At seven in the evening, the entire upkeep committee assembled in the cooperage yard for the definitive test of the offering tear-seam. The yard was cleared of workers, with everyone standing behind heavy timber blast shields forty feet from the test rig.
Eren Tal manned the high-pressure force pump alone, wearing heavy leather aprons and a tin shipwright’s helmet. Beside him, Pella read the pressure aloud from behind a barricade of salt barrels.
‘Eighty pounds!’ Pella called out. ‘Ninety pounds! One hundred pounds!’ The draymen held their breath. The reed sleeve was swollen rigid as an iron boiler. It hummed with a high, terrifying sound pitch.
‘One hundred and ten pounds!’ Eren gave two mighty strokes on the pump handle. ‘One hundred and fourteen!’
With a crisp, loud POP like a canvas mainsail parting in a gale, the offering seam tore open along Jo’s scored line. A clean, three-foot flap of reed canvas swung outward, directing a solid, roaring jet of warm river water across the ditch directly into the turning basin. On the narrow high walkway side, not a single drop of water splashed against the safety platform.
The pressure dial dropped instantly from one hundred and fourteen pounds to forty, stabilizing the remainder of the sleeve without a single ripped thread at the collars. A cheer erupted from behind the barricades. Jo stepped forward with her needle and a spare canvas patch, inspecting the tear with quiet, skilled satisfaction: ‘Clean burst. No collateral tearing. We can patch that…
