Part 7

"Do you say that, now? And what like might the first be, if you please to tell me?"

Templeton was considering how to begin a serious description; but Eves forestalled him.

"A fur-lined coat, a bristly moustache, and a voice like a corncrake. That's near enough for anythink."

"It is that," said the stranger, his blue eyes twinkling for an instant. His expression became grave as he added: "Sure it's mighty unlucky, without you have a car. They told me in the town I'd get one here, or nowhere at all."

"I'm sorry I haven't one handy," said Templeton. "Ours are out."

"I say, Bob, what about the road yacht?" said Eves, who had been attracted by the civility of the Irishman, and with quick wit had jumped to the conclusion that he was on the same errand as the boor. "There's a spanking wind."

"Well, if he doesn't mind risking it," said Templeton, dubiously.

"'Deed now, I'll be after risking anything."

"Anythink?" said Eves.

"You'll have his measure taken," said the Irishman, smiling again. "And if it's a five-pound note----"

"Don't mention it," said Templeton. "Tom, just lock up, will you? while I get ready."

He hastened across the yard, opened the bonnet of the car, and spent a few minutes with the inner mysteries. By the time he had satisfied himself that the engine was in working order the other two had joined him.

"I've only a quart of petrol," he said. "Wilkins has taken the rest, and our monthly allowance isn't due till to-morrow. The camp's about eleven miles, and we've nearly half an hour; but there's a stiff hill that will use most of the petrol; it's an old Ford and can barely do fifteen miles to the gallon."

"I'll run up the hill on my two feet to lighten the car," said the stranger, eagerly; "and sure I'd have run the whole way from the station if I were twenty years younger."

"You must have been a stayer in your time, sir," said Eves.

"Maybe I was that, the time I did a Marathon, and was not the last either. Only for being five and forty I wouldn't be troubling you, for a matter of eleven miles. But it's a sail I see you have. There's a nice breeze from the west, surely, and if the car doesn't upset on us I'm thinking we'd do without petrol only for the hill."

"Faith removes mountains," said Eves. "You've a pretty good share of it."

"Faith, and I have then. And if so be the car upsets on us, sure we'll have a bit of fun, and maybe that'll make up for the disappointment."

Eves chatted with the genial Irishman during the few minutes in which Templeton was making his final preparations. These completed, Templeton ran the machine out into the roadway. It was a strange-looking object. The body was little more than a skeleton framework, affording seating accommodation for three, and the necessary protection for the working parts. The drive was on the front wheels; the steering gear connected with the back wheels. A strong single mast was stayed just behind the driver's seat. A bowsprit projected some five feet beyond the radiator. There were two sails, mainsail and jib. As Templeton unfurled these, Eves noticed that the former had been recently patched.

"Torn in a gale, Bob?" he asked.

"No. The other day a wretched farm wagon claimed more than its fair share of the road, and as of course I wouldn't give way there was what some people call a contretemps. Look here, Tom, you must manage the mainsail; I can deal with the jib. Get in: we've no time to spare."

Templeton got into the driver's seat, the other two men into the seats behind. The car was started on petrol, and ran at a moderate pace over the half-mile of narrow road that led to the main street of the little town. Dodging the market traffic, Templeton steered the car out at the further end, and as soon as he was clear of the town slowed down and gave the word to hoist the sails. These bellied out in the brisk following wind; the strange vehicle gathered way; and, looking over his shoulder with a smile of gratification, Templeton said:

"Now we're off. Look out for gybing at the corners, Tom."

*III*

Templeton's road yacht had been for a week or two a fairly familiar object in the neighbourhood, and the few country folk on foot whom it met or passed in the first few minutes of its voyage graced it with no more attention than was evinced by a stolid stare, a shake of the head, and a sort of prolonged sigh. A spectator of quicker mind--and he would need to have been quick, for the pace was already great--might have taken a fugitive interest in noting the facial expressions of the vehicle's three occupants. Templeton looked earnest and responsible: Eves wore only the shadow of his usual smile, for he was oppressed by an anxious doubt whether his former experiences of yachting would serve him in handling the sail of this novel craft. The wind was not only strong but gusty, and at slight turns in the road the boom showed a tendency to swing out of his control and commit assault and battery on the person of his passenger. That gentleman, however, was evidently on the top of enjoyment. Whatever his errand was, it was driven from his mind by sheer exhilaration. He lived wholly in the present. Peering over Templeton's shoulder at the speedometer, he reported with boyish excitement the movements of the indicator--twenty, twenty-five, thirty: "Believe you me, it's thirty miles; the like of that, now!"

Approaching a sharp bend in the road, Templeton gradually throttled down until the speed was reduced to fifteen; and when, as the yacht rounded the bend, the change of course caused the boom to swing over and knock the Irishman's hat off, the genial stranger shouted with glee and declared that he was having the time of his life, begor.

Eves hauled in the mainsheet; the pace again rose to twenty-five; and a marked down-grade enabled Templeton to maintain that speed for a time with the engine switched off. At the end of the dip, where the road bent again, Templeton was faced by the first up-grade--a long straight stretch almost in the teeth of the wind. Some little distance from the foot of the incline he switched on his engine, and took the ascent for the most part on top, dropping to first about two hundred yards from the summit. At this point the passenger, looking back along the road, exclaimed:

"There's a car in the wake of us."

"Overhauling us?" asked Eves.

"She's not, then. How would the likes of her?"

"She will, though. We shall have to slow down. Look ahead."

A heavy farm wagon drawn by three horses had appeared over the crest of the hill, and was lumbering down with skidpans adjusted, and occupying three-fourths of the roadway.

"It's the way we'd see a collision," said the Irishman, chortling. The prospect had evidently no terrors for him. Eves, on the other hand, for all his delight in a rag, felt by no means easy in mind.

"Slow down, Bob," he cried, anxiously, at the same time hauling in the sheet until the sail stood almost parallel with the side of the vehicle.

Templeton made no reply; but knowing from experience that the road yacht was a likely source of anxiety to horses he slowed down, at the imminent risk of stopping entirely, and steered well into the hedge. The carter hurried to the leader's head and pulled in to his side of the road, giving only a gaping stare as the yacht grazed the off wheels of his wagon and the hedge on the other side.

"As good a bit of steering as ever I saw," cried the Irishman. "Did you get a whiff of the mangolds?"

"I was expecting to be mangled," said Eves, grimly. "I say, Bob, the wind's dead ahead, and the sail's no bally good."

"Lower it, man, lower it," said Templeton. "We'll be all right at the next turn."

The yacht was crawling painfully to the top of the hill when there came from behind the sound of a hooter. Eves and the Irishman looked back. A large car had just rounded the bend below, and was mounting the hill with a great roaring and rattling, distinctly audible above the noise of their own straining engine.

"By George, Bob," cried Eves, "that green car that called at the garage is upon our heels."

"I hear it," said Templeton. "Couldn't mistake it: I'll give it room to pass."

Before the yacht had gamed the top of the hill the following car, hooting continuously, closed with it and dashed past.

"I say, Bob," shouted Eves, "did you see who was in it?"

"No. Didn't look. Who is it?"

"Rabbit-skin and Noakes."

"Our Noakes?"

"Philemon, as sure as a gun."

"Our worthy mayor, evidently. Rummy!"

"What was that you said?" asked Eves, turning to the Irishman, who had uttered a sharp exclamation as the car ran by.

"It was what I don't care to repeat. The fellow you do be calling Rabbit-skin has the rise got on me, and indeed I'm sorry I put you to the trouble and all."

"Noakes, you mean?"

"I do not. Noakes is unbeknown to me. But by the look of it that car will get to the camp by twelve o'clock, and we will not, and then Saunders, him with the fur collar, will be the way of slipping in his tender and I'll be left on the doorstep."

A light flashed on Eves.

"You're tendering for the camp waste?" he asked, quickly.

"I was. It was told me Saunders----"

"All right," Eves interrupted. Leaning over Templeton's shoulder he said: "I say, Bob, it's up to you, old man. You remember that telephone call. Noakes and Rabbit-skin are in co. Tendering for the camp waste, you know. He mustn't get in first with a higher tender. Can you hustle a bit?"

"I daren't accelerate till we get to the top: daren't waste petrol. But then----"

The yacht panted slowly up the last few yards of the hill. When it reached the top, the green car, enveloped in a cloud of smoke, was already some three hundred yards ahead, racing along a straight level stretch of road. It was clear that Saunders had recognised a business rival in the Irishman, and was urging his car to its utmost speed.

At the summit a bend in the road had once more brought the wind on the beam. Eves instantly hoisted the sail, and the yacht in a few moments gathered way. The road here ran through an open down; there were no hedges to blanket the yacht; and on the high ground the wind blew with the force of half a gale. Giving signs of the liveliest excitement, the Irishman, his hair flying in the wind, bent over the back of Templeton's seat, and every few seconds shouted the indications of the speedometer, his voice growing louder as the figures mounted up. "Ten--fourteen--eighteen--twenty"--he followed the pointer round the dial, and when it quivered on 33 he swung his arm round, uttering a wild "Hurroosh!" and was not a whit abashed when Templeton half turned a rebuking face towards him and warned him of the risk of plunging overboard.

There was, in truth, much reason for the man's ebullient spirits. The engine was switched off: there was little or no vibration; the yacht, as he afterwards declared, seemed to float along the road. Even when she had a decided list to starboard, the near wheels leaving the ground, he laughed as he threw his long body to windward, hanging perilously over the roadway, while Eves with mouth grim-set kept the bounding craft on a broad reach. It was soon apparent that she was more than holding her own with the long car ahead. The cloud of smoke came nearer and nearer, floating across the road to leeward like the trail from the funnel of a tramp steamer.

The green car was running an erratic course more or less in the middle of the road. Within thirty or forty yards of her Templeton insistently sounded his horn and drew over to the right, preparing to pass. Next moment he jammed on his brake hard, with an exclamation seldom heard on his phlegmatic lips. So far from steering to his own side of the road, the driver of the car had also pulled across to the right, with the evident intention of blocking the passage. But for Templeton's promptitude the bowsprit must inevitably have run into the hood of the car. The jerk threw the Irishman heavily forward over the back of the seat, and when he recovered himself he broke into violent objurgation, which had no more effect on the occupants of the car than the strident blasts of Templeton's horn. They did not even look round. A turf-cutter on the moor scratched his head and gazed open-mouthed at the novel spectacle, and on the other side two affrighted ponies galloped with tossing manes and tails through and over the whins and gorse.

For the moment Templeton was baffled. Then Eves, leaning forward, shouted, to be heard above the roaring of the car:

"Pass her on the near side, Bob."

Templeton nodded, reserving for the future his criticism that, in the circumstances, Eves might more properly have used a nautical term. He checked the pace still further until nearly fifty yards separated him from the obstructive car. Then, with his horn at full blast, he released the brake, and the yacht shot forward. As he had expected, the car clung still more closely to the off side, leaving only the narrowest margin between the wheels and the rough edge of the turf. Suddenly, with a turn of the wheel that caused the yacht to lurch giddily, he switched on the engine and ran deftly into the open space on the near side. A yell of delight broke from the Irishman.

"Sit down and be quiet," shouted Eves, "or we'll capsize yet."

Noakes had risen in the car, and was bawling in the ear of the chauffeur. The yacht had drawn level with the car's wind screen before Templeton's manoeuvre was appreciated. Now, attempting to counter it, the chauffeur, under Noakes's vehement prompting, edged towards the left with the object of forcing the lighter-built yacht into the ditch which on this side parted the roadway from the moor. Perceiving the danger, Eves, with the capacity for rising to the occasion which had distinguished him in former enterprises with his friend, instantly eased the mainsheet: the boom swung out, and came into sharp contact, first with Noakes's head, then with the wind screen, which it shivered to fragments. The chauffeur, who had glanced round, ducked his head and in his flurry gave way for a moment. That moment was long enough. Eves hauled in the sheet, and the yacht, under the dual impulse of engine and wind, shot forward and in a few seconds was clear.

"Hurroosh!" yelled the Irishman, standing with difficulty erect in the swaying vehicle and looking back along the road. "Noakes, if that's the name of him, is after shaking his fist on us. I wouldn't say but he's cursing mighty fine, but sure I can't hear him for the noise of the creature. Saunders and the driver-man might be having a shindy by the looks of it. His head might be sore on him, and he'll not deserve it,--the man, I mean: I wouldn't be wasting a word of pity on Saunders if so be it was him."

Meanwhile, Templeton, knowing that his petrol would barely last out, had slowed down.

"Tell me if they draw up with us," he called over his shoulder.

"I will, begor," said the Irishman. "She's after doing that same now, and smoking like a tug on the Liffey."

"He's driving her hard," added Eves.

"That's all right," said Templeton. "It's my turn now."

A bend in the road brought the wind only a few points on the port bow, and Templeton, sparing his petrol, allowed the yacht to lose way. The green car, hooting angrily, and leaving a huge trail of smoke, rattled on at a great pace, and moment by moment lessened the distance between it and the yacht. But Eves and Templeton between them, by their dexterous handling of steering wheel and sail, succeeded where the others had failed. The road was effectively blocked; short of running the yacht down, with the risk of heavy casualties on both sides, as Eves remarked, Noakes and his friend had no means of preventing their Irish competitor from maintaining his lead and coming first to the winning post.

For a full mile the yacht zigzagged from one side of the road to the other. Eves handled the sheet very smartly, but soon found it hopeless to attempt to cope at once with the gustiness of the wind and the sudden swerves of the yacht, and finally contented himself with letting the boom swing freely within a narrow circle, fearing every moment that a lurch would capsize them all. Another turn in the road again gave them the wind; the yacht darted forward on a straight course, and the Irishman reported in high glee that the green car, grunting like Patsy O'Halloran's pig and snorting like Mike Grady's bull, was dropping behind as fast as she could run.

"What's the time?" Templeton called suddenly over his shoulder.

"Nine minutes to the hour," replied the Irishman, consulting his watch. "Will we do it?"

Now that the exciting part of the race was apparently over, he had become alive to business. Twelve o'clock was the hour named for the lodging of tenders with the camp commandant; "and with the likes of the Army," he said, "you might be done if so be you was half a wink late. It's not that I've a word to say in favour of any matter of punctuality in the Army; but they're the way of making a mighty fuss over trifles. It was told me the name they put to it is red tape."

"We'll do it," said Templeton, "provided, first, the petrol lasts out the hill ahead; second, there aren't any lorries in the way. But in any case we must run it fine, you know. You don't want Noakes or Saunders to get in at all, I take it."

"Sorra a bit."

"Would they tender higher than you?" asked Eves.

"They might."

"What a pity we didn't give Noakes that message, Bob. Some one at the camp wanted to give him the tip to cut his tender; there was no other to hand."

"The like of that, now, and me having the name of an honest man! Will I have time enough to write a word or two with the stump of a pencil? I have my tender in my pocket folded."

"Better let it alone; we'll keep Noakes off. He's still rattling along, Bob; do we get the wind up the hill?"

"I'm afraid not. The road takes an awkward turn; just ahead there, you see. We'll have to rely on the petrol, and trust to luck."

The yacht rounded the turn, and the hill came in view--a short sharp spur about a quarter-mile in length. In a trice they dowsed the sails. Templeton switched on the engine, intending to rush the incline. Looking behind somewhat anxiously now, the Irishman declared that the green car was barging on like a mad steam engine. Roaring like a furnace, it seemed to leap over the ground, overhauling the yacht yard by yard until it was three-parts up the hill. Then the clamour suddenly ceased.

"Begor, she's stopped," cried the Irishman, exultantly.

"Big ends dropped off," said Templeton, grinning at Eves over his shoulder. "I gave him fair warning."

The yacht topped the crest. On the moor to the left a vast assemblage of huts and tents broke upon the view. By the roadside was parked a row of motor lorries. Here and there men were moving about. They stared and shouted to one another at the sight of the strange vehicle sailing towards them, or rather running now merrily on the last gill of petrol. Templeton narrowly escaped colliding with the nearest lorry, then slowed down and enquired the way to the commandant's office.

"You go in between them huts till you come to a swanky hut with a flag flying atop," replied the private addressed. "A rum turn-out, this here."

Driving on to the moor, Templeton was checked by the sentry, to whom, however, the Irishman explained that he was Patrick O'Reilly, come to tender for the camp waste.

"Pass: you'd better tender for the lot of us: we're all waste here," said the sentry. "Perhaps if you offered to buy us up they'd demob."

"I don't like that," said Templeton, gravely, as he drove on. "It's subversive of discipline."

"Don't worry," said Eves with a smile. "He saluted all right. It's two minutes to twelve: we did jolly well, old man."

Templeton drew up at the commandant's hut. O'Reilly sprang out, and after a brief colloquy with the sentry, who looked doubtfully at his bare head and touzled hair, was allowed to enter. In five minutes he returned, in animated converse with the colonel. That officer, acknowledging the punctilious salutes of Eves and Templeton, smiled at the smutty face of the latter, and remarked:

"This is a queer contrivance of yours, my man. I thought Mr. O'Reilly was a lunatic when he told me he'd arrived in a yacht, without being sick, and himself a bad sailor----"

"I am that," put in O'Reilly, parenthetically. "I wouldn't like to say how much the Irish Sea is owing me."

"But I see he's not so mad as I supposed," the colonel went on.

"Sure you'd be the better of a voyage in her yourself," said O'Reilly.

"Thank you. I think I prefer the real article. Not many of these machines in the market, are there?"

"None, sir," replied Eves, promptly. "It's the first, a brand-new invention of my friend Templeton here, second lieutenant in the Blankshire Rifles. He's a repatriated prisoner of war, employing his leave in working out ideas that germinated in captivity. That accounts for his being improperly dressed."

"Indeed! Is this the Mr. Templeton who narrowly escaped gassing my old friend Colonel Beavis?"

"A pure accident, sir, due to the colonel's adventurous spirit and a loose screw. Templeton was very much cut up about it."

"Dry up!" growled Templeton in a fierce undertone.

"Well, I congratulate Mr. O'Reilly," said the colonel, his eyes twinkling. "I gather that but for Mr. Templeton's road yacht he wouldn't have got here till after twelve, and he seemed a little hurt when I told him that a few minutes are neither here nor there. One must give a time limit, of course; but I shouldn't have turned down a good offer that happened to arrive a few minutes late. But what's this?"

A crowd of privates, shouting vociferously, was approaching from the direction of the road. A few words were distinguishable in the babel. "This way, governor." "Two to one on the long un." And as the throng turned into the lane between the huts, among the khaki figures appeared Philemon Noakes and his fur-coated companion, trotting along in feverish haste. The soldiers fell back as they neared the commandant's hut, and the two civilians advanced alone.

"Are you the colonel?" asked Noakes, panting.

"I am. You want to see me?"

"I'm the Mayor of Pudlington. This is my friend Ebenezer Saunders, who's come for to tender for the camp waste."

"As per advertisement," added Saunders.

There was something aggressive in each man's manner of speech. The colonel looked at his wrist watch.

"The time mentioned was twelve o'clock, gentlemen. It is now eight minutes past. You are eight minutes too late."

"You won't draw the line so tight," said Noakes. "A few minutes are neither here nor there in a matter of this sort, and as the Mayor of Pudlington----

"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor----"

"But it's all along o' this infernal machine," cried Noakes, angrily, throwing out his hand towards the road yacht. "It was on the wrong side o' the road, and we couldn't pass it no-how; obstructing of the king's highway: that's what it was; and as the Mayor of Pudlington I'll have the law of them, that I will."

"Oh, come, Mr. Noakes," said Eves, pleasantly. "You tried that once before, you know. You remember my friend Templeton, even if you've forgotten me. As a matter of fact, sir," he added, turning to the colonel, "they overdrove their car, and the big ends dropped off; otherwise--well, I shouldn't have been surprised if there'd been a bit of a scrap somewhere about the top of the hill."

"There would," said O'Reilly, decisively. "And what's more, it was the car that blocked the road, and a mighty fine trouble we had, the way we'd circumvent the creature."

"It's a scandal," cried Noakes.