Afternoon
Admiral Biscuit
The barge didn’t steer the same when it was going backwards. That wasn’t her problem, but she knew it just the same.
Being alongside her brother in harness was a familiar, comfortable sensation, even if it was wood underhoof rather than the rich soil of the farm where she’d grown up. Instead of a doubletree and equalizers, they had two separate lines which were their own complication—there was a different kind of feedback, and it took them a few steps to get in the right rhythm.
There weren’t many barge companies that would attempt a reverse move into the canal. It took skill; the barge didn’t behave the same way when it was going backwards. Especially if there was a second barge tied alongside the first.
Mersey knew that if it worked out right, everypony watching would be impressed at their skills. If it went badly or blocked any other barge traffic, ponies would be annoyed, would grumble about them hogging the canal and causing delays.
Her hooves skidded on the wooden dock and she dug her caulks in as the rope tugged and then released. As the barge started to pick up speed, Flash angled the rudder over, guiding the stern away from the dock.
A few minutes later, they reached the end of the dock, and she and Swanky leaned into each other and braced—they’d have a brief break as Flash swung across the canal and rearranged the ropes on the barges for towing. She glanced up and down the canal—there wasn’t any traffic nearby, and nopony had taken any of the dock spaces on their side of the canal, leaving the towpath completely clear.
As soon as she saw Flash trotting back down the deck of their barge, the towrope for the railroad barge in her mouth, she snorted and put her head down, then started pulling. Swanky dug his hooves in and followed suit, the two of them getting yanked back hard as they arrested the momentum of their barge. She could feel her shoes trying to peel off her hooves, and she took a couple quick backsteps, anchoring in every time the rope slacked. They should have turned; stopping a barge was easier when it was muzzle-on.
Too late now.
The stern bumped off the canal wall, giving their barge a little forward momentum on the rebound, and she and Swanky took advantage of that, yanking the ropes tight and pulling in tandem to get it moving the right way.
A string of Mount Carbon barges were slowly trundling towards their docking spot, all the towponies watching in interest as the railroad barge bounced off the canal wall and wallowed until its towrope pulled tight.
That wasn’t as hard a pull; they had the momentum of their barge also tugging on its towrope. Flash leaned on the tiller, bringing her barge across the canal while the railroad barge reluctantly followed along. She’d tied them close, and Mersey looked back just as Flash looped a rope over her tiller to keep it straight, then jumped onto the bow of the railroad barge, trotting back to its cockpit to steer it clear of the canal wall.
There were a few ponies on the canal who loved showboating. Mersey wasn’t one of those ponies, and yet she waited to board their barge until they were almost abreast of the Mount Carbon tow, ensuring that all their towponies could see how a proper towpony did it. While her brother pulled, she stood in place, coiling the towrope as the barge moved, and then it was just one step onto the bow of the boat.
In the past, she’d jumped too far; she’d underestimated and overestimated the barge’s speed, how much correction she’d need—she’d stumbled and fallen but never fallen in the canal. Now it was second-nature, she stepped off the towpath and onto the barge as if it had been stationary, never wavering on her hooves.
Before hanging her harness on its hook, she looked it over, checking every strap and buckle. Swanky didn’t know, but she checked his, too, just to make sure it was okay. She knew he wasn’t always good about that—sometimes he left it in a complete tangle, and she fixed it for him.
That done, she stepped back out of the cabin and looked forward to Swanky. It had been nice to tow in tandem, even if was only for a short while. Not only for the bonding, but—most of the time she was in Oakton, she had nothing to do.
Some ponies liked to go into town and browse at the stores, or spend time in the pub until they were called back to their barge. She knew how long it would take to unload and put new cargo in.
She didn’t like leaving her brother behind. Who knew what kind of trouble he could get in without his big sister to watch over him? He might go run off after a stallion who would steal his bits or break his heart—there were plenty of attractive stallions along the canal.
Mersey watched him until they were out of town, and then she stretched out on the foredeck, letting a hoof dangle in the canal. The sunshine was warm on her back, and the rocking and tugging of the barge was soporific
•••
Mersey didn’t sleep, although to anybody who was watching it would have seemed she was. Her eyes were closed but her ears were still alert, taking in the sounds of the boat in motion. She knew where they were just by the noises of the canal, she knew when upbound barges passed by the sounds of their team and the splash of their wake, and she listened to the chatter of the ponies along the canal.
She heard and felt as they approached Stroudwater; Flash didn’t have to tell her.
Flash told her anyway. “Hoy, Mersey, Stroudwater.”
Her ears turned of their own volition, and she got to her hooves.
“You wanna run the railroad barge to its dock?”
She nodded. She didn’t like leaving her brother behind, but it was more efficient, and if she was quick on her hooves she could get back to their warehouse in time to help unload the barge. Oakton had a crew of laborers for that; Stroudwater didn’t.
“Get your harness on, and I’ll have a bill ready when you are.”
Mersey snorted—she could be ready in under a minute. There was a reason her harness got hung just so. Especially since it was simpler than a farmpony’s.
•••
The invoice was tucked into a pouch on her harness. She stood on the stern and waited until they were close to the side path, then it was time. Flash called out: “Swanky, stop.”
He did, and the rope slacked as the barge started to overrun him—which was counteracted by Flash pulling back on the tow-rope between the two barges.
Once that rope had slack in it, Flash yanked it off the towing cleat and hooked it to Mersey’s harness, then shoved the tiller hard over, bringing the stern of their still-moving barge towards the towpath.
Jumping the short chasm between the barges was easy, and Swanky didn’t need any orders to start pulling again; he’d turned his head to watch as the transfer was made.
Mersey didn’t start pulling right away, just walked along to keep the towrope from slacking out too much. They needed to put some distance between the barges—Swanky was pulling hard and she wasn’t doing anything yet, just calculating distances and momentum of the two separate tows.
There was nopony to steer hers, but she was headed in a straight line and it would follow along. A shorter line would be nice; Flash could have pulled it in closer—Mersey considered the advantages of letting the barge catch up to her, she could hop aboard and re-tie the tow-rope.
At the same time, it was carrying almost enough momentum to make it to the railroad docks without her help. She knew what it weighed, knew how it would pull against the current, even knew about how fouled the bottom was.
She didn’t know that the railroad ponies had forgotten to tie the rudder straight, not until it crashed into the bank and yanked her to an unexpected stop. Not the first time it had happened to her: towropes were stretchy and could yank a pony off her hooves. Mersey felt her harness pull tight and braced her hooves as the towline grabbed it and skidded her on the towpath, then she turned to see what had gone wrong.
The barge had caught a piling, recoiled, and now was on its way again. She snorted at it and dared it to misbehave again—for now, it was tracking along the splintered weather-worn wooden rub-rail, but angling for the bank. Flash had been correcting with her rudder; Mersey didn’t have that luxury.
A challenge was a welcome change. She could see the docks ahead on the other side of the canal. Her intention had been to just toss the towrope over as she got close, but that wouldn’t work if the barge was misbehaving.
Swimming the canal wouldn’t hurt her harness but it would get the invoice wet, so she pulled ahead while watching as the barge scraped along the piling; once it was more than halfway past she turned and trotted back down the towpath, eyeballing where the bow would fetch up.
She jumped aboard just before it did, but didn’t make it to the stern fast enough—the whole barge shuddered as it slid against the rough-cut stones that made up the canal walls.
Un-looping the tiller rope was foal’s play, and even with the shore contact, she had enough momentum to angle the barge across the canal. Once it was on course, she shoved the tiller back, hooked the rope around it again, trotted down the length of the barge, leapt to the opposite bank, and started galloping to take out the slack in the rope.
The jerk as the rope caught rattled her bones, and came with aftershocks as the inertia was equalized. The bow pulled over then straightened out, guided by the off-center tiller. She was crabbing the barge. If she’d had to tow it like that the whole length of the canal, she’d have sore legs, but it wasn’t for much longer; she was practically at the railroad dock.
•••
She kept the towline attached as she arrived, looping it around a piling as she walked back. The stern was swinging out, so she jumped back aboard and went down the deck, letting her rope slack as the barge turned.
Mersey was midships when she had enough slack to toss it over another piling, and with two points of contact she could bring the barge back in line, tugging it into position as the friction around the piles stopped its forward momentum.
Once it was at its resting point, she tied it in place and then went off to find a supervisor.
•••
Without an invoice, she was free to swim the canal.
•••
Mersey swam across the canal, angling towards one of the sets of steps inset into the walls, put there for the benefit of ponies who found themselves in the canal—whether by accident or design—and also for all the ducky birds who liked to float in the canal. She’d jumped in just across the canal from them; she knew better than making the rookie mistake of jumping in just anywhere and having to swim further than the stairs—or worse, land on a rotten piling or an old embankment stone. She knew where most of the obstacles in the canal were. The worst offenders got dragged out, the others just were avoided by ponies in the know. Occasionally they were marked, usually by a boat company that had hit the obstruction one time too many.
Usually Mount Carbon; they loved overloading their barges.
She shook herself off, then trotted along the towpath until she’d caught up with Swanky.
Mersey nuzzled his flank and then fell in step beside him.
“Hey, sis.” He bumped shoulders with her. “You have a good nap?”
She nodded.
•••
Swanky slowed his pace as they approached the company docks. As he passed the first bollard, he looked back to see where the boat was.
It was still trailing along but catching up, carried by its own momentum. Flash was leaning the tiler over, angling the barge towards the bank.
Mersey left her brother’s side and trotted back to the bollard—normally she’d handle the bow rope, but she couldn’t do that while on shore.
Flash tossed the line to her and she wrapped it around, looping it over itself to hold fast—both she and Swanky had had to learn how to tie several different boat knots.
Flash left her position at the stern and headed up to the bow. She tossed the bow rope to Swanky, who’d dropped the tow line in preparation to receive it.
Mersey watched in satisfaction as their boat slid into its spot.
•••
Once the barge was secured, Flash opened up the warehouse and set out the gangplank while Mersey and Swanky took off their harnesses.
He left it tangled, like she knew he would. She would fix it after dinner, like she always did.
They didn’t have a crew to help them unload the barge; she and Swanky got to do that. Flash would help when she finished with paperwork.
Sometimes they got dinner first, it depended on when they arrived. Mersey didn’t like an irregular schedule, but that couldn't be helped.
They always unloaded barrels first; those were easier and gave them more room to deal with crates and sacks.
Mersey tipped the barrels one at a time and rolled them up the gangway; once they were on the dock, her brother rolled them into the warehouse and set them out for each consignee.
By the time Flash had finished with her paperwork, all the barrels were on the dock, and they’d switched to carrying crates—she and Swanky would take turns loading a crate onto their sibling’s back. The unladen pony would push a barrel into the warehouse.
Flash concentrated on the sacks, sorting them into their appointed place in the warehouse.
Some of the other towponies complained that their captains wouldn’t help unload. Mersey thought that was foalish; if everypony worked together, the job got done faster.
Once the hold was half-empty, they started carrying in the new shipment—there was no sense in returning to the boat empty-backed.