Timber transported by river

Timber transported by river becomes the test of a summer’s work and of Trond’s changing understanding of his father. The logs are carefully prepared for a downstream run to Sweden, but the dramatic launch is only a partial success: falling water and the river’s obstructions later leave most of the timber stranded, with only a fraction reaching the sawmill in time. The contrast between the men’s exhilaration at the bank and the meagre return makes the river’s force, and the limits of their plans, impossible to ignore.

Purpose and Preparation

The timber is stacked in two piles beside the river, ready for a journey downstream. Trond’s father cannot leave it alone. In the evenings he returns to inspect the piles, testing their angle and distance from the water and calculating whether the trunks will clear the way. The narrator recognizes that the logs seem certain to slide into the river, and suspects his father knows this too; still, he checks again. Sometimes he presses his nose to the stripped timber, where resin shines on the bare wood, and breathes in its smell. His attention makes the timber more than a finished task awaiting dispatch: it is something he must repeatedly examine, even though the practical need for these checks is unclear to Trond.

After two days of heavy rain, Trond’s father visits Franz and stays a long time. On his return, he tells Trond that they will take a chance the next day and send the timber downriver. His impatience has become unmistakable. The prospect of leaving the work unfinished weighs on him, and he wants the logs on their way rather than waiting for a more certain opportunity.

The next morning, the three set out carrying tools from the workshop. Trond takes a pike pole and a coil of rope; his father carries another pike pole, two axes, and a sheath knife; Franz brings a crowbar and a newly sharpened saw. The workshop’s order is part of the preparation: tools are maintained, oiled, and kept in appointed places, ready for use. By the time they reach the bank, the river is running high after the rain. Trond, however, is hobbling on one leg and feels worn down, a weakness that contrasts with the bright, energetic scene around him.

Releasing the Logs

The first pile is held against two strong upright bars, braced by slanting logs driven into the ground. The plan is to pull away those supports so the bars fall forward and the timber slides over them and into the water. Trond’s father and Franz inspect the arrangement, then clear gravel and stones from the ends of the slanting logs. Each man ties a rope around a log and moves to the side, away from the expected path of the timber.

Franz explains that he has never succeeded in sending all the timber into the water in a single release. Such a result would require an unusually suitable slope, great weight, strong supports, and luck; the method is risky. The two men tighten their ropes, brace their heels, and pull together at a shouted countdown. Nothing moves. They try again with all their strength, but the bars remain fixed. The failure makes the construction’s resistance plain: a plan that looks simple from the outside depends on forces that will not yield to a single pull.

They change tactics and take up their axes, striking together at the supports. Trond notices that the men enjoy working in rhythm. Franz laughs; Trond’s father smiles. For Trond, their ease sharpens the ache of his own isolation: he longs for a friend with whom he could work and laugh, while the one possible friend has disappeared. His father is present, but Trond now thinks of him as a man with a secret life beyond the one his son knows, and wonders whether he can still trust him.

As the blows quicken, a support creaks. Trond’s father warns the others to run, and he and Franz throw themselves clear. The stays break; the bars fall forward as intended, and at least half the pile rushes down toward the river. The logs sound like heavy bells as they strike and tumble, throwing up spray in a chaotic burst. The release is both dangerous and thrilling, and Trond is glad to witness it.

Work on the River

The first release does not clear the whole pile. The three men use pike poles to haul, push, and roll the remaining trunks; when logs jam, they pry them apart with the crowbar or pull them free with ropes. Two men at a time guide each trunk into the river. One by one, the logs splash down and drift calmly away on the current, headed for Sweden. The slow, physical work follows the violent spectacle of the release, converting a moment of apparent triumph into a sustained effort to get the timber moving.

Trond’s body does not give him the strength he hopes for. He grows tired rather than energized, concentrating on each task so the others will not notice how drained he feels. His knee hurts, and he is relieved when his father calls a break. Most of the timber from the first pile has been launched, but a second pile remains. Trond goes to the memorial cross on a pine tree, erected by Franz on a winter night in 1944 for a man from Oslo killed there by German bullets. He lies beneath the cross, resting his head against a root, and falls asleep. The timber operation thus unfolds beside a marker of an earlier death, while Trond’s exhaustion interrupts his participation in the work.

Failure and Aftermath

The launches do not guarantee delivery. When Trond is fifteen, he learns that the account yielded only 150 Swedish kroner. Franz had never hidden that log running was not usually done in the desperate way Trond’s father wanted. He joined the undertaking because he and Trond’s father were friends, and because he understood his friend’s desperation. The exact reason for that desperation is not disclosed in this account, but the contrast between it and the poor return is stark.

The river’s conditions undo the plan after the logs enter the water. As the rain-swollen current falls rapidly toward its normal July level, the timber crashes, turns over, and gathers into huge tangles that can only be loosened with dynamite. Some logs bore into stony banks; others sink in the shallow water without moving. Only a tenth reaches the sawmill before it is too late, and the reported proceeds are no more than 150 Swedish kroner. The river is not merely the route the men have chosen: its changing level and obstructed banks determine which parts of their carefully prepared cargo can travel at all.

The work therefore ends in a sharp reversal. At the riverbank, the logs’ plunge seems to promise success; afterward, the same timber becomes stranded, tangled, or submerged, and the payment exposes the project’s poor outcome. For Trond, the episode also places his father’s impatience and Franz’s loyalty beside the uncertainty of the enterprise: skill and effort can set the logs moving, but neither can secure their passage or control what the river leaves behind.