Chapter 275: The Stables at Night
The passengers returned to the town square at four o’clock.
Their inspection was incomplete; an outlying parcel of crown woodland six kilometers to the north required a personal visit before dusk.
Wallace cranked the engine. It caught on the second pull, and they rumbled out of the town square, leaving a lingering haze of faint blue exhaust over the cobbles.
The six-kilometer run turned into ten.
Fenwick had taken down the wrong landmarks from the town clerk, sending them two miles down a muddy timber lane that dead-ended at an old sheepfold.
Wallace backed the car out using the reverse pedal, grinning over his shoulder at the embarrassed clerk. "They build roads better in the capital, Mr. Fenwick."
"The instructions were poorly drawn," Fenwick muttered, keeping his eyes on his map.
They found the timber lot, completed the measurements, and turned back toward the town as the sky turned the color of bruised iron.
Then the rain began.
It was not a gentle autumn shower. It was a heavy, cold downpour that swept across the hills, drumming against the stretched canvas weather hood like pebbles.
Wallace adjusted the throttle and kept both hands firmly on the wheel. The road surface turned slick and greasy, the narrow pneumatic tires tracking through two inches of waterlogged gravel.
Inside the cabin, the passengers pulled their collars tight.
Then, right above Wallace’s left ear, a single drop of cold water hit his collar.
Drip.
Wallace didn’t move.
Drip.
Another drop landed squarely on his left knee.
Wallace glared up at the canvas roof seam. "Teucher..."
The front seam had pulled slightly under the wind, letting water weep past the stitching. It wasn’t pouring in, but every forty seconds, another ice-cold drop found his trousers.
He reached into the door pocket, pulled out the leather-bound logbook, and uncapped his pencil with his teeth.
While steering with one hand through the puddles, he jotted down:
Weather hood seam weeps over driver’s seat in heavy rain. Better than before, but still irritating.
He thought for a second, then added: Very irritating.
They reached the coaching inn on the south side of town at twenty minutes to seven.
The inn’s courtyard was paved with rough fieldstones, lit by two yellow paraffin lanterns hanging from iron hooks.
Wallace pulled Sixty-Four beneath an open timber lean-to right beside the stables.
The contrast between the two worlds sat ten feet apart.
In the main barn, eight carriage horses stood in their stalls. Grooms were stripping sweat-stained leather harnesses, pitching fresh straw, and hauling wooden buckets of water from the courtyard pump. Two stable hands were rubbing down a pair of winded carriage horses with coarse burlap, steam rising from their damp backs into the rafters.
Beside them sat Number Sixty-Four.
The dark green paint was splattered with limestone mud. The brass headlamps were dull and wet. But the car sat motionless, its cooling engine giving off occasional metallic pings as the cylinders contracted.
The innkeeper walked out with a lantern, looking at the carriage in bewilderment.
"Does it need stabling inside, master?" the innkeeper asked.
"It can stay right under this roof," Wallace said, stepping down and stretching his stiff back.
"Does it drink water?"
"A gallon in the radiator tank tomorrow morning," Wallace replied. "No hay. No grain."
The innkeeper shook his head, staring at the silent machine. "Strange piece of work. Doesn’t make a sound once you turn it off."
"That’s the best part about it," Wallace said, pulling the passengers’ bags from the rear rack.
He carried the luggage to the taproom, then returned to the courtyard with his lantern and tool roll.
He checked the troublesome spoke first.
Ting.
Still tight. The blacksmith’s extra half-turn had held through nine kilometers of muddy washboard.
He checked the engine oil with the dip-rod. The level had dropped half an inch over one hundred and forty kilometers—normal consumption for an engine working hard against gravel grades. He checked the chains, wiped the road grit from the sprockets, and verified that no fuel was weeping from the petcock.
He sat on the running board, opened the logbook, and filled out the day’s record:
Day 1: Extended Provincial Run
Distance: 142 km.
Fuel consumed: 15 liters.
Mechanical failures: None.
Roadside adjustments: Front right spoke tightened.
Vehicle condition: Fully operational for return trip.
At the very bottom, Wallace wrote one final line in firm, bold script:
No factory mechanics required.
He closed the book with a solid snap.
Inside the tavern, a roaring peat fire warmed the low-ceilinged room.
Fenwick and the two other clerks sat at a round oak table near the hearth, plates of roasted pork and boiled potatoes before them.
Fenwick saw Wallace standing near the door and waved him over. "Sit down, Wallace. The innkeeper has an ale for you."
Wallace hesitated by the bar. "I’m the company driver, Mr. Fenwick. Drivers eat in the kitchen."
"Not on this run," Fenwick said, pulling out a heavy oak chair. "You kept us out of the ditch, and you tightened the wheel with your own hands. Sit down and eat."
Wallace sat. The stew was hot, the ale was cold, and the peat smoke took the chill out of his wet trousers.
The younger clerk raised his pewter mug. "To Number Sixty-Four."
Wallace laughed, shaking his head. "You’re drinking to a box of iron bolts?"
"It covered a hundred and forty kilometers in a single day through pouring rain," Fenwick said, raising his own tankard. "If we had taken a coach and four, my back would be broken from the sway, and we’d still be stuck thirty miles back at the river crossing. To Sixty-Four."
Wallace touched his mug to theirs. "To Sixty-Four."
Later, after the clerks had gone upstairs to their rooms, Wallace walked back out to the lean-to.
The rain had cleared, leaving the night air sharp and clean. A cold autumn moon hung over the slate roofs.
Wallace stood beside the dark hood of the car, resting his hand on the radiator shell. The iron was stone cold now.
From the adjacent stable, a horse stamped its hoof against the timber boards, accompanied by the low, familiar rustle of dry straw.
Wallace had spent twenty-two years around those sounds. He knew the smell of harness oil, sweat, and leather better than his own parlor. He didn’t hate horses; they were good, honest beasts that had carried him through half a lifetime of mud and frost.
He looked back at the Model One.
A wheel is still a wheel.
The blacksmith’s words echoed in his head.
The machine wasn’t magic. It wasn’t an incomprehensible monster that only men with university degrees in Belfast could touch. It was iron, timber, brass, and fuel. When a part worked loose, you took a spanner and tightened it. When it ran low on oil, you poured more into the reservoir.
Wallace smiled faintly, turned, and headed back into the inn.
Tomorrow, they had another hundred and twenty kilometers to cover to get back to the palace gates. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t mind the distance.
Back in Helmarte, the telegraph office in the eastern service court clicked into life at eight o’clock.
A young clerk took down the dots and dashes, ripped the yellow slip from the brass roller, and walked it straight to Aldren’s desk.
Aldren unfolded the paper under his green lamp shade:
TO: OFFICE OF HOUSEHOLD TRANSPORTATION, HELMARTE.
FROM: FENWICK, CHIEF CLERK.
ARRIVED DESTINATION 1840. ALL OUTLYING TIMBER INSPECTIONS COMPLETED AHEAD OF SCHEDULE.
DISTANCE TODAY: 142 KILOMETERS.
ONE SPOKE TIGHTENED ROADSIDE BY DRIVER WALLACE IN NINE MINUTES. NO OTHER FAULTS.
VEHICLE OPERATIONAL. NO WORKSHOP ASSISTANCE REQUIRED.
RETURNING HELMARTE TOMORROW.
Aldren read the slip through twice.
He didn’t smile, but his shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch.
He opened the master evaluation ledger, dipped his pen into black ink, and entered the day’s mileage beneath Chassis Sixty-Four’s column.
Beside the entry, in the margin marked Operational Viability, he wrote a single word:
Proven.
He set the pen down, blotted the ink with sand, and closed the heavy book.