Chapter 11 — Climbing Through the Storm

Column 49, the last tree before reaching the low-voltage station near the hospital, is a twenty-two meter high centrifugal concrete column, standing on a much harder ground than the previous sand dune area, not tilted, not cracked, just needing to replace a broken piece of wire due to a large tree branch falling on it during the storm.

On the surface, this is the simplest job of the entire day.

"One hour and forty minutes left." Cả Xuyên read his watch, his voice was much more relieved than before. "Once this column is completed, it is considered to have reached its destination." Thắng nodded, checked the belt one last time before climbing up with Vọng, leaving Khánh Thi behind to assist on the ground this time, because she had enough hours at high altitude for one day, and he wanted to preserve her strength for the remaining stages.

They climbed up quickly and skillfully, the concrete pillar certainly did not swing like a field wooden pole, and within ten minutes, the two were in their working position, starting to remove the broken rope and prepare to connect a new one.

The gray cloud that Thắng had noticed earlier, which he had been watching all afternoon with short, unnoticed glances, was now much closer than expected, moving faster than the normal speed of post-storm convective clouds.

"The wind is increasing," Khánh Thi spoke through the radio from the ground, her eyes glued to the measuring device. "Level seven, shock level nine."

"Receive," Thắng replied, still holding the new piece of wire, preparing to pass it through the porcelain beam. "How much longer until it's done, Vọng?"

"Fifteen more minutes," Vọng replied, tightening the connector on the other side.

"Level ten shock," Khánh Thi continued, her voice clearly tense.

A strong wind suddenly came, without warning, different from the steady increase that the measuring device had just recorded, as if a whole stream of air was compressed and then released at the same time. The concrete pillar shook, not much, but enough to make Vọng lose his balance for a moment, forcing him to cling tightly to the pillar.

Thắng, reaching out to thread the last piece of rope through the porcelain beam, his body reflexively tilted to maintain balance, and in that moment, a piece of corrugated iron blown by the wind flew by somewhere, hitting his right forearm hard before falling to the ground.

"Ah!"

A cry of pain burst out of his mouth, short but enough for Khánh Thi and Vọng to hear clearly, and his right hand reflexively jerked back, causing his entire body weight to shift to one side in an instant.

"Mr. Thắng!" Vọng shouted, trying to reach over, but the distance between the two people on the pillar was not close enough for him to reach immediately.

Thắng was able to cling back to the pole with his left hand, but the jerking movement just caused the main hook of the seat belt to slip from its original position, now only the secondary hook was holding him, and in a moment of panic, he realized that his right forearm could no longer move normally, a sharp pain spread from his elbow to his wrist.

"Status report!" Khánh Thi shouted through the walkie-talkie from the ground, her voice shaking but still trying to stay coherent according to what she was taught.

"My right hand was hit by a flying object and I couldn't move it normally," Thắng replied, his voice still trying to stay calm even though his breathing was faster than usual. "The main hook has slipped, now only the secondary hook is holding."

That news made Khánh Thi's heart stop beating for a beat. The auxiliary hook is designed to carry the load in short-term emergency situations, not to hang people for long periods of time, especially in strong wind gusts like the present.

"Mr. Thắng, can you fix the main hook yourself?" Vọng asked, trying to move slowly step by step to get closer without making the situation worse.

Thắng tried lifting his right hand to reach the main hook, which was hovering about thirty centimeters away from its previous position, but the pain running down his forearm prevented him from using enough force, and his right fingers seemed to have completely lost their ability to hold firmly.

"Impossible," he replied, his voice revealing a bit of real tension for the first time that day, no longer the familiar commanding calm. "I can't use force with my right hand. I need my left hand to hold the pole. I can't let go to fix the hook." The wind continued to gust intermittently, irregularly, causing the pillar to vibrate in unpredictable rhythms, and each time it vibrated, Khánh Thi could hear the secondary hook making a small sound, the sound of metal rubbing against metal, like a wordless warning of its limits.

"Level eleven." She read the data, her voice no longer able to hide the panic. "Uncle Thắng, the wind is increasing."

Cả Xuyên, standing next to her, grabbed the walkie-talkie, his voice sharpened into a decisive command that no longer had any of the familiar joking.

"Vọng, you came closest. You directly assisted Thắng in fixing the hook." He ordered. "Khánh Thi, immediately call the dispatch center to report the emergency situation, and prepare a rescue plan from the ground."

"Clear," Khánh Thi replied, her hands were shaking but she still pressed the radio button to change the channel to call the dispatch center. Her voice tried to stay as coherent as possible amid the panic rising in her chest.

"Dispatch center, this is scene column 49, emergency situation," she said, the words came out in the exact pattern she had memorized but never thought she would have to use in real situations. "The construction worker encountered an incident at high altitude. His right hand was injured by a flying object. The main safety rope hook slipped and is currently hanging by the secondary hook. Urgent assistance requested."

"Receive, ambulance and support team are on their way immediately." The voice of the shift leader replied, somewhat panicked but still trying to maintain the correct procedure. "What is the estimated arrival time?"

"Don't know," Khánh Thi replied, her eyes still not leaving the two silhouettes above. "The road here is still flooded, it could take more than twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes. That number hit her like a hammer blow, for none of them believed that the auxiliary hook could endure another twenty minutes in these erratic wind conditions.

On the pole, Vọng moved each step so cautiously that it was painful, his hands holding tightly to each step, his body tilted with each wind to maintain balance, his eyes did not leave Thắng for even a second, because he knew that if he was negligent for just a moment, both of them could be in danger.

"Five meters left." He told himself, his voice mumbling, not sure if it was to reassure himself or not. "Four meters."

Thắng, above, felt the pain in his right forearm spreading more widely, each heartbeat bringing a sharp pain, and he realized something more worrying: his left hand holding the pole was starting to tire, his fingers holding on for more than a minute, much longer than he had ever had to hold it like that in his twenty-two years on the job.

He looked down once, just once, seeing the ground far below, seeing the small figure of Khánh Thi standing next to Cả Xuyên, both of them looking up at him with an expression that from this height he could not read clearly, but he guessed that it was extreme fear.

"Calm," he reminded himself, a reminder that he still taught his students but now had to apply to himself. "I still have one hand, I can still hold on, I still have time."

But he also knew, deep down, that his forty-five-year-old body was no longer as responsive and supple as it had been in his thirties, and that his broken shoulder was now under pressure it had never been designed to endure for this long.

Another gust of wind came, stronger than the previous ones, making the entire pillar vibrate visibly, and the metallic scraping of the auxiliary hook sounded again, this time clearer, longer, like a groan of metal being subjected to a strain beyond what it was calculated to withstand.

On the pole, Vọng had moved closer to Thắng, but the remaining distance was still far enough that he needed at least another half a minute to reach it, and during that half minute, the pole continued to shake under the increasingly erratic gusts of wind, each passing second bringing with it a question no one dared to say out loud: how much longer would the auxiliary hook hold.

"Mr. Thắng, hold on, I'll be there soon," Vọng said, his voice unable to hide the tension even though he tried to sound firm.

Thắng didn't answer, all his remaining concentration was focused on holding his left hand tightly around the pole, his aching right forearm dangling at his side, and below him, twenty meters further, the ground was still littered with debris from the recent storm, waiting in silence.

On the ground, Khánh Thi held the walkie-talkie so tightly that her knuckles turned white, her eyes never left the two small figures above, and in her mind, all the theoretical lessons she had learned suddenly became distant compared to the reality happening before her eyes.