“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.” “We must go an’ look for it. There isn’t another.” “Not me,” said Pyecroft from his seat. “Out pinnace, Hinch, an’ creep for it. It won’t be more than five miles back.” The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road. “Look like etymologists, don’t they? Does she decant her innards often, so to speak?” Pyecroft asked. I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly touched. “Poor Hinch! Poor—poor Hinch!” he said. “And that’s only one of her little games, is it? He’ll be homesick for the Navy by night.” When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer looked on admiringly. “Your boiler’s only seated on four little paperclips,” he said, crawling from beneath her. “She’s a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She’s a runnin’ miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?” I told him. “And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare’s_ engine-room when we were runnin’ trials!” “It’s all a matter of taste,” Pyecroft volunteered. “But I will say for you, Hinch, you’ve certainly got the hang of her steamin’ gadgets in quick time.” He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a tremor in his arm. “She don’t seem so answer her helm somehow,” he said. “There’s a lot of play to the steering-gear,” said my engineer. “We generally tighten it up every few miles.” “‘Like me to stop now? We’ve run as much as one mile and a half without incident,” he replied tartly. “Then you’re lucky,” said my engineer, bristling in turn. “They’ll wreck the whole turret out o’ nasty professional spite in a minute,” said Pyecroft. “That’s the worst o’ machinery. Man dead ahead, Hinch—semaphorin’ like the flagship in a fit!”