"A question you've often asked yourself?" Shears had repeated, looking at him closely.
"Yes, sir, really. And I must admit, it's worried me quite a lot. I've tried to imagine myself "
"And what was the answer?"
Joyce had hesitated, but only for a second.
"Speaking quite frankly, sir, I don't think I'd disappoint you if it ever came to the point. I don't honestly. But I couldn't say for certain. I'd do my very best, sir."
"You've never had a chance of using one of these in anger, is that it?"
"That's it, sir. My job never called for that sort of thing," Joyce had replied, as though offering an apology.
He seemed to be so genuinely sorry about it that Shears could not help smiling. Warden had immediately joined the conversation:
"I say, Shears, this chap seems to think that my old job, for instance, is a special qualification for this sort of work. A professor of Oriental languages! And what about you—a cavalry officer!"
"I didn't mean that exactly, sir," Joyce had stammered in his embarrassment.
"Ours is the only firm I know," Shears had philosophically concluded, "in which you'd find, as you say, an Oxford graduate and an ex-cavalryman doing this particular sort of work— so why not an industrial designer as well?"
"Take him," was all the Warden said when asked for his advice as soon as the interview was over. Shears had done so. Thinking it over, he had been fairly pleased with the candidate's answers. He was just as suspicious of men who overestimated themselves as of those who underestimated. The sort he liked were those who were capable of distinguishing the tricky part of a mission in advance, who had sufficient foresight to prepare for it, and enough imagination to see it quite clearly in their mind's eye—so long as they did not let it become an obsession. So from the start he had been satisfied with his team. As for Warden, he had known him for a long time and knew exactly how far he was "capable."
They pored over the map for some time, while Joyce pointed out the bridges and described the particular features of each. Shears and Warden listened carefully with curiously tense expressions, although they already knew the hopeful officer's report by heart. Bridges always provoked a passionate interest in every member of the Plastic and Destructions Co., an interest of an almost mystical nature.
"These are just footbridges you're describing, Joyce," said Shears. "Don't forget, we want a really worth-while target."
"I only mentioned them, sir, in order to refresh my memory. As far as I can see, there are only three worth bothering about."
Every bridge was not equally attractive to Force 316. Number One agreed with Colonel Green that they should not put the Japs on their guard before the railway was completed by attacking relatively unimportant targets. He had therefore decided that the team should lie low in the hide-out for the time being and do no more than collate and co-ordinate the information of the native agents.
"It would be silly to spoil the whole show by blowing up a few trucks just for the fun of the thing," he would sometimes say in order to curb his companions' impatience. "We want to start off in a really big way. That will enhance our reputation in the country and make the Siamese look up to
us. Let's wait till the trains start running."
Since his firm intention was to start of! "in a big way," it was clear that the less important bridges had to be excluded. The result of the initial blow was to compensate for the long period of inactivity and preparation and to endow the mission, in his own eyes at least, with an aura of success, even if circumstances dictated that nothing else should come of it. Shears knew that one could never be certain of a first attack being followed up by a second. He kept this to himself, but his two companions had realized the reasons for his plan, and the discovery of this ulterior motive had not worried ex-professor Warden, whose rational mind approved of such methods of seeing and foreseeing.
It had not seemed to worry Joyce either, nor had it dampened the enthusiasm he had felt at the prospect of a worth-while attack. On the contrary, it seemed to have spurred him on to greater efforts and made him concentrate all his youthful powers on this probably unique opportunity, on this unhoped-for target suddenly flashing in front of him like a lighthouse, casting its brilliant beams of success onto the past for all eternity, lighting up with its magic flames the gray gloom which had so far dimmed his path.
"Joyce is right," said Warden, as sparing as ever in his speech. "There are only three worth-while bridges. One of them is Camp Three's."
"We'll have to give that one up, I'm afraid," said Shears. "The open ground doesn't lend itself to attack. Apart from that, it's in flat country. The banks are low. It would be too easy to repair."
"The other one's near Camp Ten."
"It's worth considering. But it happens to be in Burma, where we haven't the support of the native partisans. Besides . . ."
"The third one, sir," Joyce suddenly said, without realizing he was butting in on his C.O.'s conversation, "the third one's the bridge on the River Kwai. It hasn't any of those drawbacks. The river's four hundred feet across, with steep, high banks on both sides. It's only two or three days' march from here. The area's practically uninhabited and covered in jungle. We could approach it without being observed and command it from a hill from which the whole valley's visible. It's a long way from the nearest large town. The Japs are taking special care over its construction. It's bigger than all the other bridges and has four rows of piles. It's the most important job on the whole line, and the best-placed one."
"You seem to have studied the agents' reports pretty thoroughly," observed Shears.
"They're quite clear, sir. It seems to me that this bridge . . ."
"I can see that the Kwai bridge is worth considering," said Shears, as he leaned over the map. "Your judgment's not so dusty for a beginner. Colonel Green and I had already noted that particular crossing. But our information's not yet sufficiently complete; and there may be other bridges which could be more easily attacked. And how far has the work progressed on this wonderful bridge, Joyce, which you talk of as though you had actually seen it?"
13
The work was well under way. The British soldier is by nature hard-working and puts up with strict discipline without a murmur, provided he has confidence in his officers and starts the day off with the prospect of unlimited physical exercise to counteract any nervous tension.