I said, “Clem, you gave us the strength to do it.”
“No. You made yourselves strong. You know how you can reach into yourself and take yourself in both hands and squeeze the water out of yourself until you are nice and firm. That is what we did, kid, because we had to.”
“And now it seems impossible,” I said.
Clem the Ox answered, “From the impossible to the impossible—that is the road of us free men.”
Now the first thing we had to do was lay the tree I had trimmed so that its narrow end overlapped the first pile in midstream by about a foot.
This seemed simple enough in itself.
We tied a rope around the thin end and stood the log up on its butt, which we jammed hard against the pile on our side of the bank.
Four of us held the rope, keeping the log upright. Clem guided the log with his hands, saying, “Easy does it... Good . . . Good, lower away.”
But then, just as the end of the log touched the other pile, there was a gust of wind and a shrieking of the water. The bank was slippery clay. One of us slid down, caught off balance by the wind, and caught at the rope to save himself.
The far end of the log to which the rope was tied fell off the pile. The current caught the free end. The log and rope were like a tremendous whip with all of us clinging with might and main to the lash. The log spun. We felt ourselves going, and let go. As the water tore the log away, Clem the Ox caught the end of the rope. He braced himself. The force of that jolt as the tree trunk tried to get away drove him into the clay almost to his knees.
I took my place behind him, gripped him about the waist and held on. The rest took the rope and hauled. We played the log, and we landed it.
Clem, pursing up his lips, said, “All right. Once again.”
Thomas said, “This is madness.”
“All together, now,” said the Ox.
We tried again. This time the thin end of the log fell obediently into position. I said, “Now it wants lashing down. I am the lightest weight here. I can walk a log and make a fast knot.”
Clem said, “Good. But hold tight to the rope as you go.” He had the loose end wound about his fist. I balanced myself and walked out. Once I slipped, but recovered myself. I lashed the log fast. A third part of the bridge was built; but a third part of our time was gone, and the water was swelling, and on the other side Grandpa Martin and Beatrice were in trouble.
They, weak as they were, were trying to do from their side what we were doing from ours. The old man was a strange one. Since he had lost his land he had been like the walking dead. Now he looked almost young again, plastered with mud from head to foot like Adam when God made him out of red clay. His log was trimmed, and he had cut notches in it so that the rope would not slip. I saw him yelling, but could not hear him. A knuckle of rock had made a kind of breakwater where he and Beatrice were, so that the water was shallower and the current less dangerous on their side. A special strength seemed to pour into them. She took the thin end. And he the middle. Inch by inch they urged it forward. As luck would have it, they got the log to rest upon their two piles. True, there were some great iron spikes left sticking out to help them there. Still, it was a thing to wonder at. But they had not enough rope. “Your belt! Your belt!” Grandpa Martin shouted; and she unbuckled her belt and strapped it tight where the logs met.
Clem called to me in his great lowing voice, “Stay where you are and lend a hand”—for he had another log prepared, long enough to reach from the second pile to the third and so link everything together.
Clem sat down upon the log we had already laid, straddling it with his legs; using his hands he climbed a little way out. Halfway along he made a sign. The others pushed out the new log. He gripped it tightly and slid it toward me. I dragged it in my direction, caught the end, steadied it, and pushed it toward Beatrice. She and the old man got it into place.
I went back to join Clem and the others.
Then something heartbreaking happened: A rotten old miserable weeping willow tree came drifting down. It touched a swirl in the current so that the water closed about it like a hand, swung it like a club—a very heavy club, slow to lift, quick to drop—and struck the second log at the thin end. So the middle span of our bridge snapped like a match, and the two pieces of it went bobbing away with the willow.
From the distance came a popping of shots. I looked from face to face. Now the strength was going out of us. Our last hope had gone with that log, it seemed. We all looked at Clem. Thomas said—and he sounded almost cheerful, “So it’s to be scatter and sauve qui peut.”
Clem’s face set like stone. He said, “Easy does it. I don’t scatter. Somebody give me an ax.”
He wanted another tree. The tree nearest to the bank was nearly two feet thick. Clem went for it at hip level. I ran to help him, but he ordered me back. We knew why. He had won prizes felling timber in contests, using a double-headed ax in competition with champions. In less time than it takes me to tell you this, the tree was down. He had dropped it just where he wanted it to lie. Then he and the rest of us were on that fallen tree like madmen, taking off the top branches.
“She’s too heavy,” Thomas said, panting for breath, “those other two logs will be off the piles any moment. And we are out of rope-”
Some stray bullets were whistling high overhead now. Clem said, “So take off your belts, take off your pants . . .” He seemed to change all in a second. I have never seen such a face or heard such a voice as he said, “What? Be beat by this puddle?” We were more afraid of him at that moment than of any kind of death or disaster. He screamed like a horse in a fire. His eyes were red. He lifted the heavy end of the tree in his bare hands, alone. The seams of his leather jacket burst. Black veins swelled in his neck and arms. It was as much as the rest of us could do, working together, to lift the lighter end of the tree.
Then Clem, his legs wide apart, walked backward into the water. He said, later, that it was only the great weight he was carrying that anchored him against the current while his feet found firm places to stand upon. He was in the stream up to his waist. Then the water was up to his chin. His knees bent. The water was over his head. He was putting all he had—much more than he had dreamed he ever had—into one last awful effort. His legs straightened and he held the log above his head for just a second. Then the butt end of it was on the third pile, our end was in place, and Clem was back among us with blood running from his nose and mouth.
He told me later, “I put into one minute the strength of five years of life.”
Now Beatrice was across. She had lost her boots and her trousers. “Where is John?” she asked.
Clem gave her a parcel of fuses and detonators and said, “Take these across.”
“But John?”
“Take these across.”
She nodded, took the parcel and stepped on the first log. She walked like somebody in a dream; crossed the middle log and then the third. She was over.
Then Clem gave me a parcel and told me to go. I went. One by one the others followed. The firing was close now. I heard John’s fixed machine pistols firing wildly into the bushes. Then his own weapon, in little careful bursts. There were four or five wet thuds as some grenades exploded. Clem stood, wiping his bloody mouth on the back of his hand. I saw him sigh. Then he crossed our poor little bridge and was with us, just as the enemy appeared on the bank we had just left. It was broad daylight now.