The overflow channel of the Black Sluice opened into the canal wall four feet below the winter towpath, disguised by the black, rotted wooden support posts of an abandoned coal-loading slip.
Before they had left the washhouse on Tanner’s Row at midnight, Sera Reed had made Tomas sit at the scrubbed pine table. Meanwhile, she inspected his boots. She had forced him to drink a bowl of hot bone broth seasoned with bitter dried thyme. She had wrapped four cold boiled potatoes and a wedge of salt beef in a clean piece of greasecloth. She tucked the bundle deep into his coat pocket.
“A man who crawls in cold brickwork burns his animal fat twice as fast as a man on the road,” Sera had told him, her voice brisk and practical as she tied his muffler. “Don’t touch your face if your hands are wet with ditch mud. If you feel the dizziness coming from the coal damp, don’t try to be brave for the engineer. Turn around and crawl toward the water. An unclosed claim is no good to a dead porter.”
Now, Tomas knelt in the freezing slush at the water’s edge. He adjusted the calfskin brace on his left forearm. He tightened the copper buckles until the stiff leather gripped the scar tissue firmly. Working in sub-level channels where stale canal drainage pooled. Then, a single splash of oily water across an unhealed tendon cut could breed a carbolic infection within thirty-six hours. He pulled a…
