banks of the Dandera upstream from the dam- Sapper used these as anchor
points for the heavy cables that he strung across the river. Through the
cables he had rigged a cunning series of pulley blocks. The main cable
was run back and connected to the tow hitch on the front-ender.
Two other cables were laid out, one to each bank, where the Buffaloes
and the Elephants stood ready to handle them- One team was under the
direction of Nicholas, and the other under Mek Nimmur. For this crucial
part of the construction, Mek had come down from the hills to lend a
hand.
The grating of massive treetrunks lay on the river verge, already half
in the water. Heavily weighted with boulders, it was an unwieldy
structure that would require all their combined efforts to manoeuvre
into position.
Sapper slitted his eyes as he studied the layout, and then looked
downstream to the partially completed dam. The two walls of gabions
stretched out from either bank, but the gap in the middle of the river
was twenty feet across and the whole volume of the river roared through
it.
"The one thing we don't want is to let the bleeding plug run away from
us and slam into the ruddy wall," he warned Nicholas and Mek. "Otherwise
we are going to lose a big chunk of what we have done so far. I want to
cuddle her in there, nice and softly, and let her sit snug in the gap.
Any questions? This is your last chance to ask. You all know the
signals."
Sapper took one last drag on his cigarette, and flicked the stub into
the river. Then, looking lugubrious, he said, "Okay, gents. The last one
in the water is a sissy,'
Compared to their men, Nicholas and Mek were overdressed in their khaki
shorts. The others were all stark naked. When the order was given they
trooped waist-deep into the river and took up their stations along the
cables.
Before he followed them into the river, Nicholas took one last look
round. At breakfast that morning Royan had innocently asked to borrow
his binoculars. Now he knew why. She and Tessay were perched up on top
of the slope high above the gorge. Even as Nicholas watched, he saw
Royan pass the binoculars to Tessay. They were not missing a moment of
this fateful operation.
Nicholas looked back from the ridge to the rows of big naked men, pulled
a face and muttered, "My oath, there are some prize specimens around
here. I just hope that Royan isn't making comparisons."
Sapper climbed up on to the yellow tractor, and with a roar and a cloud
of diesel smoke the engine burst into life. He raised one hand above his
head with the fist ji clenched, and Nicholas relayed the order to his
team, "Take the strain."
The foremen repeated it in Amharic, and the men leaned back against the
cables. Sapper threw the tractor into extra low, and eased her forward.
The belly straightened in the lines, the sheave wheels squealed, and the
timber grating slid ponderously down the bank into the river. The
weighted end of the grating sank immediately and bumped along the
bottom, while the lighter end floated ut into midstream, until it was
high. Slowly they hauled it hanging vertically in the water.
The current seized it and began to bear it away, straight at the wall of
gabions. It picked up speed alarmingly. The tractor bellowed and- blew
out clouds of black smoke as Sapper threw her into reverse and backed up
on the cables.
The teams of naked black men heaved and chanted - some of them had
already been dragged in neck-deep as they hauled on the lines.
The grating steadied across the current, and they let it fall away at a
more sedate pace, down towards the open gap in the wall. As it began to
slew towards one bank, Sapper lifted his right arm and windmilled it.
Obediently, Mek's team on the far bank paid out rope and Nicholas's team
on the near bank picked it up. Once again the grating was lined up on
the gap.
"Rock and roll. Close the hole," bellowed Sapper, and now the full
current was too powerful to resist. It dragged both teams into the river
until some of them were in over their heads, losing their hold on the
lines and floundering and swimming. However, those men who still had
their footing managed to slow the rush of the grating just enough to
prevent it smashing out of control into the dam. It settled firmly
across the gap, like a mammoth plug in the outlet of a giant's bathtub,
and instantly the current was cut off.
While the men in the water struggled ashore, their bodies wet and
gleaming in the sunlight, Sapper threw off the cables from his tow hitch
and roared along the bank with the front-ender in its highest gear. As
it passed him, Nicholas grabbed a handhold and swung himself up on to
the footplate behind Sapper's seat.
"Got to shore up now, before the grating bursts," Sapper yelled.
From his vantage point, clinging to the rear of the tall machine,
Nicholas had a moment to assess the Position.
The dam was holding, but only just. Numerous jets of water spurted
through every gap between the grating and the gabions. The pressure of
water against the sheets of PVc in the grating was enormous. It was
taking the full thrust of the river, flexing and bowing before it like a
castle Portcullis attacked with a battering ram.
Sapper picked up one of the gabions that were standing ready on the bank
and drove down into the river bed below the dam. The flow of the water
had shrivelled to a mere knee-deep trickle. jets of water squirted
through every chink in the wall, and the gabions were not impermeable;
ay through the tightly packed stones.
water was finding its was the front-ender churned and lurched over the
rough bed at the back of the wall, Nicholas and Sapper were drenched by
the jets spurting over them. It was like working rove in close behind
the under a cold shower. Sapper straining grating and placed the heavy
gabion against it.
He threw the tractor into reverse and climbed up the bank to pick up
another gabion, Slowly he built up a retaining the gabions in sloping
wall behind the grating, placin s, until this revetment was as strong as
the side piers.
rank Nicholas jumped down from the tractor and left Sapper to it while
he ran back upstream to the canal that the teams had dug at the head of
the valley. Most of the banks of this cutting workers had gathered along
the Nicholas saw both Royan and Tessay in the already, an front row of
the excited crowd.
is way -through to Royan's side, and Nicholas pushed she grabbed his
hand. it's working, Nicky. The dam wall is holding."
Even as they watched they could see the level of the trapped waters
rising up the wall of grating and gabions.
While the men chattered and laughed and urged it on, the river lapped at
the entrance of the canal.
the Fifty men seized their tools and jumped down int bottom of the
canal. Dust flew in clouds as they shovelled the broken earth aside to
lead the first trickle of water into the mouth of the canal. The men on
the banks above them and a thin snake whooped and chanted to encourage
them, of river water found its way into the mouth of the canalTan ahead
of it, The men with the mattocks and shovels it on down the cutting.