The River Flows On by Maggie Craig Read Free Book Online Page A

apprentices.
    Kate laughed. Smiling at Robbie, she gestured towards the launch platform.
    ‘A sturdily built structure, eh?’
    Robbie grinned back. Pearl looked puzzled.
    ‘I don’t think building a platform’s very exciting.’
    Robbie’s dark eyebrows went up. ‘Oh, you don’t, Miss Pearl Cameron? Let me tell you something. That platform marks a great pinnacle of achievement for me. It’s the first thing I’ve actually been allowed to do any real carpentry on - and it’s a good deal better than being sent to fetch some tartan paint.’
    Neil Cameron clapped Robbie on the shoulders. ‘Och, laddie, you didn’t fall for that one, did you?’
    Robbie gave him a wry smile. ‘That one - and the long stand. Green as cabbage, I was.’
    Neil laughed, as did Jim Baxter. Jessie wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s the long stand?’
    Jim Baxter explained. ‘When a laddie gets a start, there’s a few jokes get played on him at first. One is being sent to fetch the tartan paint and another one is to send him for a long stand. When he gets to the store, the chap there tells him he’ll need to wait a while for it.’ He turned to Neil for confirmation. ‘I’ve known laddies wait half an hour. Have you not, Neil?’
    ‘Even longer sometimes,’ said Neil, nodding his head and smiling at Robbie.
    ‘So eventually the laddie gets fed up and repeats the request - he was sent for a long stand - to which the answer is - you’ve just had it!’
    ‘Well, girls?’ asked Jim when they had all finished laughing. ‘What did you think of the launch then?’
    ‘It was great,’ said Kate. ‘Really exciting. And when she hit the water-‘
    ‘Aye,’ said Jessie. ‘That was rare, especially when those folk at the front got soaked.’ She laughed up at Kate. ‘I was scared she wasn’t going to move at first, were you not, Kate?’
    ‘It’s always like that, lass,’ said Neil, putting a large hand out to smooth his youngest daughter’s hair. ‘Your heart’s in your mouth... and then she goes down so sweetly, like a seal sliding off a rock into the ocean. It’s quite something to watch a ship you’ve worked on with your own two hands take to the water.’ His voice was suddenly husky.
    ‘Aye, Da,’ Kate said gently, giving Jessie a quick smile. ‘Pride of the Clyde.1
    Neil Cameron, his eyes bright, patted Kate on the shoulder.
    ‘Huh!’ said Pearl in disgust. ‘Listen to the lot of you. It’s just a big lump o’ iron and metal and wood. And now she’s launched, there’ll be no work for the Black Squad.’
    Kate could have hit her sister. Her father’s face fell and the light which had been in it a few seconds before died away as though it had never been. As a riveter, he belonged to the Black Squad, the team of men who worked on the basic skeleton of a ship. Once the hull was complete, there was no work for them. They either moved on to the next yard on the river which was laying the keel for a ship or they were out of work - for days, weeks or months.
    Neil Cameron was still working at Donaldson’s because of the small cargo ship still on the stocks, but her hull wasn’t going to take long to complete. If another order didn’t come in soon, Neil knew as well as anybody what was going to happen. None better.
    He was proud of his skills and it pained him to be idle. Kate frowned at her sister behind their father’s back. Pearl looked innocently back. She was a minx.
    Kate looked up and saw the understanding in Robbie’s eyes. At least, she thought, trying to smile at him, there would be plenty of work for him and his father. Carpentry was a good trade. It would take a good few months to complete the internal fitting out of the Irish Princess .
    Unless one of the yards on the river got another order, however, things were soon going to get hard again in the Cameron household - and Kate’s chances of staying on at school were growing smaller by the day.
    ‘Kate! Kate!’ Lily’s voice was filled with panic.