until some of them were in over their heads, losing their hold on the
lines and floundering and swimming. However, those men who still had
their footing managed to slow the rush of the grating just enough to
prevent it smashing out of control into the dam. It settled firmly
across the gap, like a mammoth plug in the outlet of a giant's bathtub,
and instantly the current was cut off.
While the men in the water struggled ashore, their bodies wet and
gleaming in the sunlight, Sapper threw off the cables from his tow hitch
and roared along the bank with the front-ender in its highest gear. As
it passed him, Nicholas grabbed a handhold and swung himself up on to
the footplate behind Sapper's seat.
'Got to shore up now, before the grating bursts,' Sapper yelled.
From his vantage point, clinging to the rear of the tall machine,
Nicholas had a moment to assess the Position.
The dam was holding, but only just. Numerous jets of water spurted
through every gap between the grating and the gabions. The pressure of
water against the sheets of PVc in the grating was enormous. It was
taking the full thrust of the river, flexing and bowing before it like a
castle Portcullis attacked with a battering ram.
Sapper picked up one of the gabions that were standing ready on the bank
and drove down into the river bed below the dam. The flow of the water
had shrivelled to a mere knee-deep trickle. jets of water squirted
through every chink in the wall, and the gabions were not impermeable;
ay through the tightly packed stones.
water was finding its was the front-ender churned and lurched over the
rough bed at the back of the wall, Nicholas and Sapper were drenched by
the jets spurting over them. It was like working rove in close behind
the under a cold shower. Sapper straining grating and placed the heavy
gabion against it.
He threw the tractor into reverse and climbed up the bank to pick up
another gabion, Slowly he built up a retaining the gabions in sloping
wall behind the grating, placin s, until this revetment was as strong as
the side piers.
rank Nicholas jumped down from the tractor and left Sapper to it while
he ran back upstream to the canal that the teams had dug at the head of
the valley. Most of the banks of this cutting workers had gathered along
the Nicholas saw both Royan and Tessay in the already, an front row of
the excited crowd.
is way -through to Royan's side, and Nicholas pushed she grabbed his
hand. it's working, Nicky. The dam wall is holding.'
Even as they watched they could see the level of the trapped waters
rising up the wall of grating and gabions.
While the men chattered and laughed and urged it on, the river lapped at
the entrance of the canal.
the Fifty men seized their tools and jumped down int bottom of the
canal. Dust flew in clouds as they shovelled the broken earth aside to
lead the first trickle of water into the mouth of the canal. The men on
the banks above them and a thin snake whooped and chanted to encourage
them, of river water found its way into the mouth of the canalTan ahead
