The sooner we repair the bridge the sooner you'll get your bellies
filled again." I might as well rub it in, decided Bruce.
"You all saw what happened to the person who went into the open today,
so I don't have to tell you to keep under cover. The sergeant major is
making arrangements for sanitation - five-gallon drums. They won't be
very comfortable, so you won't be tempted to sit too long."
They laughed a little at that.
"Remember this. As long as you stay in the laager or the shelter they
can't touch you. There is absolutely nothing to fear. They can beat
their drums and wait as long as they like, but they can't harm us." A
murmur of agreement.
And the sooner we finish the bridge the sooner we will be on our way."
Bruce looked round the circle of faces and was satisfied with what he
saw. The completion of the shelter had given their morale a boost.
"All right, Sergeant Jacque. You can start sweeping with the
searchlights as soon as it's dark." Bruce finished and went across to
join Shermaine beside the Ford. He loosed the straps of his helmet and
lifted it off his head. His hair was damp with perspiration and he ran
his fingers through it.
"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 king-posts
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