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That was the worst part of the life, even worse than the food. No one knew what was happening outside the ranks of the army in which they were serving. The emperor in whose name they were fighting might be dead, the Russians might be in Paris, or the other armies in Spain might have been pushed back to the Pyrenees leaving them isolated here in Portugal. They knew nothing whatever save that they were holding a patch of country twenty miles square from which they would have to wring their food until something- no one knew what- should happen. The building of the bridge was an anodyne for despair, but not a satisfactory one. Old soldiers could not picture the army crossing the river by perilous pontoon bridges while an active and vigilant enemy was ready to fall upon them in the act of passing. And if they should pass, there only lay on the other side of the river the barren plains of southern Portugal. And, if they stayed, they starved. And the only retreat open to them was over the awful mountain roads by which they had come, which was a prospect just as appalling as the other two. The dreadful feeling of helpless isolation demoralized everyone.
There were bitter jests made in the workshops about Godinot's uncle- Dubois had told the others of the relationship. The only route by which a new factor could enter into the situation was from the south, where, two hundred miles away beyond the Tagus, Soult with General Godinot's aid was holding down Andalusia. If he should abandon his principality and march to the Tagus something fresh might happen; most of the men believed that it was in consequence of this possibility that the bridge was being constructed. Every day some jester would ask Godinot if there were any news from his uncle, and when they would have the pleasure of meeting him. In fact, the bridge was alluded to by most of the men as Godinot's uncle's bridge. But Godinot's uncle never came, however often they asked about him.
The construction of the pontoons progressed, nevertheless, in the face of difficulties and discouragement. It was heartbreaking work. Everything had to be botched and makeshift. The knees and ribs of the boats which ought to have grown naturally to shape had to be hacked out of floor joists with badly-tempered saws and axes, which bent like lead when they were incautiously used. Bending the rotten timber into shape for the strakes was a tedious business, which had to be repeated over and over again before a result remotely satisfactory was attained. Nails were truly and literally more precious than gold; they had to be employed with niggling economy and every one had to be accounted for. The gaping seams left open by unavoidable bad workmanship had to be caulked with any odd materials that came to hand. Yet the caulking must be perfect, for when an army of a hundred thousand men with guns and waggons is pouring over a bridge there must be no delay to bail out pontoons. The paint which the experimenters produced was almost useless -when daubed on wood and immersed in watter as a test most of it floated up to the surface in an hour or two. The experimental cordage stretched and snapped and disintegrated. The one problem which was solved to the satisfaction of everyone was that of the anchors- in Portugal there could not be any difficulty in finding a sufficiency of big rocks for that purpose.
As soon as each pontoon- great, lumbering, over-heavy things that they were- was completed, it was brought down to the quay and launched into the river by the slipway Godinot helped to build. Here it swung to moorings while being tested for staunchness and stability; quite two out of three of them demanded further attention before they could be passed as fit to bear a roadway to carry an army. Then they were hauled out and stacked on the quays, alongside the growing mass of roadway material and cables.
The river ran torrentially; it boiled along the quay, and in the prevailing westerly winds its surface was whipped, by the action of the wind against the current, into big, lumpy waves crested with foam. Godinot used to look out across the mass of mad water with gloomy forebodings. A bridge laid across it would bank up the current against itself. If one cable were to break, one anchor to drag, he could picture the whole bridge breaking into fragments and being swept downstream, leaving the army if it were crossing at the time divided into two helpless halves.
Godinot saw more than that when he looked across the river. Already the presence of Portuguese cavalry had been noted on the low, featureless opposite bank. One morning Godinot caught Dubois' arm and pointed. There was a red stripe showing against the neutral grey-green, a stripe which moved steadily across the landscape, up and down the slight undulations, and along its upper edge the stripe was bordered with a rim of flashing steel. There was a brigade of red- coats marching there.
'Englishmen!' said Dubois, staring, while Godinot turned hastily away to report his discovery to the nearest officer.
When he came back he found Dubois still standing on the quay, staring with parted lips at the next development.
There were half a dozen little things like caterpillars on the opposite bank now, and as Godinot reached Dubois' side they all swung round and broke into halves, and there was infinite bustle among the little dots above the water's edge. Then a white puff like a ball of cotton-wool appeared for a second, a sudden fountain of water from the surface of the river just in front of them, and a ca
Then the next ca
There were gaping holes now here and there in the solid walls of the warehouses. A sudden enormous clatter of hoofs a
Massena climbed down from his horse and hobbled stiffly down a side alley to the river. He grabbed Dubois by the arm and made him stand out beyond the corner of the warehouse so that he could rest his ponderous telescope on his shoulder. Godinot watching the expression on Dubois' face could not help but be amused. There was doubtless honour in supporting the telescope of a Prince of the Empire, but it was an honour Dubois could have done well without when it involved standing clear of all cover while a bombardment was going on. Massena gave back his telescope to his aide-de-camp and turned away without a word, and Dubois scuttled gratefully back to Godinot behind the warehouse. It was not long before guns came clashing and clattering into the town and took up position in the alleyways leading to the river and opened fire on the enemy. Downstream they heard other guns take up the chorus. Whoever the British general was across the water, his hopes must far have outrun his judgment if he expected to destroy the French bridges with a single six-pounder horse battery. Soon thirty guns were firing in reply, with all the advantages of concealment and cover. The British battery stood up to a good deal of heavy punishment, but it was more than flesh and blood could stand in the end, and they limbered up and went away.