Crispin's Army
Chapter 19

The construction work on the bridge continued apace throughout the day. Crispin took no part in it. He sat on the grass with his back against the wheel of the wagon, looking around him. Fanned out along the fringe of the forest were the encampments of five thousand people, but they had all been wholly incapable of saving two men’s lives. The whole business had happened so quickly, there had been no one able to throw them a line or intervene in any useful way.

He looked again and again downstream, hoping that by some miracle either one man or both might have survived somehow, and that he might be the first to glimpse them making their way back along one bank or the other of the river. But his aching heart told him he would never see either man again.

Josie came and sat with him, and he hid his face in her hair. “I should have warned them last night about how the river bottom drops away,” he sighed. “I didn’t realise they were going to have to cross the river before they could bridge it.”

“You’re not an engineer,” Josie soothed. “It was something you couldn’t be expected to know about.” She turned his head so that he was facing her, and looked him steadily in the eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.”

By the end of the day, the basic structure of the bridge was in place, supported by solid timber stanchions at either end, onto which had been secured split logs running the breadth of the river, the entire article firmly braced underneath. The timber needed to build the supports on the far side of the river had been attached to the ropes carried across by Arne and Nold and launched from the near bank. The current had of course carried it away downstream, and the horses had dragged it back upstream, piece by piece. All that remained to be done the following day was to construct approach ramps on either side, and add finishing touches such as guardrails.

At twilight, Arne and Nold became the first people to use the bridge, slowly leading their horses back across the river. They came at once to where Crispin was sitting.

“Crispin,” said Arne glumly.

“Hello, Arne,” Crispin replied. “You’ve done a good job on the bridge, it seems.”

“With so many helpers, it was soon finished,” Arne replied, smiling weakly.

“Keith offered to help you over on the other side, I suppose?” Crispin said coolly.

“That’s right,” said Arne.

“Did you ask him if he could swim?” queried Crispin.

“It didn’t cross my mind,” Arne replied, not sure how best to respond to his friend’s interrogation. “Most village folk can swim.”

“Most city folk can’t,” Crispin observed, his tone becoming ever colder.

“A fact Arne could hardly be expected to know,” Josie chimed in, emerging from behind the wagon, perturbed at Crispin’s manner. “But being able to swim might not have saved Keith.”

“Then again it might,” said Crispin. “He was close to the tree. If he hadn’t panicked, he might have reached it, and could be alive now.” He sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, Arne. I suppose I’m looking for someone to blame.”

“There is no blame,” said Josie. “It was an accident. It could not have been avoided.”

There seemed to be no more to be said on the matter. They lapsed into an uneasy silence, the same which pervaded the entire campsite that night. There was no music round the fires, no laughter, and voices were low. All were in mourning for a well liked village man who had thrown away his own life to save that of a city man, and for that city man, a quiet man whom few people had known at all.

Early the following morning, work began on completing the bridge. A thick mist hung over the valley, swallowing up all who entered it until they moved like eerie grey ghosts, and the sawing and hammering emanating from the building site took on a strangely sinister quality.

In time, however, the sun rose higher and burned off the mist, revealing the progress that was being made on the bridge. Crispin strolled over to inspect the work. The first thing he saw was a small wooden plaque erected by the approach to the bridge, upon which was inscribed the following:

“Pause here, traveller, and reflect on Garn of Upper Vale and Keith Crabbe of Urbis, who gave their lives in the building of this bridge. May they be remembered.”

Crispin turned his attention to the bridge itself, and was surprised to see that in spite of the speed of its construction, it was a workmanlike piece of engineering.

“Some time when we’re not in so much of a hurry,” said Jason, one of the Urbian engineers overseeing the labour, “we can see about inserting a pier in the middle of the river to give the extra support it really needs.”

Crispin nodded sagely. Two thoughts struck him simultaneously. One was that the country would benefit enormously from the skills of Urbis’ builders, engineers and the like, and the other was that Jason spoke as if he might one day be interested to come back over the mountains to offer exactly that kind of help. He dared to hope that there might be a significant number of others like Jason, who, having seen the world beyond the city for the first time, and having perhaps perceived something of the needs of that world, might be willing to come back and lend a hand. A picture began to form in Crispin’s mind of how the countryside might be made better in the future with the addition of those contributions of city know-how which might be deemed appropriate. He began to feel that out of all the trials that he had experienced since that first fateful day in this place, and out of all the difficulties which had since beset the village communities, some good might finally come.

Towards noon the bridge was completed, and without further ceremony, Crispin rode his horse across, closely followed by Josie, Tana and Cath in the wagon. Gus elected to walk across behind, declaring that he wasn’t a gambler at even the shortest odds.

As the wagon rumbled on to the bridge, there was a creaking of timbers, and when it reached the middle, the logs beneath it could be seen bowing quite perceptibly.

“Only one wagon to be on the bridge at a time!” Crispin called back across the river as Tana reined the horses in at the bottom of the ramp beside him.

A significant detour was required to replace a route up into the hills beyond that did not have an impossible gradient. As the first wagons laboured up onto the rolling downland, Crispin spurred his horse to the top of a prominent hill, from where he could take in the sight of the caravan snaking back down through a defile and along the bank of the river back to the bridge. Turning to face the other way, he saw again the superb spectacle of the mountains, and wondered how they would fare when they drew closer to that barrier. He wondered what would be the point at which they would be obliged to abandon wagons and horses and continue the rest of the way on foot.

As the day reached its end, so the caravan reached the forest, and spread out to settle beneath its eaves. The firewood to be found under the forest canopy was damp, and the fires that night were smoky, at times blotting out the stars, and all along the forest fringe could be heard the sound of choking as people spluttered over their evening meal.

Later, when the fires were extinguished and the air was clear, Crispin sat at the foot of a tree, wide awake but dreaming. The flaps of the tent were open, and he was able from where he sat to distinguish Josie’s figure as she lay sleeping within.

Presently, the snap of a twig indicated that Crispin was not the only one awake.

“Who’s there?” he said softly, his hand already reaching for the zapper that was never far from his side.

“Crispin?” came the reply. “It’s me, Gus.” A shadowy figure appeared close by.

“Gus?” said Crispin, using the zapper now to support him as he got up. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Gus dreamily. “Nothing at all. I couldn’t sleep, so I was just strolling and looking at the stars. They are such a wonderful spectacle.”

Crispin realised that while his thoughts were earthbound, he too had been staring at the glory above his head. “They are, aren’t they?”

They began walking, Gus falling into step almost unconsciously at Crispin’s side, not towards the open country, as they might have done had they wished to view the uninterrupted panoply of the heavens, but deeper into the trees. It was Crispin’s wont on hunting trips to wander at will through the forest at night, listening always to the noises of the wild creatures, seeking to identify what animal or bird might be making a certain sound, and priding himself on his ability to walk silently. Gus picked his way along more noisily beside him, and together they talked quietly of the way things were going, and how it might be when they got back to Urbis.

When they had been walking for some twenty minutes, Crispin suddenly stopped, his ears straining. Somewhere off to their left he could hear something large moving about.

“Let’s go and see what it is, shall we?” he murmured to Gus, the instincts of a hunter swinging into action, and without waiting for a reply, he began moving down a slope towards the source of the sound. Gus followed close behind, curious to observe Crispin in action.

In a little while, Crispin stopped and raised the zapper to his eye. Softly he muttered the praises of the infra-red sight, which rendered the blackest night crystal clear. What he saw through the sight made his heart leap. A large shaggy beast was standing on its hind legs, leaning its forepaws against the trunk of a tree, raising it to a full four metres in height. It was grazing on the leaves of the tree, cropping mouthfuls with a pair of large and powerful incisors.

“A diprotodon,” Crispin whispered to Gus, handing him the zapper so that he might see the otherwise invisible animal. “They make very good eating.”

Gus squinted through the sight, fascinated. He had never before seen any creature so large, nor so fundamentally primitive. He felt his pulse racing.

Almost as if he sensed Gus’ excitement, an idea struck Crispin. The big, slow moving animal was an almost ridiculously easy target for the laser weapon. He reached across and released the safety catch.

“Aim for the skull,” he said softly.

Gus took his eye from the sight. “Me?”

“Why not?” said Crispin.

Gus needed no further encouragement. He braced the zapper against his shoulder, took aim and fired. The diprotodon gave an unearthly cry and fell heavily into the undergrowth.

The two men approached. Crispin examined the wound above the eye. “Good shot,” he exclaimed. “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”

“I used to be a pretty mean hand in the arcades in my student days,” Gus admitted, “but I’ve never used real ammunition and a live target before.”

Crispin clapped him on the back. “Well, you’ve obviously been hiding your light.” They started back up the slope. “We’ll get some horses down here at daybreak to haul him back to the camp. And then we’ll have a breakfast all right!”