Supply of Heroes by James Carroll

Author:James Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2022-08-27T22:03:49+00:00

At some later point, in the middle of the night, a laden coal barge came down out of the Saar Valley fast. The bargemaster had to maneuver his huge vessel expertly if he was to slide beneath the arches of that bridge without smashing into its buttressed pillars. Kalter Druck—cold pressure—is what they called it, the phenomenon by which a heavy craft slides without friction along a watery decline at an even faster clip than the river current.

He had to stare ahead at the flat prow of his barge from his vantage at the helm high in the stern of the vessel. He was aiming for the dark hole of the center span, darker than the others because it opened on the far distance of the river. He thought he was on course, but as he drew nearer it disoriented him terribly when he could not see the ancient crucifix. By the time his careening vessel had lurched into the fierce whirlpool just above the bridge, where the water blocked by the buttresses ran back against itself, the absence of the cross terrified him. Like his father and grandfather before, he had never passed through the hazard of Trier without reverencing God’s name at the sight of His Holy Son.

This meant the barge was going to hit. The current would throw it sideways into the bridge, and in minutes it would be smashed to pieces and he would be drowned.

For the barest instant he closed his eyes.

The stout rag-and-rope bumpers on the starboard prow of the barge kissed the buttress, but made the channel, sliding home like a ferry into its slip. The bargemaster registered the triumph in his spine, and he let out the traditional yelp—“Holla ho!”—as he soared through the center arch of the bridge.

The cross on the pillar was truly gone, but he doffed his cap and blessed himself anyway, crying, “In Gottes Namen!”

Had he seen the black figure when it leapt onto the pile of coal in the body of the barge before him, he’d have been certain it was God’s Son down from His cross, risen once more from the dead and come at last to punish him for all his sins.

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