Down along the Black Shingle, the retreating tide had left the three recovered grain barges sitting upright on the washed dark rock apron like beached whales. Work crews from Fen Hollow and Brook End had rigged four heavy timber sheer-legs over the main hatch of the Kingfisher, their hemp falls creaking under the strain as two-ton blocks of preserved ballast stone were hoisted clear of the hold.
Tomas stood in the bilges of the Mallard, his boots sinking into three inches of cold river silt. He ran his calloused thumb over the blackened oak frames, checking the copper drift-bolts that secured the floor timbers to the keel. The wood was as sound as the day it was cut from the upland forests. Forty years of anaerobic delta mud had sealed the oak against rot, preserving even the shipwright’s chalk marks on the bottom spine-beam.
Nessa Vale was kneeling near the stem, holding her brass sound horn against the iron head-stay. “No fracture in the stem iron,” she reported, her voice ringing off the damp planks. “The shipwrights at Old Flint knew their craft. If we recaulk the deck seams with hot pitch and oakum, she will float on tomorrow’s spring tide without pumping.”
