Chapter 276: The River Bypass
The mud from the western turnpike was gone.
By seven o’clock the following morning, two junior garage attendants had washed Number Sixty-Four until its dark green lacquer shone again. The brass radiator was polished clean, the dried road clay was scraped from the leaf springs, and the redesigned fuel filter bowl—hand-fitted by Davies late the night before—sat proudly beneath the carburetor line.
Wallace walked into the eastern service court, his uniform coat brushed and his cap pulled straight.
The other drivers were busy hitching pairs of bays to the heavy government luggage landaus. A few looked over, no longer laughing. News of the western journey had traveled through the stables before breakfast. A hundred leagues through a swamp, fixed by Wallace with a nine-inch spanner and a clean rag, and back in time for tea.
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
One of the draymen touched his cap as Wallace passed. Wallace nodded back, dignified and calm, though he made sure to step onto the running board with an extra ounce of authority.
He opened the fuel petcock.
Thanks to the brass drain cock Ernest had sketched the previous evening, Wallace could see clean, pale amber fuel through the new glass sediment cup. No water droplets. No ditch sand.
He set the throttle, walked to the crank, and pulled up once.
Tup-tup-tup-tup-tup.
The engine caught with a low, confident thrum.
Aldren emerged from the transportation office with his leather folder under his arm. Behind him walked a younger official in the high-collared, silver-buttoned uniform of the Ministry of War.
"Wallace," Aldren called.
"Sir," Wallace replied, cutting the throttle back to idle.
"Captain Thorne. War Office Courier Division." Aldren stepped aside, allowing the young officer to approach. "He carries the preliminary frontier artillery allocation ledgers. They must reach the Ordnance Board at the Northgate Arsenal before the eleven o’clock cabinet assembly."
Wallace checked the clock on the stable tower. "It is eight-fifteen, Mr. Aldren. Northgate is across the river. King’s Avenue is already blocked with coal drays from the canal basin, and Highgate Circus is under repair."
Captain Thorne adjusted the heavy leather strap of his satchel. His face was rigid with the stubborn impatience of young staff officers. "The mounted dispatch riders have already departed with the secondary packets, driver. If this machine is as capable as the Lord Chamberlain’s circular claims, eight miles through city traffic should present no difficulty."
"It isn’t a bird, Captain," Wallace said mildly, opening the passenger door. "It has wheels. Climb in."
Thorne hesitated, eyeing the vibration of the front fenders. "Is the seat secure?"
"More secure than an army saddle, sir. Mind your scabbard against the paint."
Aldren stepped up to the running board as Thorne took his seat. He tapped his pencil against his notebook. "This is an inner-district express assignment, Wallace. Every minute is being logged by the Ordnance telegraph. Observe the rules: no reckless acceleration, sound the horn at every blind lane, and give draft horses three paces of clearance."
"Understood, sir."
"Off you go."
Wallace stepped on the low-speed pedal. Number Sixty-Four rolled out through the palace archway and merged into the heavy morning surge of the capital.
The city had not become any friendlier to motorcars overnight.
If anything, the rain from the day before had left Helmarte in a foul, greasy temper. The granite cobblestones were coated in a slick paste of coal soot and wet manure. Steel-tired drays slid sideways when their drivers hauled on the reins, and every intersection was an argument in progress.
At the entrance to Crown Square, Wallace was forced to a dead halt behind a six-horse brewer’s wagon that had lost an iron trace pin.
Captain Thorne immediately pulled his silver watch from his pocket. "We have been moving for six minutes, driver. We have covered less than four hundred yards."
"The brewer’s horse has four legs, Captain," Wallace said, resting both hands on the steering wheel while the two cylinders thumped patiently beneath the floor. "He doesn’t care about your artillery ledger."
"Can you not mount the curb?"
Wallace turned his head slowly, looking the young captain directly in the eye. "If I mount the curb, I blow an eighty-thousand-riel pneumatic tire, crush two grocer’s baskets, and explain to Baron Teucher why his motorcar is impounded by the municipal watch. We wait."
The trace pin was hammered back in with a curse, the brewer cracked his whip, and the heavy dray groaned forward.
Wallace slipped the pedal into first, cleared the corner, and guided the Model One into the open carriageway of Crown Square.
Here, the traffic spread out.
"Hold your hat, Captain," Wallace muttered.
He reached up, advancing the spark lever on the steering column, and pushed the hand throttle forward.
The Model One responded instantly. The twin cylinders climbed from their dull idle into a sharp, energetic roar:
TUP-TUP-TUP-TUP-TUP-TUP!
The car accelerated across the smooth limestone flags. Fifteen kilometers per hour. Twenty. Twenty-eight.
Captain Thorne gripped the armrest with white knuckles, his back pressed hard into the leather cushion. The cold autumn wind whipped the ribbon of his cocked hat across his cheek. "Good heavens!"
"Thirty-two kilometers an hour, sir!" Wallace shouted over the wind and the rushing air. "Road’s clear to the river bridge!"
Pedestrians on the footpaths stopped to watch. A squad of infantry marching toward the barracks turned their heads in unison, their boots faltering for a beat as the dark green machine swept past them with the smooth, unwavering momentum of a small steam launch.
They reached the North River Bridge in four minutes.
On a normal morning, behind a pair of trotting horses, that stretch alone took twelve.
Then came the bottleneck.
The bridge approach was narrow, constricted by ancient toll houses and timber market stalls. A country hay cart had broken a wooden axle dead in the center of the span, blocking the northbound lane entirely. Behind it sat an omnibus, three private broughams, and a long queue of handcarts.
Thorne leaned forward, his face pale. "We are blocked. The dispatch will be late."
Wallace didn’t panic. He had driven teams across this river for twenty years; he knew every alley along the water.
He pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, standing on the brake pedal. The car turned sharply into a narrow, cobbled ramp that ran down toward the coal wharves—an unpaved service lane paved with rough gravel and river ballast.
"Driver! Where are you going?" Thorne shouted, grabbing the dashboard. "This is not the turnpike!"
"This is the wharf track, Captain," Wallace said calmly, shifting into low gear as the tires crunched into the gravel. "A carriage team would slip on the greasy timber ramps down here. Sixty-Four won’t."
The Model One took the incline smoothly. The long semi-elliptic leaf springs absorbed the washboard ruts, bouncing with a steady, cushioned roll that kept the chassis level. Wallace steered around heaps of coal, slipped past a line of tethered mules who barely had time to snort at the exhaust, and followed the embankment under the shadow of the stone bridge arches.
Two hundred yards along the riverbank, an empty ramp led back up to the north quay, entirely bypassing the broken hay cart.
Wallace gave it full throttle. The car surged up the fifteen-percent grade without a single cough from the cylinders, its rear tires gripping the rough stone like claws.
They crested the rise, popped out onto the Northgate Road, and swung back into the main traffic lane.
Behind them, the line of carriages was still stranded on the bridge approach.
Thorne stared back through the rear mica window of the weather hood, his jaw slack. He looked at Wallace, then looked down at his watch.
"Nine minutes," the captain whispered. "We have crossed the river in nine minutes."
"Told you, sir," Wallace said, a wide, thoroughly unprofessional grin splitting his weathered face. "It isn’t a bird, but it doesn’t mind the coal tracks."