barges, I can use almost all of them for pontoons.'
He smiled, remembering the look of relief on Basil's face when the supply barges which had arrived the day before proved to be carrying an ample supply of gunpowder to refurbish his rocket force. Refurbish it-and more. New stocks of rockets had also arrived, along with three more katyushas and the crews to man them.
Belisarius glanced toward the west. The sun was almost touching the horizon. He decided there wouldn't be enough daylight to position another pontoon, and he didn't want to risk his men's lives in a night operation unless it was critical. For all the relaxed ease with which his soldiers went about their task, it was dangerous work.
So he leaned over the rail and shouted the order to quit for the day. His squad commanders, familiar with their general's attitudes, were obviously anticipating the order. The oncoming barge was gently grounded on the riverbank, where it could be easily pushed off the next morning.
On the third day, Belisarius shifted his operations to the other side of the river, where a similar command tower had been erected. While Maurice oversaw the work on the left bank, Belisarius started the process of extending a line of pontoons from the west.
By the fifth day, the operation was in full swing. The Euphrates, at that point, was a shallow but very broad river-almost a mile wide. Sinking twenty to twenty-five pontoons a day, the Roman engineers were building their dam at the rate which would, theoretically, bridge the river within a fortnight.
Of course, the rate at which the pontoons were sunk began slowing. As the dam took shape, the current became faster. And, what was worse, turbulent.
Two men were killed on the eighth day. After knocking loose the scuttling pins, they failed to emerge from the hold quickly enough. What happened? No-one knew, or ever would. Probably one of them had slipped, and the other had gone to his aid. But there was no time, now, for anything but haste. The river which poured into the settling hull was not the sluggish stream it had been. The water hammered into the barge and drove it down like a pile driver. Days later, one of the bodies floated loose and was salvaged downstream.
By the end of the second week, the Euphrates was a snarling beast. As the Roman engineers extended the two lines of pontoons closer and closer to each other, the center of the river became a thundering torrent of water. The rest was not much better. As the water level rose behind the dam, the entire Euphrates became a cataract, pouring over the line of pontoons all across its width.
Casualties were now occurring daily-a matter of broken limbs and crushed fingers, for the most part, but there were fatalities also. On the twelfth day, the entire crew of a pontoon perished when they lost control of the barge just at the point when they were preparing to scuttle it. The heavily weighted craft was swept into the narrow channel in the center of the river. Before it was halfway through, the barge disintegrated, spilling its men into the torrent. Most of them were dead by the time their bodies were recovered. One man survived for half a day, his skull shattered and pulpy, before he finally expired.
The Roman troops had the worst of it, since they were doing the most dangerous part of the job, but those were not happy days for the Kushans either. Behind the Roman engineers extending the pontoons, the Kushans were set to work building the dam higher. Using their own barges, the captives hauled baskets full of stones and dropped them onto the submerged pontoons. The current piled the heavy baskets up against the wicker 'sails.' The strain on those sunken masts and spars would probably have broken some of them, except that the Romans had lashed the masts together as they extended the line of pontoons.
Most of the Kushans, however, were engaged elsewhere. The stones used to bolster the dam had to be hauled out of the surrounding landscape. Fortunately, there were many stones to be found within a mile of the river. Mesopotamia had been farmed for millennia, but the topsoil was constantly being blown away and annual plowing brought up another layer of stones. These stones, as the centuries passed, were piled at the center or edges of fields. So there was no lack of stones, and none of them had to be dug up out of the soil. But it was still hard work for the Kushans, loading sledges and dragging them to the river.
At first, the Kushans were disgruntled.
As the days passed, however, the Kushans began to realize that the cretin Roman general apparently had other plans for those stones. What those plans were, the Kushans did not know. They were no longer permitted in the vicinity of the Nehar Malka. But, from a distance, they could catch glimpses of Roman engineers working around the enormous mound of rocks which the Kushans had piled on the north bank of the Nehar Malka. Digging tunnels, so it appeared. And they noted that the men involved in that work were the same Romans who manned the rocket chariots. Gunpowder experts.
The betting among the Kushan captives intensified.
Kurush and his Persian soldiers were not involved in any of this work. Theirs was the task of ensuring the work-site's security. Every day, Kurush and his ten thousand Persian cavalrymen patrolled the region, extending their skirmishers to a distance of thirty miles in every direction. Abbu and the Arab scouts accompanied them in this work, as did a small number of the Roman troops. On a rotating basis, two battalions of Belisarius' soldiers-one cavalry, one infantry-were assigned each day to assist the Persians. In truth, the assignment was more in the way of a relief than anything else. After the back-breaking and risky work of building the dam, every Roman soldier looked forward to a day spent in a leisurely march.
Finally, on the nineteenth day, the last pontoon was maneuvered into place and scuttled. The Romans took four days well-deserved rest, while the Kushans finished the job of bolstering the pontoons with baskets of stones.
It was done. Twenty-three days' work had turned that strip of the Euphrates into a waterfall. A low waterfall, to be sure. But it was impressive, nonetheless.
The Roman troops and the Kushan captives spent the twenty-fourth day in a cheerful celebration, lining the banks and getting drunk while they admired the raging cataract which they had built. At Belisarius' order, the wine ration was very generous-as much for the Kushans as the Romans. A Malwa officer, had there been one present to notice, would have been outraged at the free and easy fraternization between captives and captors.
Belisarius and his top officers, however, did not join in the revelry. They spent that entire day in the general's command tent. The first two hours of that day were taken up with Belisarius' immediate plans.
The rest was given to awe, and mystery, and wonder.
As he had promised Basil, Belisarius brought his entire command into the secret. He told them the secret, first, using his own words. Then, when he was done, brought forth the Talisman of God.
Aide was prepared. The coruscating colors which filled the command tent were so dazzling that they caused the leather walls to glow.
Roman soldiers who saw, from outside the tent, whispered among themselves.
So why shouldn't his tent glow in daylight?
Kushans also noticed, and discussed the matter. Here, the opinion was unanimous.
The wagering became feverish.
When evening fell, Belisarius' officers filed quietly out of his tent. None of them said a word, except Agathias. As the commander of the Greek cataphracts passed by Belisarius, he whispered: 'We will not fail you, general. This I swear.'
Belisarius inclined his head. A moment later, only Maurice was left in the tent.
'When?' asked the Thracian chiliarch.
'How soon can you reach Babylon? A week?'
'Be serious,' growled Maurice. 'Do I look like a pewling babe?'
Belisarius smiled.
'Four days,' grunted Maurice. 'Three to get there, and a day for Khusrau to make ready.'
'Five days,' countered Belisarius. 'Khusrau should be ready, but an extra day may help. Besides, you never know-you might fall off your horse.'
Maurice disdained any reply.
