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Updated: May 29, 2025
There is no eight-hour limit to an engineer's work, and the evening meal with Hitchcock was eaten booted and spurred: over their cigars they listened to the hum of the village as the gangs came up from the river-bed and the lights began to twinkle. "Peroo has gone up the spurs in your dinghy. He's taken a couple of nephews with him, and he's lolling in the stern like a commodore," said Hitchcock.
And the river was still rising. Peroo, in a mat shelter coat, crouched at his feet, watching now his face and now the face of the river, but saying nothing. At last the Lascar rose and floundered through the mud towards the village, but he was careful to leave an ally to watch the boats.
Finlinson Sahib, it darkens for night now, and since yesterday nothing has been eaten. Be wise, Sahib. No man can endure watching and great thinking on an empty belly. Lie down, Sahib. The river will do what the river will do.""The bridge is mine; I cannot leave it." "Wilt thou hold it up with thy hands, then?" said Peroo, laughing. "I was troubled for my boats and sheers before the flood came.
I tell this to the Chota Sahib," he meant Hitchcock "and he laughs." "No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in thine own fashion." The Lascar grinned. "Then it will not be in this way with stonework sunk under water, as the Qyetta was sunk. I like sus-sus-pen-sheen bridges that fly from bank to bank with one big step, like a gang-plank. Then no water can hurt.
"I cast the death at them out of my nostrils, but they would not cease." Peroo would have moved, but the opium lay heavy upon him. "Bah!" he said, spitting. "Here is Sitala herself; Mata the smallpox. Has the Sahib a handkerchief to put over his face?" "Little help! They fed me the corpses for a month, and I flung them out on my sand-bars, but their work went forward.
It was here that Peroo's pipe shrilled loudest, for the first stroke of the big gong had brought the dinghy back at racing speed, and Peroo and his people were stripped to the waist, working for the honour and credit which are better than life. "I knew she would speak," he cried. "I knew, but the telegraph gives us good warning.
Peroo went on as if he were talking to himself. "Six-seven-ten monsoons since, I was watch on the fo'c'sle of the ehwah the Kumpani's big boat-and there was a big tufan; green and black water beating, and I held fast to the life-lines, choking under the waters.
The priest of the Lascara had nothing to do with their caste, or indeed with anything at all. He ate the offerings of his church, and slept and smoked, and slept again "for," said Peroo, who had haled him a thousand miles inland, "he is a very holy man.
"No, Sahib; but he does not come on deck till the work is all finished. Even the Burra Malum of the Nerbudda said once at Tuticorin " "Bah! Go! I am busy." "I, also!" said Peroo, with an unshaken countenance. "May I take the light dinghy now and row along the spurs?" "To hold them with thy hands? They are, I think, sufficiently heavy." "Nay, Sahib. It is thus.
No consideration of family or kin allowed Peroo to keep weak hands or a giddy head on the pay-roll. "My honour is the honour of this bridge," he would say to the about-to-be-dismissed. "What do I care for your honour? Go and work on a steamer. That is all you are fit for."
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