May 22, 1915 
LAND AND WATER 
A GLIMPSE OF WAR 
THE BRIDGE 
By W. L. GEORGE 
PRIVATE BRADDEN was conscious of haste and 
grievance. With three other Stourshires, he knelt 
upon the soft, sweet-smelling bank, clumsUy nailing 
on the driven pegs the boards to make the platfonp. 
All about him was a crowd that seemed without 
order or purpose, for the Stourshires were not practical 
engineers and, rather hke locusts, swarmed clumsily about the 
bridging train which the R.E.'s had left behind, going off 
with their bigger pieces to build the main bridge for the 
artillery a little further up stream ; they had left to the 
despised infantr3mien the rough bridge that was to carry the 
ammunition carts. As Private Bradden banged down the 
boards, and hit his thumb, and swore, he observed the vast 
litter made round him, of beams for trestUng, of short pieces 
marked with a mysterious " T," rolled lengths of rope, and of 
incomprehensible thin lathes which poured out of the waggons 
when their shdes were pulled down. The Stourshires were 
furious because they were left in support and on menial en- 
gineers' work, with their puzzled officers who anxiously helped 
their memories of bridge-building with little pink books. 
" Ain't no job for a man," he repeated from time to time, 
gloomily. Then two boards ingeniously nipped his knee. 
He swore at everything in general. 
The Stourshires were paying the penalty of victory, for 
quite unexpectedly their division had rushed the third Une 
of the German position and now, far beyond the little river, 
Private Bradden could hear the steady crackle of rifle fire. 
From time to time he heard above his head the squeal of 
shrapnel, bound for the fighting lines three mUes ahead. 
" And we here ! " he thought, angrily, " messing about on the 
other side of fifty feet of mud ! " He was unjust, for the 
unexpected victory demanded a supply of ammunition, and 
a hint of the need for the bridge was to be found in the motor 
field-kitchen which, three yards off, had stuck in the mud over 
the axles, impotent, its fires out. 
He went on naihng. The platform was nearly done. 
And those blighters not ready with the trestles ! Ah ! There 
they were : from the confused crowd upon the bank came at 
last six men, carrying the first transom lashed to its supports, 
the lieutenant following proudly his work of art. Then he 
was in the river : quite suddenly as the water ceased below his 
knees, so shallow was it, and as he felt the suck of liquid mud, 
Private Bradden understood and was ashamed. The beam 
was in his arms ; more than heavy, it felt bulky, a gigantic 
thing under which he staggered with his pal, shoulder against 
shoulder, their faces hot and sweating, their legs already cold 
and sticky with ooze. There was a swaying in this big thing 
he carried that was hard against his cheek. And yet he 
staggered on a foot or two, breathless, just able to gasp, 
" Yes sir," in reply to orders. The base of the supports 
seemed held in the mud as in glue ; it was in glue he struggled, 
desperately kicking with his feet to find something to shove 
against, and somehow, it seemed, sinking deeper with the 
mud rising higher, freezing him up to the waist. He knew 
only then that he must cUng and cUng blindly to this trestle. 
He felt hasty hands above, tugging it into place. And 
then, as he stood so fixed, thinking of nothing, holding 
only, no longer a man but ^ swaying, Ump vice, he felt them 
nail the road bearers into place, between trestle and platform. 
He could only hold, not think, for every blow of the hammer 
went through the beam into his body, jarred his head. It 
seemed to last a very long time. Little objects distracted 
him, a half-company of A.S.C., deserting their waggons and 
floundering through the mud, carrying upon their shoulders 
smaU cases of cartridges. He saw a husscir smothered in 
bandoliers. The horseman fell, rose agciin, hke a pillar of 
grey sUme. They could not wait for the bridge, then, and 
suddenly Private Bradden felt proud of what he did. 
" This'U save 'em a wetting," he thought. 
The shells still passed over his head and it seemed to him 
in his dvflness that the sound was more distant, as if the British 
line were driving on. It comforted him, this sound, and yet 
it angered him to think that it should so swiftly draw away. 
With enormous efforts, as if tearing himself from a 
grave, he hauled himself out of the mud, climbed up the 
trestle, half sick with the struggle, his legs all clogged and 
sticky with slush, but at once he was nailing on the road 
bearers. His limbs trembled, he was exhausted by the 
powerful clinging of the river's miry hands. As he nailed 
and cast the road bearers towards the next trestle, he could 
see the water between the lathes, grey and slow, malignant, 
as if it watched and regretted not having sucked him under. 
All about him was still the fever of haste, men at the head of 
the bridge, throwing out the road bearers, men below his feet 
securing the trestles by driving supports round their base, 
men in front of him, half in water, half in air, driving the 
further wooden outpost into the mud with heavy, clumsy blows. 
The bridge was growing, it was magical. Now four 
trestles were lashed and bore the road, while the chesses 
were already laid across the first twelve feet. And yet it 
was not fast enough, so greedy a mouth was there at the other 
end, clamouring for cartridges. An endless line of the A.S.C. 
floundered into the water, clumsy as it fell, with its Uttle 
bundles of ammunition. A little further up stream he could 
see the North Wessex, unable to wait, hurling itself into the 
water, half-swimming, half-waUowing, and, it looked, drowning 
a httle. . . . 
Head down to the bridge he nailed the chesses into place, 
httle lathes that seemed too thin to bear a cart, he nailed 
urgently, silent now when he struck his hand, like a punching 
machine rather than a man. A voice next to him said : 
" One of their airyplanes." 
Private Bradden did not look up, though mixed in with 
the distant firing he now heard the rattle round him of hundreds 
of rifles and the scurr5ang barks of the machine-guns. He 
knew what it meant if the observer was not brought down, 
and still went on naihng, by instinct rather than will. He 
was conscious of an officer by his side, by his leggings only, 
impatient leggings that stamped with eagerness, as if afraid 
the bridge would never be built. There was fever in all their 
bloods. On the bank he could hear quarrels among the 
transport men, as waggon after waggon arrived at the river- 
side and the horses backed away from the water, guessing the 
mud, refusing with lowered ears. Then came the first sheU. 
Ah ! So they had not brought that aeroplane down. Private 
Bradden put out a hand behind him, seized a road bearer, 
and flung it out towards the next trestle where another hand 
caught it. A shell burst in the water a few yards off. It 
was pretty, like the waterspout in the pond in Municipal 
Park. Private Bradden thought swiftly of the nursemaids 
in Municipcil Park at Stourton, so far away. A shell feU ahead 
upon the bank ; he saw the mud fly hke a wet brown leaf. 
He worked faster now. Behind him he heard a gurgle and a 
groan, something fall into the water heavily. " One gone," 
he thought, and struck in a nail. Then for a second he stopped 
as, very slowly, under his eyes, through the slit between two 
chesses, he saw one of the Stourshires floating past, greeny- 
white under the water, with a zone of pinkish water 
round his peaceful face. Nail . . . hit, hit . . . nail, wipe 
the sweat from your eye and hit again. He thought only of 
that though now the shrapnel feU thicker. He could hear it 
squeal, then burst in an exultant roar. . . he heard it spit as, 
here and there, a buUet chipped the wood. Though he could 
not see it he guessed the transport upon the bank waiting for 
him. Private Bradden, organiser of its victory, to finish its 
bridge. 
On the other bank, men helding out their hands to him 
in appeal, men got into his way, they shoved, their faces were 
hot, their hmbs felt heavy and wet with gluey mud. He 
turned to leave the bridge. Already it was pitted everywhere 
with bullets. He laughed ; it was as if the wood had had 
smallpox. He ran back along the bridge, the others behind 
him. In the river were half a dozen bodies that had fallen 
in, head first, and stuck in the mud oddly, their feet in the air. 
One leg was kicking feebly. Private Bradden bent down 
across the trestle, half in the water, to draw the man out. 
Above the sound of the shrapnel he heard the rumbling 
of the waggons as the first two flung themselves on the bridge, 
so fast as they dared, towards the safety of the other bank. 
Everything seemed to shake round him, the lapping water, 
the writhing hmb he clasped, the sodden timbers to which he 
clung with one hand and both feet. He heard curses, and 
blood rushed into his lowered head, dimming his eyes. Then 
something struck his feet and he fell into the water on the top 
of the creature that struggled so feebly. It was crowded and 
crushing in the water, for things fell all about him, large things 
that plunged and struggled, beasts that screamed. His hand 
touched a horse, and he felt it grow warm and wet For a 
moment he was living in a world where all was heavy and wet. 
When at last he half-stood, half-knelt, in the stream 
that flowed on unruffled, with its burden of mud and blood, 
he saw just beyond the place where the waggon had fallen, 
with its horses plunging and half-drowning, the place where he 
had stood upon the bridge as he leant down, blown away by 
an explosive sheU as if it had been cut out with a knife by a 
gigantic hand. 
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