Theirs Was The Kingdom (106 page)

She drew herself erect and it struck him he had touched her pride. “George is a genius,” she said. “Uncle Max was a genius too, and he understood George from the beginning.”

“But I didn’t?”

“It is more difficult for a father. You see him still as a little boy, I think.”

He pondered this for a moment. Did he? Not really, for somehow George had never qualified as a little boy, or not in the manner of Alex, Hugo, and Edward. In a way, in a very different way, he was closer to Giles, someone who had skipped the intervening stages between infancy and a sort of precocious maturity. But in George’s case, development seemed to have stopped at around twenty, so that he remained an intelligent youth, with a youth’s lack of balance. He said, “Where is this test to be? Precisely, I mean. Could you show me on that map?” and he pointed to the wall-map of the Polygon.

She got up and crossed the room, standing back with her little blonde head on one side as she studied the Lancastrian and Cheshire complex, drawn up by him so long ago and overwritten, here and there, with all manner of markings in red and blue pencil. She pointed to a spot two or three miles west of Altrincham, where the river Bollin wound its way across the plain. There were one or two villages marked alongside the railway and one of these, where her finger rested, was called Dunham.

“Here,” she said, authoritatively, “between here and a farm a mile along the road. I have listened to his discussions with Grandfather Sam and the engine that has already been taken there. It is against the law, of course, but George, and Grandfather too, make their own laws. The spot was chosen because it was secluded and level. It is to be very early in the morning, as soon as it is light. The crates went there by rail and are being assembled in one of the barns. They have measured a mile and will make two journeys, one to the station and one back to the farm. It is planned for Friday, three days from now, and I wish very much for you to witness it. Then I will have done my part and will be satisfied. Will you do this small thing for me?”

It was impossible to refuse her, even if he had been inclined to, and he was not. The stratagem appealed to his sense of fun and adventure. The very idea of lying in ambush, watching Old George try out his stinking engine on a deserted stretch of road at crack of dawn, was like a return to his venturesome youth when he had made a habit of this kind of frolic. He said, laughing, “Why, of course I will, with all my heart. And if I don’t like what I see I’ll go away again, without showing myself. What time does your train leave Euston? Do you intend to catch the three-twenty express?” and when she nodded, too pleased with herself to speak, “Then I’ll give you lunch at the George. And talking of the George, I’ll let you into a family secret. That headstrong husband of yours was conceived there, one hot summer night in 1863, and that’s how he came by his name. That’s something you didn’t know, I’ll wager.”

“No,” she said, “I never heard it. But neither, I think, did George.” Then, shyly, “Some news for you. You are to be a grandfather again in September, and I will promise you something. I will ask George to call the boy Adam. Because of this kindness you do me.”

“It might not be a boy. What then? Shall we say Eve?”

“It will be a boy,” she said, with some of Henrietta’s assurance on the same subject. “All my children will be boys.”

2

It was, he thought, one of the coldest mornings he was ever abroad in, the knife-edge wind boring through his topcoat and setting him squirming with discomfort in his cramped, uncomfortable ambush, a holly bush that formed part of the hedge dividing the local rectory appropriately called The Hollies, and a straight stretch of road that ran between a large farm and Dunham Halt on the Liverpool branch line.

He had been obliged to get there under cover of darkness and send his cab away, walking briskly along the stretch until he came to the farm and could peep through a chink in the gate to satisfy himself that her information was correct. It was. Several figures moved to and fro in the yard, although it was not yet light enough to identify any one of them. But there, under heavy tarpaulin wrappings, stood George’s engine, looking smaller and more compact than he remembered, as though it had shrunk during its sojourn in the North. He did not dare wait until the wrappings were stripped away, but back-tracked towards the station, peering about for a place of concealment and remembering, as he did so, that it was the first time he had done this in pre-dawn murkiness since his Mutiny days, thirty years ago. His instinct for cover seemed to have survived. Five minutes after leaving the farm he was tucked away, with a good view of the road, thanking his stars he had remembered to bring his brandy flask and fortifying himself with a noggin whilst he waited.

Mercifully, they were not long making their preparations. A steady, throbbing mutter shattered the early morning silence as the engine came to life some three hundred yards east of where he sat, and he cocked an ear to the note, comparing it to the uncertain, heavier stutter he remembered when the engine was running in the old stables at Tryst. He thought, “He’s done something to harness that thrust. Regulated it somehow. Sounds more like a factory belt, without that harsh, metallic clatter it once had… It’s only half its original size too… I remember it reminded me of Trevithick’s iron carriage that Keate told me about…” And feeling a little sheepish on account of the sense of occasion that had invaded him, he chafed his hands and blew on them, seeing his breath cloud the air like the trail of exhaust gases of George’s machine.

Then, hearing the throbbing sound increase until it had attained an insistent rhythm, he forgot to feel like a schoolboy mounting an extravagant practical joke and surrendered to excitement fortified by all the brandy he had swallowed, inching forward until he could poke his head clear of the prickly leaves.

When it came its rush and clatter stunned his senses. It was almost light now, with a heavy ground mist evaporating over the fields opposite, a million frost-points glittering on the hard-packed flints of the road, as if someone had passed by scattering diamonds. He caught no more than a glimpse of it—a solid, compact mass of iron, brass, and planed timber lunging out of the mist like a gross primeval monster swooping on an enemy. Instinctively he cowered, feeling the rush of air strike his face as it passed, but he saw old George sitting up there like a mahout herding a laden elephant down an Indian forest track, save that no elephant had ever moved at such a speed or with such a sense of purpose.

The apparition passed in a flash. He had just time to notice that the carriage of the machine was piled with what looked like squarish packages of one sort or another. Then, as it slowed down nearer the station, the note of the engine changed again, rising to a snarling roar, so that he thought, “Great God! He’ll have everyone out of their beds screaming that there’s been an earthquake…!” But the windows behind him remained curtained. It was clear that George had squared the locals and had almost certainly used this same level stretch for earlier tests.

Then, again taking him by surprise, the thing rushed down on him, so that he wondered how on earth the boy had reversed such a cumbersome vehicle so rapidly. It was now travelling at what he estimated to be something over twenty miles an hour, and this time the passage of man and machine introduced into him a sense of wonder and humility, so that he thought, ruefully, “God help me, I’ve been wrong all the time! That vehicle was carrying freight and nothing I possess in the way of waggons and teams could cover the ground at half the speed.”

In his excitement he quite forgot that he was an uninvited spectator and burst out of the bush, stumping up the road to the point where he could see the machine at a standstill, trailing a plume of blue gas that was poisoning the air around. George was still aboard, but at road level were several other people, one of them a thickset elderly man, muffled to the eyes in a coat with an astrakhan collar and waving his stick to proclaim a schoolboy’s glee.

He was within twenty yards of the group when they recognised one another. The topcoated man was Sam Rawlinson, and Adam was so surprised to see the old chap here at this time of day that he stopped dead, but Sam waddled forward, shouting above the raucous
tut-sk-tut
of the engine, “By Gow, see who’s here! George lad, it’s your father!” George, who had been bent over the mechanism, jerked himself upright and stared over his shoulder, so that Adam suddenly felt miserably self-conscious concerning his presence, and a little fearful of repercussions on Gisela.

He was relieved, therefore, to see a broad grin split George’s face as he jumped down and came running, shouting, “Why, you secretive old…” but then he stopped, himself somewhat embarrassed. Sam expressed what was surely in the boy’s mind, saying, “Eeee, but he’s a knowing one, is your dad! No flies on
him
! There’s nowt goes on anywhere
he
doesn’t hear about, and that’s summat I decided long ago!”

Then they all shook hands with the utmost cordiality and George said, pride showing through his excitement, “Did you see her go? Did you see that turn of speed back along the road?”

“I did indeed,” Adam said, “and I’m more than half converted. No hedging, lad, I had no idea… it’s nothing like I imagined… nothing like it used to be, and you’ve freight aboard. What is it? What have you stowed there?”

“Setts. Road surfacing blocks,” Sam said, with some of George’s elation. “Aye, an’ near half a ton of it, not counting cement! I said to George, after he’d made first test run over Blackley way, a month since, I said, ‘Where’s t’ damn sense in running her empty again? Load her up, lad, and show she’ll do t’ job she’s built for! Aye and she did, didn’t she? Dammit, boy,” turning back to George, “she ran better loaded nor unloaded to my reckoning!” and he joggled a stop-watch he was holding.

“What was the average over the half-mile?” Adam asked, after measuring the distance with his eyes. Sam said, “Tweny-two mile an ower. And don’t tell me you’ve owt in your stables to hold a candle to that!”

“No,” said Adam, “I haven’t, and neither has any other haulier, for that’s racetrack speed. And you say there’s half a ton aboard?”

“Half a ton plus,” George said, so that Adam thought, “He’s pleased to see me but he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t enjoy rubbing it in.” But for the first time since George had arrived home with his twelve crates of junk, Adam could look at the machine with respect, noting that he was right in his assumption that it had been reduced to half its original size. It now looked more like a big, shaftless waggon than a crackpot’s fantasy. The tyres, he saw, were steel-studded rubber and great attention seemed to have been paid to springing. The steel leaves inserted above the rear axle were more than six inches thick, and the body of the vehicle, half-full of setts and cement, fitted snugly over the frame, giving the thing a grace it had never possessed in its experimental stages.

“Come aboard while I drive her into the yard,” George said, and Adam hauled himself into the cushioned seat beside the driver’s, looking in dismay at the complicated array of knobs and levers protruding from the angled dashboard like flatheaded pins from a pincushion. Under him, as George adjusted two of the controls, the machine vibrated, so that Adam had the sensation of sitting a horse with a bad reputation, and experienced identical qualms. He said nothing, however. Indeed, anything he might have said would have been lost in the engine’s roar as George released the heavy brass brake-lever and twisted the steering spokes hard left, after which the machine moved forward at a walking pace, passing between the gates to the cobbled yard. A flood of questions suggested themselves but now, he decided, was not the time to ask them. How much did it cost to build a mechanical carriage of this size and power? How skilled and experienced did a man have to be to propel one on an open road? What guarantees were there that it would not break loose and go thundering across country like a Juggernaut? All kinds of queries and uncertainties, but the sum total of them seemed frivolous when measured against the boy’s achievement.

He climbed down and men hurried forward with tarpaulins, draping them over the machine like grooms of the bedchamber. He noticed something else too, that perhaps everyone else took for granted. Respect for the vehicle was inherent in their approach and in Sam’s too, but some of it, a good deal of it he would say, rubbed off on George, who stood about issuing orders like a young Napoleon. Observing this, Adam remembered Gisela’s claim concerning the boy, voiced in the tower three days ago. A genius, she had called him, but not with any emphasis in her voice. She said it as a simple statement of fact, as though assuring him categorically that the earth was spherical and not, as he had long assumed, flat.

They all trooped into breakfast at the farm, where Adam discovered he had a schoolboy’s appetite, addressing himself ravenously to ham, eggs, marmalade, and a quart of coffee, but he was not so occupied as to overlook the genial relationship that had developed between George and Sam and it made him a little jealous. “The old rascal has resisted fossilisation better than I,” he told himself glumly and said, as soon as Sam was safely engaged in conversation with a sallow man in overalls, whom Adam took to be a mechanic, “What are your plans, George? Are you going to patent the machine?” George, looking him straight in the eye, replied, “It is patented. In your name.”

“In
my
name?”

But before Adam could exclaim further, George went on smoothly, “There are all kinds of possibilities. We should have to talk them over in great detail, but first I should want you to see the workshop and blueprints.”