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Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her pushing her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches. |
This is from “Steam Tactics” (1902) in Traffics and Discoveries. The narrator, with Petty Officer Emanuel Pyecroft, Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, First-class Engine Room Artificer – who is driving a car for the first time – and a kidnapped constable, are adventuring across Sussex in a Stanley Steamer, a temperamental machine. They have strayed down a country-road, which peters out and leads them down into a green valley. Unfazed, the indomitable spirit of the Royal Navy takes over, creating a makeshift bridge and getting them up to firm ground. |
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