The Days Work, vol 1 | Page 5

Canal: 'Heavy rains here. Bad.' He might have saved the
last word. Well, we don't want to know any more. We've got to work
the gangs all night and clean up the river-bed. You'll take the east bank
and work out to meet me in the middle. Get every thing that floats
below the bridge: we shall have quite enough rivercraft coming down
adrift anyhow, without letting the stone-boats ram the piers. What have

you got on the east bank that needs looking after "
"Pontoon - one big pontoon with the overhead crane on it. T'other
overhead crane on the mended pontoon, with the cart-road rivets from
Twenty to Twenty-three piers - two construction lines, and a
turning-spur. The pilework must take its chance," said Hitchcock.
All right. Roll up everything you can lay hands on. We'll give the gang
fifteen minutes more to eat their grub."
Close to the verandah stood a big night-gong, never used except for
flood, or fire in the village. Hitchcock had called for a fresh horse, and
was off to his side of the bridge when Findlayson took the cloth-bound
stick and smote with the rubbing stroke that brings out the full thunder
of the metal.
Long before the last rumble ceased every night-gong in the village had
taken up the warning. To these were added the hoarse screaming of
conches in the little temples; the throbbing of drums and tom-toms; and,
from the European quarters, where the riveters lived, McCartney's
bugle, a weapon of offence on Sundays and festivals, brayed
desperately, calling to "Stables." Engine after engine toiling home
along the spurs at the end of her day's work whistled in answer till the
whistles were answered from the far bank. Then the big gong thundered
thrice for a sign that it was flood and not fire; conch, drum, and whistle
echoed the call, and the village quivered to the sound of bare feet
running upon soft earth. The order in all cases was to stand by the day's
work and wait instructions. The gangs poured by in the dusk; men
stopping to knot a loin-cloth or fasten a sandal; gang-foremen shouting
to their subordinates as they ran or paused by the tool-issue sheds for
bars and mattocks; locomotives creeping down their tracks wheel-deep
in the crowd; till the brown torrent disappeared into the dusk of the
river-bed, raced over the pilework, swarmed along the lattices,
clustered by the cranes, and stood still each man in his place.
Then the troubled beating of the gong carried the order to take up
everything and bear it beyond highwater mark, and the flare-lamps
broke out by the hundred between the webs of dull iron as the riveters

began a night's work, racing against the flood that was to come. The
girders of the three centre piers - those that stood on the cribs - were all
but in position. They needed just as many rivets as could be driven into
them, for the flood would assuredly wash out their supports, and the
ironwork would settle down on the caps of stone if they were not
blocked 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-bound 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 stone-boats 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,