Enough room for a finger.”
“Your finger, or an adult soldier’s?”
“An adult soldier’s.”
“Would the same clearance be enough when wearing gloves?”
The questions came one after another.
In my previous life, I would have specified approximate anthropometric measurements and tolerances, then said we should check them on a prototype. But all I’d written on these sheets was ‘a little here’ and ‘a bit lower.’ I’d been afraid of making things too complicated and arousing suspicion.
‘Wow, this feels like getting grilled in a design review.’
Feeling awkward for no good reason, I glanced at Father.
Father frowned, apparently displeased to see his daughter in a difficult position.
“Mr. Mauser. Aren’t you asking a ten-year-old child rather detailed questions?”
“Your Majesty.”
Paul Mauser replied calmly.
“These are things we must ask to determine whether it can be made.”
At that, Father fell silent.
I looked back down at the paper.
Ideas and actual objects were different. I’d left too many things blank to make myself look like a ten-year-old.
Paul Mauser now pointed to the drawing of the sling swivels.
“Why do you want to move these to the side?”
“So I can carry the rifle against my back. If they’re underneath, it keeps swinging when I walk.”
“Have you tried carrying it yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then would you show me?”
Since Oskar wasn’t there, I ended up having to carry the rifle myself.
An attendant hurried over in alarm, but Father stopped him with a raised hand.
I slung the unloaded rifle over my shoulder and walked a few steps around the room. I showed them how it swung away from my body, then pressed it against my hip with my hand.
“If the swivels were on the side, it would sit like this.”
Paul Mauser handed the rifle to one of the officers.
“Captain, lie prone and work the bolt.”
Click-clack.
The captain’s right elbow lifted.
Paul Mauser asked him to move his hand as if the handle were lowered, as in my drawing. The captain repeated the motion with his wrist held lower.
“How does it feel?”
“It seems like it would reduce the movement needed to operate it. However, depending on the handle’s position, we might have to cut into the stock.”
Paul Mauser looked at me.
“What you want to change isn’t the shape of the rifle, but the soldier’s movements.”
“I think the rifle should fit the person, not the other way around.”
After I answered, the room fell briefly silent. I glanced to the side and saw Father’s mouth twitch upward.
He was probably thinking something like, ‘That’s my girl.’
Paul Mauser, on the other hand, didn’t smile. Instead, he picked up the Gewehr 98 and examined the area around the bolt.
“It’s a good direction to take. But if we bend the handle, we may have to cut a recess into the stock. If we cut too deeply, the wood will weaken. Moving the sling swivels to the side isn’t as simple as moving a single screw, either. The wood could split under repeated impacts.”
He also picked up the drawing of the rear sight.
“The sight isn’t bad. Using a simpler existing sight is one option. But the reason we developed a new sight was at the army’s request.”
“Then you can’t make it?”
At Father’s question, Paul Mauser thought for a moment.
“No. We can make it. The sight would require a change in the army’s requirements, but the other suggestions are good improvements.”
My heart started pounding.
“However, this is not a manufacturing blueprint.”
He held up my stack of papers.
“If we send this to the factory as it is, the workers will have to fill in the blanks as they see fit. The angle, length, and clearance haven’t been specified. Even if the finished product doesn’t match Your Highness’s idea, we couldn’t blame the workers.”
I couldn’t argue. He was exactly right.
The thing I’d hated most in my previous life was a professor who gave us vague requirements and then got angry when the result was different.
And now I’d become that professor.
“Then what should I do?”
Paul Mauser slid the formal part drawings lying beside him toward me.
The paper was packed with black lines, numbers, and symbols. I recognized the familiar three-view and sectional drawings, but the notation and line styles were different from what I’d used.
“You have to draw it so someone else can make exactly what you have in mind.”
I pulled the drawing closer.
“If I learn this, can I make it the way I want?”
“If you learn it properly, yes.”
Father interjected.
“Would it be possible to make one as a test model first?”
Paul Mauser looked over my scribbles again.
“If the company interprets Your Highness’s intentions and makes it, yes. We can modify one of the existing rifles.”
“The Imperial Household will cover the cost.”
‘Now that’s the royal-family cheat code.’
I couldn’t help admiring how casually Father offered to pay.
Paul Mauser gathered the papers and returned one to me. It was the sheet where I’d drawn three versions of the bolt handle.
“Your Highness.”
“Yes?”
“Your ideas are interesting. But a good idea and a good design are not the same thing.”
“If you want to make your ideas precise, you must first learn how to communicate them to an engineer.”
I looked back and forth between the formal drawing and my scribbles.
I had ideas, but I couldn’t express them in a language the engineers of this era could understand.
That day, Paul Mauser left with a promise to make a test rifle and several of my sheets.
I looked over the part drawing he’d left behind.
Father patted my shoulder.
“Why the long face? He said he’d make it according to your ideas.”
“He said it might not be exactly what I have in mind.”
“Still, it’ll be something similar.”
I shook my head. Similar and identical were not the same.
If I wanted my ideas to move machine tools, I first had to relearn how to draw a single line properly.