To allow Jo Saye’s crew to seat the replacement sleeve without being drowned by the nonstop discharge, Ada Morland had to perform a delicate high-pressure throttling set on the lower bypass valve. She stood on the slippery iron narrow high walkway beside the baked-clay trunk. She braced her feet against the stone wall and seized the four-foot iron cheater bar fitted to the spindle of the fourteen-inch bronze wedge water gate.
“Take the bar with me, Eren!” Ada shouted through the mist. “Four turns clockwise! Not a thread more! If we close it too far, the pressure bounces back to Sorell’s platform. If we don’t close it enough, Jo will be working in four feet of boiling mud!”
Together, the Yorkshire plumber and the Lowbank wheelwright threw their weight against the iron lever. The heavy bronze threads, greased with animal fat and graphite, turned with a smooth, heavy pushback: One... Two... Three... Four. A deep, metal clunk rang through the stone as the bronze wedge slid into its seat, choking the discharge down by thirty percent.
In the basin below, the thundering torrent subsided into a manageable, three-foot stream that swirled around the concrete footing without overflowing the staging platform. “There’s your window, Jo!” Ada bellowed from the narrow high walkway, checking her wristwatch. “You’ve got fifteen minutes before the upstream pool fills again! Get that new sleeve bolted down!”
