The Days Work, vol 1 | Page 3

huge plate tilted in its slings, threatening
to slide out sideways. Then the native workmen lost their heads with
great shoutings, and Hitchcock's right arm was broken by a falling
T-plate, and he buttoned it up in his coat and swooned, and came to and
directed for four hours till Peroo, from the top of the crane, reported
"All's well," and the plate swung home. There was no one like Peroo,
serang, to lash, and guy, and hold to control the donkey-engines, to
hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out of the borrow-pit into which it had
tumbled; to strip, and dive, if need be, to see how the concrete blocks
round the piers stood the scouring of Mother Gunga, or to adventure
up-stream on a monsoon night and report on the state of the
embankment-facings. He would interrupt the field-councils of
Findlayson and Hitchcock without fear, till his wonderful English, or
his still more wonderful lingua franca, half Portuguese and half Malay,
ran out and he was forced to take string and show the knots that he
would recommend. He controlled his own gang of tacklemen -
mysterious relatives from Kutch Mandvi gathered month by month and
tried to the uttermost. No consideration of family or kin allowed Peroo
to keep weak hands or a giddy head on the pay-roll. "My honour is the
honour of this bridge," he would say to the about-to-bedismissed.
"What do I care for your honour? Go and work on a steamer. That is all

you are fit for."
The little cluster of huts where he and his gang lived centred round the
tattered dwelling of a sea-priest - one who had never set foot on black
water, but had been chosen as ghostly counsellor by two generations of
sea-rovers all unaffected by port missions or those creeds which are
thrust upon sailors by agencies along Thames bank. The priest of the
Lascara had nothing to do with their caste, or indeed with anything at
all. He ate the offerings of his church, and slept and smoked, and slept
again "for," said Peroo, who had haled him a thousand miles inland,
"he is a very holy man. He never cares what you eat so long as you do
not eat beef, and that is good, because on land we worship Shiva, we
Kharvas; but at sea on the Kumpani's boats we attend strictly to the
orders of the Burra Malum [the first mate], and on this bridge we
observe what Finlinson Sahib says."
Finlinson Sahib had that day given orders to clear the scaffolding from
the guard-tower on the right bank, and Peroo with his mates was
casting loose and lowering down the bamboo poles and planks as
swiftly as ever they had whipped the cargo out of a coaster.
>From his trolley he could hear the whistle of the serang's silver pipe
and the creak and clatter of the pulleys. Peroo was standing on the
topmost coping of the tower, clad in the blue dungaree of his
abandoned service, and as Findlayson motioned to him to be careful,
for his was no life to throw away, he gripped the last pole, and, shading
his eyes ship-fashion, answered with the long-drawn wail of the fo'c'sle
lookout: "Ham dekhta hai " ("I am looking out"). Findlayson laughed
and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a steamer, and he was
sick for home. As his trolley passed under the tower, Peroo descended
by a rope, ape-fashion, and cried: "It looks well now, Sahib. Our bridge
is all but done. What think you Mother Gunga will say when the rail
runs over?"
"She has said little so far. It was never Mother Gunga that delayed us."
"There is always time for her; and none the less there has been delay.
Has the Sahib forgotten last autumn's flood, when the stoneboats were

sunk without warning - or only a half-day's warning? "
"Yes, but nothing save a big flood could hurt us now. The spurs are
holding well on the west bank."
"Mother Gunga eats great allowances. There is always room for more
stone on the revetments. I tell this to the Chota Sahib" - he meant
Hitchcock-" and he laughs."
"No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in
thine own fashion."
The Lascar grinned. "Then it will not be in this way - with stonework
sunk under water, as the Quetta was sunk. I like sus-suspen-sheen
bridges that fly from bank to bank, with one big step, like a gang-plank.
Then no water can hurt. When does the Lord Sahib come to open the
bridge?"
"In three months, when the weather is cooler."
"Ho! ho! He is like the Burra Malum. He sleeps below while the work
is being done. Then