Traffics and Discoveries Part 20

"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.

"Ye--es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch 'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office, an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat returnin'!"

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"

"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark face s.h.i.+ning with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's Dream. She's------" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her, the car slid soberly downhill again.

"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.

"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."

"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the _Djinn_, 31-knot, T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"

Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she retired backwards into her own steam.

"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"

"Reversed her. I've done it myself."

"But he's an engineer."

For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.

"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.

"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to Ma'ommed. Stand _fast_!"

Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed together.

"Not as easy as it looks--eh, Hinch?"

"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick--aren't I?" said the first-cla.s.s engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure genius.

"But my engineer will stand by--at first," I added.

"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."

We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor, paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.

Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.

And the County of Suss.e.x slid by in slow time.

"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.

"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to _me!_"

"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."

"_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pa.s.s?"

He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting all else, twisted it furiously.

My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into a ditch.

"If I was a burnin' peac.o.c.k, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my s.h.i.+nin'

tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.

"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.

"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe cried.

"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"

"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.

"Sometimes."

"Anytime?"

"Any time a cross-wind catches her."

The engineer produced a match and stooped.

That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice in the same fas.h.i.+on. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.

"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once--prematoor," he volunteered.

"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brus.h.i.+ng down his singed beard with a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"

"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one 'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."

"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled from the right rear seat.

"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."

"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.

"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won't help you any more."

We navigated for a mile in dead silence.

"Talkin' o' wakes----" said Pyecroft suddenly.

"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.

"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe, Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"