The machinery deck of the Salt-Pan Scour Gate was an inferno of cold iron, flying sparks, and rhythmic, ear-splitting percussion.
Fifty feet above the ebbing tide, forty men of the Lower Delta Association labored by the yellow glare of six tar-barrel torches mounted on iron brackets along the granite low roof wall. The torches hissed in the salt wind. It cast wild shadows across the huge bronze winding drums and the thirty-ton balance weight boxes suspended in the dark stonework wells below.
At the central drum, Tomas Reed and diver Brant were locked in an unbending battle with the first two-inch logging chain.
Tomas was down on one knee on the granite flags, his cart driver boots wedged against an iron pillow-block to keep his footing on the greasy stone. In his calloused hands, he held a heavy twelve-inch cold chisel forged from hardened Swedish tool steel, its beveled cutting edge seated squarely across the welded seam of a two-inch forged link. His calfskin wrist brace was strapped tight. He held his damaged left radius rigid to absorb the bone-jarring shaking of every impact. Thirty-five percent of his grip strength was permanently gone. Because of that, his right hand gripped the upper shaft near the head. Meanwhile, his braced left hand acted as an unbending clamp against the stone, guiding the steel drift with steady care.
