Pierre Boulle - Bridge Over The River Kwai by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

Pierre Boulle - Bridge Over The River Kwai

PART FOUR

A few weeks after Joyce's expedition, Warden followed the same route as the lieutenant and, like him, reached the observation post after an exhausting climb. It was his turn now to lie flat on his face in the ferns and observe the Kwai bridge down below.

Warden was anything but romantic. At first he gave no more than a rapid glance, just sufficient to enable him to recognize with satisfaction the construction that Joyce had depicted and to confirm that it was now complete. There were four partisans with him. He told them he did not need them for the moment. They sat down in their favorite position, lit their water pipes, and watched him quietly get down to work.

He first set up his radio aerial and tuned in to several stations. One of these, an absolute boon in occupied territory, gave him a daily intelligence report on the forthcoming departure of the big convoy which was to inaugurate the Burma-Siam railway. The messages he received were encouraging: the orders still stood.

After that he arranged his sleeping bag and mosquito net as comfortably as possible, carefully laid out the contents of his toilet articles, then did the same for Shears, who was to join him on this hilltop. Warden was a man of foresight, older than Joyce and more levelheaded. He was also more experienced. He knew the jungle from the various expeditions he had been on during his prewar vacations. He knew how highly a white man values his toothbrush at certain times and how much longer he can carry on if properly installed and if fortified by a cup of tea in the morning. If they were hard-pressed after the attack, they would have to jettison these goods and chattels of the civilized world; they would no longer be needed. But they would have helped to keep them fighting fit up to the moment they went into action. Satisfied with his arrangements, he ate some food, slept for three hours, then went back to the observation post and tried to think of the best method of carrying out his mission.

In accordance with Joyce's plan, which, after countless modifications, had been finally adopted by all three of them and on which Number One had now decided to take action, the Force 316 team had split up. Shears, Joyce, and two Siamese volunteers, accompanied by a few porters, had set off in a single file for a point on the river upstream from the bridge, so as to avoid launching the explosives in the vicinity of the camp. They had gone rather far out of their way, making a wide detour to bypass some native settlements. The four men were to move down to the bridge at night in order to prepare the material. (It would be a gross mistake to think that blowing up a bridge is a simple operation.) Joyce was to remain in hiding on the enemy bank and there wait for the train.

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