'Why gunfire?' I queried.
'That's what they call it in the British Army. The Army fights on this stuff,' I was told.
I grinned. 'If they could stomach this they'd be ready to face anything.'
'It's better than bloody Coca-Cola,' someone said, and everybody laughed.
After breakfast there was a great deal of activity. I went in search of Captain Sadiq, and found him sitting in his command car wearing earphones. He saw me approaching and held up his hand in warning as he scribbled on a notepad he held on his knee. Then he called to a sergeant who came trotting over. Sadiq took off the earphones and handed them to the sergeant. Only then did he come around the car to meet me. 'Good morning, Mister Mannix.'
'Good morning, Captain. Sorry I was in a hurry last night. Any problems? Mister Kemp says he is very gratified by all your help.'
He smiled at that. 'No problems at all, sir,' he said, but it was a brushoff. He looked deeply concerned and abstracted.
The sun was just rising as I heard an engine start up. It had a deep roar and sounded like one of the big tractors. A small crowd of curious onlookers had materialized from nowhere and were being pushed back by Sadiq's men. Small boys skylarked about and evaded the soldiers with ease.
I indicated the crowd. 'These people are up early. Do you have much of this kind of thing?'
The people, they are always with us.' I wondered for a moment whether that was an intended parody of a biblical quotation. He pointed. 'These come from a small village about a mile over there. They are nothing.'
One of the military trucks fired up its engine and I watched it pull out. Mounted on the back was a recoilless gun. The range of those things wasn't particularly great but they packed a hell of a wallop and could be fired from a light vehicle. One thing you had to remember was not to stand behind when they fired. 'Nice piece of artillery,' I said. 'I haven't seen one of those since Korea.'
Sadiq smiled noncommittally. I sensed that he was itching for me to be off.
'Is there anything I can do for you, Captain?' I wanted to see how far he'd let me go before he pulled rank on me, or tried to. But outside influences had their say instead.
'Nothing at all, Mister Man…'
His words were drowned as three jets streaked overhead, making us both start. They were flying low, and disappeared to the south. I turned to Sadiq and raised my eyebrows. 'We are quite close to a military airfield,' he said. His attempt at a nonchalant attitude fooled neither of us.
I thanked him and walked away, then turned my head to see him already putting on the earphones again. Maybe he liked hi-fi.
I wanted to relieve myself so I pushed a little way into the bushes by the side of the road. It was quite thick but I came across a sort of channel in the undergrowth and was able to push along quite easily. What bothered me was that it was quite straight. Then I damn near fell down a hole, teetered for a moment on the edge and recovered by catching hold of a branch and running a thorn into my hand. I cursed, then looked at the hole with interest. It had been newly dug and at the bottom there were marks in the soil. The spoil from the hole had been piled up round it and then covered with scrub. If you had to have a hole at all this was one of the more interesting types, one I hadn't seen since I was in the army.
I dropped into it and looked back the way I had come. The channel I had come along was clearly defined right up to the road edge, where it was screened by the lightest of cover, easy to see through from the shady side. Captain Sadiq was clearly on the ball, a real professional. This was a concealed machine gun pit with a prepared field of fire which commanded a half mile length of road. Out of curiosity I drummed up what I had been taught when Uncle Sam tried to make me into a soldier, and figured out where Sadiq would have put his mortars. After a few minutes of plunging about in the scrub I came across the emplacement and stared at it thoughtfully. I didn't know if it was such a good idea because it made out Sadiq to be a textbook soldier, working to the rules. That's all right providing the guys on the other side haven't read the same book.
When I got back to the rig Kemp hailed me with some impatience, shading into curiosity. I was dusty and scratched, and already sweating.
'We're ready to move,' he said. 'Ride along with anyone you like.' Except me, his tone added, and I could hardly blame him. He'd have enough to do without answering questions from visiting firemen.
'Just a minute,' I said. 'Captain Sadiq appears to be cemented to his radio. How long has that been going on?'
Kemp shrugged. 'I don't know – all morning. He does his job and I do mine.'
'Don't you sense that he's uneasy?' I asked with concern. I'd seldom met a man so oblivious to outside events as Kemp. 'By the way, what did you make of those planes?'
'They say there's an airfield somewhere about. Maybe they were just curious about the convoy. Look, Neil, I have to get on. I'll talk to you later.' He waved to Hammond, who drove up in the Land Rover, and they were off in a small cloud of dust. During my absence the rig and most of the rest of the convoy including my car had moved off, so I swung myself on to the chuck wagon and hitched a lift down to where the others were grouped around the approach to the bridge.
The scene was fascinating. Kemp was using only one tractor to take the rig across the bridge and it was already in place. Another tractor had crossed and waited on the far side. The rig was fitted with its airlift skirts and looked rather funny; they seemed to take away the brute masculinity of the thing and gave it the incongruous air of one of those beskirted Greek soldiers you see on guard in Athens. Though no doubt Kemp, who had been outraged by the bunting in Port Luard, saw nothing odd about it. Behind it was the airlift truck to which it was connected by a flexible umbilicus. Through this the air was rammed by four big engines.
If Kemp was nervous he didn't show it. He was telling the crew what they were to do and how they were to do it. He was sparing of words but most of this team had worked with him before and needed little instruction. He put the Irishman, McGrath, in the tractor and Ben Hammond and himself on the rig.
'No-one else on the bridge until we're clear across,' he said. 'And keep that air moving. We don't want to fall down on our bums halfway across.' It brought a slight ripple of amusement.
McGrath revved the tractor engine and there came a roar from the airlift truck as one after another the engines started up. A cloud of dust erupted from beneath the rig as the loose debris was blown aside by the air blast. I knew enough not to expect the rig to become airborne, but it did seem to rise very slightly on its springs as the weight was taken up from the axles and spread evenly.
The noise was tremendous and I saw Kemp with a microphone close to his lips. The tractor moved, at first infinitesimally, so that one wasn't sure that it had moved at all, then a very little faster. McGrath was a superb driver: I doubt that many people could have judged so nicely the exact pressure to put on an accelerator in order to shift a four hundred and thirty-top load so smoothly.
The front wheels of the tractor crossed the bitumen expansion joint which marked the beginning of the bridge proper. Kemp moved quickly from one side of the control cab to the other, looking forwards and backwards to check that the rig and the tractor were in perfect alignment. Behind the rig the air umbilicus lengthened as it was paid out.
I estimated that the rig was moving at most a quarter of a mile an hour; it took about six minutes before the whole length of the combine was entirely supported by the bridge. If you were nervous now was the time to hold your breath. I held mine.