The southern wind smelled of dead kelp and wet copper.
It came off the Gulf of Thalassos in thick, grey sheets, coating every railing, pipe rim, and track bolt with a sticky film that tasted of old salt water.
Giles Croft stood on the timber staging of Berth Four with a dry rag and an iron check scraper.
He wiped the housing of a steam crane winch, drew his pocket knife across the corner of the mounting plate. Then he flicked a curl of orange crust into his palm.
“Rust,” he said.
“Three weeks out of the rolling mill, and the skin is already exfoliating. It flaked like stale pastry.”
Kenneth Drake stood beside him, resting his boots against a baulk of green fir.
His ten-foot pacing rod was tipped with grey lead rather than bright iron this morning, a shift he had made without being asked.
