Bridges -- Design and construction -- Fiction; India -- Fiction; Short stories
tons’ more material were flung out to hold the river in place.
Findlayson, C. E., turned on his trolley and looked over the face of the
country that he had changed for seven miles around. Looked back on the
humming village of five thousand work-men; up stream and down, along the
vista of spurs and sand; across the river to the far piers, lessening
in the haze; overhead to the guard-towers--and only he knew how strong
those were--and with a sigh of contentment saw that his work was good.
There stood his bridge before him in the sunlight, lacking only a few
weeks’ work on the girders of the three middle piers--his bridge, raw
and ugly as original sin, but pukka--permanent--to endure when all
memory of the builder, yea, even of the splendid Findlayson truss, has
perished. Practically, the thing was done.
Hitchcock, his assistant, cantered along the line on a little
switch-tailed Kabuli pony who through long practice could have trotted
securely over trestle, and nodded to his chief.
“All but,” said he, with a smile.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” the senior answered. “Not half a bad job
for two men, is it?”
“One--and a half. ‘Gad, what a Cooper’s Hill cub I was when I came on
the works!” Hitchcock felt very old in the crowded experiences of the
past three years, that had taught him power and responsibility.
“You were rather a colt,” said Findlayson. “I wonder how you’ll like
going back to office-work when this job’s over.”
“I shall hate it!” said the young man, and as he went on his eye
followed Findlayson’s, and he muttered, “Isn’t it damned good?”
“I think we’ll go up the service together,” Findlayson said to himself.
“You’re too good a youngster to waste on another man. Cub thou wast;
assistant thou art. Personal assistant, and at Simla, thou shalt be, if
any credit comes to me out of the business!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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