Working underwater with heavy hand tools was like trying to forge iron at the bottom of an ocean of cold grease.
Every movement of Tomas’s arms was resisted by the dense heavy rush of forty feet of water. He swung his eight-pound copper sledgehammer. Then, the water cushioned the blow, robbing the tool of half its moving speed before the hardened face could strike the steel chisel head.
Tomas stood with his lead-soled boots braced against the inner granite rim of the balance weight well. His left hand, numb from the freezing damp, held the three-foot bronze cold chisel firmly against the first tangled strand of three-inch wire rope.
The wire rope was ancient plow-steel, braided from six strands of thirty-seven wires each, crusted with river lime and black coal grease. Under thirty tons of high-pressure tension, the cable had stretched until the strands were as hard and unbending as solid cold-rolled bar stock.
Tomas struck the chisel with the sledge: CLANG-DULL.
The sound didn’t echo through the water. It traveled as a bone-shaking blast wave through his copper helmet. It shook the fillings in his teeth. A cloud of black grease and crushed silt erupted from the cable, swirling around his faceplate before being swept away by the suction of the intake.
