The Bridge-Builders | Page 8

at the ends. A hundred crowbars strained at the sleepers of the

temporary line that fed the unfinished piers. It was heaved up in lengths,
loaded into trucks, and backed up the bank beyond flood-level by the
groaning locomotives. The tool-sheds on the sands melted away before
the attack of shouting armies, and with them went the stacked ranks of
Government stores, iron-hound boxes of rivets, pliers, cutters, duplicate
parts of the riveting-machines, spare pumps and chains. The big crane
would be the last to be shifted, for she was hoisting all the heavy stuff
up to the main structure of the bridge. The concrete blocks on the fleet
of stone-boats were dropped overside, where there was any depth of
water, to guard the piers, and the empty boats themselves were poled
under the bridge down-stream. It was here that Peroo's pipe shrilled
loudest, for the first stroke of the big gong had brought the dinghy back
at racing speed, and Peroo and his people were stripped to the waist,
working for the honour and credit which are better than life.
"I knew she would speak," he cried. "I knew, but the telegraph gives us
good warning. O sons of unthinkable begetting - children of
unspeakable shame - are we here for the look of the thing?" It was two
feet of wire-rope frayed at the ends, and it did wonders as Peroo leaped
from gunnel to gunnel, shouting the language of the sea.
Findlayson was more troubled for the stoneboats than anything else.
McCartney, with his gangs, was blocking up the ends of the three
doubtful spans. but boats adrift, if the flood chanced to be a high one,
might endanger the girders; and there was a very fleet in the shrunken
channel.
"Get them behind the swell of the guardtower," he shouted down to
Peroo. "It will be dead-water there. Get them below the bridge."
"Accha! [Very good.] I know; we are mooring them with wire-rope,"
was the answer. "Heh! Listen to the Chota Sahib. He is working hard."
From across the river came an almost continuous whistling of
locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone. Hitchcock at the last
minute was spending a few hundred more trucks of Tarakee stone in
reinforcing his spurs and embankments.

"The bridge challenges Mother Gunga," said Peroo, with a laugh. "But
when she talks I know whose voice will be the loudest."
For hours the naked men worked, screaming and shouting under the
lights. It was a hot, moonless night; the end of it was darkened by
clouds and a sudden squall that made Findlayson very grave.
"She moves!" said Peroo, just before the dawn. "Mother Gunga is
awake! Hear!" He dipped his hand over the side of a boat and the
current mumbled on it. A little wave hit the side of a pier with a crisp
slap.
"Six hours before her time," said Findlayson, mopping his forehead
savagely.
"Now we can't depend on anything. We'd better clear all hands out of
the riverbed."
Again the big gong beat, and a second time there was the rushing of
naked feet on earth and ringing iron; the clatter of tools ceased. In the
silence, men heard the dry yawn of water crawling over thirsty sand.
Foreman after foreman shouted to Findlayson, who had posted himself
by the guard-tower, that his section of the river-bed had been cleaned
out, and when the last voice dropped Findlayson hurried over the
bridge till the iron plating of the permanent way gave place to the
temporary plank-walk over the three centre piers, and there he met
Hitchcock.
"'All clear your side?" said Findlayson. The whisper rang in the box of
lattice work.
"Yes, and the east channel's filling now. We're utterly out of our
reckoning. When is this thing down on us?"
"There's no saying. She's filling as fast as she can. Look!" Findlayson
pointed to the planks below his feet, where the sand, burned and defiled
by months of work, was beginning to whisper and fizz.

"What orders?" said Hitchcock.
"Call the roll - count stores sit on your hunkers - and pray for the bridge.
That's all I can think of Good night. Don't risk your life trying to fish
out anything that may go downstream."
"Oh, I'll be as prudent as you are! 'Night. Heavens, how she's filling!
Here's the rain in earnest."
Findlayson picked his way back to his bank, sweeping the last of
McCartney's riveters before him. The gangs had spread themselves
along the embankments, regardless of the cold rain of the dawn, and
there they waited for the flood. Only Peroo kept his men together
behind the swell of the guard-tower, where the stone-boats lay tied fore
and aft with hawsers, wire-rope, and chains.
A shrill wail ran along the line, growing