The staging ground on the riverbed of the Eleanor Gorge transformed within two hours into an organized hive of manual industry.
Tomas Reed stood upon a broad slab of dry granite thirty paces from the foundation of Pier Six, his ash pack frame resting upright against a boulder, his sleeves rolled to his elbows to reveal his scarred forearm bound tightly in its oiled calfskin brace. Before him, stretched across fifty yards of river scree, seventy men from the three very thirsty cantons were laboring with disciplined, timed together rhythm.
The sense palette of the gorge was thick with the smells of physical construction: the acrid stench of burning forge-coal and sulfur-pitch drifting from two portable blacksmiths’ hearths. The pungent, pine-scented aroma of freshly split oak timber. The sour, bitter-salt dust of crushed limestone powder drifting from the foundation trench. And the cold, stone-laden spray of the river rapids boiling through the boulders.
Sile Rook commanded Gang One along the downstream footing of the pier. Twenty men armed with heavy ditching spades, iron crowbars, and wicker spoil-baskets were clearing the gravel down to the solid limestone shelf.
“Dig to the black rock!” Sile roared, his voice cutting through the roar of the river like an iron horn. “Clear every grain of loose silt! If there’s mud between the oak sole and the stone, the thrust will blow the timber out into the current!”
