From the high casement window of the Ferry Museum, Imran Bell tracked the rescue pair through his field glasses, checking the colour of the animal fat-wax heat strips lowered against the stone joints beneath their boots. In his left hand he held an iron speaking trumpet pointed directly across the gulf.
“Corvin! Vane!” Imran’s voice boomed through the trumpet, amplified by the natural acoustics of the gorge. “Look at the stone stand footing! The last ten lantern beetles have just dropped into the water! The stone support is at ninety degrees! You have six minutes before the pier shears its second bedding course! Get the boy and get out!”
Corvin heard the warning through the storm, nodding once without looking back. Six minutes was an eternity in an audit, but on a collapsing stone platform eighty feet above a boiling river, six minutes meant every movement had to be carried out without a single wasted breath. The clock was running.
By 39 minutes past one o’clock—minute 78 and 40 seconds on the brass bridge pocket watch, the physical reality of imran’s beetle tracking data across the gulf was clear as cold mountain runoff carrying coarse gravel scour swirled against the deep gorge abutments. It sent a low rush of tailwater across the warm lentil-soup thermos. It was stationed at Imran Bell [From Museum Gallery Window]. Imran Bell checked the ninety-degree stone stand footing with an animal fat-wax heat strip, verifying that four minutes andforty seconds remained before the second course…
