Rudyard Kipling

“ Now she is thus cramped God only knows what she will do!” said Peroo, watching the furious turmoil round the guard-tower. “Ohe’! Fight, then! Fight hard, for it is thus that a woman wears herself out.”
But Mother Gunga would not fight as Peroo desired. After the first down-stream plunge there came no more walls of water, but the river lifted herself bodily, as a snake when she drinks in midsummer, plucking and fingering along the revetments, and banking up behind the piers till even Findlayson began to recalculate the strength of his work. ”

“ Neither these men nor those that follow them mock thee at all.”
“Am I alone, then, Heavenly Ones? Shall I smooth out my flood lest unhappily I bear away their walls? Will Indra dry my springs in the hills and make me crawl humbly between their wharfs? Shall I bury me in the sand ere I offend?”
“And all for the sake of a little iron bar with the fire-carriage atop. Truly, Mother Gunga is always young!” said Ganesh the Elephant. “A child had not spoken more foolishly. Let the dirt dig in the dirt ere it return to the dirt. I know only that my people grow rich and praise me. ”

“ Get thee to thy huts again, beloved, and make sport for the young things, for still Brahm dreams. Go, my children! Brahm dreams and till he wakes the Gods die not.”
“Whither went they?” said the Lascar, awe-struck, shivering a little with the cold.
“God knows!” said Findlayson. The river and the island lay in full daylight now, and there was never mark of hoof or pug on the wet earth under the peepul. Only a parrot screamed in the branches, bringing down showers of water-drops as he fluttered his wings.
“Up! We are cramped with cold! Has the opium died out. Canst thou move, Sahib?” ”

“ Before the fire-carriage came it was a heavy toil. The fire-carriages have served thee well, Mother of Death. But I speak for mine own altars, who am not Bhairon of the Common Folk, but Shiv. Men go to and fro, making words and telling talk of strange Gods, and I listen. Faith follows faith among my people in the schools, and I have no anger; for when all words are said, and the new talk is ended, to Shiv men return at the last. ”

“ The young God’s eyes sparkled.
“Am I not the first of the Gods in their mouths to-day?” returned Bhairon, unabashed. “For the sake of the Common People I said—very many wise things which I have now forgotten, but this my staff-”
Krishna turned impatiently, saw the Mugger at his feet, and kneeling, slipped an arm round the cold neck. “Mother,” he said gently, “get thee to thy flood again. The matter is not for thee. What harm shall thy honour take of this live dirt? Thou hast given them their fields new year after year, and by thy flood they are made strong. ”

“ It was never Mother Gunga that delayed us.”
“There is always time for her; and none the less there has been delay. Has the Sahib forgotten last autumn’s flood, when the stone-boats were sunk without warning—or only a half-day’s warning?”
“Yes, but nothing save a big flood could hurt us now. The spurs are holding well on the West Bank.”
“Mother Gunga eats great allowances. There is always room for more stone on the revetments. I tell this to the Chota Sahib,”—he meant Hitchcock—“and he laughs.”
“No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in thine own fashion.” ”

“ Then the big gong thundered thrice for a sign that it was flood and not fire; conch, drum, and whistle echoed the call, and the village quivered to the sound of bare feet running upon soft earth. The order in all cases was to stand by the day’s work and wait instructions. The gangs poured by in the dusk; men stopping to knot a loin-cloth or fasten a sandal; gang-foremen shouting to their subordinates as they ran or paused by the tool-issue sheds for bars and mattocks; locomotives creeping down their tracks wheel-deep in the crowd ”

“ Never was seen so lamentable a guru.
“What good are offerings and little kerosene lamps and dry grain,” shouted Peroo, “if squatting in the mud is all that thou canst do? Thou hast dealt long with the Gods when they were contented and well-wishing. Now they are angry. Speak to them!”
“What is a man against the wrath of Gods?” whined the priest, cowering as the wind took him. “Let me go to the temple, and I will pray there.” ”

“ Have pity, mother, for a little—and it is only for a little.”
“If it be only for a little,” the slow beast began.
“Are they Gods, then?” Krishna returned with a laugh, his eyes looking into the dull eyes of the River. “Be certain that it is only for a little. The Heavenly Ones have heard thee, and presently justice will be done. Go now, mother, to the flood again. Men and cattle are thick on the waters—the banks fall—the villages melt because of thee.”
“But the bridge—the bridge stands.” The Mugger turned grunting into the undergrowth as Krishna rose. ”

“ The matter is with the people. I move, and not the Gods of the bridge-builders,” said Krishna.
“So be it. I have made a man worship the fire-carriage as it stood still breathing smoke, and he knew not that he worshipped me,” said Hanuman the Ape. “They will only change a little the names of their Gods. I shall lead the builders of the bridges as of old; Shiv shall be worshipped in the schools by such as doubt and despise their fellows; Ganesh shall have his mahajuns, and Bhairon the donkey-drivers, the pilgrims, and the sellers of toys. ”

“ They are good for live men, but for the dead. . . . They have spoken Themselves. Therefore, when I come to the village I will beat the guru for talking riddles which are no riddles. When Brahm ceases to dream the Gods go.”
“Look up-stream. The light blinds. Is there smoke yonder?”
Peroo shaded his eyes with his hands. “He is a wise man and quick. Hitchcock Sahib would not trust a rowboat. He has borrowed the Rao Sahib’s steam-launch, and comes to look for us. I have always said that there should have been a steam-launch on the bridge works for us.” ”

“ Well, he will not know his death. The boat cannot live an hour here even if she strike nothing. It is not good to look at death with a clear eye.”
He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted down in the bows of the reeling, pegged, and stitched craft, staring through the mist at the nothing that was there. A warm drowsiness crept over Findlayson, the Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his bridge. ”

“ They had been tried many times in sudden crises—by slipping of booms, by breaking of tackle, failure of cranes, and the wrath of the river—but no stress had brought to light any man among men whom Findlayson and Hitchcock would have honoured by working as remorselessly as they worked them-selves. ”

“ Tell Mother Gunga we have had enough. Bid her be still for the night. I cannot pray, but I have been serving in the Kumpani’s boats, and when men did not obey my orders I—” A flourish of the wire-rope colt rounded the sentence, and the priest, breaking free from his disciple, fled to the village.
“Fat pig!” said Peroo. “After all that we have done for him! When the flood is down I will see to it that we get a new guru. Finlinson Sahib, it darkens for night now, and since yesterday nothing has been eaten. Be wise, Sahib. No man can endure watching and great thinking on an empty belly. ”

“ Would it tower up like a kite and pitch headlong on the far-away sands, or would it duck about, beyond control, through all eternity? Findlayson gripped the gunnel to anchor himself, for it seemed that he was on the edge of taking the flight before he had settled all his plans. Opium has more effect on the white man than the black. ”

“ As for the bridge, so many have died in the building that it cannot fall.” A fierce sun, that drew out all the smell of the sodden land, had followed the storm, and in that clear light there was no room for a man to think of the dreams of the dark. Findlayson stared upstream, across the blaze of moving water, till his eyes ached. ”

“ Findlayson laughed and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a steamer, and he was sick for home. As his trolley passed under the tower, Peroo descended by a rope, ape-fashion, and cried: “It looks well now, Sahib. Our bridge is all but done. What think you Mother Gunga will say when the rail runs over?” ”

“ It was a long, long reverie, and it covered storm, sudden freshets, death in every manner and shape, violent and awful rage against red tape half frenzying a mind that knows it should be busy on other things; drought, sanitation, finance; birth, wedding, burial, and riot in the village of twenty warring castes; argument, expostulation, persuasion, and the blank despair that a man goes to bed upon, thankful that his rifle is all in pieces in the gun-case. ”

“ I know; we are mooring them with wire-rope,” was the answer. “Heh! Listen to the Chota Sahib. He is working hard.”
From across the river came an almost continuous whistling of locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone. Hitchcock at the last minute was spending a few hundred more trucks of Tarakee stone in reinforcing his spurs and embankments.
“The bridge challenges Mother Gunga,” said Peroo, with a laugh. “But when she talks I know whose voice will be the loudest.”
For hours the naked men worked, screaming and shouting under the lights. ”

“ What have you got on the east bank that needs looking after?
“Pontoon—one big pontoon with the overhead crane on it. T’other overhead crane on the mended pontoon, with the cart-road rivets from Twenty to Twenty-three piers—two construction lines, and a turning-spur. The pilework must take its chance,” said Hitchcock.
“All right. Roll up everything you can lay hands on. We’ll give the gang fifteen minutes more to eat their grub.”
Close to the verandah stood a big night-gong, never used except for flood, or fire in the village. ”

“ I am busy.”
“I, also!” said Peroo, with an unshaken countenance. “May I take the light dinghy now and row along the spurs?”
“To hold them with thy hands? They are, I think, sufficiently heavy.”
“Nay, Sahib. It is thus. At sea, on the Black Water, we have room to be blown up and down without care. Here we have no room at all. Look you, we have put the river into a dock, and run her between stone sills.”
Findlayson smiled at the “we.”
“We have bitted and bridled her. She is not like the sea, that can beat against a soft beach. She is Mother Gunga—in irons.” ”

“ Don’t risk your life trying to fish out anything that may go downstream.”
“Oh, I’ll be as prudent as you are! ‘Night. Heavens, how she’s filling! Here’s the rain in earnest.”
Findlayson picked his way back to his bank, sweeping the last of McCartney’s riveters before him. The gangs had spread themselves along the embankments, regardless of the cold rain of the dawn, and there they waited for the flood. Only Peroo kept his men together behind the swell of the guard-tower, where the stone-boats lay tied fore and aft with hawsers, wire-rope, and chains. ”

“ Findlayson opened the telegram. “Cockran, this time, from the Ganges Canal: ‘Heavy rains here. Bad.’ He might have saved the last word. Well, we don’t want to know any more. We’ve got to work the gangs all night and clean up the riverbed. You’ll take the east bank and work out to meet me in the middle. Get everything that floats below the bridge: we shall have quite enough river-craft coming down adrift anyhow, without letting the stone-boats ram the piers. ”

“ He thought and perceived that he was perfectly secure, for the water was so solid that a man could surely step out upon it, and, standing still with his legs apart to keep his balance—this was the most important point—would be borne with great and easy speed to the shore. ”

“ They do not think of the Heavenly Ones altogether. They think of the fire-carriage and the other things that the bridge-builders have done, and when your priests thrust forward hands asking alms, they give a little unwillingly. ”