The Days Work, vol 1 | Page 7

no more than eddies and spoutings, and down-stream
the pent river, once freed of her guide-lines, had spread like a sea to the
horizon. Then hurried by, rolling in the water, dead men and oxen
together, with here and there a patch of thatched roof that melted when
it touched a pier.
"Big flood," said Peroo, and Findlayson nodded. It was as big a flood
as he had any wish to watch. His bridge would stand what was upon
her now, but not very much more, and if by any of a thousand chances
there happened to be a weakness in the embankments, Mother Gunga
would carry his honour to the sea with the other raffle. Worst of all,
there was nothing to do except to sit still; and Findlayson sat still under
his macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and his boots
were over-ankle in mire. He took no count of time, for the river was
marking the hours, inch by inch and foot by foot, along the
embankment, and he listened, numb and hungry, to the straining of the
stone-boats, the hollow thunder under the piers, and the hundred noises
that make the full note of a flood. Once a dripping servant brought him
food, but he could not eat; and once he thought that he heard a faint
toot from a locomotive across the river, and then he smiled. The
bridge's failure would hurt his assistant not a little, but Hitchcock was a
young man with his big work yet to do. For himself the crash meant
everything - everything that made a hard life worth the living. They
would say, the men of his own profession . . . he remembered the half
pitying things that he himself had said when Lockhart's new
waterworks burst and broke down in brickheaps and sludge, and

Lockhart's spirit broke in him and he died. He remembered what he
himself had said when the Sumao Bridge went out in the big cyclone
by the sea; and most he remembered poor Hartopp's face three weeks
later, when the shame had marked it. His bridge was twice the size of
Hartopp's, and it carried the Findlayson truss as well as the new
pier-shoe - the Findlayson bolted shoe. There were no excuses in his
service. Government might listen, perhaps, but his own kind would
judge him by his bridge, as that stood or fell. He went over it in his
head, plate by plate, span by span, brick by brick, pier by pier,
remembering, comparing, estimating, and recalculating, lest there
should be any mistake; and through the long hours and through the
flights of formulae that danced and wheeled before him a cold fear
would come to pinch his heart. His side of the sum was beyond
question; but what man knew Mother Gunga's arithmetic? Even as he
was making all sure by the multiplication-table, the river might be
scooping a pot-hole to the very bottom of any one of those eighty-foot
piers that carried his reputation. Again a servant came to him with food,
but his mouth was dry, and he could only drink and return to the
decimals in his brain. And the river was still rising. Peroo, in a mat
shelter-coat, crouched at his feet, watching now his face and now the
face of the river, but saying nothing.
At last the Lascar rose and floundered through the mud towards the
village, but he was careful to leave an ally to watch the boats.
Presently he returned, most irreverently driving before him the priest of
his creed - a fat old man, with a grey beard that whipped the wind with
the wet cloth that blew over his shoulder. Never was seen so lamentable
a guru.
"What good are offerings and little kerosene lamps and dry grain,"
shouted Peroo, " if squatting in the mud is all that thou canst do? Thou
hast dealt long with the Gods when they were contented and
well-wishing. Now they are angry. Speak to them!"
"What is a man against the wrath of Gods?" whined the priest,
cowering as the wind took him. "Let me go to the temple, and I will
pray there."

"Son of a pig, pray here! Is there no return for salt fish and curry
powder and dried onions? Call aloud! Tell Mother Gunga we have had
enough. Bid her be still for the night. I cannot pray, but I have been
serving in the Kumpani's boats, and when men did not obey my orders I
-" A flourish of the wire-rope colt rounded the sentence, and the priest,
breaking free from his disciple, fled to the village.
"Fat pig!" said Peroo. "After all that we have done for him! When the
flood is down I will see