Chapter 254: Prototype Car Part 1

Three weeks after Ernest Teucher drafted the primary elevations for his road carriage, Hollen Vane identified a fatal operational flaw.

It had nothing to do with the compression ratio. It had nothing to do with the bevel drive, the differential planetary gears, or the geometry of the steering knuckles. The difficulty was considerably more elementary.

"Ernest."

Ernest did not lift his eyes from the cast-iron cylinder head clamped in the bench vise. "Hand me the three-quarter box spanner."

"Go home, lad."

"No. Hand me the spanner."

Hollen stood with his boots planted on the oil-stained boards, arms crossed over his leather apron, his ash stick leaning against the tool rack.

It was twenty-five minutes past seven in the evening. The main halls of Machine Works Number One had gone dark forty minutes prior; the great overhead line shafts had squealed to a halt, the boilers were banked for the night, and the last shifts had washed the gray cast-iron dust from their forearms and dispersed into the Helmarte streets. Only the high-ceilinged experimental bay remained illuminated, lit by six double-burner gas mantles that hummed softly in the draft.

Ernest was still standing over the bench in his shirtsleeves. His waistcoat was unbuttoned, his cuffs were pinned past his elbows, and black engine grease was smeared across the heel of his right palm. A brass-cased depth gauge protruded from his waistcoat pocket, and a carpenter’s pencil rode behind his ear.

Hollen did not reach for the spanner. "You gave your word to Eleanor that you would be sitting at the dinner table by half-past six."

"I promised to make every reasonable effort consistent with shop safety," Ernest corrected, his fingers testing the seated depth of an exhaust valve stem.

"You promised six-thirty without caveats, boy. I was standing in the hall when you said it."

Ernest finally lifted his head, blowing a stray curl of dark hair from his brow. "That commitment was made prior to the discovery that the breaker points are pitting under continuous primary current."

"The breaker points will remain pitted at eight o’clock tomorrow morning," Hollen replied evenly. "They have no calendar obligations."

"They present an unacceptable variance in ignition timing—"

"Go home to your wife, Ernest."

Ernest’s gaze drifted toward the test stand in the center of the bay.

Hollen recognized the look instantly. "Do not even begin."

"We are within two adjustments of a sustained firing cycle, Hollen."

"You said that at five o’clock. At five o’clock, the exhaust pipe spat raw kerosene across my gaiters."

"The mixture was rich by four percent. We have leaned the jet."

"You are splitting fractions while your dinner goes to cold tallow."

Ernest frowned, his fingers tightening around the valve stem. Before he could mount a defense of combustion stoichiometry, the iron latch of the bay door lifted with a clear, sharp click.

Both men turned.

Eleanor stood framed in the doorway against the gaslit gloom of the outer yard.

She wore her dark olive traveling cloak over an evening gown of plum silk, her gloved hands resting loosely inside her muff. Her bonnet was tied with dark ribbon, and her gray eyes took in the high rafters, the hanging lamps, and the two soot-marked men with an unhurried, judicial sweep.

Ernest became entirely, rigidly motionless.

Hollen’s weathered mouth split into an expansive, malicious grin. "Well, now."

Eleanor’s gaze traveled slowly to the brass clock ticking against the brick wall. Then to the greasy iron cylinder on the bench. Then to her husband’s blackened cuffs.

"Six-thirty, Baron."

Ernest’s throat worked. He glanced involuntarily toward the clock dial. "Technically, the transit from the basin requires eighteen minutes, which implies—"

"Do not calculate yourself into further debt, Ernest," she said calmly.

"Understood."

Hollen reached for his heavy tweed overcoat, whistling an airy provincial tune as he pulled his flat cap down over his white hair. "I bid you both a very pleasant evening."

Ernest stared at him in disbelief. "You are deserting the bay?"

"Your wife has established legal jurisdiction over the premises," Hollen said, tucking his ash stick firmly under his arm. "I have no desire to be cited for contempt." He touched the brim of his cap to Eleanor as he passed. "He’s all yours, Lady Teucher. He’s been claiming he’s two minutes from victory since tea."

"Thank you, Hollen," Eleanor smiled. "I shall manage the inventory."

"Tomorrow morning," Hollen called over his shoulder. "Eight o’clock."

"Seven," Ernest countered automatically.

"Eight," Hollen barked, and slammed the heavy oak door behind him.

Silence settled over the shop, punctuated only by the low hiss of the gas jets.

Eleanor stepped further into the bay, her boots clicking cleanly on the flagstones. Her eyes moved over the tables with keen curiosity.

Three weeks of relentless development had turned the clean experimental room into an ironmonger’s labyrinth. Crankshaft blanks lay rough-turned beside the radial drill; wooden pattern boxes for water-jacketed cylinders stood stacked against the brick piers; copper tubing, brass petcocks, and coils of insulated copper wire hung from iron hooks driven into the masonry.

And resting squarely in the middle of the floor was the chassis.

It was four steel channel beams hot-riveted into a narrow rectangle, resting upon four light carriage wheels with solid rubber rims. There were no polished lacquer panels, no padded leather cushions, and no brass lanterns. Across the frame sat a plain pine plank to serve as a bench, an upright iron tiller for steering, and, bolted directly over the rear axle, a squat, single-cylinder iron casting with an exposed flywheel that weighed eighty pounds.

Eleanor walked a slow circle around the frame, her skirts rustling softly. "This is Prototype Number One?"

Ernest wiped his hands on a clean waste rag, following her stride. "The structural rolling chassis."

"It possesses no coachwork."

"Coachwork adds non-propulsive tare weight," Ernest explained, stepping beside her. "Doors are superfluous during preliminary kinematic trials."

"It looks remarkably like an iron skeleton, Ernest."

"It is an experimental test bed."

She stopped by the rear wheel, resting one gloved fingertip upon the cold iron rim of the flywheel. Her gaze lingered on the heavy cylinder, tracing the brass fuel cock and the crude copper igniter block bolted to the head.

"Will it turn its own wheels?" she asked softly.

The dry humor left her voice, replaced by that keen, penetrating intelligence that always saw straight to the core of his work.

"It will," Ernest said. "Tomorrow, if the contact breaker maintains its gap."

"And if the gap fails?"

"We will recut the cam and file the platinum points."

"And if it fails again?"

"We will build an enclosed wipe-spark mechanism," he said simply.

Eleanor looked up from the machine, studying his face in the yellow gaslight. "You never harbor a single doubt, do you?"

Ernest looked at the engine. "The physical laws are consistent, Eleanor. A volume of hydrocarbon vapor mixed with twelve parts atmospheric air releases heat when ignited. Heated gas expands. An expanding gas contained within a sealed chamber must exert pressure against the movable boundary. The piston must move."

"You make the universe sound like a ledger that has no choice but to balance."

"It has no choice," he said.

Eleanor smiled—a soft, private expression—and reached out, using the clean corner of her handkerchief to dab a speck of cylinder oil from his temple. "Come home to dinner, Baron. The universe can balance itself until eight o’clock tomorrow."

Ernest looked at the engine. Then at his wife.

The engine did not stand a chance.

"Twenty minutes," he said, untying his shop apron.

"Fifteen," she corrected, linking her arm through his clean sleeve. "And you are washing your hands with carbolic soap before you sit at the table."

The test team convened at twenty minutes before eight the following morning.

Ernest had restricted the personnel to six: two master turners from the tool room, an electrical instrument maker from the telegraph shop, Samuel, Hollen, and himself. Early prototypes were delicate, volatile mechanisms; a crowd of draftsmen and division managers would only introduce confusion and unnecessary advice.

The single-cylinder engine sat bolted to a heavy oak bedplate clamped to the concrete floor.

It was an ungainly, industrial beast. The cylinder was cast with a rough-cored water jacket fed from a galvanized iron bucket mounted on an overhead timber. A copper pipe ran from a small brass fuel tank to an atomizing jet of Ernest’s own design, and a heavy primary battery was wired to a mechanical contact breaker that rode an eccentric on the half-speed cam spindle.

Ernest surveyed the setup with a critical, narrowed eye.

"Fuel head?"

"Six inches of gravity pressure, Chairman," the machinist reported, checking the petcock.

"Cooling circulation?"

"Full bore through the jacket. Draining clear."

"Lubrication?"

"Drip feeds set at eight drops per minute on the main journals."

Ernest turned to the electrical fitter. "The contact gap?"

"Set to fifteen-thousandths, my lord. Dressed the platinum with an oilstone this morning."

Hollen stood six paces back, his ash stick planted firmly between his boots, his pipe belching thick blue clouds toward the rafters. "Samuel, step behind the iron column."

Samuel, holding a brass tachometer, glanced up nervously. "Is there a hazard of fragmentation, Mr. Vane?"

"The Chairman is attempting to tame lightning in a cast-iron kettle, lad," Hollen said cheerfully. "Splinters are an engineering certainty."

"The tensile strength of the cylinder casting exceeds maximum combustion pressure by a factor of four, Samuel," Ernest stated without looking around. "Remain where you are."

He took his position at the side of the engine bed, gripping the heavy iron starting crank fitted to the tapered end of the crankshaft.

"Switch on," Ernest commanded.

The electrician threw the knife switch on the battery board. A faint, sharp buzz of inductive current hummed through the primary coil.

Ernest set his boots against the floorboards. He heaved upward against the compression stroke.

The heavy flywheel groaned. The piston crested top dead center.

Hiss.

Nothing.

"Fuel mixture open one-quarter turn," Ernest ordered, his brow furrowing.

The machinist touched the needle valve.

Ernest reset the crank. He hauled upward a second time, throwing his whole shoulder into the swing.

Chuff.

A faint puff of pale blue smoke drifted from the open exhaust elbow. The air in the bay suddenly smelled of scorched oil and vaporized petroleum.

Hollen leaned forward, his pipe forgotten. "It coughed."

"It fired on the late timing," Ernest said, his voice tightening with focus. "Advance the breaker plate two millimeters."

The fitter tapped the brass plate with a small wooden mallet.

Ernest stepped to the crank a third time. He pulled through the compression resistance with an explosive, practiced heave of his back.

CRACK!

The sharp report echoed off the brick walls like an infantry carbine. A bright yellow tongue of flame shot six inches from the exhaust port.

Samuel jumped three feet backward, nearly dropping his tachometer.

Hollen took his pipe from his mouth, eyeing the ceiling rafters with deep, critical amusement. "Controlled combustion, was it?"

"The mixture was transiently lean," Ernest muttered, adjusting the needle valve with his thumb. "Again."

He gripped the iron handle once more. He threw his weight against the stroke.

The engine kicked. The crank spun out of his palm with a sharp metallic snap.

Pop.

Pop-pop.

PUTT-PUTT-PUTT-PUTT-PUTT!

The heavy oak bedplate shuddered against the concrete.

The iron flywheel blurred into a solid, spinning disk of gray iron. A rapid, rhythmic bark—staccato, harsh, and entirely devoid of the gentle sigh of condensing steam—shattered the morning quiet of the bay.

PUTT-PUTT-PUTT-PUTT-PUTT-PUTT!

The entire room went utterly still, save for the furious, mechanical hammering of the small engine.

Exhaust gas drummed against the tin collector pipe in a steady, blue haze. The rocker arm tapped against the overhead valve with the precision of a clockwork escapement. The little puddle of cooling water in the top bucket began to ripple with fine, concentric rings of vibration.

No boiler fire.

No thirty-minute wait for steam pressure to climb the gauge.

No five-ton boiler shell.

A cold iron casting, fed by a half-inch pipe, spinning an eighty-pound flywheel at four hundred revolutions per minute under its own internal fire.

Samuel stared with his mouth open. The machinists stepped forward, their faces illuminated by the pale blue flash flickering through the valve guide.

Hollen slowly walked toward the bedplate. He stopped two feet from the thrashing connecting rod, his scarred hands resting upon the head of his walking stick, his white beard trembling slightly in the exhaust draft.

He watched the crank pin dip and rise. He watched the governor weights spread against their springs.

"God above," the old ironmaster murmured, the cynicism entirely stripped from his voice.

Ernest stood with his arms folded across his chest, the soot on his jaw forgotten, a brilliant, fierce smile breaking across his features.

"Open the throttle jet ten percent," Ernest ordered.

The machinist turned the brass screw.

The rhythm deepened, accelerating into a ferocious, tearing snarl:

RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP!

The concrete floor hummed beneath their boot soles.

Ernest turned his gaze to Hollen. "Do you still categorize it as a gunnery accident, old friend?"

Hollen stared at the spinning wheel, his throat working. He lifted his hand, pointing a trembling finger at the iron cylinder.

"It’s a monster, Ernest," Hollen said, his voice barely audible over the mechanical clatter. "A noisy, stinking, unholy monster."

He paused, a slow, wide grin splitting his weathered face from ear to ear.

"Now bolt the damned thing to the wheels and let’s see if it can climb the yard hill."