Out on the rain-swept platform of the turning basin water gate, Eren Tal, Tom Carver, and young Will threw themselves against the four-spoke wooden crab winch that controlled the heavy oak floodgate.
The rain was blinding, coming down in sheets of icy slush that stung their faces and froze on their oilskin coats. The water in the basin was rising in frothing brown surges that slapped wildly against the timber stone retaining walls. The iron-banded timber gate was groaning under four thousand two hundred pounds of raw deep water pressure pinning its six-inch oak face against the dressed granite guides.
“Heave!” Eren roared, his boots digging into the newly cleated timber ramp. “Put your chests into the spokes! Don’t let the dog slip!”
The three men strained against the oak handles, their muscles knotting, their breath tearing from their throats in ragged, freezing gasps. The winch frame creaked, the ash timbers groaning as the massive torque twisted the bed-sleepers. But the bronze pawl remained locked immovably in its ratchet teeth. The friction of forty tons of silted mountain water pushing against the gate face was holding the timber like a welded iron plate.
“It won’t budge, Eren!” Tom Carver shouted, his face purple with strain, his veins standing out like thick cords on his temples. “The head is too heavy! The friction is binding the bronze tracks!”
