The southern comms trench of Iron Trench Outpost had been cleared of flooded stone retaining wall debris, drained by hand-cranked bilge pumps, and transformed into a fifty-meter covered tunnel of high-pressure steam.
Arthur Vance stood at the intake pipe hub of the central locomotive boiler, a heavy brass wrench in his gloved hand. Around him, thirty commoner infantrymen from the Fourth Battalion worked with feverish, disciplined intensity. They secured iron piping with hemp rubber rings, sealed joint collars with animal fat and ash, and hauled heavy wooden barrels of buffered bitter-salt solution up the wooden walkway planks.
“Pressure gauge reading four sea-weights on the backup steam line, Arthur!” Sergeant Corvo shouted over the ear-splitting hiss of escaping vapor. Corvo’s left arm was free of its sling now. The razor-sharp clean cut on his forearm was neatly closed, dry. Then he protected by clean linen beneath his wool sleeve. “The water from the lower drilled shaft has been filtered through three feet of crushed limestone gravel. PH reads eight-point-four on your paper strips!”
“Open valve three, half turn,” Arthur ordered. He wiped a smudge of boiler soot from his jaw with the back of his wrist. “Pip, ignite the pre-heater coils.”
