“If you will,” replied the Cornish Patrol Leader.
Craddock jumped into the dinghy, cast off the painter, and rowed to the Merlin. It required a considerable amount of hard rowing, for the tide was now swirling past and the dinghy was large and heavy.
“What have you done?” he enquired, as he gained the Merlin’s deck.
“Tried everything,” was the reply. “The mag.’s all right; there’s quite a healthy spark, but she won’t even fire her dope.”
Peter made the usual preliminary tests. Pouring a few drops of petrol into the plug and placing the latter on the cylinder, he found that the spirit ignited readily enough; but, as the Patrol Leader had said, the “dope” would not fire when the plug was in position.
“Tried a spare plug?” asked Craddock.
“Four—no good,” was the terse and emphatic reply.
Carefully overhauling the high-tension wire, Peter called attention to the fact that the insulation was rather worn at a spot where the wire crossed one of the bearers of the cockpit floor.
“Yes,” agreed the Cornish lad, “I noticed that; but if there is a short there’d be no spark at all. As it is, the plug has quite a healthy spark.”
“Well, try now,” suggested Craddock. “No; don’t replace the floorboards. Stand astride of the gap.”