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  “Can nothing be done for his voice?” Ikey’s dad asked.

  Smith arched an eyebrow at Ikey’s dad. He slipped the stem of the pipe from between his lips, held it for a moment as if to speak, then snapped it back into place with a click against his teeth. A puff billowed from between his lips before a stream of smoke charged down from his nostrils and obliterated it.

  Admiral Daughton chuckled. “I suppose there is. I’ve been endlessly impressed with the inventions coming out of Kerryford these days. The wonders they can do are extraordinary. But a proper coachman needs only two arms to steer by and an ear to hear the destination. The tongue is hardly necessary, if one knows where he is going, and doesn’t need to bother for directions.”

  The plating over Smith’s arm popped as Ikey pried it off the arm.

  “You break it?” Ikey’s dad asked. He stepped away from the small keg and stared over his son’s shoulder.

  “What’s it matter?” Uncle Michael asked. With his good leg, he scooted his chair over to the end of the table. “He breaks it, he’ll fix it.”

  “I’m not getting paid for him to fix his own mistakes.”

  “I’ll take a beer,” Uncle Michael said. He gripped the edge of the table with his hand and pulled the chair up to the end of the work bench.

  “Help yourself,” Ikey’s dad grunted.

  Smith slid his mug over to Uncle Michael. Each exchanged a nod.

  Ikey stifled a grin. He then took a moment to peer over the inner workings of Smith’s arm and marvel at the mechanisms inside. It held the grace of a watch, but the power of a small engine. The workmanship was fantastic and new to him, and so he took a few minutes to poke around and examine each piece, study its shape and the movements it made and the function it introduced as it interacted with the other pieces to form mechanical systems. As Uncle Michael had taught him, Ikey built models of the systems in his imagination and pictured how they worked together, how each one delivered a function dictated by the form. One only needed to know the shape of a thing to know how it behaved. Once he understood how the arm was to function, finding the broken component became a matter of finding where the function broke down.

  Admiral Daughton took a drink of his beer, then leaned forward. “You might want to consider a trip to Kerryford yourself,” he said to Uncle Michael. “Might get your leg fixed up.”

  Ikey’s dad snorted. “Then he’d have no excuse to avoid work.”

  “He looked busy to me when I got here,” Admiral Daughton said. “I doubt any man with sense takes his leisure beside a busted tractor in the rain.”

  “Any man with sense.”

  Ikey’s grip tightened around the handle of a pick. His dad was antsy, more agitated than usual. It wouldn’t bode well for him and Uncle Michael this evening, after Admiral Daughton and Smith left.

  Ikey set the pick aside and plucked a pair of needle-nose pliers out of the tool roll. He fed the point into the works, testing the parts and making sure they moved as their shapes suggested they should.

  “Do you and this young man repair a lot of mechanical items?” Admiral Daughton asked Uncle Michael.

  “Aye, that we do. But this one here, he’s the one fit for the task. Never seen anything like it. It’s like the machines talk to him.”

  Ikey stifled another smile, though they’d both be damned if Uncle Michael didn’t stop goading his brother-in-law.

  “That’s good to hear,” Admiral Daughton said. “I was rather surprised to find that anyone out here had any mechanical skills at all.”

  Ikey’s dad sucked at his teeth. “It’s these new machines. Cost of labor goes up as all the men either go off to war, or on to work in the cities. No one’s left to work the estates, so the lords get these machines, thinking they’ll replace all their hands. But then the machines break down and no one’s around to fix the blasted things.”

  “Well, how fortunate for you two. Your services must be in high demand,” Admiral Daughton said. “But how is it you can go from working on farm machines to contraptions like this?”

  Uncle Michael adjusted his posture in the chair. “When words gets around that you fix things, people bring you all kinds of things to fix. There’s more money in fixing their stuff than there is in turning them away. Besides, the principles are the same. Same rules that apply to tractors also apply to watches, and dare I say, mechanical arms.”

  “Brilliant,” Admiral Daughton said. “How fortunate for us.”

  He turned to Ikey. “Do you believe you can have this finished before dusk?”

  Ikey nodded. Fortunately, they were far enough into spring that the sunset was a distance off.

  “He’ll have it done,” Uncle Michael said. “You can count on it.”

  “Brilliant,” Admiral Daughton repeated. He took a drink, then regarded Uncle Michael’s chair. “Say, what happened to your leg?”

  Ikey dropped the pliers. They clattered to the table. His dad smacked him on the back of the head.

  “Careful, you dolt!”

  “Fell off the loft,” Uncle Michael mumbled.

  “How unfortunate. Smith here lost his arm in the Battle of Talana Hill. Poor soul charged up the hill. Boer rifle fire took out the men on his left and the men on his right. When he finally got to the top of the hill, he was greeted with British artillery fire.”

  “Is that how he lost his tongue?” Ikey’s dad asked.

  “No. He just can’t speak is all.”

  “And he was in the service?”

  “He could speak at the time. What about you, lad?” Admiral Daughton asked Ikey. “You look old enough for the service. Are you ready for your call-up?”

  Ikey hunched over the arm and pretended to duck under the ability to hear the question.

  “He’ll get it soon enough,” Ikey’s dad said. “His brothers got theirs when it was their turn.”

  “Oh? You have sons in the service?”

  “Had.”

  Ikey glanced at the admiral from the corner of his eyes. He looked over at Uncle Michael, who looked down into his beer.

  Admiral Daughton straightened his posture. “Their sacrifices will not be in vain, my good man. There is no higher honor to an Englishman than to die in defense of the crown.”

  Ikey’s dad took a swallow of beer. “Defense?” He snorted again. “It’s not Germans, but creditors who’ll take my farm when this one leaves for the Continent. He may not know hard work, but he keeps that one out of my way so that I can. I ain’t a bloody nursemaid.”

  “Be that as it may, it is the sacrifices of our youth that have kept the Germans at bay, down on the Continent.”

  “And the airships?” Ikey’s dad asked.

  Ikey looked at the admiral for his response.

  “Not a single German airship has landed on British soil—not intact, anyway—and none shall.” Admiral Daughton glanced at Smith, then to his own beer. He picked it up and took a long swallow.

  “It’s not the landing that causes the trouble, or so I hear,” Ikey’s dad continued. “It’s what they toss overboard as they sail along.”

  “Rest assured,” Admiral Daughton said to the last of the beer in his mug, “British ingenuity will prevail. We will soon have a weapon at our disposal that will turn the tide of this war and send the Germans fleeing back across the Continent.”

  “What kind of weapon is that?” Uncle Michael asked.

  Ikey watched the admiral from the corner of his eyes. A slight flush of color rosied his cheeks. His jaw clenched and his jowl bulged as if the details rested there, stuck in his crop.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” Admiral Daughton said, then glanced over at Smith. “But rest assured, as sure as I am sitting here, the sun will never set on the British empire. We shall prevail.”

  In the arm before Ikey, one of the rods he teased with the pliers failed to deliver a corresponding action. He traced the rod’s path and found a broken face gear at the end of it. He pointed to it and nodded to Uncle Mic
hael.

  “By jove, that’s it,” Uncle Michael said. “And what does that gear do?”

  Ikey glanced at the gear and the connecting rod and the gears that fed off of it. “It transfers motion to the elbow joint, then along the shaft of the arm to the wrist.”

  “And so without it?”

  Ikey shook his head. “Nothing moves. No motion goes through.”

  Uncle Michael sat back in his chair and smiled. “Excellent work.”

  “Yeah, but can you fix it?” Ikey’s dad asked.

  Ikey nodded. “I’ll replace the gear. There’s one around here somewhere.” He gestured at the stacks and racks of crates around the end of the barn, each filled with cast-off parts scavenged from various sources.

  “Brilliant!” Admiral Daughton said and clapped his hands together.

  Smith knocked on the table with his knuckles and nodded at Ikey. The men’s admiration fell on him like sunshine.

  Within fifteen minutes, Ikey had found a fitting replacement for the stripped gear and had it installed. A moment later, the arm was back in one piece. As he helped Smith don it again, Admiral Daughton set his second beer down and announced that he had an important project for Ikey to assist with.

  Both Ikey and Smith turned their attention from his shoulder to the admiral.

  “What sort of project?” Uncle Michael asked.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it,” Admiral Daughton said as he adjusted the lapels of his coat. “Suffice it to say, it’s a task of a mechanical variety that awaits in Whitby for the touch of a young man with such aptitude.”

  Ikey swallowed. Whitby. That was by the sea. Across the moors. Farther than he’d ever travelled. His stomach tightened at the thought of leaving. He glanced at Uncle Michael, who stared over at his brother-in-law with an expressionless face.

  Ikey’s dad shook his head. “I need him here.”

  Ikey’s grip tightened on the mechanical arm. Hearing his dad needed him almost knocked him over.

  “I see,” Admiral Daughton said. “Of course I’d be willing to compensate you directly. You may hire a nursemaid for…” he nudged his head at Uncle Michael, “whatever assistance you may need.”

  Ikey’s dad crossed his arms over his chest. “Nursemaids aren’t cheap. Labor shortage is so bad that women have taken to working fields.”

  Admiral Daughton shook his head. “It’s a temporary situation. A simple task. With him on my crew, shouldn’t take more than a few months at most. While he’s gone, I’ll send his pay directly to you.”

  Ikey’s dad lifted his eyebrows. “How much?”

  “Five pounds to start. A pound a week as long as he works. Another five as a bonus upon successful completion of the project.”

  Smith tapped the back of Ikey’s hand. Brought back to the task at before him, he fitted the arm into its track with a snap. Before Ikey secured the straps across the coachman's chest, he wiggled his mechanical fingers and flexed his elbow until he touched his shoulder.

  Admiral Daughton clapped his hands together. “Oh! Astounding. Absolutely astounding, young man!”

  Ikey’s dad chewed at his cheek. “Well, a pound a week will take care of a nursemaid, but it’s nothing to compensate for the work lost around here.” He shook his head. “People always coming to our door to have this or that patched.”

  “I’m sure,” Admiral Daughton said. “Five pounds up front, and a pound a week should be more than enough.”

  Ikey’s dad shook his head. “No one else around here can fix this stuff.”

  “I believe Mr. Lynch, here—“

  “He’s a lame fool. A burden. I can’t be carrying him around like a sack of potatoes every time someone needs something fixed. That’s what the boy is for.”

  Ikey clenched his teeth and pulled Smith’s straps tight.

  Admiral Doughton took a swallow of beer. He regarded Ikey’s dad through eyes half-closed. His jowl bulged.

  Once Ikey secured the final strap, Smith sat on the bench and thunked his mechanical elbow onto the table. With a wry grin at Ikey’s dad, he clenched his fist, then wiggled his fingers. The gears and escapements inside his hand clicked and purred. Ikey tilted forward to better hear such music.

  Admiral Daughton laughed. “I do believe you are being challenged, Mr. Berliss.”

  Ikey’s dad glanced to the back of the barn where heaps of junk filled stalls once meant for cows. “I don’t want to break it again.”

  Smith frowned and shook his head. He wiggled his fingers again.

  “Go on,” Admiral Daughton goaded. “If you break it, I’ll pay your boy double to fix it. If he loses, I’ll pay you triple our agreed-upon price.”

  Ikey picked up his pliers and slid them into a pocket in the tool roll. What if Smith won? What would the admiral expect in return? The same question played over his dad’s face until his jaw clamped down on it.

  Admiral Daughton folded his arms back behind himself until he looked like an egg in a top hat. “If he wins, then you must agree to my conditions. Five pounds for your boy’s service up front. A pound a week until the job is complete.”

  Ikey’s dad looked at his son. “And five when he finishes. If he agrees.”

  Admiral Daughton nodded. “If he agrees, and upon his successful completion.”

  Ikey’s dad rubbed at his chin as he stared at Smith’s tin-plated fist.

  “Well,” Admiral Daughton said with a shrug of his shoulders, “if you’re not sport…”

  “I’m sport,” Ikey’s dad said. He plunked himself down across the table from Smith. He returned Smith’s grin with a glare, then gripped the man’s mechanical hand in his own.

  With his flesh hand, Smith pulled the pipe from his lips and laid it upon the table. Ash spilled from the bowl in dark flecks, but no smoke rose from the remains of the tobacco.

  “On the count of three,” Admiral Daughton said. “Ikey, please do the honors.”

  On three, Ikey’s dad gritted his teeth. His hand trembled as he pushed at Smith’s arm. The coachman did nothing more than curl the corners of his lips into a slight smile. Shades of red passed over Ikey’s dad’s face until scarlet clouded his features. A small grunt escaped him. Beads of sweat popped out across his forehead and glistened in the lantern light.

  Smith’s arm didn’t budge.

  Ikey held his own breath. His dad appeared to be arm wrestling a fence post. He didn’t stand a chance. And once he lost, Heaven help Ikey and Uncle Michael. His dad would be livid and sure to take his rage out on them both. And there would be nothing to do except ride out the storm.

  Ikey looked at the admiral. His fat face glistened and split into a wide grin as he watched Smith taunt his opponent. Perhaps Ikey could make a case for Admiral Daughton taking both himself and Uncle Michael?

  “Had enough?” Admiral Daughton asked.

  Ikey’s dad grunted and hissed and grunted again. His eyes focused and burned on the greasy light reflected off Smith’s knuckles.

  “Finish him off, will you?”

  With a roll of his shoulder, Smith’s arm fell over and pinned Ikey’s dad’s hand to the table with all the difficulty of pushing over a knee-high sapling. Ikey’s jaw dropped. It was one thing to look at the mechanisms, to understand what they were capable of, but another thing entirely to see them in action; to see how easily and handily Smith trounced his dad despite muscles and might.

  Ikey looked down at his own hands. Had he an arm of iron, he could stand up to his dad. Raise a greater fist.

  Ikey’s dad’s breath heaved through his nose in a ragged whistle. It disrupted his attempts to hide his panting. As he pulled his hand out from under Smith’s, he glared at Ikey.

  “I should call that a fitting demonstration,” Admiral Daughton said. “Very good work, Ikey.”

  “Yeah, if you showed half that effort at actual work, I wouldn’t have strained myself lifting bags of chicken feed.”

  Smith grinned and Admiral Daughton slapped his thigh. �
��Chicken feed, indeed! How about it, my boy? What say you? Would you like to give your hand a try at working with my crew?”

  Ikey glanced to his dad. The man rubbed at the flesh of his left palm with his thumb. The color drained from his face and left an expressionless mask. Ikey waited for a sign, some guidance. As he started to turn his attention to Uncle Michael, a slight twitch of Ikey’s dad’s face told him no.

  Uncle Michael gave a single nod.

  Ikey turned to the floor, to the scuffed dirt and the hay and the remains of animal droppings long since dried out and tamped down into the earth, back in better times. “No. I should stay here.”

  “Are you sure?” Admiral Daughton asked. “You’re passing up a great opportunity. My foreman is an expert engineer. You could learn a great deal from him. You’ll see things that you won’t see out here in The Dales.”

  “Ikey,” Uncle Michael spoke up, “I need you to help me out back.”

  Ikey nodded. He pulled his uncle’s chair away from the table and pushed him out the back and into a yard that once held pigs. There, Ikey swiveled the chair to his left and rolled it onto a small, wooden platform.

  “You have to take the admiral up on his offer,” Uncle Michael said as he undid the fly of his trousers.

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  “I can’t. What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can mind myself,” Uncle Michael said as he leaned forward and grabbed a vertical rail attached to the side of the barn. “Ready?”

  Ikey’s grip tightened on the back of the chair. “Ready.”

  Uncle Michael grunted as he pulled himself up onto his good leg. The bad one dangled from his shattered hip, the knee bent. His arm trembled as he clutched the rail. Ikey looked past the stone fence, up the hill slick and wet and heavy with rain and cold.

  Urine splashed into the mud. The ammonia scent of it billowed around them.

  When it stopped, Ikey braced himself against the chair. Uncle Michael fell backwards into it.

  “You heard the admiral,” Uncle Michael said. “We’ll have money enough for a nursemaid. Your dad will see to it. He won’t be taking care of me himself.”