Crispin's Army
Chapter 20

By the time the team of horses had pulled the carcass back to the campsite, fires were already alight, and knives were being sharpened in readiness to dismember it. Arne had been keen to use the chainsaws for the job, remembering how swiftly they had cut through a mammoth, but Crispin was not at all sure how much power remained in their batteries, and wanted to keep them in reserve for more important tasks. As the animal was divided up, Josie, Tana, Cath and Simone delivered portions of it to nearby groups who gratefully accepted this unusual addition to their existing rations.

While the chunks of diprotodon flesh were being barbecued, Crispin sat apart, busying himself with the animal’s head.

Presently Josie announced that breakfast was served, and began doling out plates of tender, somewhat gamey meat. The party from Vale gathered in a circle and began sawing at the steaks. Crispin ambled over and took his plate. He seated himself on a log at Gus’ side.

“I have a little something for you, Gus,” he smiled. “A souvenir of your first hunt.”

He put his hand into his pocket and produced the enormous beaver-like front teeth, wrapped in a cloth.

Gus laughed. “Thank you, Crispin. I shall treasure these!”

As soon as breakfast was over, the caravan began to move into the forest, leaving behind a small party to build an observation platform in one of the trees at the edge of the forest, where, if need be, a guard might be mounted to watch from a distance travellers approaching over the grassland, and, from a lesser distance, those making their way through the forest.

In a short while, the way through the forest became impassible for wagons. Crispin had suspected that this might occur at this stage in the journey, with steep slopes and thick undergrowth to impede their passage, so he ordered that the wagons be emptied and as much food as possible be loaded onto pack ponies. The draught horses which had pulled the wagons thus far now became mounts for their occupants. Josie, with Karl on her back, Tana, with Frances clinging on between her legs, Cath, and finally Gus, trailing a string of three heavy laden pack ponies, formed up into a train behind Crispin and Charlie, and they set off at an easy pace.

Gus, who had never been on a horse before, found that while the experience was not exactly pleasant, particularly on steep slopes, it was not as dreadful as he had imagined it would be either, provided he kept himself from thinking about how hard he would hit the ground if he fell off, and provided he kept an eye open for overhanging branches.

They travelled thus all day without incident, and set up camp among the trees at nightfall.

After the evening meal, Tana and Cath took a stroll from one campfire to another, chatting casually to their fellow travellers.

“Is everything all right?” Cath enquired at one fire.

A man sitting somewhat apart from his companions, picking his teeth with a knife point, looked up at her with a harrowed look on his face. “It’s been okay so far, I guess,” he said. “But for me, this is the hard part.”

“How so?” said Cath.

“We’ll be reaching the gorge soon.”

Cath hesitated. “Did you have some problems there on the way here? I thought most people went round it. I did.”

“Some problems. Yeah, you could call it that,” the man said gloomily. “I lost my wife and child there.”

“Oh,” said Cath. “I’m sorry. How... how’d it happen?”

“Big rock wedged in the gorge.” The man spoke mechanically, as if he had told the same story in the same words a hundred times. “Seems like lots of people used it like a bridge. It was a bit below the lip, and someone had even fixed up crude ladders to get down onto it and up again. Well, it was a gift, really, situated like that. I suppose all the people moving about on it must have loosened it, and just when Candy and Jim were on it...”

The man dissolved into tears. Cath gently took Tana’s arm and steered her away, not wanting to look her in the face.

When they were well removed from the campfire, Tana threw her arms around Cath and hugged her. “Cath...” she began.

“It’s okay,” said Cath. “I know what you’re thinking. You want to take the rap for that man losing his family, just because you were the one who put that rock there. It isn’t like that.”

Tana sighed deeply and wiped her eyes with her cuff. “Why is there so much suffering in the world, Cath?”

“I can’t answer that,” Cath said. “It’s just the way it is.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” said Tana, a little taken aback at Cath’s apparent lack of feeling.

“Yes, it bothers me,” Cath replied. “Maybe I just don’t show it as much. Maybe I’ve just grown a thicker skin than you have.”

“I thought I’d got tougher in the city,” said Tana.

“You need to be tougher in the city,” Cath asserted. “Out here, there hasn’t been the kind of pressure you were under there just to survive. You’ll have to get back some of that toughness before we hit Urbis again, I think.” She took Tana’s face between her hands and kissed her lips. “Change what you can change. What you can’t, well, learn to accept it.”

They walked on a little further. Suddenly a man appeared, crawling out of a tent a few metres from them, and Cath yanked Tana behind a tree. The man glanced to either side belatedly, got to his feet and moved off through the forest at a sharp pace.

“What’s up?” hissed Tana.

“That’s Elizabeth’s tent, isn’t it?” said Cath.

“Is it?” said Tana. “I don’t recall.”

Before Cath could jog her memory, Elizabeth proved the point by emerging from the tent herself, straightening up painfully. The strain of roughing it was clearly beginning to take its toll on this woman of fifty-odd who had lived most of her life as one of the pampered upper crust in Urbis. She bent to close the flap of the tent and walked away stiffly through the trees in a different direction to that taken by her visitor.

“I think she’s up to something,” said Cath. “We must be prepared for trouble - sooner or later.”

The gorge, the vast fissure that had put the lives of Crispin and the others at terrible risk on their journeys to and from Urbis, loomed large at the end of the following day, challenging them once more. But this time there were many more heads to be put together to solve the problem of crossing it. One thing was very clear: all the building work would have to be done from the near side.

The first light of a new morning saw work begin on the building of a bridge. A single tree-length would be insufficient to span the gap. This was the first and most self-evident problem to be overcome. The second was that bracing from underneath would be hazardous if not impossible.

Gradually, the problems were resolved, and the bridge began to take shape. Two of the tallest trees to be found in the vicinity of the gorge were felled, trimmed down to mere logs, and dragged by horses to the edge of the gorge. Ladders were affixed to each of the trunks. Deep holes were dug, and the poles erected side by side. Men climbed the ladders and attached a block and tackle arrangement slung between the poles.

Meanwhile, the surface of the bridge was put together, resembling an elongated raft, six tree trunks across by three in length, their ends overlapping and firmly underpinned by cross pieces. When this was complete, the end nearest the gorge was raised into the air with the aid of the block and tackle, while the other end was connected to ropes feeding through a pulley system. Two teams of twelve horses pulling in opposite directions along the edge of the chasm dragged the lower end of the `raft’ forward, and it rose up nearly perpendicular between the two supporting poles. From there it was a relatively simple task to lower the whole thing like a drawbridge until its further end was resting on the opposite lip of the gorge, slightly below the level of the nearer lip. Those who built the bridge reflected that in future years others might somehow bank up the ground on the far side to produce a level bridge, but for the time being their sloping one would serve well enough.

The whole process was watched with particularly consuming interest by Crispin, Josie, Tana and Elizabeth. They had all risked their lives in crossing the gorge, and observed mutely the consummate ease with which a team of men, horses, chainsaws and equipment were bridging that gulf without endangering themselves in any way.

When the body of the bridge was in place, it was secured to the bases of the two upright poles. When this had been done to the satisfaction of all concerned, bracing beams were erected, slanting from the tops of the poles to a point close to the middle of the bridge. Then further beams were cut, and carried across the bridge slung between teams of horses. The vibrations set up in the structure as the horses crossed over resulted in many frayed nerves, and sighs of relief could be heard when they reached the far side in safety. The same process of construction was then repeated at the opposite end of the bridge, resulting in a solid structure.

When night fell, it was suggested to the builders that they complete the task on the morrow, but they were keen to be done, so lamps were brought, and they continued labouring until well past midnight.

In the morning light, the army gathered along the edge of the sheer cliff to admire the simple, sturdy lines of the well crafted bridge spanning the void. Those who had horses mounted them, the walkers bestirred themselves, and all began to troop over the bridge and to climb the steep slopes beyond.

It was the last day on which they could use horses. They wound their way switchback style up through the foothills of the looming mountain range. Crispin had half hoped to find his wolf trap, but there had been numerous rock falls since his previous ascent of these slopes, and he could merely point out to Josie the approximate spot among the boulders.

By late afternoon, they had reached the snow line, and the caravan fanned out along a ridge a little below it in order to make camp for the night. The air had a sharp, frosty tang to it, and there was little doubt that the going would thenceforth be tough and cold.

Josie and Tana made their way to the nearby woods to find firewood, while Cath took a bucket and collected some snow to melt for cooking. Simone and the men hastily gathered scattered rocks and piled them into a roughly shaped corral around the horses and the campsite to shelter it from the fierce alpine winds. Men from other campsites observed what they were doing and hastened away to imitate them, so that by nightfall the ridge resembled the ruins of some ancient civilisation, with terraces of ramshackle stone huts looking out over the vast landscape before them.

Crispin and Charlie laboured to secure the last corner of a mammoth hide sheet which would serve as a roof for their sleeping quarters, while Josie held up a lantern for them to see by. Already the sheet was thrumming like a sail in the rising wind.

“It’s a shame we don’t have anyone here from Stonewall Byres,” Crispin lamented. “If anyone knows about building with stone, they do.”

Charlie could only concur.

Deep in the night, when the embers of the last remaining campfires had long since faded and died, eight carefully hooded lanterns could be seen dancing in the blackness like errant will-o’-the-wisps. They moved slowly, as the men holding them picked their way among the rocks and between the stone shelters. They could have been forgiven for thinking that the world consisted only of what was to be seen by the light of those lanterns, for whatever lay beyond their feeble glow was completely invisible.

The first lantern lit up briefly, tentatively, the gap that marked the entrance to Crispin’s shelter. It was immediately withdrawn, and there was a pause as the man holding the lantern waited for a challenge or some indication that his light had been seen by those within. When no sound was forthcoming, he passed his hand rapidly in front of the lantern three times as a signal, and the other lanterns could be seen dancing towards him through the velvety night.

When all eight men had entered the shelter, they were pressed close together, for much of the space was taken up by the sleeping forms huddled together at their feet, almost entirely enveloped in blankets, well insulated from the cold, with just their hair showing. Stepping silently, the men moved in a circle round the figures in the centre until they had them surrounded. They crouched, drew an assortment of knives from their belts, and, as one, plunged them into the sleepers.

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