Napoleon's Roads by David Brooks Page A

that fraction further up the wall. And so it happens, and continues to happen, very gradually. At first there is a lot of talk about it and then not much at all. Just nervous watching. Tacit agreement that if there has been no message then it’s as likely to be something organised or approved by the authorities as it is to be something they don’t know about, and so as likely a friendly as an enemy construction, an indication, perhaps, that they’d had their sides wrong all along, that the enemy was in fact on the side they’d thought friendly and vice versa. And there has been no message. In fact, at least while any of these soldiers have been there, there has never been a message. If they requested instructions from Headquarters it would probably be months before they heard, and by then the issue would have resolved itself or gone away. And what would they hear anyway? That they’d had it all wrong and were summoned for court martial? That reinforcements were on the way (when they might have been dead for weeks!)?
    And so they watch. And, when anyone has an idea, engage in cautious, measured resistance. Until they know otherwise, they should treat it as unfriendly, for their own sake if for nothing else. Then, at least, if they are wrong, they might be alive to find out.
    They pour a small vat of boiling oil. Almost half of what they have, and will have to conserve for the rest of the year. But for the time being – the roof rising a little further each week, wooden sides appearing atop the old stone base – it seems a good idea. To pour the boiling oil and then shoot flaming arrows to ignite it, burn the whole thing down. But it rains. They have been so busy with the project that they haven’t noticed the clouds. A few drops at first, with the first of the arrows appearing to catch, and then a steady downpour, the oil seeming to have done nothing but help waterproof the thing (that is part of the problem, what to call it: lean-to? house? tower? thing).
    A mystery. An utter, incomprehensible mystery. Sure that they can solve it, convinced that there must be some explanation, guards on night duty – especially when the moon affords some visibility – spend all night in the shadow of the battlement, watching, listening. And as first light replaces the extinguished moon find the house/lean-to/tower taller, if only by inches. What has happened? Have they fallen asleep? Have their minds wandered? Perhaps the intensity of watching can create its own illusions. When you watch something long enough it can seem to be moving, whether it’s moving or not.
    And then it stops, indisputably, beyond the shadow of doubt. No growth for a few weeks, even months. They watch, forget to watch, remember, watch, each in their own rhythm. Talk about it when they remember, compare notes. Someone thinks that it has grown again and gets the others to look. Sometimes they agree, sometimes not. At other times the growth is clear. How long has it been going on now? A year? A year and a half? And still no message to explain it, still nothing from Headquarters. Indeed it seems, when they think about it, that nothing has ever arrived from Headquarters except orders for replacement followed by the replacements themselves, but the replacements themselves always come from different places and there is no reason to think that someone’s replacement is heralded by anything other than a message, from further down the Wall, that a replacement is on the way. If arrival from Headquarters is the only evidence that Headquarters exists, then there is no real reason to think that Headquarters exists at all, other than that people speak about it, presume that it does.
    This thing, on the other hand, while far less plausible, is here. Its walls, though timber, look very solid, are made of a hardwood that resists the sharpest arrows. Sometimes an arrow sticks for a while, if they’re lucky, but only for a while, always