Chapter IX: The Deflection in the Member

Three days after the departure of the Illingworth party the young engineer fell ill, very much to his disgust. His indisposition was not serious, but it took the painful, unpleasant, and debilitating form of follicular tonsilitis, which is about the meanest small thing that can lay a strong man low.

The bridge could undoubtedly get along without him, but nevertheless he fretted over the enforced withdrawal from his constant supervision of the work. Indeed in the end he had to pay for that very fretting, for he got up too soon and went out too quickly, and was promptly forced back to bed again as a consequence of his impatience.

Now, after a week's confinement in his cabin, he felt strong enough to venture out again and to attack his problems. They were personal problems now, much more intimate than before, for he was building not only the bridge but weaving in its web of steel his own future happiness.

Of course he had been able to get out on the rough porch of the galvanized iron shack which was his own and which, as has been noted, had been so placed that he had the bridge in full view and all the operations on it, and the day before he had even walked unsteadily down to the river bank, where he had been equally surprised and delighted at the progress that had been made. Abbott was a driver after his own heart. Really things seemed to have gone on just as well without him as if he had been present and, as he phrased it, on the job. He had not been lonely in his illness, for all of the chief men connected with the construction had done their best to beguile the tedium of his hours by visiting him whenever they could spare the time.

Abbott had been especially kind in his somewhat rough-and-ready way. The big construction superintendent was fond of Meade, although he held him in a little--contempt is a harsh word, disdain does not exactly express it, perhaps to say that he undervalued him would be best. Anyway, he regarded him more as a theoretical than a practical man and the inevitable antagonism between the theorist and the practical man, when they are not combined in one personality, was latent in Abbott's heart.

The building of a bridge in Burma was not the work of a practical man according to Abbott's idea. That was almost as ideal and visionary to the hard-headed veteran constructor as building one in the moon. Yet Abbott had a sneaking respect for the younger man, and more than a sneaking liking for him. Nightly, he brought to him details of the progress of the work. That evening, just before leaving, he remarked in the most casual manner in the world, as if it were a matter of little or no importance, that C-10-R was a trifle out of line.

Now C-10-R was the biggest member of the great right-hand truss on the north side of the river. It consisted of four parallel composite webs, each formed of several plates of steel riveted together. These webs were connected across their upper and lower edges by diagonal latticing made of steel angle bars. C-10-R and its parallel companion member, C-10-L, in the left-hand truss, carried the entire weight of the cantilever span to the shoe resting on the pier. These members were sixty feet long and five feet wide. The webs were over four feet deep and in size and responsibility the great struts were the most important of the whole structure.

To say that C-10-R was out of line meant that it had buckled, or bent, or was springing, and had departed from that rigid rectangularity and parallelism which was absolutely necessary to maintain the stability and immobility of the truss and the strength of the bridge. To the theorist nothing on earth could be more terribly portentous than such a statement, if it were true. To the practical man, who, to do him justice, had never dealt with such vast structures--and he was not singular in that because the bridge was unique on account of its size--the deflection noted meant little or nothing.

"Good God!" exclaimed Meade, aflame on the instant with anxious apprehension. The night was warm and he was dressed in his pajamas and had been lying on the bed. As if he had been shocked into action he sat up, forgetful of his weakness. "Deflection!" he fairly shouted at Abbott, who regarded him with half-amused astonishment, "in the principal compression member, a camber in C-10-R?" he continued, using an old technical term for such a deviation from the straight. "Why didn't you tell me?"

By this time Meade had got his feet into his slippers and was standing erect.

"It isn't enough to make any difference," answered Abbott quickly, perhaps a little disdainfully.

"It makes all the difference on earth," cried Meade. "It means the ruin of the bridge."

He reached for his jacket, hanging at the foot of the bed, and dragged it on him.

"Don't worry about it, youngster," said Abbott rather contemptuously, although he meant to be soothing. "I'm going to jack it into line and--here," he cried as Meade bolted out of the door, "you'd better not excite yourself that way. Come back to bed, man, and----"

But Meade was out of the house. It was summer and the sun had set, but the long twilight of the high latitude still lingered. There would be a moon in an hour or two, but none of its light would show for a long time; meanwhile a few of the brighter stars had appeared here and there in the graying light of the evening. Before him rose the gigantic structure of the bridge. For all its airiness it looked as substantial as the Rock of Gibraltar, and it looked even more substantial if possible, as the man, seizing a lantern and forgetting his weakness and everything, ran down beneath the overarching steel to the pierhead, climbed up to the shoe, and crawled out on the lower chord as rapidly as he could.

The genius of the father had been inherited in full measure by the son. Bertram Meade needed but one glance to see the deflection from the right line in the important member. For all his years of inexperience he was a better trained engineer than rough-and-ready Abbott. What appeared to the latter as a slight deflection, Meade saw in its true relation. There was a variation in the center of the member of an inch and a half at least, although unnoticeable to an untrained eye. It had all come in the last week. They had extended the suspended span far out beyond the edge of the cantilever and, with the heavy traveler at the end, the downward pressure on the great lower chord members had greatly increased.

It was a terribly heavy bridge at best. It had to be to sustain so long a span, the longest in the world. And the load, continuous and increasing, had brought about this, to the layman trifling, to the engineer mighty, bend. If it bent that way under that much of a load, what would it do when the whole great span was completed and it had to carry its transitory loads of traffic beside?

Not infrequently man is sensible of the weakness of a plan although he cannot demonstrate it. _Per contra_ man rests confident in a conclusion at which he has arrived, although he cannot set forth the steps to justify it. When two such different views meet it is natural that age, experience, reputation, and authority shall carry the day. Although Bertram Meade, Junior, had never been persuaded in all particulars of the soundness of his father's design, and could not be persuaded, that vast experience, that great reputation, that undoubted ability with its long record of brilliant achievement had at last silenced him. He had accepted through loyalty that which he could not accept in argument. Once accepted, he acted accordingly, heartily seconding and carrying out the wishes of the older and, as the world would say, the abler man.

Now there is something empiric about every great engineering enterprise, but more especially if it presents a new problem. If there were not it would not be great. The work of the engineer in that event would be purely mechanical and devoid of that imaginative touch which always is a part of true greatness. Inevitably new stresses are to be provided for and no man can tell, until by the test of actual experience, whether or not he has absolutely succeeded in taking up that stress. There is no absolute certitude in empiric formulæ, because the whole range of conditions on which they are based is not known or cannot be duplicated by him who applies them.

Finally Meade concluded that, as usual, he had been wrong and the old man right, and he was glad indeed to be able to come to that decision. He was led the more easily and inevitably thereto because of a certain quality that all engineers possess, a habit of mind in which they all share. When the thing itself is before them concretely, especially if it looks to be of sufficient bigness, the invariable tendency of the engineer is to trust it despite previous calculations. It is there, it stands, it is; though it moves not it has a being; and the great monster strut, sixty feet long, seemed to him big enough and rigid enough, if placed on the fulcrum of Archimedes, to hold up and even to move the world.

The thing that smote the engineer hardest, as Abbott spoke, was that this weakness was exactly what he had foreseen and pointed out. It was the possibility of the inability of this great member to carry the stress that young Meade had deduced by using the formula of Schmidt-Chemnitz. It was this point, and this point particularly, that he had dwelt upon with his father and which they had argued to a finish. So strongly had he been impressed with the possible structural weakness of this member that he had put himself on record in writing to his father. The letter he had written had been destroyed, so he had been informed, but he remembered it perfectly. The old man had overborne him and now the little curve, one and a half to one and three-quarter inches in sixty feet, established the accuracy of his unheeded contention.

Although he could find no fault with his calculations he had decided he must have failed in some way, since he could not convince his father; and, in the face of the great experience and ability and the serene confidence of the old engineer, he had finally yielded the point. Had it been anyone else he would never have dropped it. He would have fought it out to the very end. Vainly now he wished he had not let the old habit of affection and the little touch of awe with which he regarded his father persuade him against his reason.

Affection and business never did mingle. Sentiment and science? Yes, they have a relation, but not when it comes to engineering calculations. Now just because he had given in to his father the old man would be ruined. The younger Meade's experience was not great enough to devise ways and means of strengthening the bridge entirely satisfactorily if the deflection continued. Perhaps no one could do that. A large part of it might even have to be taken down. The question would have to be referred to his father at the earliest possible moment, he reflected, as he noted the deflection. And he felt a generous pang of sorrow at the humiliation the older man would certainly feel when his error was proved to him.

Meade realized in a flash that he had been living as it were in a fool's paradise, lulled by his feeling that his father must be right. Other things than professional honor and reputation and material success were involved. When the bridge was completed he was to have for his wife the woman he loved, so the old Colonel had said. When the bridge was completed his father was to retire with this last work as his crown. When the bridge was completed his own career was to begin. Now! Good God! The pang that shot into his heart was almost as great as that which touched him when Helen Illingworth fell with the slipping gusset plate and he only caught her at the last moment.

He stopped, feeling suddenly ill, as a very nervous, high-strung man may feel under the sudden and unexpected physical demand of a great shock. The reaction between mental and physical conditions was immediate and overpowering. He was weak still from the tonsilitis. He leaned against the diagonal at the end of C-10-R, clinging to it tightly to keep from falling, and again that strange fit of trembling he had suffered from on the bridge with Helen Illingworth, for which he cursed himself as a coward, struck him. Abbott, who had followed more slowly, stopped by him, somewhat surprised, somewhat amused, more indignant than both.

"Abbott," said Meade fiercely as the erecting engineer joined him on the pierhead, "if you put another pound of load on that cantilever I will not be answerable for the consequences."

"What do you mean?"

"That deflection is nearly two inches deep now and every ounce or pound of added weight you put upon it will make it greater. Its limit will be reached mighty soon. If it collapses--" he threw up his hands--"the whole thing will go."

"Yes, if it collapses, that's true," said Abbott, "but it won't."

"You're mad," said Meade, taking unfortunately the wrong course with the older man.

"Why, boy," said Abbott, "that bridge will stand as long as creation. Look at it. That buckle doesn't amount to anything. It is only in one truss anyway. The corresponding member in the other truss is perfectly straight."

"Abbott, for God's sake, hear me," pleaded Meade in desperation. "Draw back the traveler and put no more men on the bridge. Stop work until we can get word to----"

"If I thought there was the least danger," said the other man, "I would do what you say, of course, but we are way behind now--weeks behind in spite of my driving. They don't seem to be able to get the stuff to me. There's a big penalty for non-completion of the contract within the limits. I get wires every day urging me on."

"I don't care what you get."

"You heard what the Colonel said last week."

"Yes, I heard, but it makes no difference, the work must stop."

"It can't--and it shan't," cried the other with sudden fierceness.

"Abbott!"

"Don't talk to me, boy. Damn the camber! I know my business. This isn't the first deflection I ever saw, is it?"

"No, of course not."

"Well, I tell you I can jack it back. That member's big enough and strong enough to hold up the world."

"What are you going to jack against?" Meade asked, and for the first time a little of Abbott's contempt appeared in the younger man's voice.

Abbott reflected that there was nothing firm enough to serve as a support for jacks and said rather grudgingly, for it seemed like a concession to the younger and junior engineer:

"Well, I can hook on to the opposite truss and pull it back with turn buckles."

"That will damage the other truss too much, Abbott," Meade retorted promptly. "It isn't possible."

"Then I'll think up some other scheme," returned Abbott indifferently, as if humoring the other. "We can't wait, we've got to hurry it along."

The two men made no special attempt to conceal their feelings. Abbott's indifference had been at first good-humored, but it was fast taking on another character and Meade's insistence and his evident bad opinion of the other man's obstinacy did not tend to make the discussion more amicable, or to convince either that the other was right or even that his opinions should be respected.

"Abbott, I'm just as much interested in finishing the job in a hurry as you are," explained Meade in a last effort to move him, and too late appealing to him more gently. "I--you see--Miss Illingworth, her father said----"

"Oh, you get the girl when the bridge is up?" asked Abbott shrewdly.

"Yes."

"Well, rest easy, son, that will only make me work the harder. I like you in spite of your fool ideas. I'm going to make a record for myself on this bridge. It's the biggest thing in the world. There's going to be no penalty against us on account of me. I won't stop work a minute," he explained patronizingly.

"There will be a bigger penalty if you don't do what I say, and paid in another way, in blood. And it will be your fault."

Now both men were angry and in their passion they confronted each other more resolute and fierce than ever.

"Look here," said Abbott, his fiery temper suddenly breaking from his control, "who are you anyway? You're only a kid engineer. Your father approved of the plan of this bridge. I guess we can afford to bank on his reputation rather than yours."

"Well, he doesn't know of this."

"Nobody is on the bridge now, and nobody is going to be on there until tomorrow morning. Wire him if you like. He'll wire Illingworth down at Martlet and we'll get word what to do."

"You won't put any men at work on the bridge until----"

"Not until tomorrow morning," said Abbott decisively, "if I don't hear from somebody at Martlet tomorrow morning the work goes on."

"But if my father wires you----"

"I take orders from the Martlet Company and no one else," was the short answer with which Abbott turned away in finality, so that the other realized the interview was over.

Meade wasted no more pleas on Abbott. As ill luck would have it something had happened to the telephone and telegraph wires between the city and the camp. After vainly trying to get a connection when he climbed back to the office Meade dressed himself, got a handcar, and was hurried to the nearest town on the railroad's main line. From there he sent a telegram and tried to get connection with New York by telephone, but failed. Moved by a natural impulse, in default of other means of communication, he jumped on the midnight train for New York. He would go himself in person and attend to the grave affair. Nothing whatever could be so important.

There had been some friction between Abbott and Meade before on occasions, not serious, but several times Meade had ventured to suggest something which to Abbott seemed useless and unnecessary, and the fact that subsequent events had more often than not proved Meade's suggestions to be worth while, had not put Abbott in altogether the best mood toward his young colleague. Abbott never forgot that Meade had really no official connection with the building of the bridge, and that he was only there as a special representative of his father, and although he could not help liking the younger man, Abbott would have been better pleased if he had been left alone.

He was too honorable and too competent a man to diverge in any way from the specifications and plans, but in all those matters which are sometimes of great moment and which are of necessity left to the discretion of the erector, he liked to be free to follow his own devices. Consequently he was not predisposed to view any suggestions from Meade with any great degree of cordiality, or to receive what had amounted to a positive command with any especial warmth. As he reflected on the heated debate in his room before he went to sleep he almost blamed himself for what he considered a censurable weakness in having suggested that Colonel Illingworth be bothered by wire with such a trifling proposition. And so obsessed was he by his conviction of the strength of the bridge and his ability to bring back the wavering member to its proper relationship to the other parts of the structure or, if he could not, of the comparative unimportance of the deflection, that after Meade's departure he almost found himself wishing that something would prevent communication between New York and Martlet until he had had a chance to show that he was right.

Meade had not gone about it in the right way to move a man of Abbott's temperament. He realized that as he lay awake on the sleeper speeding to New York. Abbott was a man who could not be driven. He was a tremendous driver himself and naturally he could not take his own medicine. If Meade had received the announcement more quietly and if he had by some subtle suggestion put the idea of danger into Abbott's mind all would have been well, for when he was not blinded by prejudice, or his authority or his ability questioned, Abbott was a sensible man thoroughly to be depended upon. But the news had come to Meade with such suddenness, Abbott had only casually mentioned it at the close of a lengthy conversation regarding the progress of the work as if it were a matter of no especial moment, that the sudden shock had thrown Meade off his balance.

Thereafter he could see nothing but danger and the necessity for action. How he should handle his superior, or rather the bridge's superior, was the last thing in his mind. Aside from his natural pride in his father and in the bridge and his fear that lives would be lost if it failed, unless he could get the men withdrawn, there was the complication of his engagement to Helen Illingworth.

Meade could not close his eyes, he could not sleep a moment on the train. His mind was in a turmoil. Prayers that he would get to his father and the bridge people in time to stop work and prevent loss of life, schemes for taking up the deflection, strengthening the member, and completing the bridge, and fears that he would lose the woman, stayed with him through the night.

He was too filled with anxiety and alarm to be anxious as to whether he was having a relapse or not, but it was a white-faced, bloodshot man in rough field garb--not intending or expecting to come to New York, he had not taken time to dress properly, he had dragged on the clothes at hand in his agitation--who half reeled through the gates of the Grand Central Station that morning while curious people looked at him with interest and amazement.

To add to his misfortune the train had been delayed by a disastrous freight wreck on the line, and was two hours late. Everything was against him. Even the taxicab burst a tire and delayed him further in his progress downtown. It was ten o'clock before he reached his father's office in the Uplift Building, when he should have arrived much earlier. It was with frantic haste that he ran to the elevator and then to the office.