“You are tired,” Shermaine said softly, examining the dark hollows under -his eyes and the puckered marks of strain at the corners of his mouth.
“No. I’m all right, he denied, but every muscle in his body ached with fatigue and nervous tension.
“Tonight you must sleep all night,” she ordered him. “I will make the bed in the back of the car.” Bruce looked at her quickly. “With you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You do not mind that everyone should know?”
“I am not ashamed of us.” There was a fierceness in her tone.
“I know, but-” “You said once that nothing between you and I could ever be dirty.”
“No, of course it couldn’t be dirty. I just thought-“
“Well then, I love you and from now on we have only one bed between us.” She spoke with finality.
Yesterday she was a virgin, he thought with amazement, and now -
well, now it’s no holds barred. Once she is roused a woman is more reckless of consequences than any man.
They are such wholesale creatures. But she’s right, of course.
She’s my woman and she belongs in my bed. The hell with the rest of the world and what it thinks!
“Make the bed, wench.” He smiled at her tenderly.
Two hours after dark the drum started again. They lay together, holding close, and listened to it. It held no terror now, for they were warm and secure in the afterglow of passion. It was like lying and listening to the impotent fury of a rainstorm on the roof at night.
They went out to the bridge at sunrise, the shelter moving across the open ground like the carapace of a multi-legged metallic turtle.
The men chartered and joked loudly inside, still elated by the novelty
of it.
“All right, everybody. That’s enough talking,” Bruce shouted them down. “There’s work to do now.” And they began.
Within an hour the sun had turned the metal box into an oven.
They stripped to the waist and the sweat dripped from them as they worked. They worked in a frenzy, gripped by a new urgency, oblivious of everything but the roughsawed timber that drove white splinters into their skin at the touch. They worked in the confined heat, amidst the racket of hammers and in the piney smell of sawdust. The labour fell into its own pattern with only an occasional grunted order from Bruce or Ruffy to direct it.
By midday the four main trusses that would span the gap in the bridge had been made up. Bruce tested their rigidity by propping one at both ends and standing all his men on the middle of it. It gave an inch under their combined weight.
“What do you think, boss?” Ruffy asked without conviction.
“Four of them might just do it. We’ll put in kingposts
underneath,” Bruce answered.
“Man, I don’t know. That tanker weighs plenty.”
“It’s no flyweight,” Bruce agreed. “But we’ll have to take the chance. We’ll bring the Ford across first, then the trucks and the tanker last.”
Ruffy nodded and wiped his face on his forearm, the muscles below his armpits knotted as he moved and there was no flabbiness in the powerful
bulge of his belly above his belt.
Thew!” He blew his lips out. “I got the feeling for a beer now.
This thirst is really stalking me.”
“You’ve got some with you?” Bruce asked as he passed his thumbs across his eyebrows and squeezed the moisture from them so it ran down his cheeks.
“Two things I never travel without, my trousers and a stock of the brown and bubbly.” Ruffy picked up the small pack from the corner of the
shelter and it clinked coyly.
“You hear that sound, boss?”
“I hear it, and it sounds like music,” grinned Bruce.
“All right, everybody.” He raised his voice. “Take ten minutes.”
Ruffy opened the bottles and passed them out, issuing one to be shared between three gendarmes. “These Arabs don’t properly appreciate this stuff” he explained to Bruce.
“It’d just be a waste.” The liquor was lukewarm and gassy, it merely aggravated Bruce’s thirst. He drained the bottle and tossed it out of the shelter.
“All right.” He stood up. “Let’s get these trusses into position.”
“That’s the shortest ten minutes I ever lived,” commented
Ruffy.
“Your watch is slow,” said Bruce.
Carrying the trusses within it, the shelter lumbered out on to the bridge. There was no laughter now, only laboured breathing and curses.
“Fix the ropes!” commanded Bruce. He tested the knots personally, then looked up at Ruffy and nodded.
“That’ll do.”
“Come on, you mad bastards,” Ruffy growled. “Lift it.” The first truss rose to the perpendicular and swayed there like a grotesque maypole with the ropes hanging from its top.
“Two men on each rope,” ordered Bruce. “Let it down gently.” He glanced round to ensure that they were all ready.
“Drop it over the edge, and I’ll throw you bastards in after it,” warned Ruffy.
“Lower away!” shouted Bruce.
The truss leaned out over the gap towards the fire-blackened stump
of bridge on the far side slowly at first, then faster as gravity took it.
“Hold it, damn you. Hold it!” roared Ruffy with the muscles in his shoulders humped out under the strain. They lay back against the ropes, but the weight of the truss dragged them forward as it fell.
It crashed down across the gap, lifted a cloud of dead wood ash as it struck, and lay there quivering.
“Man, I thought we’d lost that one for sure,” growled Ruffy, then turned savagely on his men.
“You bastards better be sharper with the next one - if you don’t want to swim this river.” They repeated the process with the second truss, and again they could not hold its falling length, but this time they were not so lucky. The end of the truss hit the far side, bounced and slid sideways.
“It’s going! Pull, you bastards, pull!” shouted Ruffy.
The truss toppled slowly sideways an dover the edge. It hit the river below them with a splash, disappeared under the surface, then bobbed up and floated away downstream until checked by the ropes.
Both Bruce and Ruffy filmed and swore during the lengthy exasperating business of dragging it back against the current and manhandling its awkward bulk back on to the bridge.
Half a dozen times it slipped at the crucial moment and splashed back into the river.
Despite his other virtues, Ruffy’s vocabulary of cursing words was limited and it added to his frustration that he had to keep repeating himself. Bruce did much better - he remembered things that he had heard and he made up a few.
When finally they had the dripping baulk of timber back on the bridge and were resting, Ruffy turned to Bruce with honest admiration.
“You swear pretty good,” he said. “Never heard you before, but no doubt about it, you’re good! What’s that one about the cow again?” Bruce repeated it for him a little self-consciously.
“You make that up yourself?” asked Ruffy.
“Spur of the moment,” laughed Bruce.
“That’s “bout the dirtiest I ever heard.” Ruffy could not conceal his envy. “Man, you should write a book.” “Let’s get this bridge finished first,” said Bruce. “Then I’ll think about it.” Now the truss was almost servile in its efforts to please.
It dropped neatly across the gap and lay beside its twin.
“You curse something good enough, and it works every time,” Ruffy announced sagely. “I think your one about the cow made all the difference, boss.” With two trusses in position they had broken the back of the project. They carried the shelter out and set it on the trusses, straddling the gap. The third and fourth trusses were dragged into position and secured with ropes and nails before nightfall.