them to the main wire which I will lay. Any questions?’
‘What if a car comes along?’ Victor asked.
‘Kebowa and Mohesiwa will watch from the rise. If they see anything one of them will come and warn us. We’ll have plenty of time. Anything else? Okay. Let’s go.’
The men began preparing the claymores.
‘What can I do?’ Louisa asked.
‘You’re going to be my gofer.’
‘Your what?’
‘My go-for-this, go-for-that.’
‘Oh. I see.’
When all was ready the men divided up the mines between them, hanging the canvas bags over their shoulders. Victor handed the twine to Louisa.
Stratton paused on the edge of the rise to observe the general area for a moment. They all stood silently watching and listening, allowing their senses to acclimatise to the sights and sounds of the landscape.
Stratton set off and they headed down the slope to the edge of the river, which was as wide as a main road. Bernard was first in after declaring that it was not deep and he went to the middle, where it reached his waist. They walked out on the other side, the road now a stone’s throw away, and Stratton followed the river bank around a sharp bend where it went beneath the bridge.
They paused to observe the decades-old large iron structure. It was a truss construction, a skeletal design made up of straight girders formed into triangular frames and riveted together. The sides were high enough to allow a lorry to pass beneath where the cross-beams joined over the top.
‘Give us your mines,’ Stratton said to Victor. ‘Tie off the end of the cable at the left base of the bridge. Allow enough to reach the top of the bridge. Then run it back through the river to where we crossed and on back to the mound.’
Victor shared his mines out between the others, including Louisa, and hurried to the base of the bridge with the wire spool.
Stratton led them up the steep bank onto the road. The tarmac came to a ragged stop where it met the bridge’s grid-metal road surface. ‘Put all the mines here,’ he said, pointing down. ‘Bernard. Up you go to the top.’
Bernard started to climb up one of the bridge’s girders. Stratton took a slow walk across the bridge, examining the top and sides as he went. Louisa and David watched him until he was almost at the far end, nearly out of sight in the darkness.
‘You nervous?’ she asked David.
‘Not right now. But I think I will be later.’
‘I’m nervous now. I’ll be exhausted later.’
David smiled at her and went back to watching Stratton. ‘He’s a good man, Stratton, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah, I think he’s a good man.’
Stratton made his way back, inspecting the cross-bars above. ‘David. Climb up. I’ll pass the mines to you and you pass them to Bernard.’
David scurried up. Stratton climbed behind him but stopped only a couple of metres above the road. He stretched a hand down to Louisa. ‘Hand me one mine at a time. Stop when you get to ten.’
She passed him one of the bags. Stratton handed it to David who hefted it up to Bernard who was lying on his belly on top of the bridge.
‘That’s it,’ she said when she had reached ten.
‘The wire and then the twine,’ Stratton said.
Louisa gave them to him.
‘Shall I come up?’ she asked.
‘No. I might need you down there,’ Stratton replied as he climbed up to join the others.
The three men stood up carefully on the top span that ran the length of the bridge. It would have been wide enough to walk on comfortably if it had been lying on the ground but it was unnervingly narrow so high up.
Stratton walked along it to examine the cross-struts and check his calculations. Louisa followed below, hardly taking her stare off him. The long spans that ran parallel with the road were connected by ten cross-struts.
‘One mine under each strut pointing down at the road,’ he called out from halfway along.
‘In the centre?’ David asked.
‘Yes. Let’s do the first one and see how it goes.’ David knelt down and stretched out along the top of the cross-strut, which was narrower than the main spans. Bernard removed a mine from its bag, straightened the ends of the detonator wires and handed it to him. A length of twine followed and when the mine was secured David tied the ends of the detonator wires on top of the strut in readiness for the main wire.