A stillness followed the clattering of their boots receding ever further away and at last we were left alone.
An enormous shed ran the length of the pier with now and then a great door leading into it. On the platform itself some fifteen feet in width, were four railway rails. The inner two rails served as a track for the trains of coal even now standing there waiting to be dumped into the hold of our ship. On the outer two rails, roved travelling cranes, some large and some small, but standing as a man would stand, with their legs apart in order to let the trains run between them. At the top of each was a small operator's cabin from which its movements were controlled.
The silence had now become deadly. The splash of water thrown against the stone wall by our condenser pumps and then falling into the river was the only sound which relieved the stillness of the night.
Ah, we had completed only the second leg of our journey. What experiences were we to have on our proposed gypsy tour of Great Britain, where we had even planned to sleep under the stars as we roved about the countryside? These and a thousand other questions filled our thoughts until Campbell returned and we were whisked into the heart of Glasgow, there to encounter many and strange adventures not experienced by those travellers who journey in the orthodox manner.
Copyright John G McIntosh 1934, all rights reserved, no reproduction, copying or storage without express written consent of John M McIntosh