“There’s a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They’ll give you all you want. Say I sent you. Gregory—Michael Gregory. Good-bye!”
“Ought to ’ave been in the Service. Prob’ly is,” was Pyecroft’s comment.
At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote Mr. Hinchcliffe’s remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
“No objection to your going through it,” said the lodge-keeper. “It’ll save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick.”
But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
“We’ve come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far,” said Hinchcliffe (he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), “and now we have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet.”
At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road, held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
“Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers in my sinful time!” wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle. “What’s worryin’ Ada now?”
“The forward eccentric-strap screw’s dropped off,” said the engineer, investigating.
“That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade.”