Chapter 271: The Driver’s Test
The third phase of the evaluation began with an unexpected demand.
Ernest had walked to the driver’s side, reaching for the brass hand-throttle to prepare for the road circuit, when Aldren raised his hand.
"Not you, Baron Teucher," Aldren said.
Ernest paused, his hand hovering over the quadrant. "I am the most qualified driver present."
"You designed the mechanism," Aldren replied, stepping to the side of the car. "You know precisely how to compensate for every vibration, every clutch slip, and every stiffness in the steering box. I want to know how the machine behaves under the hands of a man who knows nothing about machinery."
Hollen leaned back against the wall, grinning broadly. "He wants an idiot car, Ernest. Just like T-15."
Aldren looked puzzled. "T-15?"
"An internal engineering trial," Ernest said quickly, giving Hollen a warning glance. He turned back to Aldren. "Whom do you propose?"
Aldren gestured toward the harness room. "Wallace."
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark green driver’s coat and high leather boots stepped out into the yard. His face was weathered like old saddle leather, his graying hair cropped close beneath a flat peaked cap. He had spent twenty-two years driving four-horse teams for the royal household, and he approached the Model One with the deep, cold suspicion of a man who suspected he was being replaced by a tea kettle.
Wallace stopped two paces from the running board, glaring down at the dashboard.
"Where are the reins?" the coachman asked, his voice low and raspy.
Hollen let out a wheeze of laughter from the bench.
Ernest didn’t laugh. He stepped around the vehicle and stood beside Wallace. "There are no reins, Mr. Wallace. You control the direction through this wheel, and the engine speed through these levers."
Wallace inspected the walnut steering wheel as if he expected it to bite him. "And if the thing takes fright?"
"It does not eat grass, and it has no nerves," Ernest said patiently. "It moves only when you depress the foot pedal, and it stops the instant you apply the hand brake."
For twenty minutes, Ernest walked the coachman through the controls: the ignition toggle, the clutch bands, the planetary gear lever, and the mechanical foot brake.
Wallace listened with a dark scowl, his thick fingers testing the brass levers. "What does this left pedal do?"
"It releases the friction bands from the transmission drums," Ernest explained. "It disconnects the engine from the rear road wheels."
Wallace looked baffled. "Why would you want the engine turning if the wheels aren’t rolling?"
Ernest paused, mentally discarding three paragraphs of mechanical theory. "It allows the horse to stay alive while the carriage is standing still."
Wallace blinked, the furrow in his brow clearing slightly. "Ah. Why didn’t you just say that?"
Hollen chuckled into his beard. "The lad has a habit of taking the long road through the foundry, Wallace."
"Get in, Wallace," Aldren ordered from the mounting block. "Take the Chairman around the service loop."
Wallace climbed into the high bucket seat, his large frame making the chassis settle slightly on its springs. Ernest took the passenger seat beside him, his hand hovering near the secondary emergency brake lever.
"Foot on the clutch pedal," Ernest commanded. "Ease the hand throttle forward two notches. Release the hand brake."
Wallace followed the instructions with exaggerated care. He let the clutch pedal rise.
He let it up too fast.
CLUNK.
The engine shuddered violently, choked on its mixture, and died.
Arthur buried his face in his hands.
Wallace glared through the glass windscreen. "Balked."
"You engaged the load before the engine developed sufficient torque," Ernest said calmly. "Turn the ignition off. We will crank it again."
Second attempt: another stall, accompanied by a metallic rattle from the chain guards.
Third attempt: Wallace gave it too much throttle; the tires spun against the wet granite with a loud, shrieking scraape!, and the car leaped forward ten feet before the terrified coachman slammed both feet down on the pedals, stalling the engine again.
Aldren watched from the stone wall, his pencil hovering motionless above his pad.
Wallace took off his cap, wiping a river of sweat from his bald crown. "The devil take this contraption. A horse knows what you want before you pull the leather."
"You did not learn to handle a four-horse team in ten minutes, Mr. Wallace," Ernest said, his voice quiet and completely steady. "A horse responds to your hands; this machine responds to physical balance. Be gentle with the pedal. Let the leather bands take the drum slowly."
On the fourth attempt, Wallace eased his boot back with agonizing slowness.
The bands gripped. The Model One crept forward over the stones—shaky, hesitant, but continuous.
"Hold the throttle there," Ernest said. "Turn the wheel half a turn to the right."
The car swung smoothly around the water trough. Wallace’s shoulders were hunched nearly to his ears, his knuckles white on the wood, his eyes wide and fixed on the front fenders.
One circuit of the service court.
Then a second.
By the third loop, the coachman’s grip had relaxed slightly. He shifted the hand lever into high gear, feeling the engine drop into its deep, confident hum as the speed climbed to fifteen kilometers per hour.
A slow, thoroughly involuntary grin began spreading across Wallace’s weathered face.
Ernest watched the coachman’s profile. He had seen that exact expression a dozen times during testing: the moment when a man stopped fighting the mechanism and realized that sixty horsepower of mechanical force was answering the touch of his fingers.
Wallace pulled the car to a halt before Aldren, the engine still idling smoothly.
The coachman looked down at his master, his chest heaving. "It doesn’t pull on the bit, sir. You turn the wheel, and the front axle goes where you tell it. It’s like driving an iron dray with no horses in the trace."
Aldren stepped forward, his eyes studying the driver’s face. "Could you teach the junior drivers to handle this?"
"In three days, sir," Wallace said without hesitation. "Provided they don’t treat the pedals like a stable door."
The afternoon was spent on practical trials.
They drove the private avenues through the palace parklands, carrying four adult men and three trunks strapped to the rear rack. Ernest took the wheel for the high-speed trials, bringing the green carriage up to thirty-five kilometers per hour along the straight gravel avenue beside the canal, while Arthur held on to his hat with both hands and Aldren checked his pocket watch against the mileposts.
They conducted five consecutive emergency stops from full speed.
On the fifth stop, the finned iron drums smelled faintly of hot friction lining, but the pedal stayed firm, and the car stopped within twenty-four paces of the marker post.
Aldren crouched by the front wheel, resting his bare hand against the cooling fins of the brake drum. He pulled his fingers away quickly, nodding to himself. "Hot. But they didn’t seize."
"We redesigned the drums after four thousand kilometers of testing in Belfast," Ernest said. "The cooling area was doubled to prevent thermal fade."
The only true difficulty came during the hill-start test on the steep gravel ramp leading to the upper kitchen cellars.
Wallace attempted to start from a dead stop on an eight-percent grade. He stalled the engine twice, and on the third attempt, the car rolled backward three yards down the incline before Ernest reached across and yanked the emergency brake home.
Wallace looked miserable. "My boot slipped off the foot-lever, Baron."
"It is not your fault," Ernest said, pulling his leather notebook from his coat.
Arthur groaned aloud. "Ernest, please. The demonstration is nearly over."
Ernest ignored him, his pencil sketching the pedal quadrant. "The hand brake lever is placed too far forward on the floor sill. When a driver is managing the clutch and foot-throttle on an incline, he cannot reach the hand lever without taking his shoulder away from the wheel. The hand brake must be moved three inches higher, beside the driver’s hip, so it can be held with the palm while the fingers control the spark lever."
Aldren stepped up to the running board, peering down at Ernest’s rapid sketch. "You are altering the design during our trial?"
"I am correcting an ergonomic error," Ernest replied, not looking up. "A machine that cannot be held securely on an incline by an ordinary driver is an incomplete machine."
Aldren looked from the sketch to Ernest’s grease-stained fingers. A slow, respectful understanding settled into the older man’s eyes.
At twenty minutes past four, the trial concluded.
Chassis Forty-Two sat in the center of the service court, speckled with road dust and rain, its cooling engine ticking softly as the iron shrank.
Aldren closed his portfolio, tucking his gold pencil into his waistcoat.
"I will submit my report to the Board of Green Cloth on Friday," Aldren announced.
Arthur stepped forward, his face eager. "And may we anticipate a favorable recommendation, Mr. Aldren?"
"I am an administrative officer, Mr. Pendelton, not a prophet," Aldren said dryly. "The Lord Chamberlain will weigh the initial capital cost against our current stabling contracts. But I will state in my memorandum that the machine operates as advertised, that driver training is entirely practicable, and that the company does not make fraudulent claims regarding its capacity."
He turned to Ernest, offering his hand once more. "A pleasure, Baron Teucher. You build honest iron."
"That is the only kind worth the coal to smelt it, Mr. Aldren," Ernest replied, shaking his hand firmly.
As they prepared to crank the car for the return journey, Wallace approached Ernest on the stones, his cap held between his hands.
"Baron?"
"Yes, Mr. Wallace?"
"Mr. Davies at your city workshop... he mentioned you are establishing a training school for commercial drivers next month."
Ernest nodded. "Three weeks of mechanical instruction and road handling."
Wallace hesitated, looking back at the long row of stables where forty horses were stamping their hooves in the straw. "I have two nephews driving coal wagons in the lower city, my lord. They are good lads with a whip, but..." He gestured toward the Model One. "...the horses won’t last their lifetimes, will they?"
"No," Ernest said softly. "They will not."
"Send them to Davies on the first of the month," Ernest added. "We will teach them to handle the levers."
Wallace’s face lit with a deep, grateful smile. He touched his forehead with two fingers. "Bless you, Baron."
Four days later, a messenger in royal livery arrived at the Teucher commercial office in Crown Square.
Arthur took the sealed envelope into Ernest’s private office, his hands shaking slightly as he laid it upon the green blotter.
Ernest broke the royal seal and read the single page of text.
Hollen leaned over the desk, puffing his pipe. "Well? Did they reject it?"
"No," Ernest said, setting the letter down. "They have requested an extended operational trial."
Arthur’s face fell. "Another trial?"
"A sensible one," Ernest said, his eyes scanning the lines. "One standard four-passenger chassis to be assigned to the Household Transportation Office for a period of four weeks. To be driven by royal personnel on ordinary dispatch duties, hospital transfers, and courier runs between the capital and the coastal forts. They will maintain complete fuel, oil, and repair tallies. If the vehicle completes the month without unscheduled overhaul, they will tender a contract for sixteen units."
Hollen let out a low whistle. "Sixteen carriages. That’s nearly ten million riels in commercial drafts."
Arthur began to smile, his commercial instincts returning in a rush. "We must select the finest chassis from the line! We will have the paint varnished by hand! We will balance the connecting rods to the grain—"
"No," Ernest said firmly.
Arthur stopped, staring at him. "Ernest, this is the Royal Household!"
"The Royal Household will receive the next vehicle that rolls off the moving chain at Machine Works Number Three," Ernest said, rising and reaching for his coat. "Chassis Sixty-Four. Standard green lacquer. Standard hickory wheels. Standard tolerance on the bearings."
Arthur threw his hands into the air, looking at Hollen in utter despair. "He is impossible. Completely impossible."
"He is consistent, Arthur," Hollen said, chuckling as he rose from his chair. "A royal dispatch carrier hits the same potholes as an apothecary’s cart. If the car can’t survive Wallace’s boots, it has no business wearing our name."
Ernest walked to the window, looking down at Crown Square.
Below, two green Model Ones were navigating the heavy traffic between the ministries, their small, dark shapes moving steadily through the sea of horses and carriages like the first drops of an inevitable tide.
The machines had left the safety of the laboratory. They had left the control of the test fleet.
Now, they had to prove they could carry the kingdom on their backs.
"Send Chassis Sixty-Four to the palace on Monday, Arthur," Ernest said softly. "Let the road tell the rest of the story."