CHAPTER XIV
BUILDING A 225 H.P. MOTOR-CAR
Harry Buys Two Aero Engines—And a Mercèdes Chassis—Structural and Starting Problems—Myself as Rivet-Driver—We Start the Engine—And I Stop It—On the Road—Shows Clean Heels to Big American Car—And Tows a Rolls—Harry in His Home Workshop.
CHAPTER XIV
As soon as we had settled down at “Ennadale,” Hook, Surrey, and Harry had fitted up his own workshop adjoining the garage, he conceived the idea of building himself a real motor-car, and with this end in view he purchased two 225 h.p. Sunbeam aero engines (one for spares) and a 35 h.p. Mercèdes chassis.
At the time we had an enclosed Talbot, the gas-bag Grégoire, and a “sports” Ford, and Harry wanted to complete the “fleet” with a truly sporting car.
He dismantled the Mercèdes chassis and then began his task of putting the Sunbeam in the frame, no small undertaking single-handed.
The first trouble was the front cross member of the frame, which did not allow sufficient room for the long engine, and for days he debated whether he would cut out the Mercèdes four-speed gear-box and substitute a smaller box of two gears or shift the member. He decided to move the member back, and in the end the frame had so many holes in it that it had the appearance of having been “lightened.” However, he had all the surplus holes filled and the frame strengthened to take the extra weight. Then he got the engine in, and the trouble became the ground clearance, which only amounted to about six inches. The engine was raised a little, and although the oil-sump and fly-wheel seem perilously near the ground, no damage has ever been done. The radiator he obtained off an aeroplane, which he had nickelled, and the propeller-hole filled in with tubes. Then he started with sheets of aluminium to make the bonnet. I became so proficient at riveting that one side was left to me, which I successfully accomplished, though the length of the bonnet, about 7 feet, made it cumbersome to handle. Messrs. C.A.V. made a special starter capable of turning it at a good speed, as it was impossible to start it by hand. I well remember the first evening we started her up. The batteries were so low that the starter would only just turn the motor over. The car was not ready for the road, so we could not tow it, and we were a long time trying all means to start it. At last, with Harry swinging for all his might, helped by what little effort the starter could manage, it started up, but on one side of six cylinders only.
With the deafening roar of an unsilenced aero engine running in the confined space of a shut garage, and with the exhaust filling the air, it became very uncomfortable to me, but not so Harry. He seemed quite content to stand and watch it. Whether he had had secret forebodings as to whether it would ever start, or, having started, whether it would blow itself up, I do not know; but he looked so impressed to see the motor running, although only on one side, that it was quite an effort to leave it to fetch some tools which he needed from the adjoining workshop.
It had been running some time, and not too slowly, when, looking round, I saw the induction-pipe was red hot. I called to Harry to come and stop the engine, but in the din he did not hear, so, rather than waste a second, I stopped the engine. After all the trouble we had had to start it, Harry thought I must be mad, until he saw the induction-pipe creaking and cracking—all the solder run.
For a minute he thought the motor was spoilt, realising that it had been running too long on one side alone.
However, off came the induction-pipe, and the next day it was brazed up and then replaced.
A few days after this saw it out on the road for its first run. It exceeded all expectations both as to speed, flexibility, and especially acceleration, and we returned home covered in mud and home-made glory. Harry had a special aluminium body fitted of his own design, one of the first aluminium bodies seen on the road, and certainly the first real attempt at protection for the rear passengers. For some time we had a good deal of plug trouble. Continually they oiled up through running slowly. Sometimes a good fast run would clear them, but generally they had to be changed, and with twelve sparking plugs this became pretty frequent. The use of special adapters, into which his ever-favourite K.L.G.‘s were fitted, completely solved the difficulty and never has the trouble recurred.
This car became Harry’s most valued possession. In appearance, an ordinary powerful touring car, he loved to try her out against anyone willing for a “go.”
I remember being passed on the Portsmouth Road at a high speed by a 12-cylinder Packhard, driven by a big American. We were not exactly “dawdling” along at the time, and the Packhard came for us, thinking Harry had his foot down. However, following it through the town of Kingston at the staid pace that town demands, but, happily for its finances, does not always obtain, we found the broad straight road of Kingston Hill practically empty of traffic. The American opened out, and the 12-cylinder Packhard is no indifferent “speed model.” He sped away, we following closely, until well on to the hill, when Harry, without need of the rapid change down employed on lesser cars to get away quickly, put his foot down, and with a dig in the back due to the acceleration we shot ahead with half the power to spare.
At the top, the man on the Packhard came alongside and said, “Say, that’s some roadster you’ve got there. What power is she?” To which Harry replied with his usual inoffensive bluntness, “Same as yours. Twelve cylinders, only better ones.” They struck up quite a friendship, the American vowing at parting that he must get something like that to take back to America with him.
Another time, going to town to have it out with some body-works people who had kept a chassis of his an unconscionable long time fitting a body, and getting no satisfactory promise of an early date of completion, Harry told them they could leave it altogether and he would take the chassis home. He had a friend with him at the time who had never driven a car in his life, and knew nothing about such troubles. Well, the car was to be got back somehow, and if this man could not drive it he “could at least,” says Harry, “sit and steer it while I tow you gently.”
And thus they left London for Kingston, the novice at his first steering-wheel being towed by Harry on the Sunbeam. The very natural qualms on the part of the man were testified by the state of the brakes when they eventually did get home, showing it was doubtful if they were ever released in his manful endeavour to follow instructions and “keep the rope tight.”
All went well, proceeding at little more than double the lawful speed of five miles per hour for towing vehicles, until they reached Putney, when a Benz, manned by a good portion of the British Navy, started to tempt Harry. Undoubtedly the Sunbeam interested them, and they kept passing and stopping, inviting yet hardly expecting a “strafe,” considering the Rolls chassis tied on behind. Still, Harry studied the feelings of his friend behind and plodded on into the open road between Putney and Kingston. At last, having just been passed like the wind by the Benz, the temptation got the better of him, and with a glance behind to notify his intention, he opened out, and up the hill he roared with his freight behind, passing the Benz with its highly-amused and excited crew like an express train. And the man behind only said two words when they arrived home to tea: “Never again.”
It was never amusing to be towed home by Harry, as I know well from experience. Once at Brooklands the 6-cylinder A.C., then in its experimental stage, had broken something while on the track, and Harry offered its driver, Victor Bruce, a tow home on his own racing A.C., then fitted with a two-seater body. Just before starting, a little delay was caused by someone taking the passenger seat on the 6-cylinder A.C. for a lift home, which said seat was apparently booked by another member of a little gang of speed merchants who forgather at Brooklands, called generally “Moir,” although he has other and very nice names. The gentleman having been placed gently but firmly on his feet by Moir, he started to walk up the hill from the paddock towards the gate.
Harry, having tied the six-cylinder on behind with a bit of thin string he had found lying about, we started off, accelerating to take the hill. Halfway up, just passing the seat-usurper, to whom Moir, standing on the seat that he could be better seen, was bowing with that courtly manner lost to us centuries ago, the string broke through the jerk in changing gear, and the bow had a sudden and undignified ending. However, in a very up-to-date manner, the gentlemen assisted in replacing him, and the rest of the homeward journey, with the same string, only much shorter, leaving a couple of feet between the two cars, was of sufficiently diverting a nature to remedy any discomfort that might have been felt from the bruises. Harry and I being very late for something that night, we hurried, making a run home in record time, which time I should hate to see in print.
And yet he had very few accidents. The only one that might have had bad results, but which fortunately did not, was when driving his Austro-Daimler in 1917 with Lieut. Higginbotham, who was the Admiralty representative in inspecting the Sopwith machines, and two other men. Entering Brooklands for the flying-ground, they had just left the paddock, and in negotiating the S bend which the road takes here, at a good speed, the car turned completely over and landed in the ditch.
The three got out unhurt, but the car had to be lifted off Harry’s arm where the steering-wheel had caught him. His shoulder was badly put out, necessitating his arm being in a sling. The next afternoon, in making some enquiries about some machines, he was advised not to go near Brooklands for a day or two, or he might be tempted to fly. He replied: “That’s all right, old man. I put three of them through this morning, but this wretched sling is a nuisance flying; I must have it off to-morrow”—which he did, although it was very painful and took much longer to right itself. Another outcome of the incident was that Lieut. Higginbotham the next morning lodged a humorous complaint against the Sopwith Aviation Company for trying to dispose of the Admiralty representative owing to his strictness in supervising their productions.
Photo by]
[Newspaper Illustrations, Ltd.
THE SCENE OUTSIDE KING’S CROSS STATION, LONDON, WHEN HARRY RETURNED FROM THE ATLANTIC. THE AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS DECIDED THAT HARRY MUST HAVE SOMETHING MORE TRIUMPHANT THAN A CIVIC RECEPTION.
[Facing p. 198.
Harry spent all his spare time in his workshop attached to the garage, where he always had some big undertaking on hand. He had the habit of singing or whistling at his work, unless things went very wrong, when he would work in silence and it was difficult to extract a word from him. But it was when he had two or three days’ work to be finished in one night that he developed that irritability which came so quickly and went as quickly which was one of his characteristics. But the occasions were comparatively rare, for generally he was perfectly happy and good-tempered during the evenings we spent in the workshop. He always worked with a rapidity which almost bewildered the stranger, and he had no patience with a slow worker, rather doing the work himself. In the winter months we decided to give up going down to the workshop after dinner, and spent these evenings reading. Or, rather, I read while Harry listened, as he could never read or write himself for any time, since he performed both in such a slow and laborious manner it was obviously no enjoyment to him. We always began with any items of interest from the current motoring and flying papers, and sometimes a long (and to me generally unintelligible) article from the Automobile Engineer, and then continued the book we had in hand. He was a schoolboy in his taste for literature, for it was always a tale of adventure, varied by something gruesome, such as Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” which he chose to be read, and we got through many books in this way.
One evening, soon after the Armistice, Harry came in and said he had been asked to fly the Atlantic with a machine which Sopwith’s were prepared to build. He had always been keen on the flight, and I knew it would come sooner or later. Pamela was two months old at the time, and I had a great feeling of responsibility on her account. Harry gave me a perfectly free choice as to whether he should go or not, and I was torn between my duty to Pam to ask him to stay and my duty to him to let him go. I tried to imagine how I should feel if another man were to fly the machine that Harry ought to fly, just because I feared the consequences. I knew I could never allow that to happen. I said: “Why should you think I want you to stay? I want to be proud of you.”
So after that they went steadily forward with their preparations and were eventually ready to start for St. Johns, Newfoundland, on March 28th, 1919. Harry and Commander Grieve in a preliminary test at Brooklands in one day flew a distance of 1,800 miles, equivalent to the Atlantic flight, and there was no hitch, not even in the sandwiches which I cut for them!
Jury’s Imperial Pictures produced a film showing Harry’s trials for the Atlantic flight conducted at Brooklands prior to his leaving for Newfoundland. The operator who took this film went up in a second machine when Harry was in the air.
It was pouring with rain the day Harry started, and bitterly cold. During the preparations my courage had remained high, but when I went into Harry’s room just before we left, and found him crying, I lost heart and broke down entirely. He had been putting a few last things into his bag when his feelings got the better of him. He was always sensitive and soft-hearted, and I knew he was going to be terribly homesick until he got over the other side and had plenty to do. The sight of his grief was too much for me—my courage oozed out altogether. But tears—even the tears of a grown-up man and woman—are a wonderful relief to overwrought feelings. We felt much better afterwards, and were able to look on the bright side of things once more.
I only went as far as London to see Harry off, for I could not leave our baby for long at a time. The drive could hardly be described as cheerful. I sat on the floor of the 12-cylinder Sunbeam, for better protection from the rain, as we carried no hood. With my head on Harry’s knee, I longed to sleep away the next two months. He reached the station only just in time to catch the train, and a number of friends had gathered to see him off. I recall that at that moment I wished I had married a farmer’s lad without ambitions. I was thankful when the whistle blew, as I felt so very unsure of myself and was afraid of breaking down again. He was gone, and all I could do was to wait for the future to unfold itself.
I got back home at ten o’clock in the morning, oppressed by a feeling of great desolation. I could not settle to anything, and even Pam could not brighten me up.
After the first week of Harry’s absence, time at home went fairly quickly. I never left home for longer than two hours, and when I did I bought newspapers of every edition, in the hope of getting news.