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“Thank you. This is America’s day. I’m going now.”
Concise but correct and then he was on his way again to the train where a strong bronze hand reached down to half lift him into the single coach behind the electric engine. No sooner had his feet touched the step than the train began to move, picking up speed quickly, rattling through the points and rushing at the black opening framed by the proud words, Transatlantic Tu
Gus had no sooner seated himself than that same elevating bronze hand became a bearing hand and produced a bottle of beer which it presented, open and frothing, to him. Since beef and beer are the life-blood of the navvies he had long since accustomed himself to this diet, at any hour of the day and night, so that he now seized the bottle as though he normally broke his fast with this malt beverage, as indeed he had many times, and raised it to his lips. The owner of this same bronze hand had another bottle ready which he also lifted and half drained at a swallow, then sighed with pleasure.
Sapper Cornplanter, of the Oneida tribe of the Iroquois nation, head ganger of the tu
“You’re cutting this whole operation mighty fine, Captain.”
“A conclusion I had reached independently, Sapper. Do you have any reason to think that I won’t make it?”
“Nothing—except the fact that you have no leeway, no fat in the schedule at all in case of the unforeseen and I might remind you that the unforeseen is something tu
“Absolutely not since we need as much time as possible for the setting. Just make sure the equipment is ready so we can get right at it. Now what about my co
“The RAF helicopter is already there, fuelled and standing by. As well as the Wellington in Gander. They will get you through just as long as the Great Spirit showers his blessings, but there is a chance that He will shower more than blessings. There is a weather low out in the Atlantic, force nine winds and snow, moving in the direction of Newfoundland, and it looks like heap big trouble.”
“May I get there first!”
“I’ll drink to that.” And he was as good as his word, producing two more bottles of Sitting Bull beer from the case beneath his seat.
With ever increasing speed the train drove deeper into that black tu
Final it was, for the driver, knowing the urgency, had in his enthusiasm, stopped with his front wheels scant inches from the end of the track. In seconds Washington and Sapper had jumped down and clam-bored into the electric van for the short journey to the workface. Lights whisked by overhead in a blur while up ahead the sealed end of the tu
“Better put these boots on,” Sapper said, handing over a hip-high pair. “It is going to get wetter before it gets drier.”
Washington pulled the boots on they were stopping, and when he jumped down from the van Sapp was already at the unusual device that stood to one side of the tu
“Ready whenever you say, Captain.”
“Fire it.”
When the head ganger pulled down the master switch a thin beam of burning ruby light lashed from the laser and struck high up on the rusted steel panel that sealed the tu
“Stand to one side,” Washington ordered. “The tu
The reality of the experience drowned out the descriptive words as the intense beam of coherent light penetrated the thick steel of the shield and on the instant a jet of water no thicker than a man’s finger shot out, hissing like a hundred demons, as solid as a bar of steel, under such great pressure that it burst straight back down the tu
In the meantime Sapper had not been idle and his beam was now cutting out a circle of metal high‘ up on the top of the shield, a circle that was never completed because the pressure on the other side was so great that the disk of solid steel was bent forward and out to release a column of water that roared deafeningly in their ears as it hurtled by. Now the tu
When the halfway mark was reached Washington got on the phone and radio link to the men at the Grand Banks Station end of the tu
“Open her up,” Washington ordered. “The water is low enough now and everything is holding.”
“Too much for the pumps to handle,” Sapper said as he looked down gloomily at the dark water rising around their ankles, for the water here had to be pumped back eighty miles to the nearest artificial island with a ventilation tower.
“We won’t drown,” was the only answer he received and he twisted his elk’s tooth in the earring as he thought about it. But at the same time he worked the laser until he had driven the opening down to the level of the rising water around them, where the beam spluttered and hissed. Only then did he enlarge the opening‘ so a man could fit through.
“It won’t get any lower for a while,” said Gus, looking at the chill water that reached almost to his waist. “Let us go.”
In a single file they clambered through, with Washington leading, and forced their way against the swirling water beyond. An instant later they were soaked to the skin and in two instants chilled to the bone, yet there was not one mutter of complaint. They shone their bright electric torches about as they walked and the only conversation was technical comment about the state of the tu